They outright *show* Ed being one way, wanting to be something he isn’t allowed to be, and then *told* to be another by Karen, and him doing so via that final video call, because of the home being her domain.
Sure, but that doesn't mean we didn't see plenty of other bits of toxic masculinity in his parenting before that scene which were
not the result of pressure from Karen. Ed is notably colder to Shane throughout Season One than he subsequently became with Kelly.
It’s subtle distinction between that and your surety of theoretical sociological reading through a Marxist lens.
I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about here, since nothing I said had anything to do with Marxism.
I did not say Karen was the villain, but that she was ‘basically the villain of the piece’ the ‘piece’ being that specific storyline sequence.
1) Nothing about your original post explains that you're referring to the context of the very particular sequence in which Shane gets in trouble while Ed is at Jamestown Station, Karen pushes him to be harsher on him, they're both harsh on him, and then he runs away and gets hit by the car. You spoke in generality about them parenting, not in terms of that very specific sequence.
2) Your post also didn't make much sense since you wrote in response to me talking about the
Stevenses' parenting, not the Baldwins' parenting.
3) Again, calling Karen a villain of that particular sequence is still false.
Both parents were emotionally abusive at times to Shane as a result of normative parenting and gender roles of their eras, and both are are complex people who love their children but make bad mistakes at points. That's not villainy; that's a complex protagonist who does something bad.
She is then in some ways written as the instigating antagonist in Danny’s story,
Well that's not a question about the Baldwins' parenting anymore so I'm not sure why you keep branching off into different topics.
Karen should have recognized that sleeping with Danny would inflict psychological harm on a young man who had grown up seeing her as a surrogate mother figure. But Danny is also responsible for his cohices in response. He spends over a
decade fixating on Karen. He enters into a relationship under false pretense and then marries this woman he does not love; he stalks Karen; he spies on Ed's communications with Karen; he refuses to seek mental health treatment even though he knows he's not in a healthy state of mind and then through negligence allows people to die; and he attempts to evade responsibility for his manslaughter.
I don't think Danny or Karen are antagonists. I think they're both protagonists of their own stories, and they both make terrible choices that harm others sometimes. But Danny's also are clearly much more harmful than hers.
and her role with the independent space program could again be seen as antagonistic as an instigating force.
I mean, if you posit that NASA is the protagonists' organization and any organization acting in opposition to them is an antagonist organization, then sure Helios and Karen are antagonists. But I think of Karen are being as much a protagonist as Ed, so to me this is two protagonists in conflict, not a protagonist and an antagonist.
But you miss things all the time
Condescension is not a structurally sound argument.
— the tragedy of Gordo isn’t that he was selfish, but that he became *unselfish* and that it was that which led to his final heroism and death.
No, part of Gordo's tragedy was that he was, indeed, somewhat selfish. All of the astronauts are, because they prioritize their desire to go to space above their loved ones' need for a live in-person relationship with them. As Molly talks about in Season One. And that fact has consequences; for Gordo and Tracey, one of the consequences was that their children grew up with absentee parents and that was deeply traumatic, particularly for Danny (who, it must be noted, lost his best friend and nearly lost his mother at almost the same time).
Yes, it had an effect on his sons, to whom he had improved some bones with prior, but it wasn’t a selfish act that caused it.
No, it absolutely was. If you're choosing to pursue a career that takes you away from your family for extended periods of time because of a deep-seated personal desire, you are by definition prioritizing that desire over your relationships with your family, and that is by definition a selfish choice. It may be the only choice you can make to achieve happiness and fulfillment. But it is still a selfish choice.
That is, indeed, part of the tragedy of so-called "Great Men and Women."
