In Defense Of David Haller – Hero or Villain
Disclaimer- This post is regarding the television adaptation of Marvel’s Legion on FX by Noah Hawley, not the comic books the series is based on.
“The defense would like to call upon David Charles Haller to take the stand. There’s no need to twist your face Cary, he’s not going to actually show up. Not with his sworn enemy standing in judgement over him after a lifetime of parasitic abuse.”
I will speak on his behalf, David, the former schizophrenic turned the most powerful mutant in history who was recently diagnosed as “severely mentally ill after all” only to escape from the prison his so-called friends and collaborators built to entrap him and force him into a life of treatment or face certain execution.
The finale of Legion Season 2 was a shocking conclusion to most of us who have followed this intriguing Sci-Fi series since its beginning, but perhaps a closer examination of the facts, and not the delusions on hand may yield different results than those a majority of viewers now hold of our hero turned villain David Haller and his future.
The beginning of David’s undoing began in the same manner great men are always brought to their knees in one way or another, in a ladies room or a female pow-wow, and in Legion’s case, an actual gaping hole in the ground with a pastel pink sink stopper. Note that this hole dragged Syd in kicking and screaming but spewed her out with the head of a Minotaur and a gun aimed at the man she loves. Girl talk can take a twisted turn sometimes.
Cut to Chapter 15 or Episode 7 where the “A delusion starts like any other idea” thesis was first presented. The Legion lesson continues to describe how manufactured panic in a society evolves when one is busy watching shadows play on a screen inside a cave. Then an event propels a reaction which spreads from one individual to another till the entire community in enveloped in fear. Examples of the Salem witch trials and similar atrocities are shown as examples in this sequence which poses the question, “What is more terrifying? Fear? Or the Frightened?”
Like the cave dwellers. Melanie (under Farouk’s control) showed Syd selective shots of David seemingly enjoying torturing and killing inside another cave deep inside the earth and convinced her of his “true” face. Which begs the question, who is delusional here? David or Syd? Who’s under who’s spell and why is Syd so quick to believe Farouk’s version of events as relayed by Melanie when she herself has never met Future Syd or questioned her prophecy? And if one is not supposed to “enjoy” killing and violence,why is Kerry excused her enthusiasm for the same? A character who’s single wish is to kick ass every single minute she is on the screen and does not hesitate to kill when she is threatened. In the finale, Kerry boasts to Cary about a minotaur she beheaded and Cary tells her he’s heard quite enough about it. Kerry, then, is clearly exempt from judgement and she is not alone as we find out.
With the exception of Cary / Kerry and Admiral Fukuyama, the Shadow King aka Farouk has used just about every other character in the series for one purpose or another. From David, Lenny and Oliver to Melanie, he exhibits a limitless ability to tap into the consciousness of any human within his grasp. How are we to know whether Syd is not a victim of this same type of invasion?
One of the most telling scenes of this possibility is in the the fight sequence at the beginning of the finale when Syd murmuring David’s name in a whimpering voice makes David stop mid-battle and disrupts his focus until the Shadow King burst through Syd, tearing her visage and revealing his. Foreshadowing or not, using mutants for personal battles has been part of the operation manual for characters in the series. It was Melanie Bird who first admitted to wanting to help David harness his power only to use it against Division 3, who were hunting David for their own gains from the very first episode.
David is not the first mutant to be subjected to the laws of mutual use. Admiral Fukuyama was also robbed of a normal existence and made into the basket case that he is by Division 3, who handpicked the young college student to transform him into what he is today, a semi-human, damaged beyond recognition by those who volunteered to “enhance” his life. Sound familiar?
The David Haller Experience
With terms such as rapist and liar now serving as verdicts leveled against David, it is essential that we take a step back and remember who he was in the beginning. Keep in mind that David was never apart of this or any other war when Syd plucked him from Clockworks for Melanie, but was instead a troubled young man who was institutionalized for five years because he attempted suicide. This was the stuttering and frequently confused David who took 20 seconds to string two sentences together because his mind was so cluttered with the voices of others that he could not focus or keep track of events or his own thought patterns. This was the David who’s internal memory landscape was full of gaps, glitches, and holes created by the Devil with the Yellow Eyes, Farouk. Inhabiting his mind since infancy, David had not experienced a single free thought till the demon was exorcised by Cary at the end of Season 1. This was also David the junkie, who found getting high was the only way he could escape his demons and the cognitive dissonance that crippled him.
Farouk’s lifelong occupation of his mind was not David’s choice, and yet he was quarantined from society because he was uncontrollable. He couldn’t have what Amy and Ben had; normalcy, a family, a house in the country with a dog and some chickens. A dog who wasn’t imaginary or a construct of Farouk. He was imprisoned at Clockworks from which he never once tried to escape or leave until Syd suggested he shouldn’t picture himself growing old in the same place, that there was a world of possibilities. And work, memory work, and other work Melanie and Ptolemy and Cary set him to to do to master his powers. They said were confused for an illness he never had. Not only was he not broken, but he was special. This is a sentiment David echoes in his internal monologue with his two other selves in the season finale. He finally believed he could be more than a medicated zombie locked away in a hospital only to be told he will need lifelong treatment for his serious mental deficiencies or may face certain death if he refused. Now that’s a sweet deal! Why would anyone not want to get back to a medicated life?
David spent his entire life on the fringes of society and of a normal life. Always on the outside looking in. He was finally inside and he had a group of people who believed in him. That is until now.
Not once did David ever refute his mentally ill identity, it was Melanie and Co. who convinced him otherwise and now that they are taking it back in the worst way and worst time possible, is David realistically just supposed to take their word for it, again? What if he has other ideas than someone who’s power is the equivalent to a card trick when compared to his and former Summerland director who spent every episode this season self confined to her room and high as a kite till the Shadow King used her?
David is no longer the Happy Puppet because he has knowledge he did not posses before and that includes knowledge about Melanie’s and the rest of the mutant’s true capacities as well as strengths and weaknesses. This means he can make a more informed decision now. He is no longer reliant on the opinions of a world he once desperately wanted to be accepted by and belong to.
And where was this evil identity that he has supposedly hidden from the world till now. Are the mentally ill inherently evil? And would a self respecting villain try to kill himself? Farouk spent an entire season looking for his mortal body to reanimate himself because that’s what villains do, they have an unwavering zest for life and immortality. Heroes, on the other hand, especially those who have no idea of their worth, succumbs to the shame and isolation that the world around them imposes and decides everyone will be better off without them and ends their painful lives before they have begun.
The Mr. Nobody episode ( Season 2, Ep.6)of Legion clearly demonstrated the many alternate realities David could inhabit in possibilities that ranged from homeless and desperate to powerful and ruthless as Farouk’s hold on David could only produce polarizing results of a life spent as Amy’s ignorant ward or her master.
David’s judgement seems premature and ill-advised not only because of his very particular circumstances but also the events of the two seasons leading up to this moment. Whether one is a hero or a villain, who among us is beyond retribution, even on a small scale? David’s sister Amy and brother-in-law Ben are both dead and Farouk has been responsible for both although David has been cooperating with Farouk to find his body as Future Syd instructed him. David literally has no family left, adoptive or otherwise. Amy’s significance in David’s life was apparent from season 1 when he tried to leave Summerland to rescue his sister against everyone’s designs for him. David has never played by the rules but does that him a villain? or more of an emotionally driven character who has a difficult time putting his head before his heart.
In contrast, what has any of the others lost? What had Syd lost? Except the respect of her mother and Melanie, the love of Oliver, who was never really there even when he wasn’t lost in the astral plane? Let’s take stock of the body count. Anyone else but David’s losses clocking in? not really, except maybe Farouk himself, who must have lost considerably during his long life and even longer confinement after execution. So who’s got enough damage or justification to warrant retribution, any retribution from anyone? Who’s family has been wiped off the face of the earth? It’s the man on trial for displaying pleasure in taking revenge on his enemies, The witch on trial.
A conviction on future crimes is a bitter pill to swallow for even the most reasonable mutants but for one who has been ostracized and victimized such as David? It’s betrayal on a cosmic level. In suspecting and convicting David without hearing his side of the story, Syd and his friends at Division 3 are creating the future they are hoping to avoid by ensnaring him into a life of treatment. What Future Syd revealed to Farouk becomes a self fulfilling prophecy at the end of Season 2 owing to everyone’s obsession with being perceived as faultless and “good” by turning David into “something clean” and “manageable” like he says with bitterness. Which makes his selection of Lenny as a sidekick later on the episode make all the more sense.Only Lenny truly understands him because she is like him, not pure like the rest, life is too complex for sugar sweet goodness. Lenny reveals to Syd that she was raped by Farouk earlier in the season, from her prison cell window, Syd doesn’t blink. Bad things happening to bad people and they probably deserve it. When bad things happen to semi-good people like Syd, there ought to be a trial to convict the criminal, her boyfriend with a rapist sitting in judgement. Life is unfair. We got the memo.
He’s on the outside again, looking in at his lovers accusing him of taking advantage of her when all he tried to do was make a desperate attempt to keep Syd on his side by reminding her of their love for one another. This is an even more curios turn of events when considering Syd’s own sordid sexual past, where she wilfully swapped bodies with her mother to have sex with her boyfriend. Somehow, David didn’t feel the need to hold that piece of her past against her or taunt her with it. He instead embraced it as a part of who she is. Magnanimity is clearly not a Barrett virtue. These may be small details but these are facts all the characters in Legion seem to have forgotten in the absence of the memory artist Ptolemy. Where was he during the last episode anyway?
Its equally disconcerting why David was the cause of so much mistrust since his return from the orb. Everyone at Division 3 including Syd and Clarke were quick to dismiss his version of events and seemed unconvinced of his story. Yet it did not stop David from saving everyone from their own personal hell when they were trapped inside the holding cells of the virus. Would any of them be alive or be conscious today if it weren’t for David?
God Loves the Sinners Best, Except When its You Baby
The accumulation of abuse and pain is what makes us strong or so said Syd in the episode dedicated to her own backstory. Quoting Rick Moody’s The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven, the line goes “Junkies and masochists and hookers, and those who have squandered everything are the ring of brightest angels around heaven.”
” It’s a war baby, this life.The things we endure.You said you saw the future, and it’s an apocalypse.
“Who survives that the lovers or the fighters? They sell us this lie that love’s gonna save us.All it does is make us stupid and weak.Love isn’t gonna save us. It’s what we have to save.Pain makes us strong enough to do it.All our scars, our anger, our despair It’s armor.Baby, God loves the sinners best ’cause our fire burns bright, bright, bright.” Except when the Sinner is anyone but the speaker.
Sniveling orcs and silver haired elves..we are both.. all of us. We have the capacity for both and what sets one tendency in motion is what we nurture and our environment. It’s not nature. No one is born evil. Also, I don’t like my heroes or my villains sterile and clear cut. The messier and the more human the better. I like my heroes like I like my villains, unpredictable. And David’s got my number.
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