If you love Natasha Romanoff and hate Grant Ward you’re wrong

i can’t believe this is an actual post someone made

#stop grant ward apologists 2k14

Actually, I gotta give this one to the Ward fangirls. It’s stated repeatedly that Natasha Romanoff has done horrible, awful things—for the KGB, as a freelance assassin, possibly/probably for SHIELD.

"Can you wipe out that much red? Dreykov’s daughter, Sao Paulo, the hospital fire? Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it’s GUSHING red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything?"

When LOKI thinks you’re a monster, well…

But Whedon employs a clever writer’s trick that dates all the way back to Buffy—we the audience don’t actually meet Natasha until after/during her redemption arc. We don’t see any of the bad things she’s done, we just hear about them while we see her being heroic, moral, etc. There’s a reason the first rule of screenwriting is show, don’t tell. Being shown something is emotional, engaging. Being told something is academic, trivial, uninvolving—Johansson could say right now that Natasha has done even worse things than Ward, killed more people, and I doubt it would make a difference. Our first and continuing impression of her is as a heroic, reformed individual, so that’s how we think of her.

(I kinda wonder how tumblr would react if a Black Widow origin movie came out and it actually portrayed her as the heinous monster she’s said to have been. Obviously, Nat has her justifications and excuses—but hey, who doesn’t?)

Now, of course, Ward hasn’t had a redemptive arc and it remains to be seen how effective one would be. But the big difference between Ward and Natasha is that Agents of SHIELD is more truthful about portraying just how bad Ward’s deeds have been, while the MCU leaves Natasha’s in comfortable ambiguity.