meta on what exactly attracted wilson to vanessa? her feelings on her bringing a gun on their second date?
001, what attracted wilson to vanessa: i think for as complicated and conscious as wilson is, what attracted him to vanessa was very simple and almost serendipitous in the fact that it worked. that they worked.
fisk in season one is trying to overcome his own loneliness and depression, both of which was inflicted upon him, in some way, by hell’s kitchen and while his way of trying to reach spiritual gratification by rebuilding hell’s kitchen was naive, i don’t think he was inconsiderate of the fact that trying to build a future will amount to nothing if he continues to isolate himself to a degree that he has no one to share it with. reaching out for love is a pretty no - brainer step, which is why i call it simple. i call it serendipitous because i don’t think that wilson had any kind of clue how perfect and good vanessa was going to be for him, or with him, but they’re very obviously aligned with one another from their first appearances on screen:
“people always ask me, how can we charge so much for what amounts to gradations of white.” in a way, i think that this is an analogy for the unexpected contextual role that fisk is going to play in the story of season one without forfeiting any of the mystery to the scene. think of it in the same tone of: how can fisk justify the means of his ambitions, all the ruination of hell’s kitchen and the lives that will suffer at his hand to the point that there will be almost nothing of it’s original personality and spirit left?
this, of course, speaks to fisk because vanessa has separated herself from that cynicism by saying ‘people always ask me’ and goes further to say, “i tell them it’s not about the artists name or the skill required … not even about the art itself. all that matters is how does it make you feel?” which, at the end of the day, how hell’s kitchen makes him feel is the whole point. the inner endgame trumps the physical means of achieving it to him. so of course, fisk is going to be drawn to the mentality that vanessa exhibits because there’s a paralleling passion to the way they look at the world.
002, vanessa bringing a gun to their second date: this is actually really important because like a lot of the scenes between vanessa and wilson that happen prior to their interaction in shadows of the glass, i think it transcends their individual dynamic and is a very explicating exchange. fisk did not like the fact that vanessa brought a gun. what fisk didn’t like even more than that is that she felt the need to do so for her own safety, because to fisk thats a mistranslation of his intentions.
at this point fisk is still having a pretty terrible identity crisis around his own character, and while he’s assured about what he has to do, he’s not consoled by the “rightness” of his measures, which is why he stresses the fact that, “i’ve hurt people, and i’m going to hurt more. it’s impossible to avoid for what i’m trying to do. but i take no pleasure in it. in … cruelty.” peep my url lol.
i literally don’t even have a word to describe the way it makes me feel when vanessa opts to give fisk the gun instead of just saying that she understands and trusts him. not only did she recognize the dangerous aspects of him from a demonstrable point of view that could very well be a risk to herself, saying, “i believe you,” but she literally placed that power in his hands as if to take it one step further by surrendering her own sense of security into his hands, almost as if to say, “i believe in you.”
anyways, it was important to him that vanessa understood the necessity of what he’d done for what he was trying to achieve, but more importantly, it was important to him that vanessa was able to see the difference between what he’d done and what he is. but based off of the “your brutality so clear to me, even as you hid it from me.” line from season three, i’d say that vanessa saw past fisk’s uncertainty and the foundation of self loathing beneath that conviction to the man he truly was, and that she was always aware that wilson fisk was “the ill intent.” .. it’s just that she didn’t care.
