X-Men: First Class (on mutants)
Jun. 17th, 2011 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyI've been reading a lot of X-Men fic recently. Unsurprisingly. Both gen and also Charles/Erik (occasionally it's hard to tell where the two types diverge). There was a line from one of them (I don't even remember which) that really struck me - about Charles and his mutation.
The line was something like... someone realized that Xavier's mutation is inherently unethical and Charles was just so relieved to have someone realize that, to realize the gravity and the complexity of living with telepathy and why Charles has to fight so hard to be on the side of optimism and integration.
It also ties into something that I know bothered a lot of people about the movie in a gender-sense but didn't bother me - when Charles erases Moira's memory (or perhaps it would be more correct to say that it bothered me, but in the way that I think it was supposed to). It absolutely and completely sucks for her that he does that. And yet, I understand his motivation just as much as I do Erik's in his need to eliminate Shaw/Schmidt. By the end of the movie, Charles has decided that he can't trust non-mutants enough to risk the lives of his students. It's just that Charles isn't willing to kill because of his mistrust. Charles knows that non-mutant humans are a threat to them - he saw the willingness of those men ("just following orders") to kill them. To kill the people who'd just stopped the crisis.
And he knows that the non-mutant humans have reason to be afraid. We heard the arguments at the beginning of the first X-Men movie - they can walk through walls, control minds, etc - it all boils down to one thing: they can't be controlled. That's the fear. There are these powerful people out there, who can't be controlled, and most of the time, they look just like us. Hence the desire for the Mutant Registration Act.
Charles, because of his power, understands those arguments and fears rather intimately from both sides, I would expect. His power is... incredible. He can stop people in place, read their minds, control them completely if he chooses. He knows that his type of power is probably the kind that would most terrify people if they thought about the implications. And yet... it's who he is. It's what he is. In the movie, when Charles can't/doesn't read someone's mind, he fumbles when he tries to communicate. It's just part of how he interacts with the world; his sixth sense.
Both Raven and Charles hurt each other in the movie by denying to embrace the other one is and what they need - Charles wants Raven to be safe, so he encourages her to hide under fair skin and blonde hair; while Raven wants Charles to reassure her, but she made him promise long ago not to read her thoughts, so when he's dealing with her, he's trying to navigate a relationship without casual telepathy to ease the way and he doesn't realize what she's really asking him (and, of course, Charles has no right to be in Raven's head - that where it ties back into his power, indeed, his very self being inherently unethical and that being part of what forms Charles as a character; he can choose to do what comes naturally or he can choose to maintain normal human ethics of privacy).
In the end, Raven is able to go off with Erik, where she was able be blue and herself and encouraged. Meanwhile, Charles locks himself in more tightly - cuts off the human contact that he had allowed to develop and throws himself fully into his school; his mutant children.
The Erik/Charles stuff fascinates me because it's so fast and strong. The Charles-Raven relationship had years to build up and become something strong. Erik and Charles crash into each other, literally, and create a connection that will last for the rest of their lives. It works because they work. Because they're both able to accept who the other person is fairly quickly - Erik lets Charles into his head; Charles is the person who unlocks the depths of Erik's power as well. When they meet, Charles saves Erik's life.
At the end of the movie, Charles is forced to pick between letting his friend die or letting himself become party to murder and a painful death (I can't quite tell, from watching the movie, if Erik realized that Charles felt every moment of Shaw's death, but I suspect that he must). Charles just wants people to stop killing each other. He just wants people to choose to stop killing each other. Both Erik and Charles think that mutants are capable of being 'the better men'. They just disagree on the definition.
Both Erik and Charles desperately want the other one to pick their side. That's where the tragedy comes in. Neither of them want to go their separate ways - Charles wants Erik (and Raven) to stay, while Erik wants Charles to join him. They have a lot in common - neither of them trust non-mutants fully, both of them see the mutants as the next stage in human evolution, both of them believe in embracing who you are - which only makes the differences sharper and more painful. Charles wants to have an integrated society and is willing to fight (in his own way) to achieve that through legal and social means, while Erik does not believe that that's possible - he thinks it's "mutants or humans" and, unsurprisingly, picks the side that's got him on it. Erik has bought into Shaw's belief that only one side can be (deserves to be) left standing.
They aren't enemies at the end of the movie. At least, I didn't see that. Each of them is willing to stand against the other one if they get in the way, but that doesn't make them enemies. Erik is preparing for a war that he sees as inevitable (and, in some senses, even desirable), while Charles is doing his best to create a future where a mutant-human war never happens. Not quite the same battle.
Their friendship is fascinating, in part, because they don't change each other. They connect strongly and they care about each other, but each of them holds true to their own inner values. That's why they can't stay together in the end. Each of them has already decided which lines that they can and cannot cross. Even when Charles is staring at the ultimate horror of what non-mutant humans could choose to do (turn on mutants who had saved them), he still will not cross the line. And Erik can't not cross that line, because that's what his moral compass tells him is correct - defense of the mutant species against the hostile aggressors.
They aren't enemies, but they can't be on the same side.
(the symbolism of Charles getting shot really hits me - it's humans v. mutants, and Charles gets hurt in the crossfire because he wants to save both sides - and yet, again, he can't not make that choice to get in the middle. He'll never stop trying - again, Charles on the beach kills me because he's so utterly focused on other people. It's not until Erik and Raven are gone that he lets himself focus on what's happening with him. Freaking iron-willpower)
They actually helpfully sum it up themselves: "Killing will not bring peace" v. "Peace was never an option" (which is a bit of dialogue that I love because it works on several different levels - directly, it's about Erik's peace of mind, but it functions on a meta level as well).
It's the same conflict that they'll have, over and over.
The line was something like... someone realized that Xavier's mutation is inherently unethical and Charles was just so relieved to have someone realize that, to realize the gravity and the complexity of living with telepathy and why Charles has to fight so hard to be on the side of optimism and integration.
It also ties into something that I know bothered a lot of people about the movie in a gender-sense but didn't bother me - when Charles erases Moira's memory (or perhaps it would be more correct to say that it bothered me, but in the way that I think it was supposed to). It absolutely and completely sucks for her that he does that. And yet, I understand his motivation just as much as I do Erik's in his need to eliminate Shaw/Schmidt. By the end of the movie, Charles has decided that he can't trust non-mutants enough to risk the lives of his students. It's just that Charles isn't willing to kill because of his mistrust. Charles knows that non-mutant humans are a threat to them - he saw the willingness of those men ("just following orders") to kill them. To kill the people who'd just stopped the crisis.
And he knows that the non-mutant humans have reason to be afraid. We heard the arguments at the beginning of the first X-Men movie - they can walk through walls, control minds, etc - it all boils down to one thing: they can't be controlled. That's the fear. There are these powerful people out there, who can't be controlled, and most of the time, they look just like us. Hence the desire for the Mutant Registration Act.
Charles, because of his power, understands those arguments and fears rather intimately from both sides, I would expect. His power is... incredible. He can stop people in place, read their minds, control them completely if he chooses. He knows that his type of power is probably the kind that would most terrify people if they thought about the implications. And yet... it's who he is. It's what he is. In the movie, when Charles can't/doesn't read someone's mind, he fumbles when he tries to communicate. It's just part of how he interacts with the world; his sixth sense.
Both Raven and Charles hurt each other in the movie by denying to embrace the other one is and what they need - Charles wants Raven to be safe, so he encourages her to hide under fair skin and blonde hair; while Raven wants Charles to reassure her, but she made him promise long ago not to read her thoughts, so when he's dealing with her, he's trying to navigate a relationship without casual telepathy to ease the way and he doesn't realize what she's really asking him (and, of course, Charles has no right to be in Raven's head - that where it ties back into his power, indeed, his very self being inherently unethical and that being part of what forms Charles as a character; he can choose to do what comes naturally or he can choose to maintain normal human ethics of privacy).
In the end, Raven is able to go off with Erik, where she was able be blue and herself and encouraged. Meanwhile, Charles locks himself in more tightly - cuts off the human contact that he had allowed to develop and throws himself fully into his school; his mutant children.
The Erik/Charles stuff fascinates me because it's so fast and strong. The Charles-Raven relationship had years to build up and become something strong. Erik and Charles crash into each other, literally, and create a connection that will last for the rest of their lives. It works because they work. Because they're both able to accept who the other person is fairly quickly - Erik lets Charles into his head; Charles is the person who unlocks the depths of Erik's power as well. When they meet, Charles saves Erik's life.
At the end of the movie, Charles is forced to pick between letting his friend die or letting himself become party to murder and a painful death (I can't quite tell, from watching the movie, if Erik realized that Charles felt every moment of Shaw's death, but I suspect that he must). Charles just wants people to stop killing each other. He just wants people to choose to stop killing each other. Both Erik and Charles think that mutants are capable of being 'the better men'. They just disagree on the definition.
Both Erik and Charles desperately want the other one to pick their side. That's where the tragedy comes in. Neither of them want to go their separate ways - Charles wants Erik (and Raven) to stay, while Erik wants Charles to join him. They have a lot in common - neither of them trust non-mutants fully, both of them see the mutants as the next stage in human evolution, both of them believe in embracing who you are - which only makes the differences sharper and more painful. Charles wants to have an integrated society and is willing to fight (in his own way) to achieve that through legal and social means, while Erik does not believe that that's possible - he thinks it's "mutants or humans" and, unsurprisingly, picks the side that's got him on it. Erik has bought into Shaw's belief that only one side can be (deserves to be) left standing.
They aren't enemies at the end of the movie. At least, I didn't see that. Each of them is willing to stand against the other one if they get in the way, but that doesn't make them enemies. Erik is preparing for a war that he sees as inevitable (and, in some senses, even desirable), while Charles is doing his best to create a future where a mutant-human war never happens. Not quite the same battle.
Their friendship is fascinating, in part, because they don't change each other. They connect strongly and they care about each other, but each of them holds true to their own inner values. That's why they can't stay together in the end. Each of them has already decided which lines that they can and cannot cross. Even when Charles is staring at the ultimate horror of what non-mutant humans could choose to do (turn on mutants who had saved them), he still will not cross the line. And Erik can't not cross that line, because that's what his moral compass tells him is correct - defense of the mutant species against the hostile aggressors.
They aren't enemies, but they can't be on the same side.
(the symbolism of Charles getting shot really hits me - it's humans v. mutants, and Charles gets hurt in the crossfire because he wants to save both sides - and yet, again, he can't not make that choice to get in the middle. He'll never stop trying - again, Charles on the beach kills me because he's so utterly focused on other people. It's not until Erik and Raven are gone that he lets himself focus on what's happening with him. Freaking iron-willpower)
They actually helpfully sum it up themselves: "Killing will not bring peace" v. "Peace was never an option" (which is a bit of dialogue that I love because it works on several different levels - directly, it's about Erik's peace of mind, but it functions on a meta level as well).
It's the same conflict that they'll have, over and over.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-18 08:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-18 10:00 pm (UTC)(At least for now, because it's late and has been a very busy (if nice) day.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-19 03:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-19 03:42 pm (UTC)Glad you enjoyed it.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-19 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-19 04:18 pm (UTC)