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[Agents of Shield] Thread is under quarantine for potential Captain America 2 spoilers!

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  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    I consider the fact that SHIELD is morally ambiguous and exists in a poorly-understood (by us) gray area of dubious legality to be a feature, not a bug. Especially given what's expected to go down in the near future.

    I wouldn't have a problem with it if they actually addressed it in some way. Everyone just goes along with all the shady stuff without even batting an eye or having the slightest hint that they might be stepping in some moral or political shit storm.

    It's certainly true that there has to be a high level of suspension of disbelief when dealing with superheroes and comic books but they still pay lip service to many of the real world questions that get brought up. For example with Batman, they actually do deal with the issues of the morality of Batman's vigilantism, if he's actually creating those villains, and the question of whether or not he's even helping Gotham.
    Wraith260 wrote: »
    2006 is not 2013. Times change rather rapidly now. We didn't have public NSA scandals and irrational drone fears then.

    Misson: Impossible 4 was 2011
    Skyfall was 2012
    Splinter Cell: Blacklist was 2013

    the first two have sequels in the works and a Splinter Cell movie is in development*. each of these deal with shadowy government agencies and their actions. you could argue that Skyfall was a comment against some of those practices but that's not going to stop them making Bond films.

    also Person of Interest started in 2011 and is still running.

    people are able to separate entertainment from reality and enjoy fictional depictions of things they would not stand for in real life.

    *i'm sure the game series will continue too.

    Don't forget The End of Violence, which came out in 1997 and Enemy of the State, which came out in 1998. In fact, a lot of stuff in the 90's dealt with issues of shadowy government programs that control/spy on/assassinate people and manipulation of world politics by powerful industrialized nations under the guise of helping the world in a serious manner too.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    I consider the fact that SHIELD is morally ambiguous and exists in a poorly-understood (by us) gray area of dubious legality to be a feature, not a bug. Especially given what's expected to go down in the near future.

    I wouldn't have a problem with it if they actually addressed it in some way. Everyone just goes along with all the shady stuff without even batting an eye or having the slightest hint that they might be stepping in some moral or political shit storm.

    I know, if only whether or not to blindly follow orders from SHIELD was some kind of major recurring plot point affecting several members of the team and also driving the climax of multiple recent films!

    Their refusal to address this point is why Tony Stark immediately gave all of his tech over to the government, New York was nuked, Coulson was killed by the Clairvoyant, and Skye invariably follows orders after being recruited by the team because of her awesome website devoted to pro-SHIELD fanfic.

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  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Okay, fine, I concede the argument. :p. "People" don't care about this stuff.

    It does bug me, personally, though.

  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    I consider the fact that SHIELD is morally ambiguous and exists in a poorly-understood (by us) gray area of dubious legality to be a feature, not a bug. Especially given what's expected to go down in the near future.

    I wouldn't have a problem with it if they actually addressed it in some way. Everyone just goes along with all the shady stuff without even batting an eye or having the slightest hint that they might be stepping in some moral or political shit storm.

    I know, if only whether or not to blindly follow orders from SHIELD was some kind of major recurring plot point affecting several members of the team and also driving the climax of multiple recent films!

    Their refusal to address this point is why Tony Stark immediately gave all of his tech over to the government, New York was nuked, Coulson was killed by the Clairvoyant, and Skye invariably follows orders after being recruited by the team because of her awesome website devoted to pro-SHIELD fanfic.

    This is a problem in the show, not so much the film, especially with Captain America 2.

    Also, the team's conflict over their orders have a lot more to do with protecting their own team members rather than actually dealing with the effects of their actions on the rest of the world. There's a pretty big difference between, "I won't follow this order because it might kill my friend" and "I won't follow this order because it might destabilize this country's entire government."

    And Skye's defiance went away pretty quickly and she fell in line without that much fuss.

    KingofMadCows on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    I guess I'll concede that the show doesn't really explore the geopolitical implications of what they're doing, but I'm not sure that's strictly necessary. The general theme is "SHIELD is shady." They are choosing to illustrate this on a more character-based level, which makes sense to me, as it's a character-based show.

    If they tell us, "SHIELD is bad because they are interfering in this nation's politics," well, okay. I guess that's bad, sure, but I'm not going to really get invested in that. They tell us, "SHIELD is bad because they're sending these characters we like on a suicide mission," now I'm invested. I don't really care about Fake Vaguely-Russian Nation, but you threaten harm on Fitz-Simmons and I will throw down like a motherfucker.

    In the end, the drama in a show like this has to be personal. It has to be relatable. Which means all the interesting conflicts are going to revolve around personal issues and characters' well-being more than on larger abstract political ideals.

    It's still a young show, though. There's plenty of room for it to expand its scope to consider a different flavor of ethical concerns in another season or two, if it wants to go there. I think Dollhouse sort of went this route. It started off making us give a shit about Echo, but by the end she was almost secondary to the larger issues of humanity and personality going on, and it went from being "this girl is hunting for her identity" to "oh shit, world just ended, now what?" AoS could do a similar thing over a longer time-frame. (Though honestly, I don't see the show getting too SRS BZNS, given its role within the MCU juggernaut.)

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  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    But they don't need to make the whole geo-political ramifications of SHIELD's actions a big deal. They really only need to pay a little lip service and have it simmer in the background. Like instead of having Skye make some flippant ignorant remark about the politics of what's going on, they could have her make a good point. For example, in the second episode, Skye foolishly talked about the rebellion in Peru as being some kind of a good thing. Maybe instead, they could have had her make a comment about whether the 084 belongs to the Peruvian government and if they have the right to take it away. In the episode with Scorch, Skye talks about how SHIELD is hiding people with super powers from the public when the more interesting issue is that people with powers have to give up their freedom and subject themselves to be tracked by SHIELD.

    They don't have to have a big speech about how much authority SHIELD has or whether SHIELD has the right to limit advanced technology. They could just bring up the idea that people are concerned with those issues. That way, you set up things that can be used in the future. A villain who thinks that SHIELD is a puppet of powerful industrialized nations can be very interesting but instead of having to set up the villain when they show, they could already have some ideas and plot threads already planted.

    Also, South Ossetia is a real place that tried to declare independence from Georgia. Two wars were fought there since the fall of the Soviet Union.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Also, South Ossetia is a real place that tried to declare independence from Georgia. Two wars were fought there since the fall of the Soviet Union.

    Ouch.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    As a practical matter, they might not want to lay down foundations for themes that might not be supported by the show down the road. If they spend effort establishing that people are concerned about SHIELD meddling too much in foreign affairs, but then later they want a plot arc to involve SHIELD not getting involved enough in foreign affairs and some fledgling democracy somewhere gets squashed by Bad Guys, they've just spent a couple seasons subtly undermining their own theme.

    You also inadvertently bring up a good point - Skye has been saying things regarding political implications, but you're dissatisfied because they aren't the implications you want her to make. She talks about the effects of SHIELD on the Peruvian rebellion, but you say it's a "foolish" point. She talks about how SHIELD is wrong for hiding superpowers from the public, but you'd rather she bring up privacy issues. I really don't think the showrunners want to use AoS to push a political agenda, and I don't think they should. Would you be happy if the show was paying lip-service to, and letting "simmer in the background," ideas that you strongly disagreed with? If not, do you think other viewers would want to see it pay lip-service to ideas they strongly disagreed with? And do you think the show-runners really want to have to pick which group of politically-minded viewers they're going to piss off?

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  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Except it's not me who's saying that Skye's points are foolish. The show actually says that they're foolish. Like when she brings up the Peruvian rebellion, she's immediately rebuked by Ward who talks about all the people who were getting killed. The show is constantly portraying Skye's concerns as being foolish and trivial. Of course, it doesn't help that Skye's concerns do tend to be trivial.

    As for SHIELD's meddling, it's true that I'm bringing up ideas I would like to see but that's mainly because they haven't done a very good job of establishing/explaining SHIELD's place in the world. Is it SHIELD's job to protect poor or fledgling nations from being exploited? Does SHIELD have the authority to bring about changes in government? Can SHIELD go around overthrowing dictators? I'm bringing up ideas based on the limited amount of information they've given about SHIELD's place in the world. From what I can tell, SHIELD's job is to protect the world from global threats as well as proliferation of certain technologies. I'm not entirely sure how it goes about doing all that, how much authority it has, who determines the level of a threat or what technology is acceptable for people/nations to have, who funds them, or who gets access to the technology and super powered beings SHIELD acquires. However, based on what I've seen, there's a lot of potential for abuse and that can lead to some interesting storylines.

    KingofMadCows on
  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    Except it's not me who's saying that Skye's points are foolish. The show actually says that they're foolish. Like when she brings up the Peruvian rebellion, she's immediately rebuked by Ward who talks about all the people who were getting killed. The show is constantly portraying Skye's concerns as being foolish and trivial. Of course, it doesn't help that Skye's concerns do tend to be trivial.

    When Ward was the resident asshole. She wasn't harshly rebuked by Coulson and his entire staff.
    As for SHIELD's meddling, it's true that I'm bringing up ideas I would like to see but that's mainly because they haven't done a very good job of establishing/explaining SHIELD's place in the world. Is it SHIELD's job to protect poor or fledgling nations from being exploited? Does SHIELD have the authority to bring about changes in government? Can SHIELD go around overthrowing dictators? I'm bringing up ideas based on the limited amount of information they've given about SHIELD's place in the world. From what I can tell, SHIELD's job is to protect the world from global threats as well as proliferation of certain technologies. I'm not entirely sure how it goes about doing all that or how much authority it has. However, based on what I've seen, there's a lot of potential for abuse and that can lead to some interesting storylines.

    They can still do that. This is season 1, they need to put in the world building to stand on its own and get the right formula before getting into that. If they're going to do that, that is.

  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    Except it's not me who's saying that Skye's points are foolish. The show actually says that they're foolish. Like when she brings up the Peruvian rebellion, she's immediately rebuked by Ward who talks about all the people who were getting killed. The show is constantly portraying Skye's concerns as being foolish and trivial. Of course, it doesn't help that Skye's concerns do tend to be trivial.

    When Ward was the resident asshole. She wasn't harshly rebuked by Coulson and his entire staff.

    They also had Skye acknowledge how insensitive her comment was.
    As for SHIELD's meddling, it's true that I'm bringing up ideas I would like to see but that's mainly because they haven't done a very good job of establishing/explaining SHIELD's place in the world. Is it SHIELD's job to protect poor or fledgling nations from being exploited? Does SHIELD have the authority to bring about changes in government? Can SHIELD go around overthrowing dictators? I'm bringing up ideas based on the limited amount of information they've given about SHIELD's place in the world. From what I can tell, SHIELD's job is to protect the world from global threats as well as proliferation of certain technologies. I'm not entirely sure how it goes about doing all that or how much authority it has. However, based on what I've seen, there's a lot of potential for abuse and that can lead to some interesting storylines.

    They can still do that. This is season 1, they need to put in the world building to stand on its own and get the right formula before getting into that. If they're going to do that, that is.

    But this is something they could have done from the beginning. They've already had the team do some shady things where some very obvious questions/exposition could have been used to build SHIELD's place in the world. Again, if you look at Batman as an example, almost every incarnation of the character starts with establishing his place in Gotham while having him deal with the super villains. They don't have an entire season of Batman only fighting super villains and then establish his relationship to the Gotham police.

  • jdarksunjdarksun Struggler VARegistered User regular
    I don't see any need for it to be addressed, frankly. What they're doing is important and necessary. It's self justifying.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    As for SHIELD's meddling, it's true that I'm bringing up ideas I would like to see but that's mainly because they haven't done a very good job of establishing/explaining SHIELD's place in the world. Is it SHIELD's job to protect poor or fledgling nations from being exploited? Does SHIELD have the authority to bring about changes in government? Can SHIELD go around overthrowing dictators? I'm bringing up ideas based on the limited amount of information they've given about SHIELD's place in the world. From what I can tell, SHIELD's job is to protect the world from global threats as well as proliferation of certain technologies. I'm not entirely sure how it goes about doing all that, how much authority it has, who determines the level of a threat or what technology is acceptable for people/nations to have, who funds them, or who gets access to the technology and super powered beings SHIELD acquires. However, based on what I've seen, there's a lot of potential for abuse and that can lead to some interesting storylines.

    That's the general function, yeah. As for how they do that, we're being shown that in bits and pieces. They're performing the world-building gradually as they develop the characters and their relationships, which is fine with me. I consider the characters as priority one and the world-building as somewhere beneath that. I bet we'll know a lot more as the season concludes.

    What I see of SHIELD is a largely autonomous secret organization that grew out of government programs in the WWII era but gradually obtained its own inertia and power. Based on the events of Avengers and Iron Man 3, it seems to work with legitimate western governments, but it also seems to be kind of its own thing that other governments deal with because they kinda have to. It does what it "needs" to do with little in the way of external oversight.

    I interpret the lack of a clear idea of how exactly everything works as an extended metaphor for how the characters see it. None of them seem to have all the answers, either. Coulson goes to Fury when he has questions, but Fury gives out few straight answers and isn't even always available. Ward and May and the rest just do what they're told, which sometimes puts them at odds with even their own teammates. It's a giant clusterfuck of bureaucracy and secrecy that is taking on a life of its own, and this is a Bad Thing that seems to be culminating in a takeover by some of the less scrupulous elements of SHIELD.

    In the end, we don't know how SHIELD works because hardly anyone seems to understand how SHIELD works. It's the bureaucratic equivalent of Cube.

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  • TaminTamin Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    this was posted over in se++
    Agents-of-SHIELD-722x1091-ff176.jpg

    apparently each episode (until the end of the season) will have one, drawn by different artists.

    ... edit: I'm spoilering that because it does suggest stuff that might be spoilers, but probably aren't

    Tamin on
  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    They also had Skye acknowledge how insensitive her comment was.

    Because she knows she might not have all the answers.
    But this is something they could have done from the beginning. They've already had the team do some shady things where some very obvious questions/exposition could have been used to build SHIELD's place in the world. Again, if you look at Batman as an example, almost every incarnation of the character starts with establishing his place in Gotham while having him deal with the super villains. They don't have an entire season of Batman only fighting super villains and then establish his relationship to the Gotham police.

    That's a subject that'd be riskier in season 1 when the show is finding its feet. They need to introduce viewers to the characters and the new world the show inhabits without polarizing the audience - which the MCU does to be friendly to everyone. They did go into what you're talking about, only on subjects you're not interested in exploring and dropped the Rising Tide plot line to focus on the Centipede arc. AoS is not Batman. Batman is an icon that's been established in media in movies, cartoons and video-games so much your average person knows who the characters, who Batman is and he drives a Batmobile. AoS has all new characters, excluding Coulson who was a minor character in the MCU which is a new to the public itself.

  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    Tamin wrote: »
    this was posted over in se++
    Agents-of-SHIELD-722x1091-ff176.jpg

    apparently each episode (until the end of the season) will have one, drawn by different artists.

    ... edit: I'm spoilering that because it does suggest stuff that might be spoilers, but probably aren't

    Well, speculations based on the spoiler:
    The 3 in the middle are obviously Fitz, Skye and Coulson. Mostly because Coulson is the only regular character on the show that wears a suit and both Fitz and Sky wear regular clothes. Upper left is Simmons with Triplett, since they are both at the Hub. Female agent is obviously May, cause she is the only female agent. Which leaves the two character in the lower left part of the picture. Its either Paxton or Ward dead on the ground. Which means that one of them bites it in the next episode. The Rat is the Clairvoyant or Shield itself.

    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Tamin wrote: »
    this was posted over in se++
    Agents-of-SHIELD-722x1091-ff176.jpg

    apparently each episode (until the end of the season) will have one, drawn by different artists.

    ... edit: I'm spoilering that because it does suggest stuff that might be spoilers, but probably aren't

    Well, speculations based on the spoiler:
    The 3 in the middle are obviously Fitz, Skye and Coulson. Mostly because Coulson is the only regular character on the show that wears a suit and both Fitz and Sky wear regular clothes. Upper left is Simmons with Triplett, since they are both at the Hub. Female agent is obviously May, cause she is the only female agent. Which leaves the two character in the lower left part of the picture. Its either Paxton or Ward dead on the ground. Which means that one of them bites it in the next episode. The Rat is the Clairvoyant or Shield itself.
    The rat is a giant man-eating rat the Clairvoyant has sent to kill them.

    Harry Dresden on
  • Wraith260Wraith260 Happiest Goomba! Registered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Tamin wrote: »
    this was posted over in se++
    Agents-of-SHIELD-722x1091-ff176.jpg

    apparently each episode (until the end of the season) will have one, drawn by different artists.

    ... edit: I'm spoilering that because it does suggest stuff that might be spoilers, but probably aren't

    Well, speculations based on the spoiler:
    The 3 in the middle are obviously Fitz, Skye and Coulson. Mostly because Coulson is the only regular character on the show that wears a suit and both Fitz and Sky wear regular clothes. Upper leftright is Simmons with Triplett, since they are both at the Hub. Female agent is obviously May, cause she is the only female agent. Which leaves the two character in the lower left part of the picture. Its either Paxton or Ward dead on the ground. Which means that one of them bites it in the next episode. The Rat is the Clairvoyant or Shield itself.

    its Ward in the lower left, the dead guy is just a SHIELD guard and the rat is a metaphor. they'll be trapped in the HUB 'like rats in a maze'. it could also double as whoever is working against them from the inside, 'ratting them out' to their enemies, as it were.

  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Tamin wrote: »
    this was posted over in se++
    Agents-of-SHIELD-722x1091-ff176.jpg

    apparently each episode (until the end of the season) will have one, drawn by different artists.

    ... edit: I'm spoilering that because it does suggest stuff that might be spoilers, but probably aren't

    Well, speculations based on the spoiler:
    The 3 in the middle are obviously Fitz, Skye and Coulson. Mostly because Coulson is the only regular character on the show that wears a suit and both Fitz and Sky wear regular clothes. Upper left is Simmons with Triplett, since they are both at the Hub. Female agent is obviously May, cause she is the only female agent. Which leaves the two character in the lower left part of the picture. Its either Paxton or Ward dead on the ground. Which means that one of them bites it in the next episode. The Rat is the Clairvoyant or Shield itself.

    I prefer to think that next episode,
    they're going to be on the run from an actual giant mutant rat.

    This is exactly the kind of thing that the show needs!

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  • Wraith260Wraith260 Happiest Goomba! Registered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Tamin wrote: »
    this was posted over in se++
    Agents-of-SHIELD-722x1091-ff176.jpg

    apparently each episode (until the end of the season) will have one, drawn by different artists.

    ... edit: I'm spoilering that because it does suggest stuff that might be spoilers, but probably aren't

    Well, speculations based on the spoiler:
    The 3 in the middle are obviously Fitz, Skye and Coulson. Mostly because Coulson is the only regular character on the show that wears a suit and both Fitz and Sky wear regular clothes. Upper left is Simmons with Triplett, since they are both at the Hub. Female agent is obviously May, cause she is the only female agent. Which leaves the two character in the lower left part of the picture. Its either Paxton or Ward dead on the ground. Which means that one of them bites it in the next episode. The Rat is the Clairvoyant or Shield itself.

    I prefer to think that next episode,
    they're going to be on the run from an actual giant mutant rat.

    This is exactly the kind of thing that the show needs!
    only to be saved by a hyper-intelligent monkey!!

  • HounHoun Registered User regular
    Man, even when the show is airing you guys seem to need to make stuff up to talk about.
    <3

  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Monkeys are not 'making stuff up.'

    They are in fact the entire point for the show: it's about how a man achieves his life-dream of gaining a monkey for a lab assistant (spoiler alert: in the series finale), and his wacky adventures with a bunch of eclectic international super-spies along the way to that fateful meeting.

    "Agents of SHIELD: How I Met Your Monkey"

    Shadowhope on
    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Monkeys are not 'making stuff up.'

    They are in fact the entire point for the show: it's about how a man achieves his life-dream of gaining a monkey for a lab assistant (spoiler alert: in the series finale), and his wacky adventures with a bunch of eclectic international super-spies along the way to that fateful meeting.

    "Agents of SHIELD: How I Met Your Monkey"

    Then the Monkey dies and he realizes he should have had Skye as a lab assistant all along.

    She is not as smart as a Monkey, but he get fewer weird looks when he makes out with her.

    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • skeldareskeldare Gresham, ORRegistered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Monkeys are not 'making stuff up.'

    They are in fact the entire point for the show: it's about how a man achieves his life-dream of gaining a monkey for a lab assistant (spoiler alert: in the series finale), and his wacky adventures with a bunch of eclectic international super-spies along the way to that fateful meeting.

    "Agents of SHIELD: How I Met Your Monkey"

    Too bad
    the monkey dies at the end

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  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    skeldare wrote: »
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Monkeys are not 'making stuff up.'

    They are in fact the entire point for the show: it's about how a man achieves his life-dream of gaining a monkey for a lab assistant (spoiler alert: in the series finale), and his wacky adventures with a bunch of eclectic international super-spies along the way to that fateful meeting.

    "Agents of SHIELD: How I Met Your Monkey"

    Too bad
    the monkey was the Clairvoyant all along.

    Harry Dresden on
  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular

    I'm a little curious where they'll dock the ships next season.

    Ward/May seems likely to be over, so Ward/Skye seems a possibility. Which may mean Fitz/Simmons. But then, we could also see a Ward/Skye/Simmons triangle. I don't think we'd see Fitz as the pivot for a triangle, but Skye/Fitz/Simmons could happen, as well as Ward/Simmons and Fitz/Skye.

    At this point, I don't so much want to see the relationships themselves as all four young people called into Coulson's office, where a bewildered Coulson is torn between dressing them all down and laughing his ass off.

    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    One thing I liked about last weeks episode
    They actually treated Deathlok like the threat he was. They had a huge team of personelle, and made sure that the tech crew was either far away from the fighting (with guards) or if they had to be in the field, that they were told to immediately leave the field once their role was done.

    Unlike in The Bridge where, when assaulting a potential Centipede base that could have up to 3 extremis soldiers in them, they bring a 3 normal, 1 super team (and one of the normals didn't even bring any firearms!)

  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    As for SHIELD's meddling, it's true that I'm bringing up ideas I would like to see but that's mainly because they haven't done a very good job of establishing/explaining SHIELD's place in the world. Is it SHIELD's job to protect poor or fledgling nations from being exploited? Does SHIELD have the authority to bring about changes in government? Can SHIELD go around overthrowing dictators? I'm bringing up ideas based on the limited amount of information they've given about SHIELD's place in the world. From what I can tell, SHIELD's job is to protect the world from global threats as well as proliferation of certain technologies. I'm not entirely sure how it goes about doing all that, how much authority it has, who determines the level of a threat or what technology is acceptable for people/nations to have, who funds them, or who gets access to the technology and super powered beings SHIELD acquires. However, based on what I've seen, there's a lot of potential for abuse and that can lead to some interesting storylines.

    That's the general function, yeah. As for how they do that, we're being shown that in bits and pieces. They're performing the world-building gradually as they develop the characters and their relationships, which is fine with me. I consider the characters as priority one and the world-building as somewhere beneath that. I bet we'll know a lot more as the season concludes.

    What I see of SHIELD is a largely autonomous secret organization that grew out of government programs in the WWII era but gradually obtained its own inertia and power. Based on the events of Avengers and Iron Man 3, it seems to work with legitimate western governments, but it also seems to be kind of its own thing that other governments deal with because they kinda have to. It does what it "needs" to do with little in the way of external oversight.

    I interpret the lack of a clear idea of how exactly everything works as an extended metaphor for how the characters see it. None of them seem to have all the answers, either. Coulson goes to Fury when he has questions, but Fury gives out few straight answers and isn't even always available. Ward and May and the rest just do what they're told, which sometimes puts them at odds with even their own teammates. It's a giant clusterfuck of bureaucracy and secrecy that is taking on a life of its own, and this is a Bad Thing that seems to be culminating in a takeover by some of the less scrupulous elements of SHIELD.

    In the end, we don't know how SHIELD works because hardly anyone seems to understand how SHIELD works. It's the bureaucratic equivalent of Cube.

    Except the characters act like they either already know how SHIELD works or that they don't need to know how SHIELD works. They act like the rules have already been established and the world has operated that way for a long time. They never act like there's funny business going on until one of the team members get in trouble. No one, not even Skye, ever asks the most obvious questions like how come they can go steal a piece of tech from Peru or permanently detain Dr. Franklin Hall but they couldn't take away Tony Stark's Iron Man suit or force him to work for them.

    And character development does not have to be separate from world building. Having characters show concern over the morality of their missions or question their political ramifications can serve both purposes.
    They also had Skye acknowledge how insensitive her comment was.

    Because she knows she might not have all the answers.
    But this is something they could have done from the beginning. They've already had the team do some shady things where some very obvious questions/exposition could have been used to build SHIELD's place in the world. Again, if you look at Batman as an example, almost every incarnation of the character starts with establishing his place in Gotham while having him deal with the super villains. They don't have an entire season of Batman only fighting super villains and then establish his relationship to the Gotham police.

    That's a subject that'd be riskier in season 1 when the show is finding its feet. They need to introduce viewers to the characters and the new world the show inhabits without polarizing the audience - which the MCU does to be friendly to everyone. They did go into what you're talking about, only on subjects you're not interested in exploring and dropped the Rising Tide plot line to focus on the Centipede arc. AoS is not Batman. Batman is an icon that's been established in media in movies, cartoons and video-games so much your average person knows who the characters, who Batman is and he drives a Batmobile. AoS has all new characters, excluding Coulson who was a minor character in the MCU which is a new to the public itself.

    AoS being less established than Batman is precisely why they should be doing more world building. Everyone already knows about Batman's tenuous relationship with the police/the law and his struggle between vengeance and justice, so there's less need to deal with those issues. Yet they still work to establish those themes in almost every incarnation of the character because it compliments the character so much and helps make the world more interesting.

    As for not wanting to polarize the audience, simply pretending that a subject matter isn't political or controversial doesn't mean it's not political/controversial. If they don't want to go into some of the subjects I've mentioned, then maybe they shouldn't have used those ideas in the first place. You can't just have the characters go into different countries, kill people, violate people's rights, get involved in volatile political situations and just pretend that none of that can be controversial or polarizing simply by having the characters act like it's not a big deal. It's like when Arrow first started and they had Ollie kill pretty indiscriminately and seriously hurt dumb mooks who probably had no knowledge of the crimes their bosses committed. Just because they didn't make a big deal over it until later doesn't mean that having a superhero who kills and hurts so willy nilly wasn't an issue of contention.

    KingofMadCows on
  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Tamin wrote: »
    this was posted over in se++
    Agents-of-SHIELD-722x1091-ff176.jpg

    apparently each episode (until the end of the season) will have one, drawn by different artists.

    ... edit: I'm spoilering that because it does suggest stuff that might be spoilers, but probably aren't

    Well, speculations based on the spoiler:
    The 3 in the middle are obviously Fitz, Skye and Coulson. Mostly because Coulson is the only regular character on the show that wears a suit and both Fitz and Sky wear regular clothes. Upper left is Simmons with Triplett, since they are both at the Hub. Female agent is obviously May, cause she is the only female agent. Which leaves the two character in the lower left part of the picture. Its either Paxton or Ward dead on the ground. Which means that one of them bites it in the next episode. The Rat is the Clairvoyant or Shield itself.
    The rat is a giant man-eating rat the Clairvoyant has sent to kill them.

    Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.

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  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    Brainiac 8 wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Tamin wrote: »
    this was posted over in se++
    Agents-of-SHIELD-722x1091-ff176.jpg

    apparently each episode (until the end of the season) will have one, drawn by different artists.

    ... edit: I'm spoilering that because it does suggest stuff that might be spoilers, but probably aren't

    Well, speculations based on the spoiler:
    The 3 in the middle are obviously Fitz, Skye and Coulson. Mostly because Coulson is the only regular character on the show that wears a suit and both Fitz and Sky wear regular clothes. Upper left is Simmons with Triplett, since they are both at the Hub. Female agent is obviously May, cause she is the only female agent. Which leaves the two character in the lower left part of the picture. Its either Paxton or Ward dead on the ground. Which means that one of them bites it in the next episode. The Rat is the Clairvoyant or Shield itself.
    The rat is a giant man-eating rat the Clairvoyant has sent to kill them.

    Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.

    They will once Centipede starts experimenting.

  • TaminTamin Registered User regular
    Saw Cap 2
    it answers some questions, raises others

    and I'm not terribly sure where the Clairvoyant fits into things just yet. There's a lot of stuff going on in there, and some of it might contradict Centipede's goals (?)

    ... although

    I think someone could make the argument that, based on the film, Centipede is a branch of HYDRA. Which has been long suspected. I'm not making that argument just yet, but a few seeds towards that end are taking root.

  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    I'm a little curious where they'll dock the ships next season.

    Ward/May seems likely to be over, so Ward/Skye seems a possibility. Which may mean Fitz/Simmons. But then, we could also see a Ward/Skye/Simmons triangle. I don't think we'd see Fitz as the pivot for a triangle, but Skye/Fitz/Simmons could happen, as well as Ward/Simmons and Fitz/Skye.

    At this point, I don't so much want to see the relationships themselves as all four young people called into Coulson's office, where a bewildered Coulson is torn between dressing them all down and laughing his ass off.

    Coulson: "This is called the Bus but it isn't the Bang Bus!"

  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    Tamin wrote: »
    Saw Cap 2
    it answers some questions, raises others

    and I'm not terribly sure where the Clairvoyant fits into things just yet. There's a lot of stuff going on in there, and some of it might contradict Centipede's goals (?)

    ... although

    I think someone could make the argument that, based on the film, Centipede is a branch of HYDRA. Which has been long suspected. I'm not making that argument just yet, but a few seeds towards that end are taking root.

    It would be interesting if it turned out that Centipede
    knew about Hydra controlling SHIELD and were actually trying to combat Hydra.

  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    I'm a little curious where they'll dock the ships next season.

    Ward/May seems likely to be over, so Ward/Skye seems a possibility. Which may mean Fitz/Simmons. But then, we could also see a Ward/Skye/Simmons triangle. I don't think we'd see Fitz as the pivot for a triangle, but Skye/Fitz/Simmons could happen, as well as Ward/Simmons and Fitz/Skye.

    At this point, I don't so much want to see the relationships themselves as all four young people called into Coulson's office, where a bewildered Coulson is torn between dressing them all down and laughing his ass off.

    Coulson: "This is called the Bus but it isn't the Bang Bus!"

    I absolutely don't think Ward/Skye works.

    Whereas Fitz/Skye totally would.

  • ThomamelasThomamelas Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
    Tamin wrote: »
    Saw Cap 2
    it answers some questions, raises others

    and I'm not terribly sure where the Clairvoyant fits into things just yet. There's a lot of stuff going on in there, and some of it might contradict Centipede's goals (?)

    ... although

    I think someone could make the argument that, based on the film, Centipede is a branch of HYDRA. Which has been long suspected. I'm not making that argument just yet, but a few seeds towards that end are taking root.
    An algorithm that predicts what people do based on pretty much all of the info available? Yeah, that was the Clairvoyant. I think that's a pretty safe call.

    Without getting too spoiler about Cap 2, the SHIELD geopolitics stuff will be touched upon.

  • skeldareskeldare Gresham, ORRegistered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    I'm a little curious where they'll dock the ships next season.

    Ward/May seems likely to be over, so Ward/Skye seems a possibility. Which may mean Fitz/Simmons. But then, we could also see a Ward/Skye/Simmons triangle. I don't think we'd see Fitz as the pivot for a triangle, but Skye/Fitz/Simmons could happen, as well as Ward/Simmons and Fitz/Skye.

    At this point, I don't so much want to see the relationships themselves as all four young people called into Coulson's office, where a bewildered Coulson is torn between dressing them all down and laughing his ass off.

    Coulson: "This is called the Bus but it isn't the Bang Bus!"

    I absolutely don't think Ward/Skye works.

    Whereas Fitz/Skye totally would.

    Fitz/Simmons 4 life yo.

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  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    FitzSkymmons. That lucky monkey!

  • skeldareskeldare Gresham, ORRegistered User regular
    FitzSkymmons. That lucky monkey!

    Three way between Fitz, Simmons and Skye. And with a monkey watching from the corner.

    Nintendo Console Codes
    Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
    PM Me if you add me!
    HAIL HYDRA
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    I'm now half expecting a cold open where they imply this happened and then reveal it didn't.

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Just got back from seeing The Winter Soldier and uh....I cannot wait for Tuesday.

    CAPTAIN AMERICA 2 SPOILERS
    So Shield let loose all their secrets? Including whatever the hell that blue thing was in the cabinet? Is the show going to still be called Agents of SHIELD? And I'm definitely wondering if the Clairvoyant is somehow related to Ultron with all the AI uploading stuff. Or Scarlet Witch! Doctor Strange? EXCITEMENT. Also sad that Sitwell was Hydra. Hilarious that the guy that told Tony Stark "Fuck You" was too though.

    The movie was great, go see it.

    SniperGuy on
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