YESSsss LIKE ok not to go on a Stephen Strange Rant™ bUT IN THIS ESSAY I WILL–
part of the reason this particular Stephen is my fav other than the Unfathomable Horrors is that at this canonpoint, he's genuinely aware of his own horrible faults and thus in a lot of ways actually LESS arrogant than Default MCU Stephen since unlike Default Stephen, the narrative has actually fully humbled him and forced him to experience intense (like UNIMAGINABLY intense) consequences for his own unilateral decisions. Like – the conventions of What If...? free the writers of having to ultimately frame him as the Marvel Good Guy™ of his own story, which means we can actually see the full extent of what Default MCU Stephen is capable of when all guardrails are gone, completely unfiltered – and it's HORRIFYING and AMAZING and actually completely believable and credible to what we've seen from Stephen in the mainline films. Like, the reason his episode hits so hard isn't because he seems like a completely different Dr. Strange, but because he feels like the exact same guy.
AND YET even WITH this newfound humility and actin' so soft in that last What If...? S1 ep, he's still visually coded as the most evil sorcerer to ever exist and is made of a hundred thousand grotesque eldritch horrors that he unleashes at a moment's notice, LIKE WHAT A COOL DICHOTOMY??? SOOO FUN. and then of COURSE is shown in S2 to fall back into even eviler more selfish ways even if they did it with like zero development from his redemption arc and flattened his character a bunch bUT WHATEVER regardless i love how it illustrates the push and pull of the temptations for greater power inside him, and that surviving arrogance he can't quite shake, because how could you, having gone so far down the deep end, with that much power at your fingertips?????
anyway. basically i have literally no idea if he'll get further softened or cynically hardened by the Diadem environment/CR i'm just real excited to explore it :')
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YESSsss LIKE ok not to go on a Stephen Strange Rant™ bUT IN THIS ESSAY I WILL–
part of the reason this particular Stephen is my fav
other than the Unfathomable Horrorsis that at this canonpoint, he's genuinely aware of his own horrible faults and thus in a lot of ways actually LESS arrogant than Default MCU Stephen since unlike Default Stephen, the narrative has actually fully humbled him and forced him to experience intense (like UNIMAGINABLY intense) consequences for his own unilateral decisions. Like – the conventions of What If...? free the writers of having to ultimately frame him as the Marvel Good Guy™ of his own story, which means we can actually see the full extent of what Default MCU Stephen is capable of when all guardrails are gone, completely unfiltered – and it's HORRIFYING and AMAZING and actually completely believable and credible to what we've seen from Stephen in the mainline films. Like, the reason his episode hits so hard isn't because he seems like a completely different Dr. Strange, but because he feels like the exact same guy.AND YET even WITH this newfound humility and actin' so soft in that last What If...? S1 ep, he's still visually coded as the most evil sorcerer to ever exist and is made of a hundred thousand grotesque eldritch horrors that he unleashes at a moment's notice, LIKE WHAT A COOL DICHOTOMY??? SOOO FUN. and then of COURSE is shown in S2 to fall back into even eviler more selfish ways
even if they did it with like zero development from his redemption arc and flattened his character a bunch bUT WHATEVERregardless i love how it illustrates the push and pull of the temptations for greater power inside him, and that surviving arrogance he can't quite shake, because how could you, having gone so far down the deep end, with that much power at your fingertips?????anyway. basically i have literally no idea if he'll get further softened or cynically hardened by the Diadem environment/CR i'm just real excited to explore it :')
thank u for attending my TED talk etc.