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I've made jokes in the past that Black Panther was a love-letter to American supremacy. For all it was supposed to be Strong African Country, the plot is basically that a small central-african country gets couped and counter-couped by the American government twice in about a week... as an accident. First as a rogue former agent, but second by a isolated agent cut off from the state. So great is the power of the CIA that it's agents on their own overthrow the most powerful African Country in the world, twice, before really knowing it exists, and so great is the power of America that Wakandan royalty defects from their civilizational mission of isolation and starts giving aid to that most needy African population there is... American citizens.
Black Panther (the film) always had its own unfortunate implications- steotyping 'authentic' africans as shoe-less tribals with animal motiffs, much use of the noble savage trope, but at it's heart it was also a personal story of a man coming to grips between the tension of the virtues and flaws of something he loves, but knows needs to change for the better. The set dressing is set dressing, because the core story is emotional conflict of ideology and overcoming flaws, and if that's enough to get people to give a pass to the Unfortuante Implications, who am I to say nay?
I don't get that feeling from Wakanda Forever.
As a story protagonist, Shuri works as a 'working through grief' story, but she doesn't actually address or grappel with any really character flaws. Shuri's flaw is that she is grieving, and her grieving is corrupting her otherwise unimpeachable nature, but this isn't an actual character flaw, or anything but the most blameless of guilts. Shuri feels bad for not being able to cure an incurable disease... not, say, refusing to be at her brother's side as a man on his deathbed, denying him a final request. Not for getting a bunch of American police killed in the midst of a coerced kidnapping attempt. Nor for anything else she did, but only for what she couldn't- and couldn't be expected to do- achieve.
This is closer to the suffering-Sue stereotype than an actual character challenge for her to overcome, and the same extends to Wakanda as a whole. T'Challa struggles with the fact that the father he loves is a hypocrite and his people need to change, that his nation's policy is fundamentally flawed, and that Wakanda isn't as good as it tells itself it is. T'Challa loves his people and his friends, but the 'we follow the throne, not you' dynamic is explicit and a major point of divergence where T'Challa, the warrior-king, has to give way to T'Challa, the hero, to save his people from themselves.
Shuri... does not address that her mother broke treaties and promises to share technology and resources, is returning to isolationism, and that the Wakandan foreign policy is being governed again by xenophobic distrust of the outside and secrecy that is threatening to turn the world against them. They can't tell the truth that they are in danger because... Wakanda is in danger? This would be an excellent context for Shuri to break the mold- to reach out for help, and going against her mother's well-meaning strength-in-isolationism- but no. The writing doesn't tie the hero's growth the nation's improvement, because there is no real growth here. There is a reversion to the unquestioned norm, and as an extension the state of Wakanda isn't changing either.
Wakanda, as a character, isn't exactly asserting itself either. No one expresses any opinions on the state of the monarchy's foreign policy, of the direction of the nation is going until it's an actual war council. The people of Wakanda are presented as generally conformist- not even the spark of rebelliousness that faced T'Challa in the challenge for the throne. The advisors are inconsequential early on, and literally dismissed later. Decisions are made for them more than by them as a people. Peasants are going by wooden boat while the royalty flies above them in tech-future spaceships. T'Challa is grieved by the people of Wakanda, but the people of Wakanda fleet their only real city after the first raid in modern memory which takes the queen. Wakanda is no longer an unquestioned superpower, the fundamentals of their assumed superiority dashed by an open an unequivicable defeat on their own home soil and then the deaths of many in a losing battle their princess took them to... but no one has any issues of the new losses, because Princess Shuri didn't let her grief drive revenge?
There are a lot of interesting things you could do here from a writing point. Wakanda is implicitly an incredibly stratified society. It's gone through a seminal moment of it's unquestioned supremacy not only being questioned, but overturned. They lost the battles, they lost their queen, and they've just lost the royal dynasty. It's isolated, and keeping the secrets that have murdered innocent citizens of other countries. You can make interesting stories with this.
But they won't, since that wasn't the goal here, and won't be the goal when the superhero teamup needs to happen.
If one thing is disappointing for me, it's this
Wakanda is a fairytale land so I guess there could be a worry that digging in too deep would undermine it's ability to function as such for everyone but it does feel very empty after two movies now.
A lot was made of the idea of a pristine, uncolonized African country but they haven't really explored it from the ground view.
I actually don't mind a deliberately archaizing nation with schizo-tech distribution...if you explore that concept*. There's lots to draw on there: Wakanda is one of the few left nations that actually seems to believe its supernatural founding myth (with good reason apparently) and apparently has had an unbroken continuous government longer than anyone else, despite what appears to be a highly rickety system of succession. This sort of thing could lead over-valuing of the past, a bunch of people who constantly LARP their ancestors' lives and have grown so indolent that they don't worry about the costs of this.
All of this is weird and absurd and would be fun to see an attempt to condense this into something that made sense.
But it's just sort of a potemkin country instead.
Oh well, this is why god made rational fanfiction.
* This is also my problem with their military. I don't mind that it's incredibly dumb; I mind that they don't explain this dumbness as a product of them being incredibly sheltered and coddled. Even worse: people keep telling us it isn't incredibly dumb.
These sound like heavily mistake theory descriptions.
If all that stuff was put in there for wokeness, outside the process of normal storytelling, you wouldn't expect the concepts to be explored seriously.
I'm not really a mistake theorist on this, but I think the reason is more that it's a Marvel movie and exploring stuff like that isn't really their point anyway.
After all: Asgard isn't that deep either and it isn't a particularly "woke" region like Wakanda and has had more screentime. Deeper, but still.
I don't think any part of the MCU answers the GRRM question of "what's Aragorn's tax policy?"
(Though, obviously, some things that are "unrealistic" are in service of wokeness. Like the need for Wakanda to be the premier nation in the world as opposed to just a bunch of smart, lucky isolationists)
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In the first film to feature Wakanda, the shepherds in poverty outside the invisible gates were actors as much as shepherds. It looks like the country has car-free cities and fast transit for people to get to their reed boat’s dock in the morning for work. They seem to deliberately have chosen a philosophy which eschews all the bad things about cities (anything which causes alienation) and embraces only the good: economic concentration and opportunity.
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To be fair here, I felt like Shuri not being at T'Challa's death bed had more to do with Marvel not wanting to use CGI to bring him back just to give him a death scene, and I think that was the right choice for the film. It would be a bit strange to fault Shuri for it, since I imagine if the character had died but the actor hadn't, Shuri absolutely would have been by her brother's side at the end.
There was a quick line at the beginning where someone relayed to Shuri that her brother was asking for her, and Shuri brushed it off to try to work on a cure. Yes, it makes sense from a Doyelist stand point, it's still interesting that they went out of their way to put that line in, then did nothing with it.
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I don't mind the decision, nor am I blaming Shuri. I mind/blame the writers who didn't do anything with the decision. What could have been an excellent theme-establishing line of dialogue- of Shuri's rejecting the counsel of others, to her own later regret, of establishing a character flaw to overcome ('I'm the smart one, I know better than everyone else')... this would be a good character arc that would support the general plot of the movie, while keeping the theme of grief.
This could have been the establishing character moment, of Shuri trying to solve everything herself without considering the consequences to those she ignores. T'Challa off-screen is one- and one that can give her something to bond over/reflect with T'Challa's ex-girlfriend (someone else who wasn't there at his death bed)- but it can be a reoccuring thematic touch point. Shuri ignoring bald-general's guidance, and getting American police killed- especially if the police are reframed as trying to protect/rescue Riri from a kidnapping, rather than being cast of the villians, in a chaotic three-way where Shuri is trying to 'solve' the problem of the mystery assassins against Riri but doesn't trust/talk with the CIA Liasion Ross dude. It could come across in the discussion with Namor, where rather than Shuri being 'charmed but unwilling to compromise her morals,' let Namor actually tempt/manipulate Shuri, playing the dark counselor and the person whose advice she shouldn't trust (because it appeals to her own ego). Let her think that she's in control, that she knows best and can solve this diplomatically... so that she brings him into Wakanda, against the advice/warnings of others, only to be faced with treachery, right after she appeals to her mother to trust her / let her in / becomes complicit in the tragedy of her mother's death. Then let it come again with Gorilla Tribe chieftan dude, who plays the mentor schtick in the later movie, and who deals with her in a crisis of guild/trust as she doesn't trust herself or know who else to trust. And, of course, let it come down to the thematic tension between Killmonger from the vision- another dark influence- and T'Challa's ex, who asks for her trust and to confidence. Let that culminating moment- of when Shuri truly listens to others over what she wants and rationalizes over what is right- be when she let's her late brother's counsel, and his words, come through the meaningful echo.
Shuri can have agency if she makes mistakes. She can overcome weaknesses, without fundamentally overhauling the plot. Let the twin themes of guilt and struggling to accept the advice of others (while being wary of those who would mislead her) be character themes.
As-is, Shuri (and to a different degree, Riri) is closer to a black female Tony Stark, only without the flaws and the charisma and the character conflicts internal and external that made him gripping.
I don't blame Shuri for that, but I do blame the writers for that. Shuri in Wakanda Forever is flat. Shuri in Wakanda Forever could have been incredibly interesting with the early set-up.
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