To serve as a wee bit of context I want to talk about Onslaught and how if they did the parallels they drew to the original Onslaught plotline with the end of season one verses what it seems like they're building to.
So, in the comics, Onslaught is a major villain who happens when, in a desperate last ditch effort- and a lot of anger- Charles basically absorbs Magneto's psyche and thus his rage and it became another psychic entity inside of him. This also leaves Magnus catatonic.
He snaps and does this because Magnus rips the metal from Wolverine's bones.
So, very similar to what happened at the end of season one, except Charles succeeds in what he was trying to do in the comics and so, no Onslaught! Yay!
Bringing us to now. Charles is clearly connected to Magnus' mind while he dies, and is clearly fucking distraught. The way he fucking snapped at Apocalypse in a way we've never seen before.
If we get an Onslaught that is a result of Charles' love and grief for Magnus instead of rage and hatred I am so fucking here for it.
And the way that they made the original origin of Onslaught into the meaningful moment between Charles and Magnus that it was? Especially if they're running with what it looks like they are?? I FW IT HEAVYYYY.
I love Charles Xavier. I love how trapped he is. Since he was a baby he has bled and was cut and sewn back together in someone else's image. His body never belonged to himself. First he belonged to his father, then Essex, then a cause, a dream, a false hope. His head was wired to build a cage around himself like an automated machine. You could cut open his cage and pry the wires from his brain but he won't come out. Being free never even occured to him as a possibility. The very concept of being free is foreign to him. Why do you think his dream is to "co-exist"? Merely for humans to barely tolerate their existence, to live side-by-side, to just be there. He has a very low perception of this world. He never believed in the world, let alone himself. And one by one he saw his children, his students, fly free, free. He grew confused, "how did they do that? Why can't I do that?". He lost the ability to get angry, so instead he grows bitter. He burns bridges. He loves his kids. But he hates that they aren't born with cages. He loves his dream. But he never saw himself in them. Always as the stepping stone, always as the dead man even when he was alive. He wants to be free but he doesn't know how. He wants to live and love and cry and laugh but he doesn't know how. All he knows to do is his dream, his hope, the salvation and redemption of everyone except himself because he is not anything. He is nothing. He does not have a "self". He belongs to his dream and the cage implanted within him by his childhood home. He lies, cheats, manipulates, hurts; all for his dream because who else? Who else would do it? Who else if not him? He knows he's a sinner. But better him than his kids. Better him than the world. Better him than Erik. He's delusional. He's logical. He's an idealist. He's a realist. He's an optimist. He's a pessimist. He's the devil. He's also the martyr. Everything that makes "him" "Charles" belongs to whatever the situation demands. His mind does backflips to contradict himself all because he does not own himself. There is no "himself". Only a dream. My favourite character of all time.
With the rumours of Onslaught about to be introduced in season 2, everything makes so much sense. I was so confused that after Charles and Erik's psychic fight during last season's finale there was no Onslaught but I get it now. Onslaught wasn't borne of Charles and Erik's hate towards each other. Onslaught is going to be borne of Charles' hate towards the world after it took Erik away from him. Borne from grief and mourning. Onslaught will be borne from Charles' mind after Erik's death implanted only seeds of hatred inside Charles' psychic womb. Oh my god fucking brilliant. This is genius if they genuinely go down this route. Holy fucking shit.
THIS IS INCREDIBLE IF TRUE I AM SO HERE FOR THIS!!! also we had the mags redemption where he adopted charles’ view, what if charles adopted magnus’s view now that he’s dead?!
Charles in his breakdown era I AM SOOO READY. Also a rare moment where he genuinely said cruel and bitter things to someone, leaving behind his ideals of pacifism.
HE WILL GIVE BIRTH to the son who will avenge his father and it seems to me a kiss chef that only hatred and pain —something not essential in Charles— catalyzes in his womb to give life to Onslaught
With the rumours of Onslaught about to be introduced in season 2, everything makes so much sense. I was so confused that after Charles and Erik's psychic fight during last season's finale there was no Onslaught but I get it now. Onslaught wasn't borne of Charles and Erik's hate towards each other. Onslaught is going to be borne of Charles' hate towards the world after it took Erik away from him. Borne from grief and mourning. Onslaught will be borne from Charles' mind after Erik's death implanted only seeds of hatred inside Charles' psychic womb. Oh my god fucking brilliant. This is genius if they genuinely go down this route. Holy fucking shit.
THIS IS INCREDIBLE IF TRUE I AM SO HERE FOR THIS!!! also we had the mags redemption where he adopted charles’ view, what if charles adopted magnus’s view now that he’s dead?!
Charles in his breakdown era I AM SOOO READY. Also a rare moment where he genuinely said cruel and bitter things to someone, leaving behind his ideals of pacifism.
On a recent post of mine about how damaging making Charles a villain has been to the X-Men story, I got many responses like below.
And so... *climbs on soap box*
Charles Xavier Twisted
A dirge scored for unoriginality, instant gratification SJWing, ableism, watsonialism, power scaling, daddy issues, and disappointment
The user from the tags above is not alone in blaming Charles' downfall on ableism, but the destruction of the character of Xavier came about for (unfortunately) a clusterfuck of reasons.
Ableism is often brought up first by many because isn't it so very convenient that the one most known disabled comic characters has been treated this way? Magneto, who murdered a LOT of people is welcomed as a hero, but Xavier's sins are unforgiven. (How sad, given that he himself is canonically forgiving to a fault?) And while I don't think it's THE reason, I think of it as a foundational reason for his downfall.
Many writers just didn't know wtf to do with a disabled character past their disability. Plots with Charles often either revolved around his disability or they found (not so) clever ways to remove it temporarily. The infamous Jean Grey panel was written not to introduce a plot line of a love triangle, but rather was solely to show that Charles was a pathetic cripple that no woman would ever love. When he did get to be in a relationship, artists would find clever ways to minimize his disability. And he's bald, which authors often use to point out that women would never want him, while artists rarely make any attempts to make him attractive. They even erased his baldness in the Fox movies before making it an injury rather than his natural mutation. Another way to make him a victim.
The second foundational reason is The Xavier Problem, as coined by Marvel execs. Put simply, "We gave the team this great, wise leader who is a stupidly powerful telepath. How are they ever going to have scary enough challenges?" The Xavier Problem is why they invented sentinels (what can a wheelchair bound telepath do against giant robots?) as an example. They also liked to kill him off a lot and send him off world for this reason. Basically, Xavier was viewed by writers as a hurdle, not an asset. This, I think, created resentment especially in writers after Claremont who wanted ACTION and DRAMA!
And these two base aspects made him easy prey for the next factors.
Amongst many younger people in minorities there's an angry "I shouldn't have to minimize myself to make you comfortable!" sentiment. They rage at any concessions because "I should be able to just LIVE!" and I'm not saying they're wrong. As a minority myself, I GET IT. No, you SHOULDN'T have to make yourself small for anyone. No you SHOULDN'T need to not hold your date's hand because it upsets someone. It fucking sucks! But getting a full beer can thrown at your head from a moving car sucks more. Dying is the suckiest of all, in fact.
Concessions and pandering to the majority can keep minority people alive. Point blank. But the current combination of social awareness and instant gratification seeking makes people react to anyone suggesting any concessions as weakness and betrayal.
I, a trans man, was in a support group for trans people and said that after a lot of thought, I had decided to continue to present as female to my grandparents for my wellbeing (and detailed exactly why). The THERAPIST running the group turned to the others and said "What are some other things we tell ourselves to convince us not live our truths?" I was shamed and belittled for choosing safety. If you're not loud and proud 100% of the time, risking your safety for "truth", you're the problem.
*nods to Xavier* Sound familiar?
People will post pictures of the Morlocks and say "Oh look, Xavier only picked the pretty mutants for his team. He didn't want the ugly ones. Hypocrite!" And yes, he DID pick the pretty ones. Of course he did. Do you think Rosa Parks just HAPPENED to be wearing her Sunday best, looking pretty and demure and oh-so photogenic? Do you think it's a coincidence that the black people who sat at diner counters and refused to move were dressed nicely, clean, pressed clothes, button up shirts, ladies with their gloves on, and all of them young, nice looking and harmless? Those people were chosen for those actions, they trained for them, so that the photos in the paper would show the right story. There would be NO room for the reporters to spin them as hoodlums and trouble makers. (Look at how they vilify every black person gunned down for no fucking reason and know it takes so little for a minority person to be turned into the enemy.)
Now look at the first X-Men team: 5 white, attractive teenagers, only one of which wasn't fully human passing, and that one looked like a fucking angel. And those fine young people where being heroes. It was very intentional. He was playing the same game as the irl civil rights leaders. The X-Men were a PR campaign to get humans used to the idea of mutants in a comfortable way. His next team he widened that, brought in other races, and even had a very non-human passing member (but still attractive and damn charming).
But young people can't see this method as anything but weakness and betrayal. This is the exact reason Magneto is beloved now. He screams for immediate change and zero concessions, and that appeals. That's "living your truth".
This pairs nicely with another habit with millennials and below: Watsonian judgement of "problematic" characters. In the age of digging up old tweets and uncovering of past legit crimes, people have gotten used to looking at a person's past and (rightfully) "cancelling" them for their actions. *points at Neil Gaiman* This is a great trend to drive out harmful people from places of acclaim, but it just doesn't work with comic book characters because A they're not real people and thus CANNOT be held accountable by the irl world, and B they are written by dozens and dozens of writers in their "lifetime".
They have no freewill, they're not choosing anything, and consistency in comic writing is a fucking joke. The infamous Jean Grey panel is no more damning than the Superman kiss with a 15 y/o Lana, but Xavier haters will hold that up as PROOF that he's a pedo. And no. You have to look at the full picture of a character to make those judgements.
And now we come to my last piece of the puzzle: modern writers hate mentor characters. Really, it's across the board. Every key mentor character I can think of has been retconned to having some dark secret. They retconned Reed as having a cure for Grimm all along but not using it. Yinsin's (of Ironman) memory was tainted by a murderous son and his death rewritten. Superman's bio-dad has gotten the "plotting earth conquest" revamp a few times. They even tried to blacken Alfred's eye by giving him a daughter he'd abandoned to take care of Bruce. (When this didn't turn fans against him, they just killed him off.)
Any character a writer can project his daddy issues onto is immediately on the chopping block. Take a look at most comic lines and watch for the mentor who was secretly shitty all along. It's sad how often it crops up.
And my, oh my, does it all add up for Xavier.
One by one the writing trends of the last 20 years aligned like the astrological chart from hell to damn Charles into oblivion. The kind, careful man in the wheelchair who just wanted hope and acceptance didn't stand a chance. And, even worse, I don't think we'll see his character recover until these trends change.
The hate for him is real. Whole tiktok accounts farm it for views. The retcons are extensive and corrode every inch of his character. Every flaw has been cranked to 11 and every good trait has been made a lie. Old fans like me and fans who came in from the Fox movies can hold onto who he was, but Marvel leadership has made that past into something closer to fannon than anything else.
With the rumours of Onslaught about to be introduced in season 2, everything makes so much sense. I was so confused that after Charles and Erik's psychic fight during last season's finale there was no Onslaught but I get it now. Onslaught wasn't borne of Charles and Erik's hate towards each other. Onslaught is going to be borne of Charles' hate towards the world after it took Erik away from him. Borne from grief and mourning. Onslaught will be borne from Charles' mind after Erik's death implanted only seeds of hatred inside Charles' psychic womb. Oh my god fucking brilliant. This is genius if they genuinely go down this route. Holy fucking shit.
You are aware that a fictional character is just a rhetorical construct designed to fulfill a narrative/thematic purpose right? That their actions are written by an author who wants to use them to explore complex ideas and moral gray areas within the safe confines of fiction right? That they aren't a real person who has killed real people right?
Hi! I've been going through your Charles posts and I'm so happy to find another Charles Xavier fan in this chaotic landmine
Anyway, I saw your art with Charles covered in blood and I was wondering if you would be interested in hearing me yap about my xmen krakoa era ending rewrite in which I have Charles crash tf out and blow up the island in a moment of spiralling catharsis and the aftermath of everything after that for him and the x men?
Does it sound OOC? Yes, but do I want my goat to crash out because he deserves it as a treat? Hell yeah
Uhhhhhh, DM if you're interested? It's okay if you're not as well! Also, sorry if this is too forward, I yap a lot
Have a nice day!
HELLOOOOO
My DMs are always open to anyone who wants to go crazy about Charles!! Up to you, whether you'd like to reblog or through DMs.
I want so badly for Charles to just fucking lose it sometimes but also I know that he's way too tired to as well so it's like a double whacker. But please do share!!
The Life and Times of a closeted homosexual telepath:
Charles Xavier's life is so ridiculously fucked up bruh lmfao. Imagine you're 5, your dad's a nuclear scientist, and he likes to invite his friend to poke needles at you and do experiments on you because you're a mutant. Then he fucking dies and your mother remarries to a piece of shit and you're stuck with an abusive stepfather and stepbrother, oh and your mother is now an alcoholic. Then your stepbrother takes you driving one day and hurls you off a fucking cliff. Then your mom and stepdad fucking dies. Your stepbrother goes missing, you virtually have no family, so you go study abroad at 15 years old in Oxford all alone. An older woman named Sarah Gaunt hits you up, then merely a month into dating she pressures you into having a baby. Then she fucking disappears.
2 years later you meet a girl your age named Moira Mactaggert, you thought you'd found the love of your life, but then she cheats on you. Then you meet a guy, he's so brave and so strong, his name's Erik Lehnsherr, and you find out he's a mutant as well and you work together with him at a hospital. But obviously you're not gay and he's not gay and everyone's super fucking straight because this is the 60s. But you love the guy because he's everything you've ever dreamed of. Everything's going so fucking great. But then you get fucking paralysed 😭😭😭.
And a nurse at the hospital violates every known medical code of ethics and seduces you. Yeah. Her name's Amelia Vought and she fucking hits you and then leaves you. Oh and the Erik dude? Yeah the hospital you worked at got fucking burned down and he gets really angry and your ideologies contradict one another and he fucking leaves you too. So you start taking in little mutant kids in the hopes of training them to control their powers but SURPRISE that Erik guy is now a terrorist. So now you got a fucking uneneding homoerotic situationship with him that will last 6 decades, or more. Oh and since you're fucked in the head you didn't do a good job raising those kids so now they're fucked in the head too.
But hey you get picked up by a space alien empress futa wife named Lilandra and it works out pretty well I guess, you YES YOU even gave birth to a baby girl because of alien biology. But then your kids kinda fuck up because you fucked up so you have to go back to Earth so you and your space alien empress futa wife decide to end the marriage. Oh and you got an adult son from one your old marriages that ended terribly that was kept secret from you and he's reshaping reality and fucking up the kids you raised. Oh and your teenage fling who cheated on you? Moira? Surprise! She's actually a 200++ year old entity who can reincarnate and she also has a eugenics thing that's the whole reason she was into you in the first place because you're a mutant. Oh and your dad's friend who experimented on you comes back and fucks up your kids while fucking you up too and you gotta deal with that now. Oh and Sarah Gaunt the older woman who seduced you as a teen was actually this nightmare witch monster who terrorises people's dreams. Oh and you're fucking bald. What a fucking life. Someone roll this man a joint please.
Someone broke into my house at two in the morning, and instead of getting an adult I’m just gonna take a baseball bat down and check it out myself. Oh, it’s some random girl? Lol, that’s actually my little sister. I’m going to raise her. I am also twelve.
You just want my expertise? Well, that sucks, because now you gotta work with a minority you didn’t even know existed.
Random man drowning in the sea? I’m going to dive in there head first, grab him, and try to keep us both alive in an ice-cold, raging ocean. He’s my best friend now. And I’m also in love with him.
I am going to train a bunch of baby mutants in a few weeks. Completely improvising. One of them might explode. I just graduated from college.
No but in all actuality this kinda just is what Charles's character was about, and because I'm obsessed with him this joke post is now making me scream because like...
The dude wasn't even all that much older than the other "kids"... at least in the movies. Wait no, scratch that, in the comics originally Charles my dude was like 22??? 😭😭 give or take??? coaching a bunch of 15-17 yr olds out of sheer necessity when he himself had no idea what the fuck he's doing. (This was later retconned because of time discrepancies and Charles' age was made to match Magneto's) but still.
Now in the movies get this, most of them were only I'd say 3-4 years younger than Charles??? We never got full confirmation of the kids' ages, only rough estimations that they were in their 20s maybe mid-20s. And mind you Charles wasn't even in full mastery of his abilities?? But still he thought it'd be a great idea to be their sole guide and teacher?? 😭
Like yeah no shit everything fell apart, Charles' nature of responsibility-bearing that was not matched with the correct age competence was ingrained into him since he was a kid, why was he RAISING a kid when HE WAS A KID. Raven was ten and he was only TWELVE. DUDE HIS VOICE HASN'T EVEN CRACKED YET.
His backstory in the comics was worse if you ask me because on top of being experimented by his father and Essex he became a pseudo-therapist for his abused mother (which Magneto was so shocked to hear btw when Charles was venting to him! *Uncanny X-men but I forgot the issue, pls help me out on this one).
But even in the movie, he was the sole guardian responsible for Raven when nobody guided him in the first place hello??? It makes so much sense that later in life he makes such fucked up delirious decisions, ALL HIS LIFE he was the only one MAKING decisions.
Ffs this man .... and OF COURSE the MINUTE he met Erik in a freezing ocean, a STRANGER, he immediately latched on and CLUNG to him because he was the first person Charles didn't feel the need to take care of, if that made sense. To the point that Erik's absence, along with the loss of his students became the core reason he derailed in DOFP.
Makes it sadder too because for years, YEARS, Charles begged Erik to come home, to stay, don't leave. But the minute it was the other way around, and Erik asked Charles to come to Genosha with him, Charles IMMEDIATELY agreed. Like he was WAITING for someone to take care of HIM.
Btw Ik this is the movies but Charles' plot in Krakoa followed this same dependency and latch on Erik (at least from my own analysis). When Erik left him for Planet Arrako, Charles went off the rails. When Charles got stuck in Essex' unending samsara of lifetimes it was Erik's death that snapped him out of the timeloop.
Basically cherik is literally based off of trauma-bonding and codependency but in a world like the X-men it's kinda beautiful in a strange frightening way.
Tl;dr Charles is an unhealthy highly unstable secretly emotionally dependent man who desperately seeks someone he can lean on except since he was a kid nobody was there for him and he never managed to break that cycle of trauma, thus inflicting it on his kids.
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