But isn’t he straight-up murdering innocent people (like the museum guide) right from the start? I’d call that across the line.
If you don’t mind me answering the question…
How many people died due to the British colonialism that helped the Brits fill up those museum exhibits? If the Brits aren’t to be considered bad guys for stealing the stuff in the first place then I figure a death or two in the course of “reclaiming” those item(s) is just all in the game.
And yes, I am using a very loose definition of reclaiming.
While that’s true, it inadvertently proved he was right. The fact the containment unit would instantly fail that easily demonstrates that it was stupidly designed, and would have failed within months. It had no backup, no fail safe, no two key method, no reserve power, no nothing.
Peck later goes nuts and is shrieking about how they’re hypnotizing or drugging people or whatever, but his concerns about onsite safety were completely vindicated.
That’s terrible reasoning. For one thing, yes the Brits WERE bad guy colonialist and thieves and bloody murderers. And for the second thing, haven’t you heard the saying ‘two wrongs don’t make it all right to kill innocent people’? Or something like that. Erik is a bad guy. He learned it from his bad guy dad who thought it was a great idea to sell poison to the Black diaspora in order to save them.
I assume it’s like the real life thing where certain people on the left seem to talk about Christopher Dorner in positive terms (he was the black LAPD cop who claimed he was fired off the job for racism and decided to get revenge by killing cops, murdering two of them and injuring 5 more) despite the fact he also deliberately killed two civilians who had nothing to do with it as part of it. For some people if they feel someones cause is just it doesn’t matter how many innocents die to accomplish it.
I think Beagle is just exploaining it from Killmonger’s point of view.
I mean, Killmonger’s clearly absolutely nuts. His plan isn’t just evil in its execution; it’s going to cause a nuclear war, because once all the countries he sent advanced weapons to find out what country they’re under existential threat from, they’re going to go to war with Wakanda and I have my doubts that fancy shield can stop multiple nuclear blasts. Killmonger, like a lot of fanatics, didn’t think his plan through to its logical conclusions.
The point is, though, that his evil plan is understandable in its core motivations. To me that’s a lot more interesting than a villain whose plan is just “Bwaaa ha ha ha, I’m evil.” Voldemort is a terrible, dull, boring villain. Hans Gruber is interesting and cool, but he still has no motivation aside from wanting to steal money. Killmonger, you can understand where the crazy came from.
You’re OK with murder to steal artifacts which weren’t his to begin with? That is one scary attitude. I suspect you’re blustering.
Regardless, it hadn’t even been taken from Wakanda and there’s no evidence it was even taken by force (it was France, not Britain, which colonized Benin). To the museum staff it was a fairly mundane tool, not a priceless treasure. We can argue, or not, about the nature of British Colonialism and/or its impact on the practice of archeology, but Eric murders multiple people to steal something that Wakanda’s government most likely didn’t know or care about. And Killmonger wasn’t stealing it out of some noble, if misguided, nationalistic zeal, but to get a payday. He doesn’t care about the item at all except in how it gets him what he wants.
Damn y’all this is fiction not real life! Rest assured that my threshold for acceptable villainous behavior differs quite a bit between fiction and non-fiction. I can’t believe I really needed to say that but based on some of the comments so far perhaps a minor disclaimer is in order.
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I didn’t say it was acceptable moral behavior. I thought we were talking about villains with a point and to Killmongers POV a few casualties from retrieving a “stolen” artifact would just be par for the course. In the MCU world this makes a bit of sense and I can see his point. In the real world no ones life is worth an old farm tool even if it is made out of vibranium.
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Any comparisons to real world events are just silly. Stop it.
“Any comparisons to real world events are just silly. Stop it.”
It does seem like someone got a little upset in this thread by taking responses a bit more to heart than necessary. A quick question: How does one discuss whether or not a villain has a point without comparisons to the real world?
I would almost consider betraying my fellow rebels for that steak Cypher was eating.
Very nicely done!
The statement was in reply to whomever brought up the crazy LAPD cop for comparison. I think it’s silly to hold the MCU to that level of scrutiny.
Yeah, that’s the whole point of this thread. An interesting and effective fictional villain does have a point, and a legitimate argument… but they’re still a villain, because their legitimate argument isn’t enough to justify the enormity of their actions. Even as we say “Well, yeah, what Killmonger is saying is true”, we’re still rooting for T’Challa to beat him.
Klingons
Thread foul!!!
First, it is definitely not clear that you are trying to use the villain’s perspective, and given that this is a real-world issue you can’t really hide from that or declare it silly. Second, just because villains think they have a point, doesn’t mean they do. In this case, that may not be important because Killmonger never remotely indicates he cares whatsoever. He doesn’t claim any of the reasons you give, nor does he seem to have any interest in moral justifications for his actions.
And that is an issues because I think people wildly mis-interpret Killmonger in a way that seriously bothers me. He doesn’t, and never had, a point. He does not care or want any kind of justice for oppressed people, and he shows no indication whatsoever that he gave them the slightest thought. he’s only using that as a thin veil over his nihilistic rage and using insane excuses for it. Wakanda has no moral duty to help people; it is a morally good thing if they choose to do so but they’re not obligated to lend aid to people far beyond their borders. Killmonger outright intends bloody violence and the ultimate destruction of everything he hates, which appears to be, well, everything. He does have a legitimate grievance against his father’s homeland for abandoning him, but he never understands Wakanda as a culture. But Killmonger may have Wakandan ancestry - but he isn’t Wakandan. He’s entirely American in his worldview (even if it’s an evil one). It’s an American moral duty to work to change the society he lived through, not Wakanda’s responsibility.
Killmonger never had a point, at least, not in the way he thought. It is T’Challa, not N’Jadoka, who realizes that King T’Chaka set Killmonger’s path in motion and who realizes that the wrong done here was a personal wound. Killmonger could not see that and in seeking blind revenge created a pseudo-justification for his actions that even he didn’t really believe in.
Meant to respond to this one earlier - it’s more than just that the real world is a Hellhole. He gets recruited because he’s really smart or talented, and he decides to learn the real truth about the world. And instead of whatever he expected, he ends up eating nutrient paste in little ships and constantly risking his life with a bunch of religious fanatics looking for “The One”, who don’t seem to have a plan for what to do with humanity afterwards, or even to know if they can keep humanity alive without the machines. It’s one thing to join rebels who are trying to take down a bad government, it’s another to join rebels who are trying to take down a government that isn’t even clearly bad and that might be the only thing the environment capable of supporting human life. It’s really understandable for him to just want out of the madness that he stepped into, I think a lot of people would make the same decision if they didn’t know who the protagonists in the movie are.
It’s a silly speech. You know what other creature expands its population as much as possible? Every other creature. It’s not like the world council of raccoons meets and says “We have enough raccoons now. Every litter shall contain only two raccoons.”
The Benin that the Bronzes are looted from is not in Benin, the modern country. It very much was the British who colonized historic Benin.
My friend tells me of camping near, I think, Ozette, where there was an abundance of raccoons; then the park service started cracking down on people giving them food, after which a visit to the campground revealed that the situation had transformed into an abundance of raccoon parts. Sort of an ad hoc meeting of the local raccoon council.
Homo Sapiens are currently responsible for the 6th mass extinction this planet has seen, and the only one caused by a single species.