Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D IV: Oh, the Inhumanity!

[LaZodiac]

yes, but last time were with Cal's help, dont think anyone else is going to be allowed to ressurect her this time.

It seems like a slightly unnececary thing to do when he had already snapped her neck though.

She was still very much alive with a broken back. He had to make sure she was deader then dead. Remember, she came back from death after being literally torn open and organ harvested. All Cal had to do was stitch her bits back up. He had to make SURE she stayed dead, so a super crushing hug to death to the spine would help. They probably disposed of the body later, before it could start regenerating (since we know it's slow unless you feed her a corpse).

Also, I think it was a full on hug, but since Cal is tall she's just lifted off the ground.

[Rakaydos]

Spoiler

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Ultimate Carol Danvers was a high ranking member and sometimes leader of SHIELD - which fit with her original profession in the 616 universe as Air Force intelligence and security during the early space program in the 60's -

Spoiler: carol danvers

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here's a twist: Carol Danvers works for General Talbot, and at some point she's going to get mixed up in something that gives her powers. While still working for Talbot. Let hilarity ensue

[3SecondCultist]

Spoiler: carol danvers

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here's a twist: Carol Danvers works for General Talbot, and at some point she's going to get mixed up in something that gives her powers. While still working for Talbot. Let hilarity ensue

Excellent, that gives the theory even more weight! Of course, we're much more likely to see Marvel cast a newcomer, if only to allow audiences to see the movie without any of the baggage carried by the show. It's possible that a skilled enough writing team would be able to do it, similar to how they're going to be handling Doctor Strange (i.e. forgoing most of the origin story aspects of the movie).

[Kitten Champion]

Spoiler: carol danvers

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here's a twist: Carol Danvers works for General Talbot, and at some point she's going to get mixed up in something that gives her powers. While still working for Talbot. Let hilarity ensue

Oh, then if Talbot and co. become The Office of the MCU, then Carol can be the Pam.

[lord_khaine]

She was still very much alive with a broken back. He had to make sure she was deader then dead. Remember, she came back from death after being literally torn open and organ harvested. All Cal had to do was stitch her bits back up. He had to make SURE she stayed dead, so a super crushing hug to death to the spine would help. They probably disposed of the body later, before it could start regenerating (since we know it's slow unless you feed her a corpse).

Also, I think it was a full on hug, but since Cal is tall she's just lifted off the ground.

As i recall Cal explained that the real reason she came back from that were that he sewed her up again and then feed her an entire village.. im actually not sure she regenerates faster than a normal human being without that.

Else.. the case is kinda.. that if you have first snapped the neck, then moving further downwards to break the spine is a little like first cutting the cord to your toaster, then cutting it again a bit further down.

[LaZodiac]

As i recall Cal explained that the real reason she came back from that were that he sewed her up again and then feed her an entire village.. im actually not sure she regenerates faster than a normal human being without that.

Else.. the case is kinda.. that if you have first snapped the neck, then moving further downwards to break the spine is a little like first cutting the cord to your toaster, then cutting it again a bit further down.

True, but remember she ate a lot of people today. And ate some of Skye as well. She might have a little more electricity in them wires, for lack of a better term.

Look sometimes you just have to crush a vampire's spine JUST to be sure. The symbolism of the hug death is just clutch, and sometimes these things are needed.

Oh hey, maybe he WAS trying to like, crush her organs? Assuming they grew back? Since it WAS established that she...kind of needed them to be alive, and presumably grew them back once she ate a bunch of people.

[ryuplaneswalker]

True, but remember she ate a lot of people today. And ate some of Skye as well. She might have a little more electricity in them wires, for lack of a better term.

Look sometimes you just have to crush a vampire's spine JUST to be sure. The symbolism of the hug death is just clutch, and sometimes these things are needed.

Oh hey, maybe he WAS trying to like, crush her organs? Assuming they grew back? Since it WAS established that she...kind of needed them to be alive, and presumably grew them back once she ate a bunch of people.

I think Situations like Her are why Maxim 37 (there is no "Overkill" there is only "Open fire" and "I need to reload") is a thing.

Whenever you are in doubt as to the state of death of your target, Kill it again, until you are 100% sure it will not get back up.

[3SecondCultist]

True, but remember she ate a lot of people today. And ate some of Skye as well. She might have a little more electricity in them wires, for lack of a better term.

Look sometimes you just have to crush a vampire's spine JUST to be sure. The symbolism of the hug death is just clutch, and sometimes these things are needed.

Oh hey, maybe he WAS trying to like, crush her organs? Assuming they grew back? Since it WAS established that she...kind of needed them to be alive, and presumably grew them back once she ate a bunch of people.

Just wanted to make sure that she was deader than dead. Those regens are hard to kill, makes sense that they would make sure she was dead. Of course, I don't think she can just come back without help from a skilled surgeon like Cal. And it's not like any of her Inhumans were on hand to help her out.

Did anyone see what happened to the other two Inhumans, actually? The ones on the quinjet? They were in the middle of the ocean, a million miles from nowhere, but they could probably swim. Are we supposed to assume they just drowned, then?

[dehro]

For all we know, she can rebuild muscle tissue but not her spine or bones.

[LaZodiac]

Just wanted to make sure that she was deader than dead. Those regens are hard to kill, makes sense that they would make sure she was dead. Of course, I don't think she can just come back without help from a skilled surgeon like Cal. And it's not like any of her Inhumans were on hand to help her out.

Did anyone see what happened to the other two Inhumans, actually? The ones on the quinjet? They were in the middle of the ocean, a million miles from nowhere, but they could probably swim. Are we supposed to assume they just drowned, then?

Yeah I think we're just supposed to assume they died, I think. Maybe when the earthquake hit the plane it crushed them?

[Androgeus]

She's dead till plot twists demand otherwise.

[theNater]

I think Situations like Her are why Maxim 37 (there is no "Overkill" there is only "Open fire" and "I need to reload") is a thing.

Whenever you are in doubt as to the state of death of your target, Kill it again, until you are 100% sure it will not get back up.

Yeah, that only works in stories without revolving door afterlives. This is superhero comics. Even if they burned her to ashes, encased each individual ash in an indestructible force-field, and placed each one into the heart of a different star, that's no guarantee she'd stay dead.

[Kato]

I think Situations like Her are why Maxim 37 (there is no "Overkill" there is only "Open fire" and "I need to reload") is a thing.

Whenever you are in doubt as to the state of death of your target, Kill it again, until you are 100% sure it will not get back up.

But that's only viable if you have unlimited ammo and time. In most cases, you have neither. So you shoot until they don't get up. Of course, those damn regenerators are always tricky like that. Best case scenario, drop them in a volcano or such, fire kills most of them, or burns them faster than they can regen. Of course, that requires a volcano or maybe some other molten metal or something close by.

[Reddish Mage]

Yeah, that only works in stories without revolving door afterlives. This is superhero comics. Even if they burned her to ashes, encased each individual ash in an indestructible force-field, and placed each one into the heart of a different star, that's no guarantee she'd stay dead.

The MCU has yet to establish that they will bring back their dead. Heck magic, time travel, other dimensions, and other such cheap tricks haven't been shown yet.

Yeah I think we're just supposed to assume they died, I think. Maybe when the earthquake hit the plane it crushed them?

Yeah, I imagine Cal ripped Jiaying's heart out, simply because that's effective (or too much OUaT). The deaths here was similarly simply edited out.

Still, the rule is "if you don't see the body" it's fair game to bring them back later.

[Kitten Champion]

The MCU has yet to establish that they will bring back their dead. Heck magic, time travel, other dimensions, and other such cheap tricks haven't been shown yet,

Except Coulson, of course.

Though, as I was saying before, they can't keep actors around perpetually like the way HYDRA kept the Winter Soldier in cryogenic suspension only to bring them out when they need them. The longer they're around the more they have to pay them and unless you're Robert Downey Jr. that's a problem. So perma-death is far more viable a business strategy. As opposed to comics where the characters they use cost nothing and they have copyright maintenance to think about.

[Rakaydos]

Spoiler: Spiderman Origin bait and switch

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Coming home from a school fieldtrip to Oscorp with a spiderbite, Peter isnt feeling well. Aunt May slips him a fishoil tablet and tells him to head to bed early. Cue transformation sequence.

[Reddish Mage]

Except Coulson, of course.

Though, as I was saying before, they can't keep actors around perpetually like the way HYDRA kept the Winter Soldier in cryogenic suspension only to bring them out when they need them. The longer they're around the more they have to pay them and unless you're Robert Downey Jr. that's a problem. So perma-death is far more viable a business strategy. As opposed to comics where the characters they use cost nothing and they have copyright maintenance to think about.

True there. Nitpick on copyright maintenance, they just need to feature the character like, once a decade, to maintain and alternative world's, past sequences, dreams, etc all count.

Also, Coulson's resurrection is super-science that carries a heavy cost.

[theNater]

Except Coulson, of course.

Also Jiaying; Cal cradling her corpse is how we know what he's got against Whitehall. From the movies, Loki dies in Thor's arms and Groot is strewn across the Xandarian landscape. Both of them are back by the end of the credits.

Some people complain about this; I think they're being silly. Death being reversible is just an element of the setting. It can be used well or poorly, and in my opinion, the MCU has used it well so far.

Though, as I was saying before, they can't keep actors around perpetually like the way HYDRA kept the Winter Soldier in cryogenic suspension only to bring them out when they need them. The longer they're around the more they have to pay them and unless you're Robert Downey Jr. that's a problem. So perma-death is far more viable a business strategy. As opposed to comics where the characters they use cost nothing and they have copyright maintenance to think about.

The revolving door nature of death may lead to interesting implications here. When an actor's contract is up, the character dies. Some years later, when there's time for new stories with that character, they come back, but a little different(new actor). Maybe it's an alternate universe version of them, or the process of being brought back to life changed them, or whatever. So we could, in theory, have a new Iron Man movie in 2067 in this same continuity.

[Flickerdart]

So we could, in theory, have a new Iron Man movie in 2067 in this same continuity.

Hollywood, not rebooting anything in 50 years? Now that's fiction!

[LaZodiac]

Also Jiaying; Cal cradling her corpse is how we know what he's got against Whitehall. From the movies, Loki dies in Thor's arms and Groot is strewn across the Xandarian landscape. Both of them are back by the end of the credits.

All characters that have legitimate and understadable ways to avoid death, or in the case of Loki "literally faking it" which I think is okay.

[Carl]

Hollywood, not rebooting anything in 50 years? Now that's fiction!

+1


@Nater:

2 point to bear in mind.

1. All of those examples are cases of someone appearing dead when they weren't. I think we can take it as given that someone made sure Jiayang was deader than dead this time around, and actual death is so far something only Coulson has come back from, and then only after a major fan campaign.

2. Despite the fair amount of overlap the MCU fanbase does include a lot of non-comics fans in it's list of people, i'd argue for a variety of reasons that such people would be much less tolerant of the farcical degree of revolving door afterlife that can pervade the comics. I'm not say Coulson's going to be the only resurrection, but i'd be very cautious about projecting it as anything but the very rarest occurrence.

[Reddish Mage]

Also Jiaying; Cal cradling her corpse is how we know what he's got against Whitehall. From the movies, Loki dies in Thor's arms and Groot is strewn across the Xandarian landscape. Both of them are back by the end of the credits.

Some people complain about this; I think they're being silly. Death being reversible is just an element of the setting. It can be used well or poorly, and in my opinion, the MCU has used it well so far.


The revolving door nature of death may lead to interesting implications here. When an actor's contract is up, the character dies. Some years later, when there's time for new stories with that character, they come back, but a little different(new actor). Maybe it's an alternate universe version of them, or the process of being brought back to life changed them, or whatever. So we could, in theory, have a new Iron Man movie in 2067 in this same continuity.

And we'll be on the 27th Doctor....yeah I don't think we'll get a continuity along those lines...at some point the current Marvel MCU will be brought to an end...probably when the movies stop making money and the public decides they like something else.

As far as revolving doors and cheap death...I don't agree. Yes they bring back some people through fake deaths, super-science and Groot being a plant (although I thought it was a baby Groot not Groot himself)...but I think the tricks they used are one and dones, they are meant to be surprising when they happen and to not the same way twice.

[DiscipleofBob]

Coulson's a Bioware protagonist. He'll talk you to death, but damn if he doesn't have a pile of guns behind him just in case.

Now I want Bioware to do a SHIELD tie-in game in the style of Mass Effect. Hell, even Skye's powers look a lot like some of the biotic powers.

Renegade action to icer the monologuing bad-guy.

[Philistine]

"Shoot him with an Icer" sounds more like the Paragon option. The Renegade interrupt would be a bullet.

[theNater]

Hollywood, not rebooting anything in 50 years? Now that's fiction!

Not likely, I'll grant.

All characters that have legitimate and understadable ways to avoid death, or in the case of Loki "literally faking it" which I think is okay.

Reddish Mage's condition was "if you don't see the body", and we saw the body in all those cases. This makes me think a more expansive condition would be better, like "always". It is always fair game for them to bring back a character the audience thought was dead, because that's a thing that can happen in superhero stories. They need to explain it in each case, sure, but it's always okay in the sense of not breaking the setting. There still needs to be a good story reason for it, of course; bringing a character back just to serve as a surprise isn't cool.

As far as revolving doors and cheap death...

Revolving doors and cheapness of death are not the same thing. I'm going on a line of thought inspired by the Giant in this post, and I say that these deaths were not cheap. The important thing about those deaths isn't a giant tally-board of the living and the dead, it's how those deaths impact the plot and characters. Coulson's death inspired the Avengers to action, and kicked off multiple major mysteries. Jiaying's turned her and Cal into monsters. Groot's gave us his best line and showed the softer sides of Rocket and Drax. Loki's gave us Thor's reaction, and gave him the opportunity to surprise Odin, and will almost certainly pay off more dividends further down the line.

Each death was presented as a death, and was reverted, but each one granted significant return on investment in terms of what they brought to the story. That's what I mean when I say they've been used well.

[Reddish Mage]

The problem with it is this:

Yes various individuals can bypass any security. But those are the specific individuals that A) the index is supposed to stop from becoming threats in the first place. B) the threat they represent has to be balanced against the threat represented byy the alternative. If you don't have an index then that means every superpowered individual is suddenly left to deal with their powers on their own and if any other form of threat, (which is going to be vastly more common), tris to take advantage of them you''ll never know because when they disappear they'll just be another missing normal. Until the bad guys operation gets busted or they start using what they've acquired to do major badness no one will know. Which is the bigger threat?

I tend to come down on the side that such individuals are rare enough on the whole and the mandate to deal with these kinds of people as well tends to offset the dangers.

The other major point i'd make is that at that point all classified data anywhere upto and including nuclear launch codes becomes vulnerable, how far can you really go with not giving them things to go after before it becomes completely silly and counterproductive? Someone with that ability because unstoppable sort of meeting someone they can't control. Illusionists, Shape Changers and Mind Benders are realistically physical goods if they pre-plan enough, which raises the question of if anyone not able to stop them should even worry about them. Nothing you do is going to stop them without crippling yourself to an unacceptable degree vs everyone else.

Like i said i agree there's just enough wiggle room in there for a valid argument, but i hold that it's a very very, very weak one.

I don't see very much wiggle room to support absolutely a pro-Index OR and anti-Index position in just what you are laying out here...or, more importantly, in any particular post I've read in this thread.

A sound absolute argument for or against the Index could theoretically cite some sort of agreeable moral absolute in terms of either security or freedom...yeah like the playground is going to agree on some sort of broad moral absolute involving superhumans...or you could just completely outline the circumstances involved and point to the fact that one or the other would obviously lead to a better result.

Of course, the problem is...we don't have the complete circumstances...we never got a very good view of the world in the first place, and the facts are whatever Marvel/Whedon/ABC/Disney and whoever else has a hand in AoS decides they are going to be at any particular moment.

Hence we are left with guess what is going on within the "text" itself or with intentions of the conglomerate above...I think it mostly comes down to Whedon. I see some pro-Index motions of the plot here and there, but I think that the history of the Marvel universe has never been unambiguously pro-registration...

I don't think it is possible Marvel can ever put together a text that satisfies the reader that registration is definitely a "good" thing...at best they can make it the lesser of two evils.

On the show, you had Jiaying link the Index to the Nazis (yes undercut a bit by it being immediately followed by her going the full-Magneto), the Index is shown as being behind numerous enhanced not being able to live a satisfying existence and instead being forced to deny a part of themselves (of course those people are Scorch and Razor-nails)...and well...the problem is that the guys on the Index in the context of this show have mostly been serving as villains or walking disasters until they are brought on-board SHIELD, which pretty much exists to do the Index thing.

So...I'm forced to conclude, that if there is a way to make the pro-registration argument, AoS would be making it. However, I think there is enough notes of discord given by the Inhumans (as well as many of the "gifteds") before going full-tilt villain, and enough ties to the comic books that I am not convinced that the SHOW gives the INDEX its full throated endorsement as its, let me go for irony, "final solution" until we see things play out to the fullest...

The Inhumans are Coming!...and the MCU will never be the same.

[Reddish Mage]

]Revolving doors and cheapness of death are not the same thing. I'm going on a line of thought inspired by the Giant in this post, and I say that these deaths were not cheap. The important thing about those deaths isn't a giant tally-board of the living and the dead, it's how those deaths impact the plot and characters. Coulson's death inspired the Avengers to action, and kicked off multiple major mysteries. Jiaying's turned her and Cal into monsters. Groot's gave us his best line and showed the softer sides of Rocket and Drax. Loki's gave us Thor's reaction, and gave him the opportunity to surprise Odin, and will almost certainly pay off more dividends further down the line.

Each death was presented as a death, and was reverted, but each one granted significant return on investment in terms of what they brought to the story. That's what I mean when I say they've been used well.

Firstly, The Giant, in that post, was talking about MacGuffens and Setting and Plot...not revolving doors and cheapness of death. In the case of Order of the Stick, you have a literally revolving door afterlife, and yet death is not cheap however, because The Giant uses a lot of mechanisms to make each death mean something.

Spoiler: Spoilers!: DON'T SPLIT THE PARTY - OOTS Book IV

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Roy's death splits the party, freezes the plot in place for a book, and causes V to go mentally unhinged

. Other deaths get their impact

Spoiler: Spoiles: Basically all the most memorable and emotional scenes in Order of the Stick

Show

because the death is the consequence of another characters dramatic change for the worse (Miko's, Tarquin's), because the characters refuse to come back to life or get their ashes scattered, because the character is passed up for a possible undead creation...and so on...

. However, this points to the brilliance of The Giant and not anything about revolving doors in the MCU.

What I'm arguing however, is that MCU, unlike OoTS, does not have a plethora of easy mechanisms for bring a character back to life. If a character dies, and stays dead, that requires explanation in OoTS, simply because even medium-level characters have easy means at their disposal to bring people back from the dead in D&D...

In MCU, all of the reasons each of these deaths had impact, was BECAUSE there is an assumption in place that dead means stays dead! Its meant to be surprising that Jiaying is alive. That a sapling from Groot creates a baby-groot. That Loki's death is an illusion...I would also argue that of these...only Coulson was really ever dead and literally came back to life...and it was also the only one I felt was a cheap contrivance for the sake of a show (they needed a bridge between the MCU and the television show...)

Loki tricked Thor into thinking he was dead. Groot...may...have actually died and baby-groot is another consciousness. Jiaying was taken apart but put back together, etc. Also, I would note that Groot and Loki's "deaths" were reversed pretty fast, so the fake-out is momentary, it isn't something that really stuck like....well Coulson's was supposed to.

It does mean "if you see the body" rule is violated...but that's a general rule of thumb for fiction, not AoS.

The rule for AoS is no "revolving door." Each death must be presumably permanent or death WILL lose its meaning for this show. That means I would predict that any on-screen death can be presumed to be perms-death until we see otherwise. That we need some sort of unique explanation for why we DIDN'T have a real death...and they basically can't bring back Jiaying, Raina, Gordon, or any of the rest of those killed this season without death losing a lot of meaning...which means it will probably not happened.

Seriously...I'm worried that reversing too many more deaths will cause the show to go the way of Charmed...too magical too much too fast...

[theNater]

Firstly, The Giant, in that post, was talking about MacGuffens and Setting and Plot...not revolving doors and cheapness of death.

I was trying to bring in the larger point that the facts don't matter in and of themselves. What matters is how those facts function in service to the story. Whether those are facts about the nature of the Snarl, or other setting facts, or even simply the facts of who is alive and who is dead, they are unimportant except in how they influence the larger story.

What I'm arguing however, is that MCU, unlike OoTS, does not have a plethora of easy mechanisms for bring a character back to life. If a character dies, and stays dead, that requires explanation in OoTS, simply because even medium-level characters have easy means at their disposal to bring people back from the dead in D&D...

The MCU has alien biology, inhuman biology, and superscience; plus the source material and future plans indicate it also has magic, time travel, and straight-up reality manipulation. Our characters don't have ready access to any of it(and if that's all you mean, we're in total agreement), but it's still there. Just as D&D's various resurrection mechanics are still there even in a story about a low-level party. Their existence doesn't impact our story very much, but it's inaccurate to claim they don't exist.

In MCU, all of the reasons each of these deaths had impact, was BECAUSE there is an assumption in place that dead means stays dead!

I don't think the audience assumption there matters as much as you suggest here. The scene between Rocket and Drax is still powerful on repeat viewings, even though we the audience know about baby Groot dancing in the credits. The assumption on the part of the characters matters, but our knowledge isn't theirs.

The rule for AoS is no "revolving door." Each death must be presumably permanent or death WILL lose its meaning for this show. That means I would predict that any on-screen death can be presumed to be perms-death until we see otherwise. That we need some sort of unique explanation for why we DIDN'T have a real death...and they basically can't bring back Jiaying, Raina, Gordon, or any of the rest of those killed this season without death losing a lot of meaning...which means it will probably not happened.

Seriously...I'm worried that reversing too many more deaths will cause the show to go the way of Charmed...too magical too much too fast...

Overuse is a problem, as with any story element. And I'm not saying any of those deaths will or even should be reversed. But I do think the writers are capable enough that some or all of those deaths could be reversed in a satisfying way.

[Kitten Champion]

The MCU has alien biology, inhuman biology, and superscience; plus the source material and future plans indicate it also has magic, time travel, and straight-up reality manipulation. Our characters don't have ready access to any of it(and if that's all you mean, we're in total agreement), but it's still there. Just as D&D's various resurrection mechanics are still there even in a story about a low-level party. Their existence doesn't impact our story very much, but it's inaccurate to claim they don't exist.

There's going to be time travel? Do you mean because there's going to be a Time Gem at some point?

That would be interesting, there's enough MCU continuity now that going to the past actually has a frame of reference.

[LaZodiac]

There's going to be time travel? Do you mean because there's going to be a Time Gem at some point?

That would be interesting, there's enough MCU continuity now that going to the past actually has a frame of reference.

I think the time stone will slow time, or speed it up, not time travel. But we'll see.