“The best thing we can do with power is give it away” - On the leftist critique of superhero narratives as authoritarian power fantasies:
The ongoing “Jason Todd is a cop” debate has reminded me of a brilliant brief image essay by Joey deVilla. So here it is, images first and the full essay text below:
“A common leftist critique of superhero comics is that they are inherently anti-collectivist, being about small groups of individuals who hold all the power, and the wisdom to wield that power.
I don’t disagree with this reading. I don’t think it’s inaccurate. Superheroes are their own ruling class, the concept of the übermensch writ large.
But it’s a sterile reading. It examines superhero comics as a cold text, and ignores something that I believe in fundamental, especially to superhero storytelling: the way people engage with text. Not what it says, but how it is read.
The average comic reader doesn’t fantasize about being a civilian in a world of superheroes, they fantasize about being a superhero. One could charitably chalk this up to a lust for power, except for one fact…
The fantasy is almost always the act of helping people. Helping the vulnerable, with no reward promised in return.
Being a century into the genre, we’ve seen countless subversions and deconstructions of the story.
But at its core, the superhero myth is about using the gifts you’ve been given to enrich the people around you, never asking for payment, never advancing an ulterior motive.
We should (and do) spend time nitpicking these fantasies, examining their unintended consequences, their hypocrisies.
But it’s worth acknowledging that the most eduring childhood fantasy of the last hundred years hasn’t been to become rich. Superheroes come from every class (don’t let the MCU fool you).
The most enduring fantasy is to become powerful enough to take the weak under your own wing. To give, without needing to take.
So yes, the superhero myth, as a text, isn’t collectivist. But that’s not why we keep coming back to it. That’s not why children read it. We keep coming back to it to learn one simple lesson…
The best thing we can do with power IS GIVE IT AWAY.”
peak book! Yennefer energy is pissing in the most beautiful woman in the world’s koi pond and laughing, it’s one woman vs the Wild Hunt, it’s defying the Gods, it’s ridiculous Jack Sparrow-esque escapes, it’s having everyone you love turn against you, it’s fucking the King of Skellige and leaving him on read, it’s self sacrifice, it’s being unflappable in the face of evil, it’s stabbing your child’s abuser in the face, it’s having your death warrant signed before your very eyes and your last act being railing your Witcher, it’s sailing directly into the eye of the storm, it’s choosing Ciri over everybody – herself be damned, it’s saving babies, it’s accepting payment in jam because her customers have nothing else, it’s ‘Dear Friend…’, it’s making sure Ciri has tampons, it’s being hunted and alone, it’s telling the Emperor of Nilfgaard not to hurt her daughter and him agreeing, it’s sweet moments of laughter with her daughter, it’s making sure Geralt is paid fairly even though he walked out on her, it’s walking in the room and having all eyes on you, it’s defiance for the sake of defiance, it’s awkward sex talks, it’s ‘magic is chaos, art and science..’ it’s needing better friends, it’s losing count of all the most wanted lists she’s on, it’s fight-on-sight energy, it’s solving mysteries, it’s making the wrong choice, it’s being the goddess of death and destruction, it’s becoming a legend, it’s dying for the one you love, it’s…
this is actually 152 layers of sound because i put ditto in there twice
there was no good reason for me to put ditto in there twice. it sounds exactly the same. i just did it for the joke because ditto copies and stuff. you know, it’s like, ditto
cool little factoid I made this post as I was having a genuine panic attack on 600 micrograms of lsd in the middle of downtown Denver because I lost my wallet. like this was me operating at peak efficiency
at some point you have to realize that you actually have to read to understand the nuance of anything. we as a society are obsessed with summarization, likely as a result of the speed demanded by capital. from headlines to social media (twitter being especially egregious with the character limit), people take in fragments of knowledge and run with them, twisting their meaning into a kaleidoscope that dilutes the message into nothing. yes, brevity is good, but sometimes the message, even when communicated with utmost brevity, requires a 300 page book. sorry.
ALT
