Lately the concept of âGood Guy Aceâ has come up in discussion.
The Ace is a good guy. He works hard; he is diligent, professional, and respectful. He is extremely skilled and competent (competency porn! What a great term!). He seems like the kind of man we would want to know in our own lives; he could be easily someoneâs father, uncle, grandfather⊠The Ace is an older man secure in his strength and abilities; a man who sees people for what they can accomplish and thus does not resent a womanâs leadership, a man who lives the meritocracy he believes.
The Ace is compassionate and caring; he is concerned when Furiosa is cold to him, he bows deepest at Morsovâs death (in contrast to Slit who mocks Morsovâs sacrifice). He is intensely loyal; he shields Furiosa from Nuxâs sawed-off shotgun (and Nux in turn is unwilling to shoot a fellow War Boy out of hand). And as aforementioned, the Ace is not the kind of man who would be sitting in the back of the War Rig with the other War Boys, saying, âWomen drivers, amirite?â These values make him a good man in our world, and as far as weâre concerned, in any world.
But the Ace, no matter how much of a good guy he is, is still complicit in the system of the Citadel, an oppressive system with a foundation in dehumanization. He is trusted with protecting valuable commodities. The War Boys are literally giving their lives for commodities, because in this world, those things have more value than their labor or even their lives. The Ace also appears as one of the most pious; he bows his head the lowest when saluting Immortan Joe, and again when he Witnesses Morsov.Â
Uncritically, the Ace has no idea that the accumulation of these actions mean that he implicitly supports an oppressive system that strips him of individuality, adulthood, self-determination, and even procreation. After all, those chastity belts are meant to hurt people on both sides of the iron. As intensely manly as the War Boys are, they are essentially eunuchs, drones, interchangeable parts no more individual that a factory-produced bolt, emasculated by a cult of toxic masculinity. Immortan Joe doesnât just control the water and with it their lives; he controls all the means of production too, even the reproduction of human beings.
So how do we know for sure that the Ace is complicit in the system? After all in a fiercely male-dominated, patriarchal world, he trusts Furioa and she trusts him in return. It is obvious they have experience working side-by-side. They move as a well-rehearsed team and know each otherâs minds. But when Furiosa betrays their system, the Ace takes her by the throat. This is not the action of a man who is good in the context of our world; this is the brutal action of a man who is good in the context of their world. A man who is protecting the assets at the cost of friendship and mutual respect, profit above all else. Even though we know the Ace doesnât necessarily think âprofit before friendsâ, by attacking Furiosa and doing what he thinks is responsible, he is supporting that toxic worldview.
As much as we love the Ace, the Ace is sick like the rest of the War Boys, not only physically, and unable to see it. He has not had his eyes opened by the Splendid Angharad as Furiosa and the other Wives had. Heâs carved out a little bit of goodness in an ugly world, but the Ace, like everyone else, is a product of his environment and the system they live in. It doesnât stop him from being a good guy; itâs just that in their world, no oneâs hands are clean. Everyone is complicit, no matter how good they are and how much one wants to like them. This best example is the Keeper of the Seeds, whose last planted seed is an Anti-Seed, a rifle bullet, in Furiosaâs assailantâs eye. Even she whose mission is to give life to the wasteland is a killer, many times over, and mostly unapologetic about that, though her seeds are a chance to redeem herself.
It is important to judge characters and people by the context of their world and their society, not ours.
So in sum: Ace is a good guy. Hell, even a great guy, in the context of his world. We still love him. But one may not want him over for dinner.
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