#legion!len

[coldtomyflash]

DCTV sure does love evil versions of its heroes...

(Evil Barry is a dick but I’m assuming his time in the speedforce helped make him a little unstable)

(In Ollie’s defense, he was faking it)

(Drugged, not her fault)

(Brainwashing...)

(More brainwashing...)

(Legends really likes brainwashing, okay?)

(And then there’s this guy. No excuse. Just an asshole.)

[coldtomyflash]

I have a question about Len killing Mick, even though you've probably already answered it, and it's really late. Do you think that any kind parallel could be drawn between Len stabbing Mick in the back, and Iris shooting Savitar Barry? Like, maybe Len thought that that Mick wasn't "his?"

I do think there was some discussion about that (specifically this post?) but my 2x17 tag is so full of bitterness and salt it’s best not to wade through it haha. And either way, I haven’t said anything that would fully address your point.

I think that a parallel can be drawn, especially in terms of timing, shock, and visuals (shot through the back), but I don’t think the situations are comparable. Well, they are but... okay I’ll go into it.

So Savitar is a different version of Barry, one who is has been hurting team Flash all season in various ways, but specifically has been fixing to kill Iris. She kills him when he’s about to kill Barry, about to destroy all of them, maybe? Iris shoots him in the back. And he’s about to die/disintegrate anyway, right? His entire motive, in the end, was about securing his own existence, however terrible that is.

So... Doomworld!Mick is a different version of Mick. One running up against the Legion of Doom, sure. Len kills Doomworld!Mick when he’s about to take down Darhk, about to gain the upper hand on the Legion in general, maybe? Len shoots him in the back. Because if Len (the Legion) doesn’t win, Len dies, right? His main motive for being on the Legion seems to be securing his own continued survival. 

So... yeah, okay, parallels for sure. I see it, and I think you’re sort of brilliant for noticing that.

But their situations aren’t really that comparable to me despite that. Savitar has been specifically threatening Iris’s life for months and is aiming to kill the love of her life. And she tried to show him compassion before that, tried to find some way to save him. Tried to come to terms with this. And he was going after Barry specifically out of spite? Iris killed Savitar to save Barry.

Conversely, Len killed Mick out of spite, and to save himself. Mick didn’t pick him, and picked the other side, and Len was willing to shoot him in the back and kill him over it. You can’t tell me Len cared at all about Darhk. Sure, Darhk was on his side, an ally, but Mick was an ally for 30+ years so...

And Mick wasn’t a direct threat against Len’s life. Mick wasn’t aiming to hurt Len or anyone Len cared about, not then. So killing Mick wasn’t in any way an act of protection or self-defense. I mean, Len was trying to survive and make sure he changes his own path, but killing Mick wasn’t necessary to that in any way. Not specifically so.

And the psychology of Savitar being not-Barry and Doomworld!Mick being not-Mick is different too, though... yeah we can draw some parallels here as well. 

Savitar expressly says he’s not Barry. He has different motives than Barry and acts in a way totally contrary to how Barry does. Savitar does pretty much exactly what Barry would never ever do. They’re diametrically opposed and that’s not lost on Iris, it can’t be. I mean, he’s “still” Barry, has much of the same past, but he’s become someone mostly unrecognizable, inside and out. 

That’s not so much the case with Mick (though I’ll say it partly could be). Mick looks the same and talks the same still. Acts similar, except that he’s less hostile and cares about the team and admits it, has a new type of loyalty. And I think Len sees all these versions of Mick (Doomworld!Mick and WW1!Mick) as “not his” because Mick is his partner and would never stand alongside a team that isn’t Len’s. He recognizes that Mick has changed and has different motives. 

And the temporal displacement fits for both Savitar and Mick, too. While Savitar is from the future and Len is from the past, the end result is sort of the same. Savitar has memories of the future, and Mick has memories of the future, “future” being relative to the present state of Iris and the present state of Len (it’s just that the “present” state of Len is “past” to the viewer).

tl;dr... Although parallels can be drawn, the Mick that Len kills in 2x17 isn’t “his” but he’s still Mick in a way that Savitar just isn’t Barry anymore. And Len’s reasons for killing Mick were entirely selfish, where Iris’s reasons for killing Savitar were to save Barry (i.e., protect the man she loves).

[coldtomyflash]

I don't think it's fair to judge Legion Len because he's the only character on your list that we have ZERO info on what he was told, how he was turned to the villainous side (like word choice, story, all we get is "I hear I go soft and die", like did the Legion kidnap him because why would he leave with random people, how the hell did they convince him, we see NOTHING). Shoddy writing really but you could totally believe he's manipulated given it's the legion and we see nothing.

It was really more of a joke post, anon? Definitely wasn’t trying to start any debates ^^;

If you do want a serious analysis of Len’s motives though, I’ve talked a bit about them here and here and here. 

Broadly, I think it’s totally fair to headcanon he was manipulated if that’s how you see it and what makes sense to you, but I personally don’t headcanon that. Based on canon, what I assume/headcanon happened is that the Legion told him that he joins this team, “goes soft” (aka decides he wants to be a hero), and dies. That Mick is on the seemingly same course (going soft, caring about the team, etc). And they offer him a chance to change that fate. 

Because Len didn’t need to “turn to the villainous side”. This is Len from around or just after The Flash 1x04, we can presume from hints in Legends. This Len was a villain, and uninterested in changing that at this point. He’s also a survivor, and would be motivated to make sure he doesn’t end up dead because he catches feelings. That and, like you said, they didn’t show us anything, which implies that there was nothing to show - no manipulation or coercion involved. At least in terms of a canon-reading.

So... I do think it’s fair to say he was (most likely, based on what canon says) acting of his own volition and more than capable of being responsible for all of his villainous actions as part of the Legion?

[coldtomyflash]

Doomworld - Len’s Progression

I’ve literally rewatched all of Doomworld to make sense of Len’s characterization and honestly, I don’t think it’s as far off as I originally thought it was, or that it’s irreconcilable with the Len we know. After I calmed down, I could make sense of so much of his behavior by reading between the lines.

So I’m sharing that with you, a sort of quick look into his scenes in the episode. 

Long post, no gifs, but here we go.

Len starts at a heist with Mick. They’re having fun, and Len is reminding Mick not to kill the security/cops, as is typical on any job with Len, canon as of his introduction.

But then the cops show up, apologize to Len, and they give up the pretense. Mick is angry. He’s bored. He reminds Len of this. Len offers several solutions: we can get ourselves locked in Iron Heights and plan to break out, or go break into a bank with a nigh-impenetrable vault. He’s... trying. He seems to want to keep Mick happy? Because Mick is not happy. They own half the city and he seems to hate it. 

I can’t imagine why Len wouldn’t hate it either. There is no challenge, no chase. he reminds Mick that they’re partners. Equals. He says “we own half the city”. He makes it about both of them, together.

But then Eobard calls and Len’s demeanor changes. He talks with disgust about how they’re being summoned. When Mick rebuffs him about that, Len shoots off that they listen to Eobard because Eobard “agreed not to wipe you and your friends from existence.”

That’s important. And Mick looks confused by it, like he didn’t realize. Because maybe he didn’t.

It lends itself to the notion that Len feels under Eobard’s thumb, and it’s in Mick’s defense. That he’s putting up with this frustrating and boring version of reality, trying to appease Mick, because this is the version of reality where he got to keep Mick alive. He had to keep up a specific face and front with the Legion, seeming like he was in it for riches and power and whatever, make himself seem like them, so that he could bide his time to actually get what he wants. 

And he has to defend Mick in the meantime.

Len’s never been good with emotions or explaining himself, but dammit, he’s trying to keep Mick at his side and safe and expected that he’ll understand one day.

He certainly acts like that in the next scene when Mick tells Eobard they’re not his watchdogs and Len corrects to help smooth things over. He’s acting like he does on a job, like at the nuclear arms deal in LoT 1x02? He’s focused on protecting a mission or himself or the job. He’s hiding something. My guess would be hiding his intent to kill Eobard soon, that he’s been planning for a while to off him once he can.

Because he does have a plan. They take Nate outside to kill him and when Mick protests, Len tells him he has a plan. And Mick is pissed not to be in on it, now. Mick has been through Star City 2046 and the rest of it. Has had it out with Leonard in ways Leonard can’t really imagine, right now. Because this Leonard hasn’t. He’s still used to hiding the plans and details from Mick. Still used to calling all those shots.

Which of course, leads to Mick punching him in the face and taking off with Nate. Impulsive. He doesn’t explain what he’s planning to Len either.

But that doesn’t stop Len from protecting him.

When we next see Len, he’s with Malcolm and Damien. It’s unclear if he’s even told Eobard of Mick’s betrayal, but he’s told these two, and Amaya and Sara were sent to get him back -- alive. The scene does make it clear they plan to bring him back alive. Len defends Mick to Malcolm, even, making sure he’s not intending to kill him. And it’s clear that Len is the reason that Mick retained his memories whereas the others didn’t.

One wonders just how much negotiating Len did on Mick’s behalf behind the scenes in 2x15 when he suggested that the way to steal the spear was for them to get him close to Mick, to bring Mick to their side.

It’s also clear in that scene that Len is planning to kill Eobard, and that the other Legion members agree.

Of course, then the Legends team refuses to trust Mick (when have they ever) even though they should (they always should have) and Mick gets fed up and contacts Len to meet him privately.

Len is jealous and double checks the situation. Seriously. “League of Losers cut you loose?” is a petty line. But he looks indelibly pleased that Mick is back with him, and takes him straight to Malcolm and Damien. Len displays trust in Mick and doesn’t hesitate to bring him back in the fold. I mean, sure, he has the guy GPS’d because wow does Len have issues, but he wants Mick at his side.

They share their information with the other two, and Len’s suspicion is that Eobard wants to re-make reality again but to only his own liking, and then to erase the rest of the Legion and destroy the spear. I think he’s wrong since he really seems to just want to cement this reality, but whatever.

Then shit goes down.

Len stops Eobard from destroying the spear, hits him with the cold gun completely chill (he literally says “bored now” like omg). He doesn’t shoot Ray in the stomach when he has the chance though? I wonder if he’s trying to show restraint with “Mick’s friends”. The people he knows Mick cares about. The people he’s jealous of.

But then Mick gets the spear and everything fucking changes.

I’ve read people suggest that in 2x15, everyone acts different once the spear is put together -- that they’re meaner and more sombre, less trusting of one another. That it literally is like the One Ring in LoTR. And maybe that was at play in this scene as well. Mick picks up the spear and suddenly Len becomes a dick.

“Nice work Mick. Now hand it over.”

Mick doesn’t listen immediately. Len watches Amaya counter him, saying that she “believes in” Mick. It makes him angry.

“Enough! Mick - hand it over.” And when Mick doesn’t, that’s when Len finally drops the line: “Like a good boy.”

Why would he fucking say that? Except. Except he’s trying to counterpoint Amaya. And he doesn’t fucking know how. He said in 2x15 that the team treats Mick like their well-trained dog and maybe he’s trying to remind Mick of that or maybe he’s trying to be like that if it’s what Mick responds to or maybe he’s just being a dick because he’s hurt.

He’s hurt that Mick would even consider giving the spear to the Legends. Because if the Legends get the spear, they rewrite reality and in that reality, Len is dead. Mick considering them means Mick considering a reality where Len dies. He’s picking them over him.

And when Mick says “you mean like a dog. That’s all I am to you. An attack dog.” Len immediately denies it. Denies that he sees Mick that way. He makes a jab at Mick’s intelligence with no way of knowing that the team has been doing the exact same thing for months and that it’s such a sore spot, but he uses it to illustrate why they’re partners.

Because Len’s supposed to make the plans. Make the big plays. That’s his role. Mick’s the one going off script. Len knows an old script. Remember, one that hasn’t been through Star City 2046 or Kronos or fist fight death duel confessions. Len’s supposed to make the plan, and he has one (and I personally believe it’s to use the spear to get rid of Eobard and to set him and Mick back to how they’d prefer to be) but Mick isn’t following the script.

And Mick throws the spear to Amaya.

And he says: “I’m no one’s dog, Leonard. Not anymore.”

And honestly... he never thought he was until the Legends made him feel that way. He talks about how he and Len were partners. So this is new. Feeling like this is new. And it’s a tension from Len following their prior script and Mick needing an updated one where he has more information and more decision-making power and it’s a mess.

And Len is pissed and lashes back with cruel words. “Well. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.”

And it’s totally shitty of him to say, no excuse except that he’s hurt as fuck because his best friend literally just chose a reality where he doesn’t exist, chose essentially for him to die instead of trusting him.

Yeah, that’s got to smart. And when Mick tells Amaya to “undo this mess”, well, Len’s continued existence and survival is part of that mess.

So he kills her. To survive.

And he’s jealous, so fucking jealous, and angry. Mick picked them over him. Mick picked her over him.

So he fucking puns when he shatters her to pieces like the cold bastard that he is because he has literally all of his walls up in full force after that betrayal from Mick. But he doesn’t even raise his weapon when Mick does. For I think the first time we’ve seen, Len doesn’t raise his weapon when Mick does. Just looks at him, sad and hurt and guarded a little.

And Mick lowers his gun and everything hurts and nothing is okay.

But... that’s why it’s not a totally fucked characterization after all, I don’t think. He’s cold and shitty but he’s under the thumb of an all-powerful dickwad who is holding Mick’s life and Len’s existence in (literally, when he’s holding the spear) the palm of his hand, and Mick still chose someone else instead of trusting Len. Instead of Len. 

[coldtomyflash]

If len ever comes back from the dead, how do you think hed react to LoD!len joining the legion and killing mick?

I assume what you mean here is post-Oculus Len somehow returning from the dead.

Basically, what would “current” Len think of “past” Len’s actions and choices?

I think Len would be pissed but unsurprised. Legion!Len is, in many ways, a former version of himself. He knows how cold he was, and what he was (is?) capable of. That was him just a few years ago.

But I do think he’d be startled a bit, too. Ever go back and read your old livejournal posts from when you were a teenager, and go “oh wow you were so ~~edgy~~ weren’t you, younger-self” and cringe at the shit you used to say and do?

That’s oculus-Len to Legion-Len, except with more fatal consequences. He’s developed into a genuinely more emotionally stable and healthy person with an updated worldview. Being confronted with the choices of Legion-Len, who wanted to rule the city in Doomworld and teamed up with the Legion, would be wince-inducing and off-putting.

“My younger self is an idiot, don’t anyone confuse me with that jackass.”

But him killing Mick would likely be a sore spot. That’s the spot at which I think he’d want to physically fight his former-self. Because Oculus-Len has been through hell and back with Mick and died largely for him. Was willing to die for him. But Legion!Len (past!Len) isn’t in that emotional space, for whatever reason. He’s too cold and closed off.

So... I think he’d be angry. At himself, mostly, because that’s still him, but definitely directed outward at Legion!Len, assuming they were occupying the same physical space. A little ashamed, maybe, not that he’d admit it to anyone, and probably trying to make amends but just so subtly no one really notices.

(This is all assuming he meets Legion!Len in some way. If he just hears about these past actions, that’s kind of another story, in that then it’s just memories he doesn’t have and would probably feel slightly uncomfortable being attributed to him. Like “yes okay I get that technically I did that but I don’t remember it because you bastards stole my memory and yeah it was shitty but I was a completely different person then”. So.. More defensive about it? Still with a lot of the same emotional process but it would be a lot more internal, then, and layered with a lot more frustration, I think).

[coldtomyflash]

What's your take on Len killing Mick in episode 17?

In 2x16, I jumped through every mental hoop possible to make sense of Leonard Snart’s characterization with the Legion and in Doomworld. I gave the writers the benefit of the doubt. I had a faint shred of optimism about him.

But Leonard’s characterization stopped being any sort of plausible to me the moment he killed Mick. At least, he stopped being the same character we’d seen to date. If they’d never given us any context or history for him and Mick, it could work. But they did. They gave us a lot. And there is zero way to reconcile it. The only explanation is shock value and terrible writing.

Even Doomworld Len wouldn’t do that. In 2x16, Len tried to placate and look after Mick, kept him safe from the rest of the Legion. Len in The Flash 1x10 told his partner to “take the painting and go” if he wanted out, despite evidence that Len consistently kills people who want out of jobs and their job wasn’t over. That was before The Flash inspired him to be a better person, let alone the Legends trip.

The friendship established canonically time and again by the DC CWTV universe precludes the possibility of Len killing Mick in cold blood. Len either cared about Mick before the Flash and Legends entered his life, or he never cared about him at all. 

To say that the Legends trip had such an impact on him in just a few months that he went from not caring about Mick to being willing to lay down his life for him to make him happy / set him free is honestly ludicrous. If the writers expect me to believe and accept that Len only started caring about Mick during season 1 of Legends, or after meeting the Flash, and went from being so completely cold that he’s willing to kill this person he’s known for so long to being so willing to die for him just like that…

They’re insulting me and every other fan of these characters. Every viewer of this show, to be honest. And they’re doing it just to clap themselves on the back. 

[coldtomyflash]

In regards to your answer to another anon about whether legion!len and legend!len were the same I have a thought about that and would love your perspective. What if it is a different Len. As in, barry's new timeline thanks to the flashpoint stuff creates a slightly rougher Len (my theory is lisa is dead or something cuz of lack of mention) So legion!len is actually alternate timeline!Len and legends!len is essentially a aberration but he died destroying the oculus so....

Ohhhh. I like it.

I can totally get behind the theory. that flashpoint changed Len’s life slightly and made him crueller. If it can change Caitlin’s literal DNA (which it did, because she didn’t have the metahuman gene in season 2 and then became a meta post-Flashpoint), then it having an effect on Len’s life is just as reasonable.

That being said, I personally won’t headcanon Lisa being dead, because I sort of abhor the thought of her death, especially having her death just be about her brother. I also think Len would be a lot meaner if she had died young or never been born. I can, however, see an argument for them being less close / some other type of rift between them, causing him to be colder.

[coldtomyflash]

Snart's body language in several of tonight's scenes has in the past been indicative of him A) keeping an uncomfortable secret B) being coerced or C) unhappy with having to manipulate Mick. I hope we get to find out how exactly he was recruited because I'm betting its D) All of the above.

I’m... not sure I agree, anon. I don’t have the time/energy tonight to do a full analysis, but I promise I will try to check out more of his body language when I get time to see if I can find any evidence that. 

For now, here’s some of my thoughts:

A huge thing (for me) to note though was that Len wasn’t wearing gloves all episode. I’ve talked before both about gloves and about Len’s hands and how important they are for communicating and expressing himself, among other things.

The hallucination!Len was wearing gloves, so was the hologram!Len and the speedforce!Len. He almost always wears gloves when he’s in Captain Cold regalia and on the job. To see him without them is both an indication that this is the ‘real’ Len, and, I think, an indication that he’s really himself.

I don’t think Len was coerced. I think he was told he dies and why, and that the Spear of Destiny could let him rewrite time without causing an aberration so that he could survive. That’s all it took, because he’s a survivor, and without having gone through all that, it’s hard for him to fathom why he would want to, and he’s going to emotionally/mentally rebel against the notion and against the people who apparently turned him ‘soft’ as a defense mechanism now.

I don’t think he’s keeping any major secrets because we often see Len with his hands in his pockets when he’s keeping a secret or has a dual agenda, and I didn’t notice him doing that here. I can think of three scenes off the top of my head where he’s done it before when he’s keeping a secret, the hands in pockets thing. Not that that’s gonna be a perfect indicator, but if he is keeping a secret, I think it’s more of the “I want to steal the spear from these assholes and keep it for myself” variety?

As for being unhappy having to manipulate Mick... while I’d agree, I again don’t think that’s down to coercion. I think he’s pissed that Mick is with the team because Mick is his partner. Seeing him on the side of the ‘white hats’ is almost personally offensive to him, since he hasn’t been through all that alongside Mick and he knows he dies for it (again, that defensive push back). He’s feeling betrayed and angry and he’s communicating with Mick through violence and vicious words because they’re on opposing sides and he and Mick have never hesitated to pull their weapons on each other, but this is more personal now. 

He said how he respected the man that Mick was, the Mick he knows. This is a Mick he’s... not even sure how to take. And it’s getting under his skin. It’s proof that Mick changed and that he can change, did change. This Len doesn’t think that’s a good thing. Doesn’t want Mick to be living evidence. He wants his Mick back.

Is that okay? Hell no. He’s being a total dick, manipulative and abusive. But I genuinely believe, until we get evidence to the contrary, that it’s authentic.