Superhero Ethics

The evil king is dead, the empire has fallen, the story is over! But what comes next?

On this specially-commissioned episode, Paul Hoppe and I explore that question and many others that go into the making of sequels and prequels.

This episode was commissioned by the 50th follower of Paul's Twitch Stream, freecplad3454. You can find Paul at twitch.tv/zenmadman, and if you're interested in commissioning an episode yourself, email me at [email protected] to discuss it!

Paul joins me to talk Luka, and Raya and the Last Dragon! We dive into questions raised by each of these movies individually, as well as talking about why Kids Movies are so often dismissed, and the power that can be found in their version of storytelling. We go into questions like trust, identity, queer representation, and where legend and myth meet reality.

Did he who remains have to die? Did Loki miss the mark on queer representation? And how did the phrases Thank you Daddy Disney, and Schrodinger's Kang, make it into our episode? Paul Hoppe and Fox Kaye join me to discuss these questions and more.

Paul and Ashley join me to discuss ethical questions from Black Widow! We talk about character agency, the importance of this movie, and falling fortress fight fiascos.

Returning Guest Becky Allen joins us to discuss Shadow & Bone- the TV series, and the book it was based on. Even if you haven't seen the show or read the movie, there's lots to enjoy!

Our thirst episode, and the ongoing discussion of thirst and queerness has brought a lot of feedback and Ashley joined me to go over it. We talk about all the great support we've gotten, some of the negative comments that have come in and, amazingly, we kept our conversation under 35 minutes! (a bit longer with ads)

Paul and I are talking about deep ethical questions like- is it bad to genocide entire civilizations when they make choices you think are bad? What was the importance of Loki becoming canonically bi, and has the show addressed his gender fluidity? And no discussion of Loki would be complete without one of our old favorites- redemption arcs.

Its Pride month so we're talking queer representation in our sci-fi/fantasy/superhero stories. Why does representation matter? Why is it particularly important for the queer community, and why does Hollywood consistently do it so badly.

We are joined by special guest Shiri Sondheimer. Shiri is a pansexual crone who rants about books and comics on Book Riot and the Roarbots. Her own short stories can be found in Unlocking the Magic: A Fantasy Anthology and Women In Horror 2016. She has an article on the relationship between music and creativity in Issue 10 of “Fantasy Art and Studies” and two chapters in the upcoming The Expanse and Philosophy. Her creative process is Tanaka and Tsukki in a hamster ball and a random generator once declared her genre “cactus garbage.” In her spare time she is an amateur frog.
Twitter: @SWSondheimer
IG: @Irate_Corvus
Website: www.swsondheimer.com

Mail Bag! Paul and I dig into your feedback.

Spoiler Warning- because we're answering specific questions about different stories we've covered and there are a lot of spoilers, below are the different topics we cover, with the time it starts and when the next one starts, so you can skip ahead to not be spoiled.

3:20 Invincible
28:46 Who can be a guest
45:06Avatar the Last Airbender
54:28: The ethics of thirst
1:02:20 Godzilla vs Kong movies
1:14:44 Warrior

Should Superheroes promise to never kill? Is killing in the heat of battle the same as killing a supervillain so they cannot do harm again? We look at these questions and more in a discussion of Jupiter's Legacy and other stories. If you haven't seen Jupiter's Legacy, don't worry- neither has one of our guests! We use the show as a jumping off point, to focus on the topic itself. With Paul Hoppe and Jessica Plummer.

During the show we mention an earlier episode where we discussed the Superman Comic Book, Kingdom Come. You can find that episode here. https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/23719666/download.mp3

Jessica wrote a story that is coming out in an upcoming awesome anthology titled Sword Stone Tablet! You can pre-order it here - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634028/sword-stone-table-by-edited-by-swapna-krishna-and-jenn-northington/