#i dont believe in villainizing them completely bc that goes against the spirit of the movie

[mae-i-scribble]

After watching Across the Spiderverse for the second time, I think I’ve finally managed to put into words what about Miguel’s characterization made me so conflicted. Obviously spoilers below.

While Miguel is clearly intended to be a sympathetic antagonist I don’t think that intention is fully realized in the movie, because from the minute we meet him, we know that he’s wrong in his conclusions. Miguel is supposed to be a “the ends justify the means” archetype, but after his explanation on why canon events cannot be disrupted Miles immediately points out the obvious- how can his father dying being a canon event when it is cause by a dimensional anomaly? And more than that, based on Miguel’s logic Miles’ world should have collapsed long ago because it was missing its Spiderman, a person who was not meant to die in that timeline. It’s the same as replacing a person who was meant to die only now there’s a gaping hole in the world where a person was meant to exist. Also- nothing about what happens in Into the Spiderverse is a result of any canon disrupting phenomenon, nothing could have been done to prevent it and none of what happened is Miles’ fault. (there’s more evidence against Miguel’s logic but these were the most obvious ones to me). One of the most crucial aspects of a sympathetic antagonist is being able to sympathize with *why* it is they do what they do. Miguel’s logic hardly holds up past its introduction which means that gets thrown out the window very quick as a viewer.

The next thing then, would be for us to see how Miguel leads the other spider people and what makes him into such an inspiring leader to these thousands of heroes. And the movie... doesn’t really show us much of that, to be honest. The best moment we get is when Miguel is explaining the concept of canon events to Miles, because he is genuinely understanding and empathetic. It’s very compelling to his portrayal- but for me it was overshadowed by his anger. The moment Miguel meets Miles, the first thing that he does is chuck something at the kid full force towards his head. And then in the chase afterwards, Miguel gets increasingly more violent and spiteful towards Miles because Miles’ keeps angering him- which is something that is expected of him from the other characters- Gwen is visibly nervous at the idea of Miles speaking to Miguel at all. Jessica is also well aware of these angry outbursts when she warns Gwen about failing to catch the Spot. All these things, along side the final scenes of the movie giving him solid red as his backlighting serve to make him seem far more villainous than antagonistic in his narrative role.

About his introduction with Gwen, I do think it gives him that sympathetic light, but it is important to point out that he only begrudgingly gave into Jessica’s request when Gwen had literally nowhere else to return to and then the moment she messes up he sends her home (theoretically back to that exact terrible scenario where he dad wants to arrest her) with no support. So for me its still kinda ://

I don’t consider Miguel a villain, and I’m really interested to see what they do in this next movie with his character because I do believe he’s going to get redeemed. And I genuinely think that he believes in his cause based on the terrible tragedy he had to endure, but that something about what happened with him is different than what is happening with Miles and the other worlds’ canon events. Honestly I wish we had seen more of the citadel and Miguel outside of Miles’ introduction to it. It’s clear that Miles himself is a very sore spot for Miguel which doesn’t make him the most objective character to see Miguel through.

Also on that note, Jessica Drew has a lot of the same issues as Miguel on a smaller scale because while she’s amazing for her introduction scene, after that she’s downright rude and dismissive of Gwen at every turn despite claiming Gwen to be her “star pupil” (this was said sarcastically while she was berating Gwen). While I understand why Jessica was so upset- Gwen really and truly did mess up by letting the Spot escape. It’s hard to see her as a good mentor when that anger is 90% of what we’re seeing out of her in the movie. It’s only at the end when Gwen gets a few sympathetic glances from her that she seems more similar to how she was in her introductions. The movie was packed to the brim as is but I do wish they had even more runtime to expand on these things. I want to believe in the sympathetic nature of both these people but the movie gives very fleeting attempts at doing so.

#across the spiderverse #ATSV #across the spiderverse spoilers #ATSV spoilers #miles morales #miguel o'hara #gwen stacy #jessica drew #on my hands and knees praying that the rabid miguel fans dont come after me #i just wanna talk about things in depth #the first comment i made along these lines got a response that was literally just 'youre dumb and stupid' without even arguing with me #which was >:( #come back and give me your argumentative points you coward #idk these two characters are just portrayed so antagonistically #i dont believe in villainizing them completely bc that goes against the spirit of the movie #but i also can understand those who walk away with that take