I made the connection that Yamato’s first given name Kinoe (甲) may come from the ancient Chinese calendar ganzhi, specifically its Ten Heavenly Stems. 甲(jiǎ in chinese, kinoe in japanese) is the first day, its element is Wood (木). You’ll notice 木 is the same kanji found in Mokuton (木遁)!
Interestingly (depressingly?), 甲 can also be read as “shell” or “helmet”. It reminds me both that Yamato was perhaps originally created to be Hashirama’s “shell”, and also that Yamato either chose or was given Tobirama’s happuri (the helmet Tobirama wore instead of a forehead protector).
anyway, i just found out that in one of the early drafts of iron man, howard stark was going to be alive as the cold and ruthless industrialist who would be THE ANTAGONIST OF THE MOVIE, THE GUY WHO TRIES TO KILL TONY like if this doesn’t tell you anything about the sort of space that character occupies in the concept of mcu iron man then idk what will
at some point, they also intended to hold out on obadiah stane and only present him as a villain in the second movie after spending the first parading as tony’s friend and mentor, so fucking imagine the nightmare scenario where tony’s own father tries to murder him in one movie and then the trusted friend who helped him through becoming iron man, also tries to murder him after using their closeness and tony’s vulnerability to his advantage
… I can see why Marvel changed their minds on doing this because it is a fascinating character arc with really complex villains. Given Iron Man was the first of the Marvel movies to make it big – laying the ground work for Thor, Captain America and Avengers – I can understand why they decided to go for a simpler narrative: the princess in the tower saves herself from the dragon with the dragon.
But man, can you imagine?
Movie 1: the man who sends Tony to his death is Howard, his father. This man then takes the things that Tony built out of blood and bone to escape, and builds a new weapon he intends to use to make a new fortune and start a global arms race.
It doesn’t even matter if Howard had intentionally wanted to kill Tony or his capture was accidental and subsequent refusal to pay ransom was company policy or a US government decision. The point would be Tony actively rebelling against what he sees as his father’s interest in profit over ethics. And in all this, there’s Obadiah Stane, supporting Tony despite having been Howard’s right hand man for years. There’s Uncle Obadiah helping Tony recover. There’s Stane, helping Tony fight and then kill Howard next to Pepper and Coulson.
End credits – Tony announcing he is Iron Man and that Stark Industries will be ceasing weapons development, with Obadiah Stane standing by him, acting CEO as the company mourns the death of its founder, Howard Stark.
And then, Movie 2 – Tony facing death from heavy metal poisoning and desperately trying to find a cure. And there is Obadiah Stane, nudging Tony to indulge his worse impulses (and accelerate the poisoning) as a distraction while he takes the reigns of Stark Industries and re-starts the weapons division.
Tony’s realisation that Obadiah Stane has betrayed him – is, in effect, actively working towards Tony dying as the easiest way for Stane to take over Stark Industries – is all the more emotionally devastating to the audience because we spent an entire movie and 2 years assuming he was one of the heroes. We’ve seen Tony call him ‘Uncle Obie’ repeatedly. We’ve heard the childhood stories – we’ve seen a man, portrayed as a hero, care about Tony at some of his lowest moments.
And now, here’s this same man, destroying everything Tony has tried to do. Worse, this man doesn’t care that Tony is preparing to die, that everything Tony is doing is towards a legacy, to make sure that the Stark name won’t be remembered for death and selling weapons on the black market.
And Tony is helpless – he’s dying, he can’t stop Stane, he’s cut off from his company and the world think he’s having a nervous breakdown.
On a side note, two years separate Iron Man I and Iron Man II – at Monaco Tony remarks that the event is his first vacation in two years. Given metal poisoning and technology development, Tony probably found out he was going to die from the arc reactor in his chest fairly soon after the end of Iron Man I and then began working to make sure Stark Industries would have a future without him. Tony had a long time to know he was living on borrowed time is what I’m saying.
Anyway, there’s Tony, betrayed by the man who helped him kill his father. There’s Tony, stretching out his life by days and months only if he stops using the arc reactor to power the Iron Man. There’s Tony – helpless and caught. And into this comes Nick Fury and Howard Stark’s research notes.
And here’s Tony watching a video of the man who sent him to his death. A video filmed literal decades ago and talking to him. Here’s Tony being saved by his father and the man who tried to kill him.
What a mind fuck those two movies would have been. How complex and weird and ridiculously human both those villains would have been. How utterly impossible to tell the story well in 5 hours split over 2 movies, 2 years apart.But wow can you imagine how well Robert Downey Junior would have done portraying a man betrayed twice and saved twice by the same two men? Can you imagine how much more screwed up we’d all be when we watched Tony find out about Steve Rogers. Because you see, that would be the moment Tony realises (or at least believes) that his father wanted the Iron Man technology probably because it would have allowed deeper, more thorough deep water exploration in search of a body. Think of a Tony who looks at Captain America and fights with Captain America and follows Captain America while believing that his father chose Steve over his own son – over and over again, all the way to the end – rather than the [handwave Loki’s magic staff] deux ex machina of the Avengers. Anyway in the right script writer’s hands, it would have been amazing is what I’m saying. But probably not suitable for children.
I just love the myth of Persephone, i mean the real, original version of it, because it’s not like she got kidnapped, no, this bitch was la-de-da-ing in a meadow and she just happened to find an entrance to the Underworld and she was like “Imma check this out”. And she just wanders into the Underworld and discovers that hey this place ain’t too bad.
Meanwhile Hades is in the background “????? UM??? PRETTY GIRL??? WHY ARE YOU HERE?????? YOU AREN’T DEAD???”
And Persephone (who was originally called Kore just a little fyi) just looked at him and said “I like it here. I’m staying.”
And Hades kinda just went with it, until Demeter started throwing the temper tantrum of the millenium upstairs and Zeus had to intervene because this shit was getting out of hand and its actually his job to be admistrator of justice. Which considering the shit he gets up to is kinda histerical but that’s another story there.
And basically Persephone wasn’t a prisoner or kidnap victim at all she just really loved the Underworld and her (eventual) husband, and the Greeks feared her arguably more than her husband because Hades could be reasoned with but Persephone was the one laying the smack down on sinners, and really, who wouldn’t be at least a little scared of someone who’s name means something along the lines of “the destroyer”
Basically, Persephone is amazing and everbody needs to get on her level
i think the best part of that myth is that Zeus decided to change Kore’s name to Persephone (basically “the one who brings chaos”) only because she wanted to stay in the underworld and SHE WOULDN’T FUCKING LISTEN then Zeus, all-mighty king of the gods, kinda gives up and goes “fine, but you’re going to visit your mom” “also, I changed your name” “get rekt”
Also, if I’m not mistaken, Kore means “little girl” so imagine going from that to “chaos bringer”
I mean, going from little girl to chaos bringer sounds like a p solid deal to me, sign me up.
This may not be the version of the myth that’s commonly known and taught. But is is the original, from before it was altered to scare Greek/Roman girls into submission. Persephone was a badass bitch.
There are characters I would probably die for but at the
same time I get personally offended when people say “They’re a pure cinnamon
roll who did nothing wrong uwu” like EXCUSE ME, they did a lot of things wrong,
they are a walking dumpster fire, do not deny their crimes.
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