i talk about how terribly the cancer arc handled the symbiote (and on purpose) but you know the whole thing had the primary goal of giving eddie a secret reason to want spider-man dead that actually makes sense
and, like, that right there is also character assassination, my man never had a single rational thought process in his life, he genuinely believed in every justification he pulled out of his ass and i don’t have to take this slander
also the thing about the writers pushing the whole “eddie wanted spider-man dead cause he was afraid the symbiote would choose peter over him and then he would die of cancer” is that they didn’t need to add that last part? we already know that 1) eddie spent his whole childhood trying to preform for love and 2) he’s in love with the symbiote and has no other connections, so to say he justified wanting spider-man dead out of an unconscious fear of losing the symbiote’s love is something that makes total sense. his goals don’t have to come out of a fear of death, they can just be a desire to have his emotional needs met.
instead they add the cancer factor as a part of his ‘redemption’ arc that really just tries to negate what he’s redeeming himself from rather than letting him actually improve. its unnecessary clutter to a character arc that would have made perfect sense without it.
the thing about the original cancer arc is that i don’t think the writing is bad, actually. i mean, i’m never going to reread it, i’m going off memory here, but i think it has its goals, and i think it achieves them. it’s these goals that are bad.
adding the cancer factor seems unnecessary when you take it as a given that eddie is, in fact, having his emotional needs met by the symbiote. but this arc’s entire secondary goal – the less obvious one, the one casual readers won’t care so much about – was specifically to dispel the notion that either of them is getting anything out of their relationship.
for that, the cancer is very necessary. it gives the symbiote a reason to stay with eddie without caring about him. it gives eddie a reason to stay with the symbiote without caring about it. that was the point, not a side effect.
there’s a difference between disregarding or misunderstanding canon and subverting it in loving detail. they knew what they were doing, essentially.
this. this is important. let’s not give benefit of the doubt where it isn’t due. they knew very well what they were about.
A Force Sensitive Phasesixer 