WAS Magneto right?

thejboy88

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A while back, MovieBob posted an episode of "The Big Picture" in which he discussed how some people held onto the notion that the reason society looked down on them was because they were somehow better than them, and that bullies and others kept them down because they feared their intelligence, skills etc.

This was summed up in his liking the issue to the general division between Magneto and Xavier in the X-Men stories, how those with special abilities should either become in charge of everything or work to help those who once oppressed them, with Bob ultimately falling on Magneto's side.

As for me personally, I think I'm with Bob on this one, but I would like to know where you all stand on this particular debate.
 

Vegosiux

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Oh sure, when a fictional character goes on a rant about how "humanity is keeping us down" and how they "fear us because we're better than them" it's all good and the guy's a fucking hero no matter the kill count, but when a real person grabs a gun and goes and kills a bunch of people because the universe just refused to acknowledge their greatness so they had to take some lives to assert their obvious superiority, it's an entirely different thing, now isn't it? Suddenly it's a megalomaniac with a superiority complex with all kinds of labels attached to them, even if they say they fight for the weak and oppressed!

Not as fun when it hits close to home, but I guess doublethink is a part of the human condition.
 

Scarim Coral

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My ideals and beliefs would be on Xavier side. Violence and hate should never be the desire outcome as it will lead to pain and suffering on both sides. They should just talked out their problem/ conflict. Granted it won't be easy on Xavier side.

EDIT- Well ok my comment isn't on topic per say but I say that Magneto is wrong. I can understand the whole given the wrong doer what they deserved but you CAN show mercy/ kindness to those who had wrong you. I mean for you to be bullied to become the bully is no different to what they were.
 

chaser5000

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I think if I was in that situation I wouldn't choose either side. What have X-Men never really accomplish anything it seems and I don't agree with Magneto. I probably try and join the Avengers or something.
 

krazykidd

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He is right. Even if the mutants do nothing, humanity will want them extinct. Hell humans can even get along with each other, does anyone really expect them to get along with people different than they?
 

MeTalHeD

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Magneto was speaking from a position of power. If he was unopposed he would rule the world with the lowly humans probably being slaves. Our history is filled with people seeking power, killing others in the process and, if they succeed, are glorified or, if they fail, vilified. Those two change depending on the context. In Germany, Hitler was their hero. In the west, he was a villain. There are still people today who consider him a hero and he believed there was an "ubermensch", a person who was more than human who was cruel, cold and powerful.

Even he was afraid of this ubermensch who he claimed to have seen. The main point here is that there was this belief that there are people who are intrinsically better than others. As humans, we believe beings that are more powerful than us are better. Power is our currency, more so than money, because we want to have more today than what we had yesterday.

Using humanity's perspective - more power is good - then technically, yes, he is right. We fight people with power when we're convinced they're abusing it. But powerful people don't care about good or evil. They will do anything to maintain or gain power.

In Magneto's case, it is rather ironic because he and the mutants are not technically human, yet he inhabits a very human view of the world. That being said, I do believe in the videogame, Marvel Super Heroes, when you beat the game with him, he builds a base on the moon for all the mutants.

I think at the very core of his beliefs, he wants mutants to be free to be who they want to be. He wants their independence and liberation from the stigma of being different. Were he to conquer the planet, he would be doing a very human thing (ironically). If based on the world view that "might is right" (more power = success) then yes he is right.

Morally, no. But Magneto's view of humans is similar to how we view other life forms on earth. We tend to kill them and dominate them, so (assuming Magneto was real) we would have no right to judge him for seeing us like cattle or sheep. The powerful humans among us already do so today...
 

endnuen

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Vegosiux said:
Oh sure, when a fictional character goes on a rant about how "humanity is keeping us down" and how they "fear us because we're better than them" it's all good and the guy's a fucking hero no matter the kill count, but when a real person grabs a gun and goes and kills a bunch of people because the universe just refused to acknowledge their greatness so they had to take some lives to assert their obvious superiority, it's an entirely different thing, now isn't it? Suddenly it's a megalomaniac with a superiority complex with all kinds of labels attached to them, even if they say they fight for the weak and oppressed!

Not as fun when it hits close to home, but I guess doublethink is a part of the human condition.
If I could upvote this, I would.
 

Redd the Sock

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Yes and no. America is possessed of an anti-elitism that tends to distrust our betters, and vilify them if they are too in our face that they are smarter, or harder working, or healthier than we are because we hate being judged, and we hate reminders that we could be doing better.

On the other hand, the fear the human element of what mutants can do if unpoliced was never completely unjustified, and time and time again, Magneto only made that fear worse. The plot of the recent movie was based in how one could just walk into the white house and kill an important political figure on her whim. Magneto has a number of instances best defined as terrorism of showing what one mutant could do if provoked, or just slipped off their meds. in the DoFP movie

Magneto lifted a baseball stadium and dropped it to surround trask, the president, and others before going into "they fear us because we're different" speech. No, they fear you because you are in the middle of a terrorist act and they know they have no way to stop you, or many other mutants that might follow suit.

Xavier largely gets the fear of the human element and as such, doesn't internalize it. He gets that they fear him digging out all their secrets without any way to stop him, while Magneto doesn't get that his own personal history is enough reason for humans to not leave him alone. It's created a circle where as much as he might be willing to live in peace, he takes actions that make his cause worse off.

As this translates into reality, Magneto is the guy fighting racism that turns into the PC police, the health nut that makes laws about junk food intake, or the atheist that can't leave the religious people alone. He's someone that doesn't get that trying to impose your views only make people fight them harder to the point of becoming what people were afraid of in the first place, against xavier's attempt to be understanding and foresight to know that you can't win the minds by being the bad guy.
 

Fractral

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Of course, even if you support Magneto as a human what's to say that he'll be nice to you afterwards? Assuming we're still humans and not mutants in this situation. I've always been a little confused by people who support those who seek to exploit them, at least when there is a better option.
I guess you can put me down as one of those idealistic folk who still believe that ultimately everyone could get along with each other if they just sat down and talked out their differences. So no, I don't agree with Magneto. Even ignoring my own bias, being a human, he is every bit as xenophobic and hateful as what he tries to draw his enemies as, and the fact that he resorts to violence is unacceptable.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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No, fuck siding with Magneto. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others, as Mandela put it. If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
 

Gorrath

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Magneto is wrong on every possible level, except when he's spouting platitudes. His whole belief system is so full of holes it shouldn't take but a few minutes to find a slew of them. He says that humans fear mutants because they are different, but this underplays the significance of the powers the mutants have. I don't fear a person because they have blue skin, but I might fear a person if they dropped a frigging stadium around the White House with the intent to kill the president. That isn't just "different" that's violent.

Magneto also believes that humans and mutants cannot co-exist, and yet that's exactly what they've been doing since the first mutant came about in Egypt. What's more, that co-existence has generally been peaceful compared to what it could have been. All Magneto does is serve to make the break between mutants and humans a self fulfilling prophecy. It's like calling someone violent and then proving how violent they are by punching them until they hit you back. Sure there are most definitely some humans that hate mutants because they are bigots or worse, but there's a reason Congress laughed Trask out of the building when he proposed the sentinel program; there is way more evidence that humans and mutants live side by side peacefully than there is that they're at eachother's throats. Trask and Magneto have essentially the same mentality, and both are idiots.

Magneto's worldview is juvenile and vindictive and is the same sort of worldview proposed by all bigots who have more power than brains.
 

ShadowsofHope

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Magneto was somewhat right about humanity inevitably coming to blows with mutants on a larger scale, whether for good or for worse outcome (even Xavier feels similar, but he is constantly against that outcome as opposed to actively pursuing it). However, Magneto himself in the movie canon is largely the catalyst for which most human societies fear and in some cases outright hate mutants considering his relative disregard for non-mutant human life and his eager willingness to oppress and subjugate mankind as he was once oppressed and subjugated as a Jew in WW2. He basically became his oppressor as a child, a mutant Nazi who believes in the inherent supremacy of mutants as opposed to the inherent supremacy of the Aryan. It took the creation of the future Sentinels that ultimately robbed mutants of their supposed inherent supremacy in a conflict to humble Magneto and realize he was actively harming and erasing their future rather than securing it.
 

Casual Shinji

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No.

Magneto sees himself as better than humans because of his power. And I'm no expert on the X-Men universe, but I'm sure there are characters out there that are vastly more powerful than him, which I'm certain he'd be just as likely to turn against due to fear. As has been said, he speaks from a position of dominance - You really think he would allow himself to be ruled by someone who is "superior" to him?
 

ForumSafari

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Redd the Sock said:
Magneto lifted a baseball stadium and dropped it to surround trask, the president, and others before going into "they fear us because we're different" speech. No, they fear you because you are in the middle of a terrorist act and they know they have no way to stop you, or many other mutants that might follow suit.
Cracked pointed out something similar in an article. The idea that mutants are like gay people; a minority oppressed and feared for no good reason falls down when you later see, in the first film, a mutant lose his sunglasses and blow the roof of a train station by accident.
 

K12

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You see this is why I love "X-Men: First Class". The relationship and conflict between Xavier and Magneto in terms of ideology is the most interesting bit about X-Men. Wolverine's super-cool-bad-ass spike weapons can fuck off!
 

Flames66

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I partially agree with Magneto. I don't agree that we superior mutants should run the world, but I do believe we should be treated equally. I would probably fight with Magneto to bring down those in power. For example in X-men First class:

When the navy fired on the beach, I agreed with Magneto's plan to blow them out of the water, even with Michael Ironside commanding the fleet.
 

Winthrop

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If I were a mutant, I'd like to think I would side with the X-men, but honestly if sentinels were around and I was being hunted alive for how I was born, I would probably side with Magneto just because I was afraid and angry.
 

verdant monkai

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Vegosiux said:
Oh sure, when a fictional character goes on a rant about how "humanity is keeping us down" and how they "fear us because we're better than them" it's all good and the guy's a fucking hero no matter the kill count, but when a real person grabs a gun and goes and kills a bunch of people because the universe just refused to acknowledge their greatness so they had to take some lives to assert their obvious superiority, it's an entirely different thing, now isn't it? Suddenly it's a megalomaniac with a superiority complex with all kinds of labels attached to them, even if they say they fight for the weak and oppressed!

Not as fun when it hits close to home, but I guess doublethink is a part of the human condition.
I don't think its the same thing mate. Magneto isn't human. And he's not killing people for attention. He's killing them because they spit on him and make giant robots to kill him. Are you an X-men comics fan?

I think Magneto has some of the truth because mutants do seem to be the next stage, and Xavier seems to wan to cling to some sort of humanity. And honestly is humanity all that great when you could have laser eyes and super strength and all that? Magneto is right to fight back but probably not right to exterminate everyone.
 

DevilWithaHalo

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Magneto is right, because it's a fundamental part of the human existence. A lot of people focus on the Vs-Mutant side of the oppression he fights against, while forgetting his oppression began at childhood devoid of all considerations for mutant powers or mutant kind. He recognized that humans oppressed each other for every reason conceivable under the sun, and being mutant was merely the next reason.

Evolutionarily speaking, he and Charles were correct that given enough time, humanity as we know it today would eventually cease to exist. Charles merely fought for a peaceful transition, whereas Eric simply fought against any opposition to the eventual inevitability.

Eric is further reinforced by every anti-mutant activist and government sanction imposed on mutant kind. His justifiable reaction to it merely plays to their insecurities and fuels their fears in opposing mutants, who represent change, instead of evolution, to the common close minded anti-mutant individual. The not-so-veiled jealously of Trasc was a pretty powerful reflection of that.

Eric is a reactionist. He's a holocaust survivor and does whatever he can to prevent the next one.
Vegosiux said:
Oh sure, when a fictional character goes on a rant about how "humanity is keeping us down" and how they "fear us because we're better than them" it's all good and the guy's a fucking hero no matter the kill count, but when a real person grabs a gun and goes and kills a bunch of people because the universe just refused to acknowledge their greatness so they had to take some lives to assert their obvious superiority, it's an entirely different thing, now isn't it? Suddenly it's a megalomaniac with a superiority complex with all kinds of labels attached to them, even if they say they fight for the weak and oppressed!

Not as fun when it hits close to home, but I guess doublethink is a part of the human condition.
That was so needlessly antagonistic and entirely unnecessary. Not to mention a ridiculous false equivalence. Please take your emotional outrage elsewhere.
 

Zontar

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The problem with Magneto is that he basically proves all the humans who hate, fear and discriminate against mutants right. The question "are mutants dangerous" has an undeniable "Yes" as it's answer.

To put it like Honest Trailers did: he's a holocaust survivor who became a new Hitler.