Let's Talk Black Widow and Avengers: Endgame

This post will contain spoilers for the entire MCU, including Avenger's: Endgame.  I don't usually comment about stuff that's still in theatres but there's been a lot of chatter about this and I've spent a lot of time thinking about Widow's story and how it was handled.

Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff, is one of my favourite characters in the MCU.  (A tough, brilliant red-headed assassin with crazy martial arts and weapons' skills... it's not a stretch.)  As a result, I'm not happy about what happened to her in Endgame.  (This is your last warning about spoilers.)  But I don't think it's quite as bad as some have made out.  With some tweaks, it could have been a very powerful moment.  Allow me to take a minute to run through her character arc and then I'll discuss where it could have been strengthened.

We were introduced to Black Widow in Iron Man 2.  She'd been inserted into Tony Stark's staff to keep an eye on him at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s request.  At first, she seems like just a pretty face but then we see her true skill set as she takes out an entire hallway of bad guys in seconds during the final conflict.

We next see her in The Avengers.  She's tied to a chair with a Russian guy preparing to rip out her tongue.  Then he gets a phone call from Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. and suddenly we the audience realize that Widow is actually using the Russian guy's bragging to (what he thinks is) a helpless victim to gather intelligence.  She then beats up all of the guys in the room while still tied to a chair.

For her next scene, she's collecting Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk.  She lures him to an isolated part of the city and talks him into coming back to S.H.I.E.L.D. to help them find the stolen Tesseract (the blue glowy cube for non-geeks).  She has a fairly minor role in ferrying people to the Helicarrier, but still shows every sign of confidence and competence.  She is the one who gets Loki to reveal his evil plan, by pretending to react to his gloating, which encourages him to keep talking.  He thinks he's hurting her but instead, he's telling her what he intends to do.

Widow tries and fails to keep Bruce from turning into the Hulk.  But she then deliberately lures him away from populated areas of the ship.  To have that level of presence of mind while being chased by a giant green rage monster is impressive.  It's easy to see why a lot of people glommed onto Widow as their heroine of choice.  We also shouldn't forget that she is the one who retrieves Loki's sceptre and closes the wormhole to stop the alien invasion.

Lots of good moments with just these two films.  She demonstrates intelligence, skill and a sense of humour.  She clearly regrets her past as an assassin, referring to it as red in her ledger, a debt she owes the rest of the world.  It's a classic redemption arc.

Her character gets deeper with Captain America: Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron.  In Winter Soldier, she's a pivotal character.  She keeps Captain America alive and helps him on his quest to find the titular Winter Soldier.  And when she realizes that H.Y.D.R.A. has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., she is the one who releases all of their secrets to the public, including her own.  (And there's another kick-ass fight scene where she infiltrates the H.Y.D.R.A. elite.)  In Ultron, she got a romance arc with Bruce Banner (which did not end well, a perennial sore point for me with the Marvel and DC universes).  She's got the guts to tell him how she feels, too, despite not knowing if he feels the same.  She is effectively managing and overseeing the team, though Cap still functions as the inspirational team lead.

In Captain America: Civil War, she is the voice of pragmatism, cautioning both sides about dramatic action, but also the only one of the Avengers who is there for Cap during Peggy's funeral.  She is the one who expresses regrets to T'Challa (the Black Panther) over his father's death.  She makes the final decision to join Cap's side during the airport scene, but like the consummate spy she is, she keeps herself in a useful position for as long as possible.

She is ubiquitous in the MCU films.  If they need something done, chances are they've asked Widow to do it.  She is always watching and aware of multiple levels of intention and interaction.  And she does it so reliably and flawlessly that she is often dismissed as a minor character.

That brings us to Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.  Widow has clearly been on the run with Cap and the others who refused to sign the Sekovia accords.  She's been monitoring Vision and Wanda's developing relationship, keeping an eye on a potential vulnerability but allowing them to have their human moments.  She fights Thanos's alien invaders and helps to coordinate the massive battle at the end of Infinity War.  In Endgame, she's taken over what's left of S.H.I.E.L.D. and has clearly dedicated her every waking moment to protecting Earth and helping to deal with the devastation post-Snap.  She and Cap are still friends, both of them struggling to cope.  She and Hawkeye are sent after the Soul Stone and she sacrifices herself so that the Avengers will have a chance to restore everyone who was lost in the Snap.

It's a heck of an arc and one that would be breathtaking except for two points.

1) Widow's sterilization and referring to herself as a monster in Avengers: Age of Ultron
2) The fact that she is killed and apparently unmourned by her teammates (and doesn't get brought back along with the vast majority of everyone else.)

The sterilization is a touchy point and a lot of people were very upset at the implication that a woman who is unable to be a mother is somehow a monster.  I'm not sure that was what was intended, but that is basically what ended up on screen, so this is one of the areas that needs tweaks.

I think the conversation in Ultron was meant to echo back to things that happened in previous films.  In The Avengers, when Widow goes to retrieve Bruce, they have a conversation in an empty home.  At one point, Bruce gently rocks an abandoned cradle and comments "I don't always get what I want."  Earlier in Ultron, we see Widow interacting with Hawkeye's children, clearly loving being Auntie Nat.  In general, she displays a great deal of compassion and empathy.  She is the one who sits and talks to the people on the team when they're having a hard time.  (Hawkeye in Avengers, Cap in Winter Soldier, T'Challa in Ultron, etc.)

She reveals that as part of her "graduation" from assassin training, she was sterilized.  She bites her lip as she says "it's efficient" because it removes the possibility of the one thing that could be more important than the missions assigned by her handlers.  She then finishes with "still think you're the only monster on the team?"

As written, that's problematic.  However, I think the intention was for her to reveal that she destroyed something she deeply wanted in order to be an efficient killer.  So much about Widow's character is about her making the choice that she thinks is right, regardless of the consequences to herself.  In the case of the sterilization, that's a choice that was taken from her.  With a little tweaking to add context, this could have been a very powerful statement about bodily autonomy and added motivation to Widow's overall goal of wiping out the red in her ledger, i.e. balancing out the great harm that she acknowledges she has done.  I think she sees herself as a monster because she allowed others to make her choices for her, to turn her into a weapon in the hands of amoral individuals.  Surrendering her agency and allowing her choice to be a mother to be taken from her in order to be a killer would be a soul-scarring moment.  Infertility is a painful and devastating thing to go through for those who yearn to be parents, so that could have been a moment which showed how much Widow still struggles with what occurred during her years as an assassin.

Without the dropped ball of the infertility scene, I don't think Widow's death would have disappointed fans quite as much.  There's a great deal of the tragic hero in her arc and character, so one could make an argument that this was always planned and intended.  (I think the way the Soul Stone was handled is actually one of the weaker parts of Infinity War and Endgame.  It was intended to be a set of emotional hits but, due to inconsistencies, doesn't quite play out as intended.)

In the Endgame scene, Widow and Hawkeye battle to sacrifice themselves.  They need to get the Soul Stone to save everyone who was wiped out in the Snap.  So this is exactly what we would expect heroes to do.  In the final moments, Widow tells Hawkeye that it's okay to let her go.  If the Russos were going to insist on her death, then I would have much preferred a final reference to wiping out the red in her ledger.  That by sacrificing herself, she will finally feel she has atoned for the harm she has done in the past.

That would have been powerful, it would have reinforced the redemption arc and been consistent with her character's theme of making her own choices.

Instead, it ended up reading like Hawkeye was more valuable because he had a family, even though he'd been on a multi-continent murder spree.  Widow was the one literally holding both the team and Earth together but her life meant less because she couldn't have children.

I'm really hoping that was not the intended message.  

I would have preferred that Widow lived, that she would have seen restoring everyone as finally moving her ledger to the black.  It also could have been awesome if she'd had the chance to step in as a mother and adopt some children.  Even more awesome, she and Bruce could have gotten a happily ever after (okay, that last one was probably never going to happen because comic heroes almost never get HEAs, which is why I write them now).  But it was very possible for her to get everything she wanted and still be a kick-ass superhero.  That would have been incredibly satisfying to me.

And like I said, if she had to die, then it could have been much more impactful and still given a sense of closure to her arc.  There needed to be more recognition of her sacrifice than a thrown bench and a two minute conversation.  These are superheroes who regularly defy the laws of nature.  When faced with bad choices, they find a third option.  It was disappointing that her death seemed to be accepted so quickly and as inevitable.

Her death should have been mourned and her actions celebrated the same way Tony Stark's were.  It should have been recognized that she made a choice to save the world by sacrificing herself, knowing that this was the final choice of her life.  That's noble, top-level hero stuff and she deserved more than a passing reference.

I still love the character, and the whole 10 year MCU arc.  No story is ever entirely perfect and with so many characters and intertwined storylines, mistakes and disappointment are inevitable.  And the disappointment over Widow's death will inspire more stories, pushing people to create the stories where it goes "right", whatever they define that to be.  I still believe that the 22 films comprise an amazing arc of unprecedented storytelling, one that gave movie audiences the same feeling I used to get reading cross-over editions and Marvel Event stories.  It introduced the world to superheros and showed everyone how powerful these stories could be.  I don't know that we'll ever get another experience quite like this, and I'm thrilled to have gotten to share it with so many others.

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Case Study: The Power of Words

The stories we tell ourselves define our lives.  It's the context which makes people into villains or heroes.  It's also how we come to terms with the horrible things which happen to us.

Last week's attack in Paris was another reminder of how pain, righteousness and hopelessness can combine into a lethal mix.  No matter how many attacks we see and hear about, there is still something unfathomable about each one.  We understand the psychology, the politics, all the parts that make up the triggers, but we can't emotionally grasp that someone made the decision to hurt other people. 

That's a good thing, by the way, we're not supposed to be in that same headspace.

It may show my geek-flag colours, but my immediate thoughts went to JMS's Amazing Spider-man, number 36, which was written on September 12, 2001.  He released the book to the public a year later because what he wrote echoed with so many people that the actual issue is almost impossible to find.  (I have one, locked safely away in a fire-proof box and I don't care how weird that makes me.)  I highly recommend taking a look because my synopsis pales before the original.

The story goes that when Marvel writers assembled after 9/11, they were shaken and unsure what to do.  The Marvel universe is set in New York.  How could they have superheroes in a city where planes brought down buildings?  Should they just ignore it and pretend it never happened?

In walked JMS, noted screenwriter and wordsmith, who had recently taken over the Spider-man series.  He listened carefully to what the writers were talking about and then asked everyone to hold off making any decisions for the next hour.  He walked into his office and came back in forty-five minutes with one of the most moving scripts ever to come out of any comic book publisher.  One that makes me cry *every* *single* *time* I pick it up but still leaves me inspired.

He told the story of superheroes who were just as shocked and horrified and helpless as everyone else.  He told the story of their guilt at failing and their awe of the ordinary men and women who became real heroes that day.  The art shows the Marvel heroes working alongside the rescue crews, but as moving as those images are, it's the words which make the difference.

A frequent theme in JMS's work is that we, as a society and as individuals, can rise above the horrible things which happen to us.  That it is possible to fight the darkness and not be corrupted, although it is difficult.

His compassion in this case was astounding.  He rejects the opinions of those who said it was deserved (from all sides).  He acknowledges the anger and the terror and then he turns it around: asking, what do I tell my children.

Very simply: we tell them we are sorry that this is the world we have to offer.  That it can be better.  That it should be better.  And that the hatred of this day does not negate all the love which supports and protects them.

He does not suggest ignoring or forgiving the attacks but also doesn't scream for vengeance.  "That future must be built free of acts such as these, must be fought for and renewed like fresh water."  He reminds us that "the fire of the human spirit cannot be quenched by bomb blasts or body counts."  He proposes that we build "a world which will not require apologies to children, but also a world whose roads are not paved with the husks of their inalienable rights."

I could write for hours about the beauty of his words, the simplicity of the choices he makes, which allows each statement to ring clear and true, building a symphony of grief and hope.  Neither side is overshadowed, both are acknowledged, which is incredibly difficult to do.

His words built a shield, a narrative where devastation didn't have to be the end of the story.  That's the kind of writing I aspire to. 

Case Study: Non Human Characters

With editing and writing last week, I was feeling a little romanced out.  (Shh, don't tell anyone, I think they'll revoke my membership.)  I decided to pick up a little mental refresher off my bookshelf and I pulled up a novel which I first got back in middle school.  (In a Scholastic Order, take a moment to remember the thrill of new book day each month.)

Meredith Ann Pierce's Birth of the Firebringer.

The characters in this story are all inhuman.  Mostly unicorns, though we also meet gryphons, pans and wyverns.  This is a real challenge for an author.  Certain descriptions can't be used (no unicorn is ever going to say 'on the other hand' to describe something). The culture is entirely alien but has to be kept close enough to human for a reader to relate.  The characters simply can't do some things a human could but are capable of things which we can't.

Pierce does a really good job keeping descriptions consistent but also using them to remind us that the characters aren't human.  She's obviously very familiar with horses and uses a lot of riding terminology.  Characters canter or shy or gallop rather than walk or run.  They use their teeth to manipulate things, dragging heavy objects together.  She even provided a mechanism for sharp horns and hooves, the unicorns are able to sharpen them by rubbing hoof and horn together.  The plains are described as rolling like the hair on a mare's back.

Pierce manages to balance the familiar and the exotic.  The social structure of the unicorns is a feudal one common to most high fantasy.  There is a king who rules the unicorns, with a patriarchal line of descent.  But Pierce also pulls in herd dynamics, with the queen and princess acting as the herd mare, keeping the others in line and serving as a buffer between the ruler and ruled.  The challenges used to settle disputes sound much like the challenge-combat done by stallions in wild horse herds.

I remember when I first read this story, I assumed the characters were human and the first few chapters confused me greatly.  I had to stop and go back and re-read them when I finally realized that these people were not like me.  (The unicorn on the cover should have been a giveaway, but I figured the people were in there somewhere.)  As a writer, now I come back to it and realize how much work Pierce put into creating her world and characters.

Case Study: World Building with Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb has built a complex and intriguing world for her Farseer Trilogy, Liveship Traders Trilogy, Tawny Man Trilogy and Rain Wild Chronicles.  The stories are set in different countries in the same world.  Events in one affect those in another.

This is the part which truly impresses me: the rules for her world stay consistent throughout each novel while still exploring different aspects of the cultures.  Although Bingtown and Buckkeep are as different from one another as, say, Atlanta and Maine, they still feel as though they are part of the same universe.

It’s easy for an author to lose track of all the details they’ve created, particularly when it comes to fantasy worlds.  Remembering how high a dragon can fly or whether or not a particular magic is more potent with or without touch takes dedicated notes.  A reader may go through the series in a matter of weeks, but the author took years to get to the same place.  And also has likely gone through several different versions.

Someone once indignantly posted about a dedicated fan whom George R.R. Martin goes to in order to confirm details.  They complained: how can a fan know more about the series than the author?  The problem is that the author knows all the variations that led up to the final published process.  A character might have had black hair at one point, but the author decided to change it to blonde later.  Then they might change it back.  Four volumes later, it can be hard to remember whether or not the change actually happened.  A convenient source can be a godsend.

Hobb built a very rich world with the initial Farseer Trilogy.  When I picked up Liveship Traders, I initially thought it was an entirely different world, one which was equally rich.  Then I began to notice cues that the two of them actually co-existed.  The details were consistent regarding location, sea and current information, relative cultural views.  It was incredible.

Details like the food, clothing, manners and other minutiae are what make imagined worlds feel real.  They create the illusion of depth and permanency.  Some authors take shortcuts by superimposing a real-world culture on their fictional universe and that can be useful as a starting point, but can quickly begin to feel shallow (if not well-researched) or off-putting (if followed too closely).

Hobb’s world is focused on the sea, for the most part.  Her characters live in coastal trading towns, are subject to sea-raids, piracy and other nautical nuisances.  Bingtown is a trading hub specializing in rare and magical items, but does not have the land to feed its population adequately.  That creates a cultural focus on trade and social obligations.  Buckkeep is a fortress guarding access to the inland rivers and has undergone a period of intense raiding.  Their culture is more military, with a strict feudal system.  The Outislands have poor farming conditions and survive by cross-raiding.  They have strong kinship ties and family obligations.  The Pirate Isles are a relatively new settlement, populated by outlaws and freed slaves.  Their towns have a Wild West feel to them, with every man looking out for himself and much negotiation for larger issues.

The history of each of these location shapes them, just as a character’s individual history shapes their development.  To separate a fictional world from the real world inspiration, then consider how their histories differ.  Without a Julius Cesar, would Rome have switched from a Republic to an Empire?  How would North America look if the Thirteen Colonies hadn’t rebelled against England?

Every time I read Hobb’s work, I’m impressed all over again because I always find some new detail I’d missed previously.  And it all works brilliantly together.

Case Study: Reversing Expectations with Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter Series

Okay, there are some spoilers here if you haven't read the series.  Read at your own risk.

There are currently 24 books in Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series, all paranormal romance about a group of immortals fighting soul-sucking daemons under the watchful eyes of their leader, Acheron, and the relative indifference of the Greek Goddess, Artemis.

I love this series, not just for my continuing adoration of lovely lethal men, but because Kenyon is an amazing author for reversing a reader's expectations about her characters.  She will leave a reader with an unfavorable first impression and then explore the background and meaning behind a character's reactions.  It's impressive, especially since I can then go back and read the original books and see little hints that all were not as they initially seemed.  That's very difficult and speaks to Kenyon's skill with both characters and plotting.

I generally don't like reversing character impressions because it is often done badly.  Either it comes off as excusing bad behaviour because of earlier trauma or it ignores the original material, thus completely rewriting the character and the fictional history.  Kenyon manages to keep her storyline and history intact and it is made quite clear that the jerk-ish behaviour is a problem, regardless of the cause.

I chose three characters who manage to be completely turned around:

Valerius: He was a Roman general, which puts him at odds with many of the Greek Dark Hunters.  Introduced in Night Pleasures, he is portrayed as arrogant jerk, more concerned with proper bloodlines and lineage than with making friends.  He holds himself aloof, leaving readers to wonder if he can be counted on to aid the hero of Night Pleasures, Kyrian of Thrace, especially since they have a personal ancient history.  Many of the characters go out of their way to provoke "Count Penicula" and his icy disdain for all things plebeian.

We learn his story in Seize the Night, that he was punished for showing affection as a boy by his cruel father, that his brothers killed a woman he loved and was trying to protect, drugging him and forcing him to witness her slaughter.  We learn that he has perfected his haughty disdain after years of being isolated and provoked.  He is trying to do what all our parents told us to do in the face of bullies, ignore them and they'll go away.

Beneath his exterior lies a caring man who believes his involvement with anyone, no matter how slight, carries a curse.  He has tried to help so many times and simply ended up making things worse that he now refuses to get involved.  He feels more deeply than anyone has given him credit for.


Zarek: He was a Roman slave, ironically to Valerius's family.  He is actively aggressive to everyone he interacts with, to the point of having been exiled to Alaska for most of two millennia.  He is introduced in Night Embrace as a psychopath, constantly on the verge of attacking the very people he is sworn to protect.  He is viewed as so out of control that many of the Dark Hunters make plans to take him out and have them ready to execute if necessary.

We learn his story in Dance With the Devil as he undergoes a trial to determine his right to continue to exist.  We learn about abuse so horrific it left him blind, scarred and barely able to move.  We learn that he has been forbidden to associate with anyone else and has spent most of his existence without anyone to speak or interact with.  He is so conditioned to expect abuse from other people that he refuses to interact with them, trying to help in secret as much as possible.

He is an artist, who creates beautiful sculptures.  He is tortured by his memories of having failed in the past.  He wants friends but is terrified of being vulnerable, and so adopts a "get them before they get me" attitude.


Styxx: Acheron's twin brother, the crown prince of Didymos.  He is described as spoiled and arrogant, continually demanding his sister's attention while Acheron is abused and neglected.  We see him in glimpses through many of the novels but the main story is in Acheron.  He is readily hated by all the Dark Hunters and the majority of the readership.  He is banished into permanent exile.

When I heard that Styxx was coming out, I wondered how Kenyon would deal with it.  Was he going to learn the error of his ways finally?  Instead, I found myself in constant brink-of-tears mode as we learned about Styxx's so-called "ideal" life.  The torture and abuse that Acheron suffered was also heaped on his twin, with even less recourse.  His idealized "banishment" was being left alone on an island without supplies or food for over eleven thousand years.  His wife and child were killed.  The list just kept going and going.

Styxx was never arrogant.  He had adopted a certain distance because a) his attention tended to bring severe reprisals from his father and b) after awhile, it was easier than being continuously rejected.  He wasn't a self-entitled prince, he was an abused child trying desperately to survive.


It's not explicitly stated in the novels, but there does seem to be a recurrent theme in Kenyon's work about not judging people until you understand the whole story.  Even her "bad" guys have tales of heartbreak and loss behind their decisions.  The adversaries of the Dark Hunters are the Daimons, who have a choice of feeding on human souls or dying slowly and painfully on their 27th birthday, the entire race cursed because of the actions of a few over eleven thousand years earlier.

This is the reason I come back to Kenyon's stories again and again.  Because she creates wonderful three-dimensional characters which always have some thread of compassion.  Over and over, we see the theme of being caught between difficult choices and having compassion for those who make them.

Those are stories of redemption that I can get behind every time.