The Cultural Uncanny Valley

A phenomenon of something that seems rooted in someone else’s culture enough to be recognisable, but also off-kilter enough to be not quite right as it is with Avatar: The Last Airbender. It does make sense that despite taking inspiration from various East Asian cultures, the storytellers of Avatar are very much westerners in most regards. Right down to the core elemental powers being rooted in Greek thought, rather than Daoist thought because the latter seemed unrelatable (western bias much, go tell that to the Vietnamese). The Hindu school of thought comes close but with the addition of space, though it’s odd why there aren’t a lot more Indian coded characters in Avatar. Let alone those that aren’t Guru Pathik, given parts of it is based on this school of thought.

But it’s not hard to see why it didn’t resonate much with Chinese, Japanese and Indian audiences, the influences are there but there’s something western about it that felt off to them. Similarly enough, one could have also said the same about the way foreign cultures are portrayed in other media. Which has already happened in the comments of the video clip I linked before, but it’s worth noting how Japanese culture is portrayed differently between those who aren’t Japanese and those who are. The former will often fall into Orientalism (the tendency to other Far Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures), the latter is often telling it like it is in many, many ways. Or for another matter, Italy and Greece in North American fictions.

I remember this academic essay on the way Italian men are portrayed in North American romance stories where they often fell into stereotypical traps, bad grasp of the Italian language and so on, which becomes very obvious to those who’re Italians themselves. That’s not to say Italians can’t be dark-haired either, but there’s a particular othering to the way Southern Europeans are portrayed by Northern Europeans and Anglo-Americans, like how they’re seen as not quite like them in many ways (Catholic, different gender roles, ad infinitum). This becomes obvious to those who’re Southern European themselves/themself, like how the earlier stereotype of the Hot Middle Easterner (as evidenced in The Sheik) echoes itself in portrayals of Southern European men.

I suspect the cultural uncanny valley exists in nonfiction where there’s a tendency for others to idealise a country they like, ignoring its actual faults (despite being present on some level) if you point this out and the like. Not necessarily unreal but at times it feels like a romanticised view of the country, not so much how its inhabitants see it as, warts and all. Or for another matter demonisation, which is again not how its inhabitants see it as, but in the opposite direction. The cultural uncanny valley inevitably exists due to foreigners’ conceptions and ideas about foreign cultures, which says a lot more about them than it does about those countries and how their inhabitants see them as. Which is how countries get othered in any way, which is not how their inhabitants perceive these to be.

The thing about Rachel Summers

I remember this discussion over at Livejournal before about the meaning of hair colour in superhero comics where in the case with the womenfolk, blonde hair often immediate denotes beauty and red-haired women are either dangerous or dangerously fun with the exception of Barbara Gordon at the time. Like how there’s a tendency for cartoonists to make the daughters more closely resemble their mothers, with the exception of Mayday Parker who resembled her father more. Right down to the similarly dark hair and her outfit being nearly identical to his, instead of being a feminised or skimpier version of the male counterpart’s outfit. As it is with Batgirl and Batwoman to Batman, Supergirl to Superman or Hawkgirl to Hawkman,

In the case with Rachel Summers, the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, considering that her maternal grandmother (Elaine Grey) is blonde or perhaps was blonde, and that Scott’s own brother Alex is blond himself, which should make pedantic sense that Rachel should’ve turned out blonde herself. But I suspect giving her red hair is meant to communicate that she’s practically her mother’s doppelganger, which is particularly true over the years. To the point of taking on one of her mother’s former nom de plume Marvel Girl for a long while, dressing up very much like her from time to time that the biggest visual difference between the two is that Rachel often has shorter hair. If she had been blonde, this wouldn’t be the case.

Maybe not to the same extent that I’m proposing but easier to tell apart in terms of appearance alone, though it’s possible some cartoonist briefly gave her blonde hair by accident before, that she may not have been made into a Jean Grey doppelganger so often if this was the case. It’s very obvious that since from the start that Rachel was and still is meant to be a Jean Grey doppelganger, she doesn’t just have her mother’s abilities and hair colour, she also sometimes dresses up like her and even share the same nom de plume together. She’s very derivative of her mother in ways her brother Cable isn’t, despite sharing the same parents and abilities together. This says a lot about the way she’s written over the years.

That’s not to say I hate her as a character, but there’s no mistaking that she’s very similar to Jean Grey in many, if not most, regards. Not necessarily entirely identical but similar enough to act as an adequate understudy for her whenever Mummy Jean’s away or something, which really hurt whatever claims to uniqueness Rachel herself may have had. The way she’s written over the years should tell you that there’s a tendency for writers to treat her like a Jean Grey doppelganger, not just in abilities and hair colour, but also how and why she even dresses up like her from time to time.

This may not be unique to Jean Grey herself as Emma Frost might have hers with the Stepford Cuckoos, but with other characters it’s not exactly, particularly nor wholly the case. Nightcrawler is Mystique’s son and shares the same blue skin as hers, but his ability is very different from hers so he’s never going to be his mum’s doppelganger. Vanora is Rahne Sinclair’s daughter but while both women have the same ability (turning into wolves), she looks and acts differently from her as to not be her doppelganger either*. Theresa Cassidy bears similarities to her father Sean but she’s more of his female counterpart, rather than be an outright doppelganger for him the way Rachel is to her mum.

When she’s been shown to dress much like her own mum in a consistent number of instances, even if it may not’ve been especially frequent, take on her mum’s codenames and even wore an outfit similar to hers as Marvel Girl for a time in the 2000s, then she really is her mother’s doppelganger and far more often than what Vanora is to Rahne Sinclair. She’s often her own mother’s understudy in a way the other X-Progeny aren’t to their own parents, the latter aren’t to the same extent that she is to Jean Grey really. So it’s inevitable that she’s going to be compared to her, since she is the prototype for the sort of character Rachel grew into. Assuming if she may’ve been more different at the conceptual stage.

But I suspect that writers frequently turning her into her mother’s doppelganger and understudy undermined their ability to make her actually stand out from her in some other way, that it’s going to be real tricky into not making her Jean-lite. Whatever attempts at making her stand out more from her mum tend to be short-lived, since her time as Mother Askani was undone by the time she reappeared as a young woman again. At other times, they’re often not well-thought. That’s not to say she sucks as a whole but that it’s harder making her stand out from Jean, when she’s so often turned by writers into her understudy and doppelganger.

*I could be wrong in here as she may’ve been her mother’s doppelganger in a sense (as she could take on any wolf form), though not as often as Rachel is to Jean, which is saying since she doesn’t make any further appearances since then.

The curse of comics accuracy

I feel like that costume designers are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to making superhero costumes, perhaps there’s a demand for both comics accuracy and making it look grounded. But sometimes this comes at the expense of the actors’ comfort and how some of them get destroyed real easily, to the point where if you were to design such outfits for comfort and durability that they’d have to be made almost unrecognisable from their comics counterpart.

Something like in Smallville, where the tradeoff’s that perhaps until the last episodes, the outfits look comfortable and durable enough to take multiple beatings. Which is what superhero costumes should be made of, since superheroes tend to get into fights and do incredible stunts a lot that they need something durable to wear. In fairness, they do change their outfits. Either that or take a cue from popstars, which some costume designers likely already do on some level. But that would mean making them actually wearable.

Something somebody would actually wear while dancing and prancing around onstage and comfortably so, that popstar outfits already hit the sweet spot between flamboyance and practical comfort without even trying. The more I think about Wolverine, the more I realise that he’s a very rowdy character who really needs outfits made out of durable fabric to take every beating that even if he has a healing factor, he has to wear something that doesn’t show his weak spots and injuries. Something like canvas and duck.

Or perhaps something like ramie, but that involves realising what looks cool isn’t real what the character actually want in a outfit for themself. Somebody like Cassandra Cain needs something comfortable to wear, so a gimp mask wouldn’t be right for her though a ski mask kind of evokes it without being too uncomfortable to wear. But this is me working with fabrics from my experience as a self-employed seamstress, so this colours the way I feel what the characters should be wearing.

There’s no point for them to wear something that gets destroyed easily, or is uncomfortable in some way that they might as well ditch the tight tactical outfits altogether in favour of wearing what actual people wear and in earnest. Besides people have worn more flamboyant and ridiculous outfits than that, the late Prince Nelson has worn an outfit that showed his bare buttocks. Madonna has worn an outfit that shows off her bare chest, you could see very comic booky looks in events like Wave Gotik Treffen and the like.

People in the real world have worn racier outfits than that, if I’m not mistaken David Bowie wore a sheer shirt and Daniel Ash from Bauhaus and Love and Rockets has worn a fishnet shirt with tight trousers. There are always women who have the audacity to wear rather racy outfits in public, so it seems truth really is much stranger than fiction. A kind of weird irony to think that costume designers strive to make superhero outfits look grounded in some way.

When real life musicians have worn gaudier outfits than that, but they could also serve to inspire superhero costumes. In the sense that an actual person wore this, though this is something superhero costume designers have realised on some level. Even then, what real people wear is sometimes more flamboyant than what you see in fiction.

And sometimes what a person would want to wear for themself is really different from superhero designers’ conception of the same, especially when one does a lot of physical activity in some way.

The funny thing about strawberry blond hair

The odd thing I realised about strawberry/reddish blonde hair is that in some lightings, it doesn’t look too different from regular blond that characters like Antonia Fraser’s Jemima Shore (a character that I tend to get recurring dreams about in some way) could easily be read as golden-haired, or in other words blond. Nancy Drew has also been described as having reddish gold/red-gold/reddish blond hair and could also be read as another blond too, these two characters have inspired one character of mine: Jemima Szara. She’s named after the other Jemima, but has some traits reminiscent of Nancy Drew like a white cat and a dog.

She’s even the daughter of a widower like Nancy too, though he works in the Navy instead of a law firm. Now as for Marvel’s Dazzler, she initially had reddish blond hair. But the more she hung out among the X-Men, considering that Jean Grey often has redder hair than hers, the more she came to be tacitly accepted as blond over time. There’s a scientific phenomenon regarding colour contrast/perception where a certain colour doesn’t seem so particularly something when contrasted with another colour, like it’s an optical illusion or something. Comes to think of it this way, this is exactly what happened to Dazzler over the years.

She seemed like a redhead compared to the Enchantress, especially in her own magazine series, but once she got dropped into the X-Men stories she came to be regarded as another blond. No different from Longshot, Emma Frost, Illyana and Magma really. This is also the same with both Flash Thompson and Eddy Brock in the Spider-Man stories, that though both men were given naturalistic red hair early on but because Mary Jane often has redder hair than theirs that they got blonder over the years. The way we perceive things affects the way we see something, or read and interpret characters.

Even if certain characters were/are intended to be redheads, they don’t always come across as intended to be by others. Because brassy/reddish blond hair sometimes doesn’t look too different from regular blond in some lightings that it’s easy to read Nancy Drew and Jemima Shore as blondes, not to mention the phenomenon of colour contrasts where this has affected Dazzler over the years in comparison to Jean Grey. Even if Dazzler was intended to be a naturalistic redhead, she doesn’t seem so flame-haired compared to Mrs Scott Summers that she’s going to be seen as another blond eventually.

That the former two have often been described as having red-gold hair, so they could easily be seen as golden-haired by others at any point.

Superhero stories and female fans

I remember somebody pointing out one problem with superhero stories and why they don’t resonate much with a female audience: superheroines often come off as male writers’ idea of a female power fantasy, that it’s going to be difficult making them actually interesting and relatable to female readers if only writers weren’t hampered by their desire to meet fanboy demands as well. If this is true, then it does explain a lot of things. I could go on saying that certain female characters come off as some male writers’ idea of a strong or relatable female character, but they themselves rarely come off as something a woman could’ve and would’ve come up with.

Not to mention this person goes on saying that there’s a difference between the way your usual superhero is written, as opposed to the way prose fiction characters are written. With the possible exception of some speculative writers, prose writers are expected to make their characters realistic as to be relatable, lest they lose readers along the way if they don’t. The same can’t be said of the way your average superhero is written, which would explain why the way they’re written is so outlandish as to give the impression of them being created by people out of touch with the real world. Maybe not all, but still when it comes to some.

When I think about it this way, it seems some superheroes are written by people who’re out of touch with the real world that they might as well be a true figment of their imagination. Even if it didn’t start out this way, it’s this easy to venture into utter unreality when your points of references aren’t just narrow, but also progressively out of touch with the real world. Sort of like what happened to Marvel Comics’ Kate Pryde, at any point where she was a more grounded character she became less grounded over time. It’s not enough for her to be unusually smart and athletic, but also have a pet dragon and stuff.

Compare her to Nancy Drew, who tends to have more ordinary tastes in pets. She has a dog named Togo and a cat named Snowball, that’s actually more relatable to many more people this way as well. It’s not hard to see how out of touch some superhero writers are when it comes to creating relatable characters, especially relatable female characters at that, since they all come off as their idea of what women are like and ought to be, not so much women as they really are. I even think the way they write certain characters is kind of tangential, in the sense that they’re kind of detached from the real world in some way.

Escapism is one thing, unreal characters are another. This extends to the way disabled characters and nonwhite characters are written, especially if they risk coming off as offensive stereotypes at any point. One Cassandra Cain fan intelligently pointed out the way Cassandra Cain has been written by non-Asian writers does and did risk verging on offensive racist stereotypes at various points, especially with regards to her being generally both expressionless and in a subordinate position as to be seen as submissive.

It’s not hard to see how Storm comes off as basically a white person’s idea of an exotic black person, not so much as an actual African, let alone an actual Kenyan. They’re not characters that organically come from Kenyans, if you want comics characters as created by actual Kenyans look no further than the Shujaaz characters to see something done right. The way a good number of superheroines are written over the years sometimes veers on misogynistic stereotypes and ideals as to put off female readers, it’s not surprising they’re course correcting it at this point but who knows if many more women will be drawn to superhero stories without suspicion and apprehension.

It’s not hard to see the way these stories are written don’t appeal to female readers that much, for whatever reason but the way female characters are written are off-putting for others.

Good Vibrations

Somebody said that Satan finds a way to promote his propaganda through something innocuous: children’s clothing and media, as unlikely as it sounds it’s far more prevalent than one realises. It’ll manifest itself as strategically placed stars that could easily be pentagrams, the go-for Satanic symbol by the way. It could also be cutesy demons appearing in children’s books, comics and programmes, as I pointed out before about Marvel stories having characters patterned after the Devil himself. You have Daredevil (who looks like the Devil), Damian (Son of Satan), Nightcrawler who’s said to look like a demon, Illyana Rasputina sometimes looking demonic herself and then there’s Spider-Man doing the Devil sign.

It’s surprising to me why there’s so little criticism by Christians over these characters even if they’re just as objectionable as Harry Potter is, but I remember somebody on Reddit saying that unfortunately a lot of Christians are worldlier than they should be. So they go after some stuff and not others, albeit not in ways they immediately realise what else actually are to God. Because there’s so few Christian criticisms of these characters and stories, despite being just as spiritually abhorrent, that it’s shocking why they’re never held to the same standard as Harry Potter got. I even think they’re even worse because they portray the Devil as a likable, heroic figure. Similarly enough, not a lot of Christians were alarmed over DC’s Lucifer, even if they should.

But unfortunately it’s very, very easy to give anything superheroic a pass by many Christians, even I myself at various points, but the thing here is that I feel our standards for what’s good and holy is really low. What we think edifies us is sometimes a low bar, far lower than we expect it to be. This is why X-Men manages to escape the radar of every Christian, despite portraying Christians in a bad light and even blaspheming the Bible multiple times, coupled with a demonic heroine too! Sadly and quite surprisingly, not a lot of Christians object to Marvel’s Daredevil either, even though this is a cartoon character who clearly is the Devil portrayed as a superhero. Then there’s Damian, Son of Satan, shouldn’t that ring a bell among all of us?

This is again a sign of Christians, even myself at various points, having low standards for what’s good and holy that sometimes we get drawn to these things in various ways. I’ve been through this before, others likely too despite being Christians. I don’t think this is something we should be doing, if we know it’s bad or suspicious, even if we get drawn to these. All things are useful, but not all things are spiritually good as what Paul said. I’m misquoting and misremembering it, but you should get the gist of what he said to Timothy. If you think Spider-Man is Satanic because of that hand gesture he makes, you might as well need to avoid him in good conscience.

That’s quite frankly the saddest thing in life that we sometimes let in things we should object to, we do struggle with sin from time to time but I feel the Devil will take advantage of the things we like. It could be something like fabrics, superheroes, so on and so forth that we could get drawn to these despite our God given consciences. Even if the urge is strong, it’s best to go for a less offensive alternative instead.

The problem with DC and Marvel

When it comes to DC and Marvel having difficulties attracting new fans at all, or even casual fans at that, it’s got to do with the way their respective storytelling worlds are set up that make it harder for people to find a certain character they are or are curious about. In fact, I even think the shared universe set-up is highly inconvenient when it comes to finding said character, especially if that character doesn’t have their own magazine series of their own or their own book volume to star in that makes it harder to keep track of them at all. While both DC and Marvel’s search engines are likely getting better at making others find that character in mind, it’s too inconvenient for them to find that character especially if they’re not dedicated nor veteran readers of their stories.

While self-contained stories aren’t any better to an extent, at least you know where and when to find said character in said storyline. Especially if it’s self-contained within that story’s universe that if you’re going to find say Trish Una in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, you’ll most likely find her in the Golden Wind stories. Philippine comic strip collection volumes make it easier to find said character by grouping whatever appearances said character makes in their own namesake chapters, as it is with my Pupung and Simo and Friends books, maybe not all the time but still. The way DC and Marvel is set up unintentionally deters both casual and new readers from checking out those stories, where you’d really have to keep up with their appearances to find those stories at all.

To the point where any aspiring superhero franchise is better off without it, given it’s going to be a hassle finding said character in said story. Especially if that character doesn’t have their own magazine series or tend to be supporting characters and villains for long that inconveniences things even further, particularly if readers are curious about them at all. So the real issue with DC and Marvel isn’t so much about continuity (well sometimes), but rather how the shared universe setup inconveniences a lot of things because some readers are interested in certain characters who aren’t particularly that popular, but can’t easily find them in any way they like. To the point where it would be this easy to give up on them, as it is with me speaking from personal experience.

Combined that with ever-changing reader tastes and interests where it’s not surprising why DC and Marvel have so much difficulty catching up with them at all, if they can’t catch up with the characters they like then it’ll be an uphill battle for these two to get not only a new readership, but also a casual readership as well.

Evil

Celestial said that there are demons who are out there to win souls in their own twisted, malicious way and one of those methods involves dominating things like games and toys. To be fair, there are some authors and producers who have a chance of being saved. To be very, very honest I didn’t just pray for the salvation of a certain crime fiction author, but also have God help them write a story involving where one of their characters no longer cheats and is married. That will happen in my lifetime and theirs, though I have no idea when will it happen. But it could come when God wills it to, possibly greater than I have ever imagined.

Or for another matter, the salvation of those in the video game and cartooning industries. It could happen and turn out far better than I have ever imagined or assumed, so it’s a matter of timing and trusting in God enough that he will make these come to fruition. I don’t know when will these actually happen, since I prayed repetitively for one of those. I don’t know if God will ever bring back the Hoimancoi website, the Vietnamese website that I have been going to until now. But if he’s going to bring it back, I have to wait and trust in him that he will bring it back in due time.

But I’m getting off-topic here so getting back on-topic, demons dominate nearly every industry. Sometimes not in ways you expect and for every musician and author who do turn to God, sometimes due to intercessions made by others for the Lord, there are those who lost themselves to the dark side for good. It could be a super-wholesome musician that you wouldn’t really know that they dabble in the occult or something, sometimes it’s a superhero story franchise that seems well-intentioned and admirable until it talks trash about Christianity.

I could be referring to Taylor Swift and the X-Men, the latter barely ever gets scrutinised by Christians. Not even during the Satanic Panic years where surprisingly it managed to fly under their radar, even if it’s just as heinous when it comes to advocating evil things like blasphemy and the Devil himself. One of the characters is demonic herself, her name is Illyana Rasputina and she sometimes looks devilish. Pretty strange why not a lot of Christians scrutinise X-Men for this, even if it’s just as bad as Harry Potter in some regards. Or perhaps even worse since it advocates even more things they detest the most.

It could be evolution, LGBT matters or polyamory but that would involve holding it up to the same standards they do with Harry Potter, which means they lack critical thinking as X-Men stories seem very innocent and innocuous even if its writers are just as culpable. Let’s not forget that one of the X-Men villains is a pastor and whenever Christians do show up in those stories at all, they’re usually portrayed in a questionable light. They needn’t to be perfect but when there are so few positively portrayed Christians in the X-Men stories, it does make you wonder about writers’ agenda.

I still feel for every author who do convert to Christianity, some due to others’ intercessions like mine with Antonia Fraser (I spoilt it, finally) there are those who remain apostate. There are those who remain anti-Christian, so anti-Christian that they make it known in their stories and viewpoints. I’m afraid there will be more of those anti-Christian writers in the future, they wouldn’t be fringe anymore but that would mean demons have the final say in those. They will make themselves apparent, as if aliens really do exist in the universe. That’s the point Celestial’s been saying in her blog.

But this would be the most frightening part of some of her prophecies to date.

Falling Away From Me

Celestial had a prophecy where more and more people will fall away from God, although this is probably already being fulfilled to an extent these days. Especially in the west where it’s not only home to rapid secularisation (at least in some countries), but also where paganism is being revived and in the case with fandom, we have new forms of idolatry around. Some even have religious pretensions, especially whenever they refer to their fansites as shrines. I feel there ought to be more bile against geek fandoms like one would with Catholicism, especially when pertaining to idolatry as they’re morally and scripturally equivalent. If it’s idolatry to do graven images of say Jesus, then it’s no different if it’s Superman.

But that would mean there are other, much worthier targets of Christian ire that it can’t just be the usual punching bags that are at fault. Anything else is at fault too as this is a fallen world, that the Devil can take advantage of our spots is telling. I feel the Devil is far too smart for us to realise or understand in any way, especially when it comes to encouraging idolatry that it needn’t to be Catholicism or even sports to do the trick. There are other things he can use for us to make idols out of, it could be something like DC Comics and it’s something this publisher has been and is always culpable in enabling this. Same goes for Marvel, especially when it comes to the ‘true believers’ part.

It’s rarely ever brought up in many Evangelical circles, even when DC and Marvel are just as guilty, because I think superheroes look pretty innocent but that makes them more deceptive. If the Devil is this deceptive, then something seemingly innocent would work in his favour. This makes the superhero genre pretty convenient for this as it’s something Christians seldom find any issue with, far less than they do with both Catholicism and Harry Potter. Even if I’m not a fan of Harry Potter, I feel it can’t be the only story with anti-Christian values. Since something like X-Men is just as guilty of, though criticised less for it. To my knowledge, HP never had a church getting destroyed.

But that’s preferable to where churches get destroyed, where anything biblical is mocked and where pastors are portrayed as suspect as what X-Men writers have been doing. For every writer who does become a Christian at all (including some authors behind detectives, who may one day write these characters as married Christians or something), there are those who are in the world whether as atheists or into witchcraft as it is with Grant Morrison and Alan Moore. Somebody else has put out a series about this, though none yet about X-Men even if it’s actually more culpable than Harry Potter will ever be. Spiritually speaking and why we shouldn’t trust those longer.

The Rob Liefeld of writing

When it comes to bad comics art, the go-for whipping boy is Rob Liefeld. That’s not to say that I like him and his art, but that his name often gets singled out for badness. But as what somebody on Escher Girls said, he might not be the only one who does badly proportioned figures a lot. Somebody like Ragnell also pointed out that Liefeld gets a lot of flack for drawing men poorly, something that escaped his Image contemporaries for a long while. As to who would be the Rob Liefeld of comics writing, it’s harder to quantify and find somebody who qualifies. Let alone be as relevant as Liefeld is and has been, not to mention somebody else pointed out that comics readers might have a lower standard for writing.

If this is true then this would explain why it’s hard coming up with a Rob Liefeld of writing, if because the standards for writing are really low at times. There’s something peculiar about geek culture in how it evaluates storytelling in which there’s a stronger emphasis on lore, but not on actually deconstructing the underlying flaws in a story. Even if there are geeks who do the latter, at times they’ll be countered by contrary figures. This has happened to me before and there’s something about geek culture that seems wary of any deeper analysis of a story, especially regarding its problems though that doesn’t mean the authors in question are evil. At times I feel this would reveal a more human side to them.

They could be prone to anger, guilt, shame, sorrow and regret, they do things when they don’t feel good and sometimes they mess up all the time. They mess up often, get things wrong, so they’re human. But I don’t think large swathes of geek culture are willing to recognise this, in the sense that they’d rather wallow in database/moe elements, lore and worldbuilding than allow a forum to discuss about the author’s and story’s shortcomings even if this leads to a better understanding of why the story turned out the way it did. I could go on saying that X-Men stories and writers do a poor job at portraying ethnic minorities, because even if you confine it to white characters the metaphor still wouldn’t work well because almost none of them speak a minority language.

That’s one elephant in the room that’s barely ever discussed online, even if languages are important to nearly every cultural identity. They could ever wet somebody’s appetite for learning a new language, if it’s something they’re curious about and willing to try out. That’s what happened to me with Scottish and Irish folk music, an X-Men comic featuring a Scottish Gaelic speaking character would do the same for others. But since that’s rarely if ever attempted in X-Men stories, so the metaphor is going to fall apart anyways. Even if X-Men writers use the stories to further their activism, it’s never going to be really deep if they don’t raise awareness for minority languages.

That they don’t bother learning any minority language forever undermines their efforts at activism when using Marvel characters at all, so this is one area of writing that a good number of geeks ignore is that authors’ efforts at getting the point across are often undermined or hamstrung by their own shortcomings. They could come off as well-meaning but ultimately ignorant and lacking self-awareness in how they come across to other people, it’s not just an X-Men problem in this regard but how it effects other authors to varying degrees despite their best efforts. But this is also likely another reason why geeks’ standard for good writing is lower, if they don’t spend their time understanding why things don’t end up the way they intend to be.

A writer might have a good point but is unable to comprehensively address it in a way they like, if it’s always undermined by a recurring fault of theirs. It’s not just an X-Men only problem, but common to a good number of authors. Regardless of the points they’re trying to address, it’s often undermined or hamstrung by their own faults that rubs off the wrong way in some people.