scans_daily: Hope says what I've always felt about mutant relations

q99 (

q99) wrote in

scans_daily,
@ 2011-11-09 04:48 am UTC

Entry tags:

char: hope summers, char: magneto/erik magnus lehnsherr, char: professor x/charles xavier, creator: dave sharpe, creator: frank martin, creator: kieron gillen, creator: salva espin, creator: scott koblish, publisher: marvel comics, title: generation hope

Hope says what I've always felt about mutant relations

And I think she's absolutely right. Calling it the school for Gifted Youngster may have helped many young mutants who felt unsure of themselves or bad for being a mutant, but ultimately they're all just people, before anything else, and when dealing with co-existence that's what you've got to remember.

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drakyndra
2011-11-09 03:03 pm UTC (link)

Is this the part where I point out that the word "Gifted" is an accepted and commonly used term within the field of education, that refers specifically to students who are intellectually above average for their age by a specific amount (And often do not cope well with aspects of mainstream schooling as a result).

The term has been around for more than 50 years; I always assumed it was Xavier just using an academic term to disguise what was really going on, and give an explanation when asking why certain kids would get pulled from their own schools and sent away.

Saying it insults humanity makes me wonder what the writer thinks of currently in existence schools and programs for gifted students. (Seriously, check out some of the names)

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outlawpoet
2011-11-09 08:10 pm UTC (link)

Hope certainly wouldn't know that "Gifted" is a common term used by magnet schools and accelerated programs, but I suspect the writer may not have known either.

(haha, magnet schools. eric should make a joke about that at some point).

Although, to the wider point, I think that Hope might understand Magneto a little better. He has been historically proven more right than Xavier. Their greatest problem hasn't been prejudice (in the legal issues, economic discrimination, bullying sense) but extermination (Sentinels, Registration, Reavers, Ulti-Men, Operation Zero Tolerance, Friends of Humanity). Xavier addressed the first with a problematic approach (from Hope's Askani perspective), but didn't deal with the second in any organized way.

Magneto focused on extermination, and did many questionable things to prepare for the war he knew was coming. Genosha, for all its flaws, is an understandable and successful play. The disaster destroyed it, but it probably would have been worse if they hadn't gathered. The sentinels were destroyed before they could threaten other mutants world-wide. scattered, Cassandra Nova might have been able to kill all mutants. I think Hope can appreciate that kind of sacrifice, even if she's unlikely to go to Magneto for moral guidance, at least she can count on him tactically. Xavier isn't so clear a resource.

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	no subject lilacsigil 2011-11-10 02:50 am UTC (link)
	Yes, exactly - I have no problem with Hope making the argument as a thoughtful but naive teenager, if I didn't think that the author agreed with her! (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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kamino_neko
2011-11-09 08:54 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, I've always found analogy to the academically gifted to be a good one for Marvel mutants.

They have these gifts, which should be awesome, and useful out in wider society. But that's hard, because neither you, nor anyone around you, really knows how to deal with the gifts properly, and some people will look ill upon you because of them. But, you can study alongside people like you, so you can actually learn to use your gifts.

Mutants have a more extreme (and potentially lethal) version of the whole thing, of course, but the analogy works, keeping that element in mind.

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	no subject kamino_neko 2011-11-09 09:05 pm UTC (link)
	Uhm...just assume the subjects in the second paragraph are consistent with each other... (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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runespoor
2011-11-10 10:52 am UTC (link)

Which should have raised questions, as the students aren't any more intellectually gifted on average than non-mutant kids.

And though it's code, I think it's precisely because it's a word used commonly in that context that it causes side-eyeing. It tends to corelate "mutant" and "intelligence". (That said, I have no idea what else he could've called it. It was a good cover and it worked, but I see why Hope, who's thinking about all the issues of mutant history, would question that.)

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	no subject q99 2011-11-10 02:54 pm UTC (link)
	Also, Hope has seen the current state of affairs, but wasn't there in the early days, and it's natural to think more about what works now. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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