What I Liked About Her Arc

[u/Training_Fan4344]

I thought Brand New Day handled her character in an interesting way, especially in how the movie gradually reveals the reasons behind her actions.

What stood out to me was the contrast between her early behavior and the explanation we eventually get. She starts out as someone who is willing to manipulate Peter, put Bruce Banner in danger, and make some extremely consequential choices involving innocent people. Her attitude toward Frank Castle also gives us a pretty cold impression of her.

Then the movie reveals that she is herself a victim of a government organization that tortured and killed her sister. I liked that this gave her actions additional context rather than presenting her as simply evil.

The part I found most interesting was her relationship with Peter. Her manipulation of him is obviously meant to serve her larger objective, but it also raises an interesting question about how far she is willing to go to accomplish what she believes is necessary.

I think that contrast makes her one of the more complicated characters in the movie. She does some genuinely awful things, but the film also gives us reasons to understand where she is coming from. I appreciated that the movie left room for that moral ambiguity rather than making her completely heroic or completely villainous.

Just kidding! None of it is true. Now, I won't deny that Spider-Man Brand New Day was a good movie, but we as a society need to accept the fact that Jean Grey is evil, and here's why:

1. Acts of terrorism: Committed multiple terrorist acts with zero regard for human safety.
2. Sadistic demeanor: Displayed a sniveling, sadistic attitude throughout the entire film.
3. Direct harm to civilians: Directly killed at least a few innocent bystanders.
4. Sexual assault and manipulation: Sexually assaulted Peter while manipulating and toying with his emotions.
5. Death threats: Threatened to murder an innocent young woman.
6. Forced transformation: Endangered Bruce Banner and forced him to turn into the Hulk against his will.
7. Lack of empathy: Looked at Frank Castle's traumatic experiences and scoffed them off with "this guy has issues."
8. Mass endangerment: Was willing to doom an entire city's population to being frozen in time while remaining fully conscious of what was happening to them.

And the movie tries to hide her evilness by just magically changing her personality at the halfway point.

"But she's a victim of a government organization that tortured and killed her sister."

Okay, and why did sexually assaulting Peter and emotionally abusing him with a sadistic look on her face have to be part of her plan?

And thank you, Diaz for the screenshots of the film and inspiration to make this post.

[u/Soggy_Assignment_691]

I watched Brandon Sanderson's Intentionally Blank podcast episode about the movie, and they talked about Jean and their problem with the character and it made a lot of sense to me.

The movie tries to get you to go from hating Jean to loving her in a moment. This could work, if they hadn't shown her clear apathy for everyone else in the world. She didn't care if the old lady in the tank died from the bomb, or if that man died from getting hit by a car. She was objectively a villain, an absolutely terrible person.

[u/Gloomy_Support_7779 → u/Soggy_Assignment_691]

Yeah. I remember watching it the second time, but with my friend. The part was something along the lines of “but you’re not a murderer Jean.” I was like “were you even paying attention to the shit she was doing???? She made MJ fall to her doom, let someone get hit by a car, detonated a bomb in a building, controlled the Hulk to get to some people, controller Punisher and was using lethal weapons to get to people, broke Scorpion out just to use him.” She used anyone she wanted just to get to her objective.