A new Perspective on "The Incredibles"
Mar. 14th, 2006 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seawaspI was musing on this wonderful movie this morning, when it occurred to me, suddenly, that the entire movie's main plot could be viewed as driven, not by Syndrome, but by the Machiavellian maneuverings of Edna Mode.
Consider:
1) Where did Syndrome get his costume? Yes, he COULD have made it himself, but if there was, in fact, a "costumer to the stars" for the Heroes, Syndrome would know. And as a would-be hero, he'd go to her. And he's exactly the sort of guy to peeve Edna enough to get her to make him one WITH a cape.
2) Edna's dissatisfaction with the Status Quo is clear. "I used to design for GODS!" She's annoyed in the extreme.
3) Edna is a perfectionist. She COULD have repaired Bob's suit well enough to be unnoticeable even under pretty close inspection.
(one of the most telling points)
4) Edna didn't tell Bob about the tracking beacon. Edna knew that Bob was sneaking around doing Hero stuff. Unless she had ulterior motives she had no reason NOT to tell Bob about the features in the suits. Instead, WITHOUT telling him, she went ahead and made the suits for the rest of the family.
5) She was clearly WAITING for Helen to call. She could have called her any time, but didn't.
In my theory, this is what happened:
Syndrome finds Edna; convinces her to make him a costume, but makes such a pill of himself that she deliberately makes it with a cape, hoping something will happen to him.
Shortly afterward, supers start disappearing. Edna knows a lot of them even in civilian identities, obviously. Eventually she makes the connection.
Edna is already utterly put out that her entire career was derailed by stupid lawsuits. She wants things back the way they were.
So when Mr. Incredible shows up, clearly the next target of Syndrome, she finally has the perfect setup to put her plan into action. She knows Bob married Helen. She knows -- none better -- that the two have been trying their best to stay "normal". She also knows that with Bob keeping it secret, there is one obvious deduction Helen might draw from Bob's sneaking around.
So she doesn't tell Bob about the beacon or Syndrome. She sews the repair Not Quite Perfect and waits for Helen to call. She leads Helen to figure out Bob's been out behind her back, lying to her about the "job", and then hands her the tracker, knowing the family will confront Syndrome -- almost certainly publicly -- and usher in a new era of the Supers. And give her back her proper place.
All that has transpired here has done so according to my fabulous design, dah-lings.
Consider:
1) Where did Syndrome get his costume? Yes, he COULD have made it himself, but if there was, in fact, a "costumer to the stars" for the Heroes, Syndrome would know. And as a would-be hero, he'd go to her. And he's exactly the sort of guy to peeve Edna enough to get her to make him one WITH a cape.
2) Edna's dissatisfaction with the Status Quo is clear. "I used to design for GODS!" She's annoyed in the extreme.
3) Edna is a perfectionist. She COULD have repaired Bob's suit well enough to be unnoticeable even under pretty close inspection.
(one of the most telling points)
4) Edna didn't tell Bob about the tracking beacon. Edna knew that Bob was sneaking around doing Hero stuff. Unless she had ulterior motives she had no reason NOT to tell Bob about the features in the suits. Instead, WITHOUT telling him, she went ahead and made the suits for the rest of the family.
5) She was clearly WAITING for Helen to call. She could have called her any time, but didn't.
In my theory, this is what happened:
Syndrome finds Edna; convinces her to make him a costume, but makes such a pill of himself that she deliberately makes it with a cape, hoping something will happen to him.
Shortly afterward, supers start disappearing. Edna knows a lot of them even in civilian identities, obviously. Eventually she makes the connection.
Edna is already utterly put out that her entire career was derailed by stupid lawsuits. She wants things back the way they were.
So when Mr. Incredible shows up, clearly the next target of Syndrome, she finally has the perfect setup to put her plan into action. She knows Bob married Helen. She knows -- none better -- that the two have been trying their best to stay "normal". She also knows that with Bob keeping it secret, there is one obvious deduction Helen might draw from Bob's sneaking around.
So she doesn't tell Bob about the beacon or Syndrome. She sews the repair Not Quite Perfect and waits for Helen to call. She leads Helen to figure out Bob's been out behind her back, lying to her about the "job", and then hands her the tracker, knowing the family will confront Syndrome -- almost certainly publicly -- and usher in a new era of the Supers. And give her back her proper place.
All that has transpired here has done so according to my fabulous design, dah-lings.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-15 01:31 am (UTC)I can definitely see Edna as the secret mastermind; but I think the plan as you've outlined it leaves way too much to chance and coincidence. Edna would do better than that.
What I wonder is if the Feds weren't quietly backing Syndrome in his ongoing effort to wipe out all the supers. The supers were expensive to keep in hiding, plus you never knew when they might take it into their heads to start being activist again; clearly they were much better gotten rid of... discreetly and with deniability, of course. It wouldn't have been hard for them to find out about Syndrome; you don't build a secret high-tech lair like that without leaving some kind of invoice trail.
Hmm. Maybe Mirage was the government agent in his organization. No real evidence for that, but it's an interesting possibility.
By the way, did David Brin ever post an essay describing how Syndrome was really the good guy, trying to make superpowers available to everyone and combating the evil elitists "superheroes" who thought they were better than everyone else because of their genes? Because I can't believe Brin would miss out on an opportunity to deconstruct popular entertainment in a contrarian way.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-15 01:38 am (UTC)As to Edna Mode, puppetmaster-diva, well... it was writer/director Brad Bird doing her voice... *grin*
-- Steve's a total raving fan for that flick.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-15 02:05 am (UTC)I'm thinking it was more like they were keeping an eye on him, and perhaps even discreetly helping him as long as all he was doing was killing supers. They doubtless had plans to take him down when he got done with the supers; but I suspect they were taken by surprise by his "giant robot attack" plan.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-15 02:12 am (UTC)-- Steve'd think that the government would want to keep a stable of "reliable" Supers on tap for future use, in case the Red Menace (or its equivalent in the Incrediverse) gets rambunctious.
Doesn't quite work.
Date: 2006-03-15 03:03 am (UTC)As far as invoice trails, this is a superhero world. Things don't WORK that way. He paid in cash and had things built by the Evil HQ Construction Company (Self Destruct included FREE with every base!)
Syndrome already DID that monologue; Brin couldn't do it any better. Besides, I think I did that better than Brin did, when I posted my proof that Yoda was the bad guy in the Star Wars series.
Re: Doesn't quite work.
Date: 2006-03-15 04:00 am (UTC)Do you have a link to that, maybe?
Re: Doesn't quite work.
Date: 2006-03-15 03:38 pm (UTC)