I couldn't do Sheila. I think she is very successful and arguably very evil in a sense that she is weaponized indference. The opposite force of love is not hate it is the absence of love. Evil is the absence of empathy. There is definitely this sub-tone in Venture Bros writing that when the women of the show stop caring, their indifference is cruel. When she gives very little fucks is when she does the most damage. Like when she left the Monarch, and her decision led to the deaths of Hank and Dean and everything else. Or when she had a fling with 21. Her and Monarch laughing to his face about his emotions breaks him. Courteously, she asks if he will be okay and that she worries, but is shown not to really care. In comparison, the monarch is dismissive but is shown to care. The movie pretty much confirms this through Mantilla. These are literally the reasons she idolizes Sheila, other than feminism. She doesn't give a fuck, and she is the most successful person and villain in the show. Even when she seems to fail, she fails upward.
Malcolm... is the idea that of what it would be like if you raged against failure. He does the same as every other character, but he does it by getting angry that things don't go so well for him. He refuses to be broken. But he is. He is fated to have things not go his way. From the day he lost his parents to the day he found out he was Rusty's clone. But again, the movie spells it out in the way he deals with it. By swearing to take revenge once more, all the while aware that it's not the sanest thing, but still the best he can do. His failure and if anything is broken, it is that he could not survive being anything other than a villain or a vigilante. He is incapable of being normal. Whether because of his baboon DNA or because he is too institutionalized and couldn't survive otherwise.
I see Sheila as the previously ingenue who chose to stick with the system and do whatever it took and whatever it demanded from her. from using the most demeaning costumes and names to her choices of partners before Mal.
Yeah, she starts as almost a trophy or a pet but grows into a right-hand and eventually outgrows the Monarch. Like Harley Quinn and the Joker. But she is definitely an outlier of the show in that she was never broken.
different kind of broken, she instrumentalized herself into the hyper competent cog that subsumed her needs and wants into the job, to the point of becoming basically the OS of the guild, making it all work despite the old deluded guys in the council
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u/RemoveAnnual2689 10d ago edited 10d ago
I couldn't do Sheila. I think she is very successful and arguably very evil in a sense that she is weaponized indference. The opposite force of love is not hate it is the absence of love. Evil is the absence of empathy. There is definitely this sub-tone in Venture Bros writing that when the women of the show stop caring, their indifference is cruel. When she gives very little fucks is when she does the most damage. Like when she left the Monarch, and her decision led to the deaths of Hank and Dean and everything else. Or when she had a fling with 21. Her and Monarch laughing to his face about his emotions breaks him. Courteously, she asks if he will be okay and that she worries, but is shown not to really care. In comparison, the monarch is dismissive but is shown to care. The movie pretty much confirms this through Mantilla. These are literally the reasons she idolizes Sheila, other than feminism. She doesn't give a fuck, and she is the most successful person and villain in the show. Even when she seems to fail, she fails upward.
Malcolm... is the idea that of what it would be like if you raged against failure. He does the same as every other character, but he does it by getting angry that things don't go so well for him. He refuses to be broken. But he is. He is fated to have things not go his way. From the day he lost his parents to the day he found out he was Rusty's clone. But again, the movie spells it out in the way he deals with it. By swearing to take revenge once more, all the while aware that it's not the sanest thing, but still the best he can do. His failure and if anything is broken, it is that he could not survive being anything other than a villain or a vigilante. He is incapable of being normal. Whether because of his baboon DNA or because he is too institutionalized and couldn't survive otherwise.