Agents of SHIELD: Season 6

[Reverend]

I generally don't apply motivation to organisations since abstractions don't have wants; they're just an assemblage of individuals, all acting on their own agendas.

Now on the other hand: most individuals that involve themselves in any kind of power structure do so to attain more power; personal, social, economic, whatever. It's just as true whether they're joining the local PTA, the police force, running for public office, or the "let's all wear armbands and beat up/murder people we don't like" club.

The motivation as always the same, the only difference is what they choose to involve themselves in to get what they want. It makes no difference if they actually believe in racial purity or are just cynically using it as a lever to move the masses; if the end result is crimes against humanity they're just as complicit either way.

 

[Jayson1]

I generally don't apply motivation to organisations since abstractions don't have wants; they're just an assemblage of individuals, all acting on their own agendas.

Now on the other hand: most individuals that involve themselves in any kind of power structure do so to attain more power; personal, social, economic, whatever. It's just as true whether they're joining the local PTA, the police force, running for public office, or the "let's all wear armbands and beat up/murder people we don't like" club.

The motivation as always the same, the only difference is what they choose to involve themselves in to get what they want. It makes no difference if they actually believe in racial purity or are just cynically using it as a lever to move the masses; if the end result is crimes against humanity they're just as complicit either way.

Well I think everyone agrees actions speak louder than motivations but at the same time it's actually good to understand why people do the things they do and not let our outrage get in the way of understanding the nuance of immoral behavior. I think people let emotions often get in the way of truly understanding people's behavior because they place the desire to judge and label something over trying to understand something. It makes you wonder if the United States inability to separate HYDRA from the NAZI party is what allowed them to move in takeover SHIELD. Once Hitler was gone they figured HYDA would just go away not knowing HYDA has it's own thing going.

Jason

 

[Christopher]

Well I think everyone agrees actions speak louder than motivations but at the same time it's actually good to understand why people do the things they do and not let our outrage get in the way of understanding the nuance of immoral behavior.

Don't be insulting. Just because I refuse to forgive Nazi collaborators doesn't mean I'm too stupid or irrational to understand their motivations. It means their motivations don't matter. Split hairs all you want, it doesn't excuse the fact that they readily collaborated with and supported the Nazis and had no objection to their atrocities. It's wrong to say that outrage "gets in the way" of understanding that -- on the contrary, the more you understand it, the more you recognize that outrage is the only appropriate response.

It's historically and morally disingenuous to claim that it somehow doesn't "count" if a group doesn't share the exact ideology of the Nazis. There were plenty of people who supported the Nazis for their own self-serving reasons, and their complicity helped make those millions of deaths happen, regardless of their reasons for that complicity. I'm sure many of them made the exact same kind of weaselly excuses you're spinning in an attempt to evade responsibility for their part in those atrocities, which is why it's so horrifying that you think such excuses are legitimate.

 

[Booji]

 

[USS Firefly]

And the point is that anyone who willingly works with Nazis, who's okay with their racism and genocide and everything else, CANNOT in any way be defended as better than the Nazis. If you tolerate their hate, you're part of their hate.

I agree, maybe the only grey area where some governments and the Vatican. Like helping Nazi escape Europe or let them live in freedom after the war

 

[Christopher]

I agree, maybe the only grey area where some governments and the Vatican. Like helping Nazi escape Europe or let them live in freedom after the war

Which is hardly comparable to Hydra being an active part of their war machine throughout WWII.

Not to mention that the post-WWII Hydra was masterminded and built by Arnim Zola, who was definitely a Nazi; according to the MCU Wiki, Zola was originally a member of the Sturmabteilung, the Nazi Party's original paramilitary wing. So he was a Nazi before he was Hydra -- as was Red Skull, who was originally in the SS. Their Hydra, the Hydra that infiltrated SHIELD and included Grant Ward, Alexander Pierce, Daniel Whitehall, etc., was absolutely a direct descendant of the Nazis, regardless of what was later revealed about Hydra's more ancient origins. It's disingenuous to deny that. Sure, the ancient cult that Gideon Malick led predated the Nazis, but he still worked hand-in-hand with the Nazi-descended factions.

 

[Jayson1]

Don't be insulting. Just because I refuse to forgive Nazi collaborators doesn't mean I'm too stupid or irrational to understand their motivations. It means their motivations don't matter. Split hairs all you want, it doesn't excuse the fact that they readily collaborated with and supported the Nazis and had no objection to their atrocities. It's wrong to say that outrage "gets in the way" of understanding that -- on the contrary, the more you understand it, the more you recognize that outrage is the only appropriate response.

It's historically and morally disingenuous to claim that it somehow doesn't "count" if a group doesn't share the exact ideology of the Nazis. There were plenty of people who supported the Nazis for their own self-serving reasons, and their complicity helped make those millions of deaths happen, regardless of their reasons for that complicity. I'm sure many of them made the exact same kind of weaselly excuses you're spinning in an attempt to evade responsibility for their part in those atrocities, which is why it's so horrifying that you think such excuses are legitimate.

It's just a tv show. Also why would anyone forgive Nazi collaborators? They go to prison for their crimes like any other criminal. Or should anyways.

Jason

 

[David cgc]

"Soft on Nazis" has been kind of a thing in the real world in the last few years. "Very fine people on both sides" after the white supremacists ran down someone in a car in Charlottesville, for instance. I can see why Christopher can see making excuses for Hydra as a sort of gateway to empathizing with real-world fascists and taking a zero-tolerance approach to perspectives that make Hydra a less real-world form of evil.

 

[Henoch]

Spoiler: Season 7 Theme

Saving Hydra will be the theme of new Season of AOS...get ready for more of these debates.

 

[Christopher]

Spoiler: Season 7 Theme

Saving Hydra will be the theme of new Season of AOS...get ready for more of these debates.

That's not fair. That's a totally different issue. Recognizing the need to preserve history, the evil along with the good, is not by any stretch of the imagination the same as excusing or downplaying the evil. There have been countless works of fiction about time travelers discovering that killing Hitler or saving Kennedy or whatever only made things worse, so that they had to go back again and make sure the bad stuff still happened on schedule, even if it meant saving Hitler or killing Kennedy themselves. That's not an endorsement of the evil or an excuse for it, just a way to pit the protagonists against a moral dilemma involving the lesser of two evils, or to posit a "no light without darkness" sort of message, the idea that the occurrence of those evils produced a greater good in reaction to them.

Also, time travel dilemmas are pure fantasy. Nazi apologism is a genuine threat in real life.

 

[Turtletrekker]

At least one of the brothers Koenig will be reporting for duty in season 7...

https://www.cbr.com/agents-of-shield-patton-oswalt-returns-final-season/amp/

 

[JD]

I'm always up for more Koenigs.
I wonder if we'll be seeing any more returning characters? I wouldn't be against seeing Ward one last time, or Hunter and Mockingbird.

 

[Guy Gardener]

At least one of the brothers Koenig will be reporting for duty in season 7...

https://www.cbr.com/agents-of-shield-patton-oswalt-returns-final-season/amp/

What about the sister Koenig?

 

[Turtletrekker]

What about the sister Koenig?

I'd be down for that.

Actually, I'm beginning to wonder if we are going actually meeting any of the Koenig Brothers that we've already met, or if we're going to meet a grandfather who also happens to look exactly like the quintuplets.

 

[JD]

I'm thinking grandfather.

 

[1987SpaceGuy]

Just a FYI, there is a season 7 thread https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/agents-of-shield-the-final-season-discussion.304327/ (at least I only just found out about)