Iron Man 3 What makes The Mandarin?

[MichaelChen]

Ra's Al Ghul is half Arab, half Chinese.

 

[Poni_Boy]

lol I thought his name gave that away

 

[MichaelChen]

I find it interesting that "mysterious" is getting so many votes. He isn't really anymore mysterious than someone like Gorilla Grodd in a lot of stories. He just gets a big, noisey plot device and goes to war in fairly obvious fashion in a lot of stories.

 

[Poni_Boy]

Probably because most of the comics readers familiar with The Mandarin only know *of* him, they don't *know* him.

But then again... how well do we know anyone


Ever


...ever

 

[Loki882]

I was watching Batman Begins the other day and something occurred to me. Fake Ra's al Ghul, played by the great Ken Watanabe, is really close to how I would picture the Mandarin being. The Mandarin is more brutal and somewhat less mysterious, but Watanabe fits much better than tattooed Guy Pearce.

 

[Poni_Boy]

I just don't really understand either extremes of the argument. If The Mandarin looked exactly like his comics counterpart but didn't act like it sounds just as, blah, as him looking nothing like his comics counterpart but acting like it.

I mean, are we supposed be ok if a movie portrays Steve Rogers as 'Captain America' but now he's Asian guy and wearing Thor's costume? Same goes for if tom Hiddleston plays Loki wearing his full Loki outfit but talks and acts just like RDJ's Tony Stark

 

[MichaelChen]

If The Mandarin looked exactly like his comics counterpart

How does the Mandarin look? The picture below isn't even all of his costumes.

http://media.**************.com/images/users/uploads/36671/MANDARIN_costumes.jpg

Edit: Ahh, for some reason I can't post a pic of him in nine different costumes.

 

[The Overlord]

He's basically an Asian Ra's Al Ghul

Except Ra's Al Ghul has more consistent goals and a better connection to Batman then Mandy does to Iron Man. Ra's Al Ghul's goals either involve prolonging his life or saving the world's environment from the human race, Mandarin's goals seem change every week.

Mandarin is such an incontinently written character, that I think its hard to define what he is. Knauf Mandarin seems like a completely different from Fraction's Mandarin and neither seem to have much in common with Silver Age Mandarin, this why the character seems to stay dead for long periods of time.

Not to mention every time he is adapted into other media, he is different. We have already discussed the movie version, but let's look at animation: the Mandarin from the 90s cartoon was a white guy turned green by the rings, Mandarin from the 2007 Iron Man DTV was essentially Sauron from LOTR, while the Mandarin from the Armored Adventures cartoon was teenage book worm. So that's 3 vastly different versions of the Mandarin, if Mandarin is such an iconic and well defined character, why does he keep getting changed in other media?

I find it interesting that "mysterious" is getting so many votes. He isn't really anymore mysterious than someone like Gorilla Grodd in a lot of stories. He just gets a big, noisey plot device and goes to war in fairly obvious fashion in a lot of stories.

I would argue that Grodd is more consistently written then the Mandarin. For at least a decade or so, Grodd has been presented as pure evil, a stark contrast to Flash's other more noble villains. Grodd is a genocidal monster who likes to brutalize people, he has no real redeeming traits. With Mandarin whether he is pure evil or has any redeeming traits, changes from week to week.

 

[MichaelChen]

Oh, nonsense. All villains change from writer to writer. One day Doom is honorable, the next he's skinning his girlfriend for power. People are just more forgiving of inconsistencies in Doom, Magneto, Kingpin, and other popular villains and treat inconsistencies they don't like as not counting.

 

[The Overlord]

Oh, nonsense. All villains change from writer to writer. One day Doom is honorable, the next he's skinning his girlfriend for power. People are just more forgiving of inconsistencies in Doom, Magneto, Kingpin, and other popular villains and treat inconsistencies they don't like as not counting.

Mandarin is way worse, to the point that I'm not sure what his core personality really is. Really Doom skinning his girlfriend is something done by one writer and it was ignored by all the other writers, to the point that "Unthinkable" seems to be treated as non canon by other writers and a lot of fans felt that was out of character for Doom. Look at say Red Skull, he is pretty consistently written, he is pure evil, with no redeeming characteristics, so if you are writing him as sympathetic villain, you are writing him out of character. I mean who wrote Mandarin as more in character, Knauf or Fraction? Because they seem like different characters.

What is Mandarin's core personality: is he just a pure evil villain or is he a noble sympathetic villain? If you can't really answer that, then that proves my point. Other villains you mentioned might get written out of character now and again, but there is a core personality that is how they are consistently written as.

Grodd is more consistently written then Mandarin is and he is not supposed to be Flash's arch nemesis.

 

[MichaelChen]

His core personality is hypermasculine barbarism. You seem incapable of seeing any other characters types but "pure evil" or "noble sympathetic villain". Just because he does fit into the only two character concepts you comprehend doesn't mean he doesn't have a character concept.

Some writers take that core concept and elaborate on the more petty aspects, like Fraction having him keep a harem and participate in gladitorial games, and Michelinie/Layton having him challenge Stark to a duel and Stan Lee having him pass up a chance to shoot the Avengers out of the sky because he wanted to kill them personally, with his bare-handed martial arts abilities.

Some have him try to turn the world into a jungle where everyone is at war with everyone and only the strong survive.

Others, like the Knaufs, have him try to purge the world of the weak-gened. But all of them write hypermasculine-barbarism as the core of the character.

That isn't invalid simply because you can't comprehend hypermasculine-barbarism as a concept and only understand pure evil and nobility. That's on you, not the character.

And Doom's inconsistancy is still canon whether you ignore it or not.

What is Mandarin's core personality: is he just a pure evil villain or is he a noble sympathetic villain? I

Neither. He's a hypermasculine barbarian, a concept separate from those and just as valid.

 

[The Overlord]

His core personality is hypermasculine barbarism. You seem incapable of seeing any other characters types but "pure evil" or "noble sympathetic villain". Just because he does fit into the only two character concepts you comprehend doesn't mean he doesn't have a character concept.

Some writers take that core concept and elaborate on the more petty aspects, like Fraction having him keep a harem and participate in gladitorial games, and Michelinie/Layton having him challenge Stark to a duel and Stan Lee having him pass up a chance to shoot the Avengers out of the sky because he wanted to kill them personally, with his bare-handed martial arts abilities.

Some have him try to turn the world into a jungle where everyone is at war with everyone and only the strong survive.

Others, like the Knaufs, have him try to purge the world of the weak-gened. But all of them write hypermasculine-barbarism as the core of the character.

That isn't invalid simply because you can't comprehend hypermasculine-barbarism as a concept and only understand pure evil and nobility. That's on you, not the character.

I think you are describing an ideology, rather then a personality and some of those stories seem to contradict the other ones:

The Mandarin in Knauf's story was willing to give up his own life to achieve his goals and thought he was making the world a better place, while Fracation's Mandarin would never sacrifice his life based his arrogant self important and in that future story, was planning on destroying the whole world. How are the strong supposed to survive if you killed everyone in the world? Nietzsche said whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger, however if you kill everyone in the world, you have not made them stronger, you made them dead. Same ideology for both versions of the character, though Fracation's Mandarin should reread Nietzsche if he thinks killing everyone makes them stronger, but radically different personalities.

Look at this way, both 616 Magneto and Ultimate Magneto have the same basic ideology, but they are radically different in terms of personality. 616 Magneto is a noble anti villain who is just fights to protect the rights of an oppressed minority, Ultimate Magneto is a genocidal psychopath who believes mutants are superior and uses that to justify genocide against humans. The basic ideology is the same, the personality is very different.

I think if mandarin is ever to be on the same level as Doom or Magneto, he needs a personality beyond the " hypermasculine barbarism" archetype. He needs to be more of a character and less of an archetype. You can have a noble hypermasculine barbarian or a monstrous one, so explore that, rather then just presenting the same old archetype, over and over again. Is he a warrior or just a brute?

How moral or immoral a villain is often key to how are presented as characters, you can't just ignore that with Mandarin and expect him to be on the same league as Doom or Magneto and you can't have his morality change week from week, a villain's morality often has to contrast against a hero's and Mandarin's morality or immorality cannot contrast against Stark's, if it is barely consistent. These are questions that separate the arch nemesis villains, from the regular old secondary villains, that's why Mandarin is not a very good nemesis for Stark, there is no interesting contrast in their personalities.

And Doom's inconsistancy is still canon whether you ignore it or not.

Perhaps so, but most writers don't treat it that way and frankly its easier to tell when Doom is being written out of character.

 

[Slushy]

A kung-fu badass with 10 rings of power!

Not to mention every time he is adapted into other media, he is different. We have already discussed the movie version, but let's look at animation: the Mandarin from the 90s cartoon was a white guy turned green by the rings, Mandarin from the 2007 Iron Man DTV was essentially Sauron from LOTR, while the Mandarin from the Armored Adventures cartoon was teenage book worm. So that's 3 vastly different versions of the Mandarin, if Mandarin is such an iconic and well defined character, why does he keep getting changed in other media?

Because he's Chinese.

 

[The Overlord]

A kung-fu badass with 10 rings of power!
.

It takes more then that be an interesting arch nemesis, like an dynamic relationship with the hero, where their personalities play off each other.

 

[MichaelChen]

Their personalities do play off each other. Stark is a wisecracking Buggs Bunny type and The Mandarin is a raging Yosemite Sam type.

 

[Ant-manic]

I think you are describing an ideology, rather then a personality and some of those stories seem to contradict the other ones:

The Mandarin in Knauf's story was willing to give up his own life to achieve his goals and thought he was making the world a better place, while Fracation's Mandarin would never sacrifice his life based his arrogant self important and in that future story, was planning on destroying the whole world. How are the strong supposed to survive if you killed everyone in the world? Nietzsche said whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger, however if you kill everyone in the world, you have not made them stronger, you made them dead. Same ideology for both versions of the character, though Fracation's Mandarin should reread Nietzsche if he thinks killing everyone makes them stronger, but radically different personalities.

Look at this way, both 616 Magneto and Ultimate Magneto have the same basic ideology, but they are radically different in terms of personality. 616 Magneto is a noble anti villain who is just fights to protect the rights of an oppressed minority, Ultimate Magneto is a genocidal psychopath who believes mutants are superior and uses that to justify genocide against humans. The basic ideology is the same, the personality is very different.

I think if mandarin is ever to be on the same level as Doom or Magneto, he needs a personality beyond the " hypermasculine barbarism" archetype.

then maybe they should go with the the version Trevor Slattery gave us; the cipher. maybe the Mandarin is a self-made man; in the sense that everything about him is fake. his ideals/goals might change story-to-story because there's very little but rage beneath the surface. i guess that i sort of see the Mandarin as someone who will do anything to become a legend.