I know Greg is probably not reading this anymore, but I personally do wish that he'd addressed the issue of violence. There have been more than a few times in this season where I've seen Halo die from attacks that, if it had been another character, they probably would have dodged or walked off. I know that, from the show crew perspective, this is probably something like the Worf effect - they want to show that some villain is a threat, so they have Halo take a big injury. The same sort of thing happens to regenerating or immortal characters all the time.
But (aside from the problem that it's sort of a quick and cheap way to establish a threat, just writing wise, and the in universe question of why no one has taught Halo to dodge or built body armor into her suit), the thing is, Halo is not Worf or Deadpool or Wolverine. Halo is, at this point, the only Muslim on the show and the only non-binary character on the show. So, even if it is not intentional, the fact of the matter is she's the only one getting hurt in this way. And that, when combined with all the non-Muslim, cis characters who get much less violent injuries (at most, their visible injuries are bruises or vague bloody marks), creates a dichotomy of whose pain seems more acceptable. And this is, really, another instance in a pattern we've seen for years. People of color's pain is shown bluntly when white people's pain is danced around. As a general trend, across media, we see that violence against brown people is more palatable than that same violence happening to white people.
If this had only happened once or twice, it probably wouldn't be as much of an issue, but it keeps happening, and only happening to Halo - with the possible exception of Victor Stone, who is <i>also</i> not white - and even if it's not intentional (which, to be clear, I don't think Greg or Brandon or anyone sat down and went 'woo, we have a brown-skinned character, let's do All The Gore to her') it's still a really bad pattern. I don't really know what can be done about it at this point, other than not continuing the pattern for season 4, but. At this point, it's too noticeable to be ignored, I think. I can see how Halo's figuring out gender and religion can serve a character purpose, showing her path through life, but I still don't see how the frequent, gory violence that almost exclusively happens to her serves anything.
Karrin Blue
posted @ Sun, Aug 18, 2019 7:54:54 pm EDT from 68.14.31.192