I am making this post because I want an entry on February 29.

[strobelighted]

If you're wondering where on the internet I am these days, it is over at my X-Men and Avengers tumblrs, posting about the comics I'm reading every day. It's pretty cool, because sometimes people reblog and say interesting things, and sometimes they send me asks and I get to talk about these comics I love.

And then, sometimes, people say stuff that

Comments

[pearl_o]

Why do people have such bad opinions?

[strobelighted]

I don't know, Pearl!!! It's possible to be a fan of Magneto and still acknowledge that some of his ideas? Not that great!

[mumblemutter]

To be fair, a lot of times the mutants aren't just oppressed they are actively hunted down and killed. And I think the "we're superior to them" is often a reaction to the type of crippling powerlessness that comes with being actively oppressed, and if I were Erik I would be rightfully pissed off too (although I keep trying to wrap my head around how powerless a man who can reverse the earth's polarity could possibly feel? But then again: Giant Sentinels and Registration Programs. But then AGAIN, half the time the enemy is some mutant gone wild because...really now. What can humanity do against the X-Men. But then again, GIANT MUTANT KILLING SENTINELS. Urgh comics why must you be so confusing. I find it far easier to go "Magneto was wrong" just by watching the movies

[strobelighted]

That's true, and I think in my post, I oversimplified the matter extremely. The panel that I linked to occurs right after Magneto had attempted to take over the planet by fucking up the entire magnetic field, which would have resulted in millions of people dying. So I think Charles has every right to call him out for essentially attempting genocide.

I guess it was unfair of me to say Magneto is not right, because sometimes he is, for the reasons you pointed out: sentinels and registration and general hatred of mutants. But when it comes to the way mutants must deal with all this hatred, he's is often wrong, because what he wants to do is kill everyone, or establish a society where mutants are treated as superior instead of equal. (I haven't read all the Magneto King of Genosha comics yet though, so I'll wait and see what happens there.)

He's like, stuck at fourteen years old or whatever age he was broken at and he's still living there, every single day.Oh man, this feels so true! I was thinking, in light of the aforementioned King

[kalpurna]

You know why you talk to your oppressors? Because in another world, you are your oppressors. The reason I sometimes say Magneto was right is that he's entirely correct about what human beings are capable of. If you want to address his wrongness, you have to first address his rightness - the fact mutants should never have to hide, and the fact that if they don't, they will be hurt for who they are. What makes him wrong, and the reason his answer isn't the right answer, is that he thinks mutants don't belong to the group "humanity". Imagine we could remove from the world any group that is capable, given the right circumstances, of acting like average goyish Germans acted during the Holocaust. Erik thinks that if you did that, you'd end up with mutants. Some Jews think that if you did that, you'd end up with Jews. In reality, if you did that, you'd end up with an empty planet

[strobelighted]

I agree completely!

And while Erik does have good points, I think it's completely necessary for Charles to call him out on his extreme positions, and anyone who hates Charles for that needs to meet my nailbat.