S02.E06: What if… Kahhori Reshaped the World?

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

After conquistadors lay siege to her tribe, a young Mohawk woman ventures into the Tesseract-powered waters of the legendary Forbidden Lake to recruit the forces of Sky World to help save her people.

Dropping Wednesday, December 27, 2023.

[Linderhill]

an interesting episode.  A fascinating concept done almost completely in non-english.  I enjoyed it.

[thuganomics85]

Certainly won't complain about getting Devery Jacobs to voice Kahhori, since I'm all for her getting more and more work after Reservation Dogs (granted, in a just world, all of the young actors in that show would become huge stars.)  Thought she did great work here.  Interestingly, 

Spoiler

she is suppose to have a role in that Echo show coming out in January and it's listed as a different character, but I'm wondering if there will end up being a connection there.

Give the show some credit for having an episode almost entirely not in English (baring The Watcher's narration and Doctor Strange popping up at the end.)  Probably my favorite episode of the season.

[Megras]

Was this an original character for What If?. This setting was complete unknown to me.

[wknt3]

On 12/28/2023 at 10:04 AM, Linderhill said:

an interesting episode.  A fascinating concept done almost completely in non-english.  I enjoyed it.

 

On 12/28/2023 at 6:48 PM, thuganomics85 said:

Certainly won't complain about getting Devery Jacobs to voice Kahhori, since I'm all for her getting more and more work after Reservation Dogs (granted, in a just world, all of the young actors in that show would become huge stars.)  Thought she did great work here.

Give the show some credit for having an episode almost entirely not in English (baring The Watcher's narration and Doctor Strange popping up at the end.)  Probably my favorite episode of the season.

 

I agree and thought they did a great job - I am not an expert in the language or culture, but grew up in the Mohawk Valley and have been exposed to quite a bit both reading and in person and thought they did a much better job than usual as far as being accuarate and respectful. I was a bit confused about why the Europeans were conquistadors instead of English, Dutch, or French though. My guess is that they wanted to tie in the lake to the Fountain of Youth so in this universe the Spanish ventured much further north. Or perhaps there was a more practical motivation such as having more ready access to Spanish voice acting talent than Dutch, or being wary of depicting the actual historical conflict. Has anyone seen any explanation for this from the creative team?

[arc]

On 12/28/2023 at 3:48 PM, thuganomics85 said:

Certainly won't complain about getting Devery Jacobs to voice Kahhori, since I'm all for her getting more and more work after Reservation Dogs (granted, in a just world, all of the young actors in that show would become huge stars.)  Thought she did great work here.  Interestingly, 

  Reveal spoiler

she is suppose to have a role in that Echo show coming out in January and it's listed as a different character, but I'm wondering if there will end up being a connection there.

According to an interview with Collider,

Spoiler

She was cast as Kahhori well before the Echo casting ever came up and so it doesn't sound like the two were intended to be linked. I mean, she could be lying, the way Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield lied their asses off about not being in NWH.

This was a lovely episode.

[tennisgurl]

That was a really interesting episode and a bit of a risk, bringing in all new characters for an episode where no one speaks English, but it was also probably my favorite episode so far. I really like that they went out of their way to do something different here. 

Strange has entered the chat!

[Kel Varnsen]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:51 PM, tennisgurl said:

That was a really interesting episode and a bit of a risk, bringing in all new characters for an episode where no one speaks English, but it was also probably my favorite episode so far. I really like that they went out of their way to do something different here. 

It was cool that almost the whole thing was subtitled, and subtitled in two different languages no less. It reminded me of when I watched Shang Chi and seeing how much of that movie was subtitled and thinking how far Marvel had come that they can basically do whatever they want. Because looking back to phase one, Captain America First Avenger had Nazis talking to each other in private and that movie has them speaking English.

[Bruinsfan]

To be fair, I don't think Marvel (or any other studio) worries about backlash from Nazis for not treating their culture with sensitivity and respect.

I too really enjoyed the episode—Kahhori was a very appealing character who got me interested in her story in a surprisingly short amount of time. And the dialogue being almost entirely in languages other than English was icing on the cake. I'd be more than fine with the series exploring the setting with original characters instead of existing MCU ones if this level of quality could be maintained.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 1/15/2024 at 1:40 PM, Bruinsfan said:

To be fair, I don't think Marvel (or any other studio) worries about backlash from Nazis for not treating their culture with sensitivity and respect.

That's true and I looked it up , because I couldn't remember, and there are a bunch of scenes in Black Widow where people should logically be speaking Russian and they aren't. Which is apparently something that annoyed David Harbour.

At the same time I still think this (and Shang-Chi) using a ton of subtitles are sort of like Marvel saying we can do whatever we want, even if it goes against conventional wisdom and people will still watch. 

On a related note there has been a bunch of interest coverage on this episode in Canadian news because the translation of the script was done by Mohawk language experts from Akwesasne. And one was used as the design for Kahhori.