Thor 2

[ask_the_right_questions]

Okay, so it's been a while since Thor 2 came out, so I figured that everyone who's going to see it probably has done so by now. If not, and you want to avoid spoilers, why are you reading this post?

And, okay, this post is mostly going to focus on Erik Selvig, so it will discuss mental health issues, so warnings apply, but it also touches on the wider film as a whole.


Okay, so one of the plot points of the film, is that Erik has essentially gone mad, due to Loki's influence over the course of The Avengers. Now, I don't, in principle, have a problem with this. I mean, he has had a norse god in his head for several days (or possibly longer, depending on which parts of canon you choose to believe). I can well believe that that would lead to the sorts of actions we see from Erik in the early sections of the film.

The problem I do have, comes in the form of SHIELD. More to the point, their complete absence from the film.

Erik was injured in the line of duty. It may be a mental injury, but it's no less debilitating that some physical ones. So, SHIELD have a duty of care towards Erik. The only other person we see who has been through the same situation, is Clint, and while he was fine when focused on the battle, we haven't seen what time has done to his head either. As another point, Clint has almost certainly had training to resist interrogation and such, which would assist with putting his head straight and 'flushing him out', to quote Clint from Avengers.

Given that Erik's adventure at Stonehenge was on national news, SHIELD will have been aware of it. Give the point of my previous paragraph, they should have been there. And, yes, I'm sure there's mopping up that they did, and maybe you can argue that the Jets were SHIELD fighters, but, none the less, some bodies on the ground would have been nice. Maybe, I don't know, doing simple things like clearing people out of that library/study room Jane and Erik run through, even if they accept they can't necessarily take the Dark Elves in a straight fight.

And, you know, answering Darcy's calls would have been a good plan too.

Coming back to my point about Erik's mental state, I don't think he should have been let out of SHIELD custody. You don't just let someone walk away, after that kind of experience. At a minimum, you keep tabs on them, and make sure they are mentally stable, which Erik clearly was not. I can't believe that the Stonehenge incident would be the first such incident, even if it was the first to make significant news, due to it's location. So, there should be warning signs there for someone who was keeping tabs on Erik to see, which should surely trigger a whole other set of procedures as regards mental health.

tl;dr: I'm cool with Erik not being mentally stable, but SHIELD have a duty of care, why the hell weren't they there when he needed them?

Any thoughts/proposed explanations are welcome.

Comments

[ashen_key]

I thiiiink the most likely answer is that it's a combination of things? And you CAN argue that Erik's actually never done anything like Stonehenge before, that the Tesseract has left him with a connection to the universe/an elevated awareness of space/time/dimensions/fabric of reality - and so thus the upcoming Event makes him spiral out dramatically.


Sooooooo, hmm. My theory is roughly this:

Erik tells SHIELD to fuck off post-Avengers - I'm not sure if they can ethically force him to stay anywhere, if he's not a danger. Pretty sure they couldn't in the US, but I'm not familiar with the UK system, either. But, still, SHIELD kept tabs on him.

At the same time, however, SHIELD is undergoing some massive internal tension (as suggested by WSC vs Fury/SHIELD with one of the pilots siding with WSC in Avengers, the CA2 sypnosis, trailer, and extended elevator fight scene, and maybe even some comments made in TV!SHIELD). And alongside THAT, there is the at least 90 (70?) dead in New Mexico, plus whoever died on the Helicarrier, or on the ground during the Battle of New York (SHIELD has a pretty big building there in Times Square, after all). So you're going to get a fair amount of shuffle-ups.

Combine those with a large dose of miscommunication, and the fact that Erik's previously been quiet so the agents who might have kept tabs on him (who will be different from previous ones, given the length of time we're talking about) might have dismissed things...

And it all combines at exactly the wrong day. I get the impression that Thor 2 happens pretty quickly, all things considered. Once Jane's back, Darcy lets Jane know that SHIELD isn't picking up their phones, so they just go on it alone, and the whole event takes, what, half an hour?

*rubs head* Those are my thoughts, anyway.

[bjornwilde]

I like the idea of the Tesseract leaving him with a connection to the universe and comics canon has used this with other characters. I know movie canon and comic canon are separate but still.

Working from your theory, Erik could even have been nearly functional and low key, coming off as more eccentric post-New York, and thus lowering SHIELD's guard. Then the conjunction of the nine worlds hits and then BAM, poor Erik short circuits just as SHIELD agents are in high demand.

[ashen_key]

Erik could even have been nearly functional and low key, coming off as more eccentric post-New York, and thus lowering SHIELD's guard.

He's on tooooons of medications (possibly even too many? That wouldn't help), but yeah, I agree with that SHIELD's guard has been lowered...or at least those in charge of tracking him (SHIELD isn't uniform). Months pass, people are busy, people are dismissive, and not the same care is taken, etc. There are things to play with and twist to build a working theory.

[bjornwilde]

D'oh, I forgot about the medications! See what happens when I don't have a pup directly involved?

Wiggle room can also be had with the meds as they weren't shown until after his release from the UK institution, if I am remembering right?

[ashen_key]

Yeah, not shown, but implied to be all of his stuff, I think? But meds can hinder as much as help, depending on the type and if it's the wrong one/just doesn't work on the patient. (Ah, the joys of finding the right medication/pills >.< )

Soooo, yes. Plenty of wriggle room :D

[ask_the_right_questions]

Hee, I can see all of this. They did have someone on him, but increasing crazy elsewhere, (see AoS), plus the fact that he seems fine means the agent relaxes, and then shit goes down and, oh shit scramble response, which doesn't get there in time, because yea, that last section, from Jane arriving back on Midgard for the second time, to the Convergence is a relatively tight time frame. I would reckon on it being closer to an hour or so (accounting for cross-London traversal time), but even so.

And when SHIELD got a flag in the system saying Erik's been picked up by the police, I could well see them being willing to just leave Erik in prison for a while, so as not to blow any covers/raise their heads above the parapet on this one. He's safe there, they know where he is, he can't do any harm, the prison wardens will see he gets his meds just fine, no problems.

[redintheledger]

Yeah, that makes sense, too! Particularly as he was just on national TV, so.

[the_man]

Looks like Ashie hit on pretty much everything I was going to say! I agree.

[protect_and_survey]

From AoS POV, it seems like the world is getting increasingly bizarre on an exponential scale - people are exploding, Nazi-made Tessaract-eque weapons are still showing up, loonies are having a field day with the laws of physics... it sounds like there's a bit of scrambling going on to keep a lid on it all. Also, to echo from above, not all SHIELD agents are created equal. It could be whoever was set to watch Erik was too low of a level to bounce the request for help high enough to get an immediate response, or they got caught in the red tape any large organization creates... or maybe they got themselves killed in the lead-up, or fell down one of the holes between worlds and froze to death (or got eaten or smushed or became king of the toadstool people) in an alternate realm.

...

I now wish for a fic about Agent X, who was trailing Selvig and took a wrong step, and is now king of the toadstool people.

Or more mundanely (and slightly more realistically) maybe the SHIELD agent was a bit of a pompous jackass, and decided to be a bit too 'omg I'm SHIELD' at the local authorities for whatever reason, and they decided that what he needed most was to cool his heels in a cell for a bit while they confirmed his story. And then all hell broke loose and he's... still there. In the cell. When Coulson arrives. It'd frankly be better for him if he had fallen down an interdimensional rabbit hole and became king of the toadstool people.

[ashen_key]

I now wish for a fic about Agent X, who was trailing Selvig and took a wrong step, and is now king of the toadstool people.

Don't tempt me :D

[ask_the_right_questions]

*Tempts*

:D?

:P (a.k.a. IDEK)

[ashen_key]

Agent Martin Xu had no idea where the bloody hell he was.

No, scratch that. Where he was happened to be an alternate spot of reality populated by people that looked...well, like toadstools.

Xu had the uncomfortable feeling he'd fallen into one of his daughter's fairy books. Except he's pretty sure that the smiley dancing creepy toadstools in Liv's fairy books wouldn't declare a random alien who fell into the centre of their village 'king'. Or 'god', he wasn't sure.

Not that he had any power. No, he'd worked that out pretty quickly. He was a useful figurehead for the village elders to retain power, and that was pretty much it.

Meanwhile, he was stuck here, and Dr Selvig was being unwatched, and Director Fury was going to be disappointed, and he was a day late for picking Liv up from her mum's.

...honestly, Dr Selvig and Director Fury could go to hell. He was going to MacGyver his way out of this dimension, and go home. He could take up gardening with Liv, and take great pleasure in making sure there wasn't a single trace of toadstool anywhere.

Re: :P (a.k.a. IDEK)

[ask_the_right_questions]

Ah Ha Ha ha ha! :D! <3

Re: :P (a.k.a. IDEK)

[redintheledger]

:D! <333

[the_force_abides]

I swear I read that with Simmon's voice.

[ask_the_right_questions]

Eh heh, yeah, I can see the way increasing amounts of bizarre would lead to, uh, problems with the staffing distribution. Also possible failure to flag a report with the right keyword(s) means it gets sidetracked into bureaucracy rather that slicing to the right person. Then a file is incomplete when reassignments are issued and stuff happens.


On Erik in prison: I could also see the SHIELD agent being willing to just let Erik sit in prison. He's safe there, not going to do anything crazy in public, the Wardens will get him his meds on time, and they know where he is.

[tlvop]

So I am mostly agreeing with everyone mentioning the exponential weirdness & so forth, because there's no GOOD reason for SHIELD to stop helping Erik other than maybe a combination of distraction/incompetence/him telling them to go away.

But I wanted to add that I am seeing Darcy as on the SHIELD payroll, here -- not an agent, and not to even be looking out for Erik, but a hidden payment for keeping an eye on Jane to make sure to keep SHIELD updated if anything weird happens & make sure Jane eats. I'm going to say she was sent off sometime prior to Avengers (nominally not attached to SHIELD), and that the post-Avengers employee shuffle made a lot of her contacts obsolete.

So there could be an extent of "but don't we have someone with SHIELD there? it must be being taken care of!" while Darcy keeps trying to call one of her five SHIELD numbers, three of which belong to people who died in the attacks, one of which is Coulson's old cell, and one of which is for an office that doesn't realize her priority level because the universe is freaking out and some level 2 civilian adjunct is trying to get contact with a higher office? pfffft.

:) if that helps.

[ask_the_right_questions]

Hee, yes, I can totally see this. Also, Darcy on SHIELD payroll would explain why no one appears to check on Erik in prison, 'I'm sure our insider is on it'.

"It's a call from a civilian mobile, I'm sure it can wait." Or even "Why the hell does this civilian keep calling our number, they're clearly calling the wrong number, we're busy."


I am glad that people agree with me that there's no good reason for SHIELD to stop providing Erik with assistance.