The thing that really impressed me is that it's not portrayed as some kind of horrific moral choice or source of endless agony or whatever. She wants one, she gets one, she made (as far as the show is concerned) the right choice, no one questions that she did, and she doesn't regret it later. In fact it pretty much…

I'm not sure how unrealistic it is, though. At least, it seems like something that happens plenty of times in real life.

I am weak and couldn't resist it.

*surely

If they make it through three (well, and doubles for Daredevil I guess) series of dark, gritty, adult television shows and then combine the characters all together for a goofy lighthearted show about Luke Cage and his friends that would be amazing.

Shang Chi is pretty amazing, but I'd be worried about bringing him in because, well, let's be honest. Shang Chi is Bruce Lee. Not, like, subtly Bruce Lee in the way that a lot of kung fu guys were Bruce Lee after Bruce Lee became famous, but like super literally Shang Chi is a drawing of Bruce Lee using Bruce Lee…

Actually yeah which, now that you point it out, is kind of an interesting feature that they never really went into in any general sense. If it turns out that Iron Fist was only from K'un Lun in the full sense when they couldn't rope some foreigner into trying to beat up a dragon with Kung Fu would be a really amazing…

I really, really want a Misty Knight series. Actually I think it might be better to have one before an Iron Fist story. She's the one who links Danny Rand to Luke Cage in the first place and, let's be honest, Nightwing Restorations Lrd. would be a pretty amazing show.

Yeah but he damn well wouldn't be one in the same way as a white rich guy without cultural context living in Harlem, which is where most of his stories sit. And despite the name blaxploitation isn't actually actually a bad place to start from in telling the story of him and Luke Cage, and very definitely not a bad…

I suspect that a significant part of it is that spending a lot of time on it would be pretty hard on Robert Downey Jr., which if so is understandable. It's unfortunate in that it is a real part of the character and one they're sort of vaguely gesturing at.

There's actually a pretty strong story built around culture and cultural appropriation within the general story of Iron Fist, too. Not everyone was thrilled to having Rand around as a kid, and at least one person was definitely very much not happy to be defeated by him in the tournament (Davos). So there's a pretty…

We certainly see him with alcohol in various scenes, including the latest Avengers movie. They have decided to tone down or just not get into the alcoholism part of the character, though, so maybe that's it?

Danny Rand: I AM THE NIGHT
Luke Cage: Why is the night wearing a spandex shirt with a popped collar open down to his crotch?
…
Danny Rand: Dude have you seen my body art? It is bitchin.

Er… no. He trained really hard and won a martial arts tournament and got to beat up a lizard (ok, a magical lizard). But that makes him The Iron Fist, not the chosen one.

Ok first that isn't actually the white savior narrative, and "adopted by another culture" is a kind of a tendentious way to describe it because it's ambiguous between what happens in white savior narratives and what doesn't. He isn't "adopted by another culture" so much as "adopted by a person in that culture"…

I think there's a pretty strong reason why, despite really great diversity so far from the Marvel Netflix shows, Iron Fist should still be cast as a white guy.

White savior is a pretty specific cliche, though, and Iron Fist doesn't really capture it. Being white is a pretty significant part of his origin/character later on, and one big enough that you'd have to change a lot of stuff if you wanted to cast him differently.

If they can pull it off, yeah, but there are so many ways it could go wrong and almost any misstep on the origin story would be disastrous.

Iron Fist doesn't really fit the white savior cliche at all. I mean, there's some of the shangri-la/western adventurer stuff going on (though the kind that learns things there and comes back, which is already a different kind of story). But the actual white savior stuff doesn't describe anything in his origin story…

I liked this bit: