Originally Posted by
grilledcheesing
Thanks–I spent a lot of time putting this fannish nonsense together, so it’s nice that someone appreciates it, lol
See, despite “switching sides”, so to speak, and going from disliking Unthinkable to liking it, I almost have less understanding for those who cling to the idea of “noble Doom”. The idea of a benevolent dictatorship/noble dictator is neat and edgy when you’re 14 (I was ~16 when I first discovered Doom), but after maturing out of that and appreciating the actual real-life horrors perpetuated by authoritarian regimes (and also, y’know, just the basic fundamental way that human beings operate), that portrayal just comes off as incredibly ignorant (whether willfully or not) and lazily simplistic to me.
The quote “absolute power corrupts absolutely”, or that line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about how the people who seek power are the last ones equipped to have it, both come to mind, because Victor von Doom is the LAST person in the world to admit to his mistakes, accept input from others, take criticism well, put himself in others’ shoes, put others’ well-being above his personal wants and needs, and has a serious lack of empathy to boot–not exactly the qualities of a good leader in ANY political system, never mind an absolute monarchy. And especially not when his motivation is not actually protecting and advancing his people, but rather propping up his own fragile ego for the sake of his vanity.
Maybe I’m getting too invested in this politically, but considering everything going on the world right now, it just seems wildly inappropriate, irresponsible, and just downright disingenuous to past, present, and future victims of these regimes to be promoting the ridiculous concept of “benevolent authoritarianism”–an oxymoron in and of itself, which does not and cannot operate on any actual understanding of human behavior, psychology, politics, and hierarchies, ESPECIALLY not in the area of the world Latveria is typically portrayed to be in, which has ethnic and religious tensions from here to Mars.
There’s simply no way Doom is reconciling such wildly divergent opinions “benevolently” without forcing some people under threat of death/imprisonment to do things they don’t want to do, or using magic/tech to brainwash them into doing it–the same way we have not been able to “benevolently” solve many of the political tensions in real life, in any part of the world. Hence either political debate, cooperation, and gridlock (democracies), where support for the leader tends to be abysmally low because everyone’s mad that they had to compromise instead of getting their way 100%, or oppression in favor of one side or the other (autocracies), where support tends to be incredibly high because the group that got the short end of the stick is silenced, while the group that got what they wanted sings the leader’s praises. If anything, all of Doom’s people loving him at all times is an indication that he’s an incredibly repressive ruler, not the magnanimous father figure that some writers/fans insist that he is. See: Vladimir Putin having an 80% approval rating at the time of this reply.
Anyway, existing in comicsland might add more variables to the political table, what with the advanced magic and tech, but it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of human beings. At least, it shouldn’t, because that would make for boring and overly simplistic storytelling if humans could magically agree on everything when the writer finds it convenient for their specific portrayal of Doom.
(Jesus, this turned into War and Peace. RIP word count)
I think Waid’s philosophy (at the risk of putting words in the man’s mouth) is that Doom as initially conceived (forgiving the anachronisms of the 1960s, of course) was already a brilliant, complete character; he didn’t need additional contradictory motivations/behaviors that other writers tried to tack on/shoehorn in after the fact, which only served to muddle and dilute what Waid thought was already a perfectly serviceable character.
Frankly, I’m inclined to agree; I feel like writers trying to square “stalker/murder/dictator/torturer/child abuser” with “noble honorable tortured momma’s boy” is one of the biggest reasons there’s so much division in how Doom should be/is portrayed, and has led to a lot of gross stuff re: what I said above, and also obnoxious inconsistencies that sometimes impede on the enjoyment of the story.
Completely agree. I’m okay with sympathetic villains, but, as you say, some people are, in fact, just evil. That doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting characters, just that we should avoid excusing their behavior in-universe because they had a traumatic childhood, or trying to give them half-assed redemption arcs after they murdered an entire universe, or whatever.
True. I didn’t intend to discredit Lee entirely–obviously, a huge component of any character is their speech pattern, and that was (in most cases) all him in the Lee/Kirby run. I just thought it was interesting (and relevant to Doom specifically) that apparently Kirby would in many cases write the plot/“stage directions” in the margins explaining what was going on to Lee, and that sometimes Lee would deliberately ignore whatever Kirby wrote to pursue his own idea.
Also, there’s the fact that they have extremely differing views on what Doom’s scarred face looks like, which depending on which version you take as cannon does impact the character pretty majorly.
Thanks for responding! I really appreciate this input.