S05.E13: Principia

[VCRTracking]

It is funny to me how much Fitz and Simmons being grandparents to an adult man does work so well. You can actually imagine Jemma as the sweet, kindly grandma and Fitz as the grumpy grandpa!

Edited March 20, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Lunula]

I think my view on Deke differs than some here. First, I don't think he sold Daisy into slavery for money. I'm sure some will point to semantics, but first - they were all already enslaved and second, Daisy was being her normal "Act first, think later" and had no plan at all when she pushed forward. Deke tried to reason with her, but I guess she felt like an expert on the dynamics of this (foreign) new world after being there for 1 day. Her rushing in likely would've resulted in not only her death, but the deaths of many others. Deke knew this and thought that turning her in was the only way to stop her. At least his solution, as flawed as it was, left the door open for her (and the others) to live. The fact that he got money for it made him an opportunist IMO, not a slaver. I definitely do not see him as ambiguously good/bad like Ward. 

One annoyance I am dealing with is Yo-yo's insistence that the future will unfold as it always has, yet she isn't sharing what she knows with anyone in an attempt to change it. Is she depressed and not thinking clearly - just being fatalistic? I dunno, but it irks me. 

Edited March 22, 2018 by Lunula
Spelling

[Lobsel Vith]

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 7:03 AM, Affogato said:

I think you may be confusing ‘excuse’ with ‘reason’

No, because Deke selling someone into slavery was excused, and the reasons he expressed for doing so flip-flopped to him romanticizing his actions by vilifying his victim or him bringing up his sad childhood as if he's a watered down version of Ward.

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 7:03 AM, Affogato said:

I think you may be confusing ‘excuse’ with ‘reason’  It is a lot easier to deal with someone’s actions if you can understand why they did them, even if you wouldn’t do the same thing. And, while slavery is a hard ‘no’ for me it clearly crops up in many societies widely separated by time and geography. Are all people in these societies, the Bantu as a whole for example, evil? 

I'd say selling someone into slavery for money is one of those scenarios where you don't excuse the person simply because they had a hard life or look a certain way - it's that simple for me. I've dealt with years of people doing exactly that when it came to Ward - he worked for an offshoot of Nazis, willingly worked for them despite their plans to commit genocide, murdered a plethora of innocent people, and threatened to "take what [he] wants" from Daisy because he thought doing so would awaken feelings in her for him. And people excused Ward for everything he did for the same reasons people are excusing Deke for what he's done. It's a bit tired at this point.

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 7:03 AM, Affogato said:

Also our heroes are responsible for summarily taking freedom away from a lot of people by killing them. Libertarians would say this is better and so would I, sometimes, but it is worth thinking about. 

Let's not pretend that taking down bad guys is the same as selling someone into slavery.

[Gothish520]

17 hours ago, Lobsel Vith said:

No, because Deke selling someone into slavery was excused, and the reasons he expressed for doing so flip-flopped to him romanticizing his actions by vilifying his victim or him bringing up his sad childhood as if he's a watered down version of Ward.

I'd say selling someone into slavery for money is one of those scenarios where you don't excuse the person simply because they had a hard life or look a certain way - it's that simple for me. I've dealt with years of people doing exactly that when it came to Ward - he worked for an offshoot of Nazis, willingly worked for them despite their plans to commit genocide, murdered a plethora of innocent people, and threatened to "take what [he] wants" from Daisy because he thought doing so would awaken feelings in her for him. And people excused Ward for everything he did for the same reasons people are excusing Deke for what he's done. It's a bit tired at this point.

Let's not pretend that taking down bad guys is the same as selling someone into slavery.

I agree with @Lunula - Deke turned Daisy in, he didn't "sell" her into slavery. They were slaves already. He basically ratted her out and got compensated for being a snitch. Not the most honorable thing to do, but somewhat understandable given the circumstances. He just met these fools and they're running around like they own the place. Of course, we know what they're trying to accomplish, but after everything that the folks at the Lighthouse had been through, it's understandable that some of them would be cautious. Tess and Flint trusted the team quicker than Deke - everyone has their own feelings based on their own experiences. Plus, women are more trusting and forgiving, and Flint was young and just went through terrigenesis. They are all coming from different perspectives.

As for Ward, I guess I can understand why some people may have tried to come up with excuses for his behavior - I was crushed when it was revealed he was HYDRA. But, I got over it, and his character quickly became irredeemable to me. If people were still making excuses for him, I can only surmise that it is because he's gorgeous and had amazing chemistry with Daisy, and people like to try to understand a character's motives. I also have to admit that I enjoyed Framework Ward - it was a bone thrown to those who lamented what might have been. But of course, it was pure fantasy.

If one must hate Deke, so be it, but he is nowhere near the evil nutjob that Ward was - not even close. 

[Lobsel Vith]

5 hours ago, Lunula said:

I think my view on Deke differs than some here. First, I don't think he sold Daisy into slavery for money. I'm sure some will point to semantics, but first - they were all already enslaved

No, the denizens of the Lighthouse weren't all enslaved - they lived under a tyrannical regime, but there's a difference between living under oppression and literally being the property of someone else like Daisy was.

5 hours ago, Lunula said:

Daisy was being her normal "Act first, think later" and had no plan at all when she pushed forward.

You mean, the way that Fitz had no plan and literally suggested to Enoch at one point that they simply shoot their way out of there (despite being a Stark-level genius)? It's a bit odd how Daisy is heavily criticized in the name of excusing Deke's actions but no one points to how Fitz also took action without having an actual plan beforehand. Fitz also tried to talk to Simmons despite how easily he could have been overheard by anyone, and was nearly caught by Kasius in the attempt (despite Enoch's warnings).

5 hours ago, Lunula said:

Deke tried to reason with her, but I guess she felt like an expert on the dynamics of this (foreign) new world after being there for 1 day. 

I guess Daisy refusing to trust Deke - after scene after scene explaining why she came to a position where she didn't trust him (from his mercenary attitude towards the group to being horrified at the Framework network she felt he was using to take advantage of people living there to him claiming that she destroyed the world and then saying a parallel universe version of her did so) - means that you think Deke was completely justified to engage in slavery.

5 hours ago, Lunula said:

Her rushing in likely would've resulted in not only her death, but the deaths of many others. Deke knew this and thought that turning her in was the only way to stop her.

That must explain why Deke showed absolutely no concern for the people of the Lighthouse when he sided with Coulson for the expressed purpose of wanting to speak with his father. In fact, it was Flint - not Deke - who continually showed concern for the people living there. It's almost as if we should take Deke's actions and behavior - and not his claims when he's trying to downplay his actions in selling Daisy to Kasius - into account.

5 hours ago, Lunula said:

At least his solution, as flawed as it was, left the door open for her (and the others) to live. The fact that he got money for it made him an opportunist IMO, not a slaver. I definitely do not see him as ambiguously good/bad like Ward. 

It left the door open for her to be tortured, raped, or killed - that's the reality of the situation he put her in. What he did was monstrous. He's a grown man, and he's responsible for his own actions. I've seen people in this community criticize other characters for much less over the years.

[Gothish520]

19 hours ago, Lobsel Vith said:

Fitz also tried to talk to Simmons despite how easily he could have been overheard by anyone, and was nearly caught by Kasius in the attempt (despite Enoch's warnings).

I agree with you there, Fitz was being really annoying and dumb. Be cool, Fitz, seriously.

[sinkwriter]

Quote

We've met characters like Tess, Flint, and Ben who illustrate that Deke's upbringing doesn't excuse his actions

What about how Tess murdered a man, as part of the renewal "life spent, life earned" bullshit? That may not have been the first person she's killed. And as Mack pointed out, she didn't have to kill that man, but she insisted that that was just the way things worked. She said it was to save other lives; Deke felt his action was doing the same, especially since Daisy was all driven to do whatever she wanted in order to find her friends, damn the consequences on the people who actually live there and have to suffer because of it. Do Tess's actions get excused because of the difficult circumstances of the life she was forced to live? Why is it different for her versus any of the others who had to keep their heads down and do similar hideous things just to stay alive? Deke made a terrible choice, without a doubt, but he's not the only one whose hands aren't clean, and that includes the others you listed.

Flint is probably the most innocent of them all, only because he hasn't been around the block as long, and seemed to have nowhere to go so most of his time was spent hiding under the radar.

Edited March 26, 2019 by sinkwriter

[Raja]

7 hours ago, sinkwriter said:

What about how Tess murdered a man, as part of the renewal "life spent, life earned" bullshit? That may not have been the first person she's killed. And as Mack pointed out, she didn't have to kill that man, but she insisted that that was just the way things worked. She said it was to save other lives; Deke felt his action was doing the same, especially since Daisy was all driven to do whatever she wanted in order to find her friends, damn the consequences on the people who actually live there and have to suffer because of it. Do Tess's actions get excused because of the difficult circumstances of the life she was forced to live? Why is it different for her versus any of the others who had to keep their heads down and do similar hideous things just to stay alive? Deke made a terrible choice, without a doubt, but he's not the only one whose hands aren't clean, and that includes the others you listed.

Flint is probably the most innocent of them all, only because he hasn't been around the block as long, and seemed to have nowhere to go so most of his time was spent hiding under the radar.

The Kree also seemed to protect their crop of potential Inhumans to a limited extent.  The slaves still needed to be controled and that would lead to crop losses. The rest of the humans were slaves and breeding stock to see if a Flint would be produced.

[Raja]

On 11/28/2020 at 5:02 AM, BakeryJack said:

In Marvel's "'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'"©, starting in Season 5 Episode 13, SHIELD uses the anti-gravity, gravitonium powered belt buckle belonging to Deek Shaw to construct a sort of containment device to "contain" the rift (the rift being the crack in space-time to what SHIELD calls a fear dimension). After containing the rift in this device they soon realize that this device doesn't have enough gravitonium in the device to hold the rift in forever. In the next episode (Season 5 Episode 14) they are on a mission to find gravitonium to fully power the device to hold the rift. Shield goes on this pointless mission searching the ocean (and the sky) to find this ship containing the gravitonium needed to keep the rift contained. Which brings me to the reason i made this post, but before i voice my opinion i need everyone to know i get that this is a tv show, and just like most every tv show, everything is dramatic to keep people hooked but (and this is "my" opinion) for this circumstance the storyline was way too dramatic for the situation when they could have just strapped the device to a rocket and send it into space before the rift cracked back open. You know, like they used to do in the early episodes when Nick Fury was still the director of Shield and when they sent HIVE into space to die with Lincoln. I'd like to know what people think about my opinion so let me know in the comments.

I haven't gotten to this point in my re-watch yet. But by then Big S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone and Coulson's agents were outlaws without the resources to just shoot stuff into space. Also far beyond knowing that alien life existed, even with Asgard providing protection, and they did not know Asgard had fallen at that point,  just shooting into space left the gravitonium out just to be salvaged by any Ravanger, Kree or other alien in the area and it could come back to bite humanity in the behind. 

Besides the stuff wasn't actually sent into the orbit but rather S.H.I.E.L.D.  secret facilities. Not knowing Hulk's fate with a newer model of quinjet they only knew theirs could get into low earth orbit, not sent on a slow relatively trip to the sun