Jake Lockley and the “evil alter” trope
⚠️TW: brief mention of harm, talk of harmful tropes and persecutors.
A lot of systems are a tad upset (to put it mildly) about how the show moon knight handled the third alter in the moon knight system, Jake. In the 2 minutes of screen time he’s shown to be willing to kill, whether innocent or not, and seems to relish in his job in a way Marc never did.
So why are systems upset by this? Unfortunately Jake falls into the “evil alter” trope, wherein a system is shown to have an alter who’s only purpose is to be evil and create tension in the story, or as a “ha, gotcha!” Trope where a character realised they were the perpetrator all along.
For any singlets reading let me just say this, the evil alter trope is a complete work of fiction. Can alters be assholes? Yes, so can everyone. Can alters cause harm? Also yes, but 99% of the time that harm is directed at their own system or the body, very rarely is it directed at the people around them.
Sadly the evil alter trope is a stigma that sticks to systems like glitter without any of the fun, and causes people to draw negative conclusions about people with DID/OSDD, without doing any real research.
My hope is that, if we do get more moon knight content, that Jake will become a fleshed out character like Steven and Marc, and we come to understand him better as an alter.
Bottom line? Please listen to systems, and be critical of the media you consume and remember that it will not always show you correct information.
