How to keep Magneto's Holocaust origin in future adaptions

[ExodusCloak]

Ah yes. Turn a character whose origin shows the horrors of antisemitism into a character whose origins promote antisemitism. Classy.

That is a fairly offense comment in itself Palestinians very existence and considering them living breathing humans promote antisemitism? Are we being for real?
If they really need to change his origin (Which personally I don't think is necessary) making him Palestinian is perfect only to challenge this type of absurd thinking. And your comment is a perfect example of why it fits perfectly with the mutant allegory so well.

In fact it's actually incredible that there hasn't been a Palestinian mutant given the story potential. Although I guess the shift has only been recent where there's a shift in demographics in the western world the majority of younger people (18 to 25) are starting to see them as human and favourably (Source YouGov and Gallop)

[KurtW95]

That is a fairly offense comment in itself Palestinians very existence and considering them living breathing humans promote antisemitism? Are we being for real?
If they really need to change his origin (Which personally I don't think is necessary) making him Palestinian is perfect only to challenge this type of absurd thinking. And your comment is a perfect example of why it fits perfectly with the mutant allegory so well.

In fact it's actually incredible that there hasn't been a Palestinian mutant given the story potential. Although I guess the shift has only been recent where there's a shift in demographics in the western world the majority of younger people (18 to 25) are starting to see them as human and favourably (Source YouGov and Gallop)

I am very well aware of history and common misconceptions. I'd be happy to discuss it in private messages or emails, but would rather not derail the thread.

But I'll at least say this.

Yasser Arafat created the idea that Palestinian was a separate nationality and native to the land to portray Jews as colonizers. When the truth is that Jews were native to the land and got it much back in defensive wars because the surrounding parties weren't satisfied with Jews getting any land at all. Bottomline, Jews still fit an incredible amount of antisemitism today. And those antisemites on the radical left and the radical right use the Palestinian idea as cover and justification. It's sick. And the suggestion of rewriting a character to promote antisemitism is abhorrent. As I said, the thought of framing Ashkenazi Jews as privileged (and unworthy of a character like Magneto) or oppressors, as a group, is disgusting.

[ExodusCloak]

I am very well aware of history and common misconceptions. I'd be happy to discuss it in private messages or emails, but would rather not derail the thread.

But I'll at least say this.

Yasser Arafat created the idea that Palestinian was a separate nationality and native to the land to portray Jews as colonizers. When the truth is that Jews were native to the land and got it much back in defensive wars because the surrounding parties weren't satisfied with Jews getting any land at all. Bottomline, Jews still fit an incredible amount of antisemitism today. And those antisemites on the radical left and the radical right use the Palestinian idea as cover and justification. It's sick. And the suggestion of rewriting a character to promote antisemitism is abhorrent. As I said, the thought of framing Ashkenazi Jews as privileged (and unworthy of a character like Magneto) or oppressors, as a group, is disgusting.

What is antisemitic is conflating all of Jewish people with the actions of Israel rather then consider the actions of the many Israeli Governments it's own actions. The thread was derailed from your 2nd/3rd post when you dropped the same spiel about colonisers not behaving like colonisers. If you want to discuss Magneto outside the context of Israel /Palestine that's fine I'm happy to move this elsewhere but this was thread was set up like this in the 1st page of this by your second and third post.

[KurtW95]

What is antisemitic is conflating all of Jewish people with the actions of Israel rather then consider the actions of the many Israeli Governments it's own actions. The thread was derailed from your 2nd/3rd post when you dropped the same spiel about colonisers not behaving like colonisers. If you want to discuss Magneto outside the context of Israel /Palestine that's fine I'm happy to move this elsewhere but this was thread was set up like this in the 1st page of this by your second and third post.

I simply stated facts about the troubling rising antisemitism on the radical ends of politics. And the idea and insinuations that him as a Jew isn't good enough.

As per antisemitism and the three Ds: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com...n-antisemitism

[Rev9]

I simply stated facts about the troubling rising antisemitism on the radical ends of politics. And the idea and insinuations that him as a Jew isn't good enough.

As per antisemitism and the three Ds: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com...n-antisemitism

As I said on other threads before ,seems to me Magneto subverts the Holocaust victimhood by replacing his kinship with Jews by identifying himself as primarily a mutant and de facto lumping Jews with the rest of humanity. If you were to ask Magneto does he identify with Kity more as fellow Jew or as a mutant? I dont think Eric would give it much thought. This bait and switch has never sat well with me and the writers keep ignoring how bad this looks on the character.

[bat39]

As I said on other threads before ,seems to me Magneto subverts the Holocaust victimhood by replacing his kinship with Jews by identifying himself as primarily a mutant and de facto lumping Jews with the rest of humanity. If you were to ask Magneto does he identify with Kity more as fellow Jew or as a mutant? I dont think Eric would give it much thought. This bait and switch has never sat well with me and the writers keep ignoring how bad this looks on the character.

Honestly, I think this just highlights the problem with taking the "mutant metaphor" a bit too literally/seriously.

Eric being a Holocaust survivor adds another dimension to his character and serves to (retroactively) inform his ideology to some extent, but we cannot infer from it some kind of hamfisted 1:1 correlation wherein mutants = Jews, and humans = Nazis. What Magneto's backstory does is highlight how a man who's seen how the fear and hatred of a dominant group towards a minority group can lead them to the commit the worst possible atrocities on the latter has come to the conclusion that the only way the minority group can safeguard itself is to gain power and premptively defend itself by becoming the dominant group. It's the same logic countless other individuals, in real-life and in fiction, have employed. It's a very human logic - a flawed, sometimes horrifying, logic admittedly. And that's what makes Magneto such a nuanced character, one we can find sympathetic even when he's explicitly the 'villain' of the piece.

What I've described above is the real takeaway from Magneto's story. He's not supposed to an interchangeable symbol to be adopted by a member of any oppressed group, based on shifting socio-political tides - as has been suggested earlier in this thread.

[Zelena]

Claremont added Magneto’s backstory because he wasn’t satisfied with the “Magneto is bad because…”
I don’t like the idea that Magneto having been a victim excuses anything he did later. It’s just an explanation of how twisted, damaged his mind is.

I prefer when it was Claremont who handled this because no matter how heavy-handed the metaphor was (mutant/jew), Claremont always meant well and never excused Magneto’s actions because of it.

I don’t see the point of adding this kind of backstory if you don’t do anything about it. Because of social media, authors are more subject to critic and scrutiny than in the past and the metaphor is trickier.

[crimsontt]

if there isn't any time shenanigans he'll be like over 100 years old which then calls into question his relationship with Xavier which turn calls into question the First Class

Make them both 100 years old, or make the WW2 in the 70’s. Or even pretend the holocaust was contextualized in a fictional war.


Its’s up to you and your imagination. My advice is we should not try to make sense out of the timescale of decades old publication where characters hardly age.

Considering marvel won’t retcon every single aspect of it past canon to localize it’s entire backstory in the recent times, I’m focusing my OCD in other things now

[Chris0013]

Make him a European Jewish person who lost his family in the Bosnian Genocide.

[Ilargi]

Or you could have a child Wanda do a version of "no more mutants" and have them disappear for 30 years from existence and when they return they are just as they were when they disappeared.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Make him a European Jewish person who lost his family in the Bosnian Genocide.

Not to dismiss other historical crimes, but the Holocaust is unique in just how terrible it was, yet at the same time, how normalized it was.

As terrible as human beings have been since, I do think it stands alone.

[ExodusCloak]

Leopolds genocide in the Congo is definitely in the same bracket.

https://www.theguardian.com/theguard...features11.g22

[Chris0013]

Not to dismiss other historical crimes, but the Holocaust is unique in just how terrible it was, yet at the same time, how normalized it was.

As terrible as human beings have been since, I do think it stands alone.

Not dismissing how bad the Holocaust was but have you looked at the numbers the Russians racked up?

As far as my suggestion it comes down to keeping Magneto as a European Jewish descent and not changing race or religion.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Not dismissing how bad the Holocaust was but have you looked at the numbers the Russians racked up?

As far as my suggestion it comes down to keeping Magneto as a European Jewish descent and not changing race or religion.

I don’t look at it in numbers.

The Holocaust may not be the largest act of mass murder in the history of the world, that’s true.

Whether it happened in the Congo, in Stalin’s purges, or Mao’s stupidity, what makes the Holocaust different from all of those is that ethnic genocide wasn’t a bug, but a feature.

Wiping out the Jews/Roma/homosexuals was the whole point. They weren’t trying to elevate their country by deed, but elevate themselves by blood.

The Nazis killed tens of millions, a good number of whom were their own countrymen, on an industrial scale simply because they were an ‘other’. Because they were ‘lesser’.
Ultimately, the number of people killed in the Holocaust isn’t that terribly relevant, because as it was structured, they would have killed every last one of their targeted ethnic groups. The Nazi extermination was industrial in scale, methodical and worst of all, normalized.

That said, I still dislike that they made Magneto Jewish instead of Roma. The Jews were certainly the Nazis' biggest target, but not only ones

[whitecrown]

Was Magneto explicitly Jewish when Claremont revealed him to be a Holocaust survivor? I know in the 90s there was a time when they backtracked on that and made him Roma instead but I don't remember if it was ambiguous when his origin was first revealed.