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jumonji
Guardian Devil
Joined: 23 Sep 2007
Posts: 636
Location: Too close to the Arctic circle
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 Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:31 am Post subject: |
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| rgj wrote: | | Quote: | | I'm not discounting this long-standing depiction of Daredevil's radar at all. In fact, I said as much in my first post. But there have been different interpretations of the radar over time, and I happen to favor one that isn't like that. |
So, who's interpretation do you like? And, what excactly is this interpetation of the "radar." MSJ is really the only person to actually define it as something else (his super hearing--that came out of his mouth on the DD HBO special preview and reinforced in the movie). I don't recall a writer coming along and saying THIS is how his RADAR works. Unlike say, the Marvel Universe Handbook and the character profiles printed in the Daredevil Omnibus. |
I probably shouldn't be butting in here, but isn't Ratchet speaking more of the subjective experience of the radar than the nature of it?
| rgj wrote: | | Quote: | | Regardless of the amount of effort Matt uses to emit signals from his brain and interpret the images/outlines he receives, the end result is something similar--in some respects--to vision, albeit a limited form. This ability at least partially shares some qualities with eyesight. |
Actually, in some respects it's BETTER than eyesight. That's why DD's powers make him cool. But, as I mentioned before, while his abilities can be better than eyesight, in the end it is NOT eyesight. His senses go wacky, and they often do, he really is an ordinary blind man. It's what makes scenes like Miller's DD/Bulls subway battle super cool. |
I'd say the only ways the radar is better than vision is that it's 360 degrees and gives him very good depth perception (this has never been stated anywhere, it just makes sense that it would be the case given how the radar works). I've also personally always imagined it to be very sensitive to movement. Whenever writers have him pick out a small weakness in something, I think they're confusing it with x-ray vision, so those are just goofs in my book. But, add in the other senses, superbalance, and heightened body awareness and you've got a very believable superhero.
So, anyway, while I wouldn't go as far as generally saying that it's better than eyesight (nor am I implying that you just did), since that vastly underestimates what normal vision actually does, it does give him superpowers. No doubt about it. What I think is cool about DD's powers that really does set him apart from other heroes is the dichotomy of them. Even the powers themselves hurt as well as help, and his world is very fragile in that sense, which is what the subway scene you mentioned shows. Also, even when he's at the top of his game, there are certain things that the average Joe on the street can do much better. In a lot of ways, having to work that particular power set, with both its strengths and weaknesses, makes him extremely cool because he has to have a lot more guts than the big powerhouse superheroes.
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james castle
Devil in Cell-Block D
Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 1999
Location: Toronto, Ontario
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject: |
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I've said this before but I think Rachet is making the Stan Lee mistake. Everytime someone asks Stan Lee about Daredevil he says "he's my favorite character because he's blind and therefore handicapped". Of course that's ridiculous because DD can "see" or "sense" the world around him way better than anyone else. It's ridiculous to think that being handicapped is what defines the character when, at the end of the day, he isn't really.
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JC
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jumonji
Guardian Devil
Joined: 23 Sep 2007
Posts: 636
Location: Too close to the Arctic circle
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:07 pm Post subject: |
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| james castle wrote: | | I've said this before but I think Rachet is making the Stan Lee mistake. Everytime someone asks Stan Lee about Daredevil he says "he's my favorite character because he's blind and therefore handicapped". Of course that's ridiculous because DD can "see" or "sense" the world around him way better than anyone else. It's ridiculous to think that being handicapped is what defines the character when, at the end of the day, he isn't really. |
Okay, I know you and I disagree on this and that's fine and all, but really. The list of things that you and I can do with more ease than Matt Murdock (if he were a real person and his powers could exist in our reality) goes on for a page and a half. The list of things he could do better might go on for three pages, but that's beside the point of this particular question. What it all comes down to is what this whole word "sense" really means. I can "sense" what's written on a billboard five blocks away. Matt Murdock can't. He can hear a heartbeat through a wall. I can't. Who's at the bigger disadvantage here? Well, that depends on the situation, doesn't it? If we're talking basic bandwidth here (like how many kilobytes of information is he processing per second, or whatever), you may very well be right. He may very well be getting a bigger chunk of data squished into his brain and in that regard "sense" more, but that doesn't mean that his powers completely restore normal vision or that there aren't certain tasks for which normal vision is quite handy. His powers don't make him "not disabled." They make him substantially less so than he would be without them and they give him specific abilities that other people don't have. The idea of a "disabled superhero" sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn't.
When Matt turns on the TV and the news anchor says "We're now showing you a picture of the suspect in the latest string of bank robberies. He has dark hair and was last seen wearing a red jacket," you can be quite certain that Matt would be slightly annoyed. And my ability to recognize that person on the street would be a million times better than his. But then again, there's no one else I'd rather have watching my back (pretending, once more, that he is a real person).
What I think you're missing, if I may be so blunt, is the dichotomy at work here. This dichotomy is one of the many things that makes this a great character. But that is of course a subjective opinion on my part, and I don't particularly care if you disagree with me. I would say this though, next time you go to the airport or something, pretend for a second that you can't read a single sign and then tell me how it would be better, in that situation, to be able to hear and smell better than anyone and perceive colorless shapes all around you. Simple answer: it's not.
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james castle
Devil in Cell-Block D
Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 1999
Location: Toronto, Ontario
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| jumonji wrote: |
What I think you're missing, if I may be so blunt, is the dichotomy at work here. This dichotomy is one of the many things that makes this a great character. But that is of course a subjective opinion on my part, and I don't particularly care if you disagree with me. I would say this though, next time you go to the airport or something, pretend for a second that you can't read a single sign and then tell me how it would be better, in that situation, to be able to hear and smell better than anyone and perceive colorless shapes all around you. Simple answer: it's not. |
Meh. You see, what it comes down to is that Matt can't do one or two things....read signs from a distance and watch TV/movies. That's all I can think of him not being able to do. Oh, and tell colour. On the flip side, his senses and radar allow him to do millions of things no one else can. He can hear in every direction for blocks. He can "see" 360 degrees.
See, the problem with your airport example is that you're just not thinking about his senses in a creative enough way. Why would he care about signs? You only read signs because you want to know how to get where you're going. If Matt was looking for a gates he'd just have to listen to the people around him as they chatter about what gate they are at/they're going to. If he's looking for his luggage he could follow the smell of the sweat of people's hands mixing with leather or listen for the hum of the baggage carisel. How would he know where his bags were coming out? He could follow the heartbeat or smell of someone on his flight. His bag would reek of himself; he could spot it a mile away.
The problem with Stan Lee and (if I may be so blunt) your "handicapped" thing is that Stan never thought beyond "he can count the number of grains of salt on a pretzel!". The best DD writers have been the ones who use his senses in a logical and full way. If you take them seriously, it's obvious that they more than compensate for not being about to see screens or signs.
Of course that's just my opinion. The fact that it also happens to be obviously right is just a bonus.
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jumonji
Guardian Devil
Joined: 23 Sep 2007
Posts: 636
Location: Too close to the Arctic circle
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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| james castle wrote: | | See, the problem with your airport example is that you're just not thinking about his senses in a creative enough way. Why would he care about signs? You only read signs because you want to know how to get where you're going. If Matt was looking for a gates he'd just have to listen to the people around him as they chatter about what gate they are at/they're going to. If he's looking for his luggage he could follow the smell of the sweat of people's hands mixing with leather or listen for the hum of the baggage carisel. How would he know where his bags were coming out? He could follow the heartbeat or smell of someone on his flight. His bag would reek of himself; he could spot it a mile away. |
Actually, I am that creative. I didn't say I couldn't think of ways to solve this problem. In fact, I even specifically mentioned listening into people's conversation when a fellow poster and I talked about this in the chat a while ago. There are tons of creative ways of solving the (quite numerous) problems Matt would face being 100% color blind. Heck, I would love for writers to be more creative too. But we still have something of an efficiency problem here. Isn't it easier to read a sign (it takes you a split second) than to chance upon a conversation that may happen in the next ten seconds or in the next ten minutes. You are also, quite interestingly relying on other people for this information because you - you're with me here? - can't directly perceive it yourself. The whole following another person to pick up the baggage? Well, that's actually how normal blind people usually find the baggage carousel at the airport too (though not by following heartbeats, of course, and less efficiently than Matt would, for sure). Another example is how deaf drivers react to sirens by observing the behavior of other motorists. This is an excellent strategy that works really well, but it's a compensatory strategy nonetheless (and it doen't make them any less deaf).
But okay, let's take this to another location if you don't believe me. Say you're Matt and you're in a bookstore you've never been in before and you've decided to buy the collected works of Shakespeare for Foggy's birthday. How are you going to find it (and just for the fun of it, let's make it one of those huge Barnes & Noble bookstores in Manhattan)? Oh I'm sure you can if you give it half an hour of catching a snippet of conversation here and there, zeroing in on the right section and then touch reading your way through the classics section (and yeah, scanning for written information visually is like a hundred times faster because you can process so much simultaneously). At the end of the day, when you give this a few trial runs, a sighted person of average intelligence could do this faster 95 times out of 100. Would it make more sense for him to go to the information desk and ask someone to point him in the right direction? Yeah, it would. But then someone might think he's actually blind for real, and that would be bad apparently.
If you can only think of a couple of examples of things he couldn't do, I'd say you're not being creative enough. You're mentioning not seeing color as if it were a minor thing of merely esthetic value. Color is a huge source of information. What about specific jobs? Would Matt make a good surgeon, cab driver, photographer, air traffic controller or molecular biologist? Probably not. If he's in an academic environment, what exactly is his advantage over the average blind student while sitting in a classroom with the teacher pointing out the state capitals on a map? I'm sure it exists, but it's minor.
I rarely say to people that they're wrong, because I'm rarely dead certain about something. But in this case, you're absolutely wrong. Dyslexia is considered to be a disablity for crying out loud, and I'm pretty sure seeing no color would make the grade too.
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james castle
Devil in Cell-Block D
Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 1999
Location: Toronto, Ontario
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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He can't find a book in a huge bookstore without asking.
He can stop a bullet.
You're sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo right. I'm amazed at your rightness. Colour is obviously more important than massive 360 radar sense and the ability to hear for blocks and blocks. Man, I gotta hang out in the chat room more so I can get more of this brillant stuff on the fly. I mean, you answered your own question weeks ago in real time but then (for some weird reason) asked it again as though there wasn't an answer (even though you had already told Francesco the answer in the chat room).
I can't believe what a fool I have been. I literally can't believe it.
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JC
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jumonji
Guardian Devil
Joined: 23 Sep 2007
Posts: 636
Location: Too close to the Arctic circle
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| james castle wrote: | He can't find a book in a huge bookstore without asking.
He can stop a bullet. |
Yeah, he can't do the first and he can do second. Hence the talk about dichotomy.
| james castle wrote: | | Colour is obviously more important than massive 360 radar sense and the ability to hear for blocks and blocks. |
Yes, sometimes it is. And since when is he consciously aware of everything he's hearing simultaneously for blocks and blocks? He's not processing everything at once, just like you and I aren't listening to ten conversations simultaneously just because we're in a room with ten conversations going. It takes more than superhearing to do that.
| james castle wrote: | | Man, I gotta hang out in the chat room more so I can get more of this brillant stuff on the fly. I mean, you answered your own question weeks ago in real time but then (for some weird reason) asked it again as though there wasn't an answer (even though you had already told Francesco the answer in the chat room). |
Well, I asked that question to show an example of what I meant. Of course I already had an answer for it. I wasn't asking myself, I was asking you.
| james castle wrote: | | I can't believe what a fool I have been. I literally can't believe it. |
You're very welcome! I rest my case, peacefully.
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Francesco
Underboss
Joined: 08 Jun 2006
Posts: 1307
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Colour is obviously more important than massive 360 radar sense and the ability to hear for blocks and blocks. |
More important? It obviously depends on the situation. Jumonji has showed you an example of a situation where having radar and heightened senses is by far less important than being able to discern colours. In that situation, Matt is disabled.
| Quote: |
I mean, you answered your own question weeks ago in real time but then (for some weird reason) asked it again as though there wasn't an answer (even though you had already told Francesco the answer in the chat room). |
Yeah, I brought that up commenting on the scene when Matt takes the plane for Europe at the end of the first Bru storyarc.
| Quote: | | I can't believe what a fool I have been. I literally can't believe it. |
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naah. |
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james castle
Devil in Cell-Block D
Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 1999
Location: Toronto, Ontario
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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I can't believe you two are seriously arguing that colour blindness = a disability.
I also can't believe that you both seem to think that one example of when colour is more useful than radar proves anything.
That chat room is like some kind of freaky brain trust.
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JC
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Darediva
Wake Up
Joined: 29 Jul 2004
Posts: 1208
Location: Hell's Kitchen South, Arkansas, USA
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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Well, JC...you are coordially invited to join us in the chatroom at any given time we are there.
And yes, colo(u)r blindness is a disability. It is by definition the inability to distinguish certain colors. Very seldom is a person totally colorblind, but it does exist.
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Francesco
Underboss
Joined: 08 Jun 2006
Posts: 1307
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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| james castle wrote: | I can't believe you two are seriously arguing that colour blindness = a disability.
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Yeah, especially when it's total.
| Quote: | | That chat room is like some kind of freaky brain trust. |
...and another belittlement/insult regarding the chatroom. Bravo. |
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Dash
Flying Blind
Joined: 29 Oct 2008
Posts: 94
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't know if this was touched upon. But Daredevil can "sense" more than just what's in front of him. His radar sense gives him a "360" image of whats around him. Thus affording him a greater sense of spatial acuity and awareness. |
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jumonji
Guardian Devil
Joined: 23 Sep 2007
Posts: 636
Location: Too close to the Arctic circle
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Dash wrote: | | I don't know if this was touched upon. But Daredevil can "sense" more than just what's in front of him. His radar sense gives him a "360" image of whats around him. Thus affording him a greater sense of spatial acuity and awareness. |
Of course he can. The radar has many "perks" that vision doesn't. It's the spatial acuity that I think really gives him an advantage in fighting, for instance.
However, this all comes back to whether the radar + other heightened senses fully replace all properties of normal vision, which they clearly do not. DD is effectively blind to everything rendered in two dimensions, that is properties beyond mere shape and distance.
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Dash
Flying Blind
Joined: 29 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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True true.
But he's often said (mostly in the early comics). That if he could see what he was doing, he'd be scared out of his mind. |
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jumonji
Guardian Devil
Joined: 23 Sep 2007
Posts: 636
Location: Too close to the Arctic circle
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Dash wrote: | True true.
But he's often said (mostly in the early comics). That if he could see what he was doing, he'd be scared out of his mind. |
Yeah, I think that's one of those silly lines that writers kept repeating because they liked how it sounded. Even "man without fear" is kind of a misnomer when you think about it (no offense to this fine website...  ). I see his radar as a form of pseudo-vision and have no problem with that.
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