User talk:DocColress

A kitten for you!
Hi, welcome to All The Tropes!

Here it's the same way it is on the Tropes Mirror Wiki. I'm just the guy who tries to keep things running, and if you need help, just ask me or another admin.

I hope you have a fun time here. :)

GethN7 (talk) 01:56, 3 January 2014 (UTC) 

Regarding Norman Osborn
Hey man, I noticed that you added Norman Osborn from the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man film and I have to say that I'm a little unsure if he truly fits. I mean, while the Green Goblin side of him is a definite monster and Norman was rather cold to Harry at times, Norman still wanted to make up with Harry and genuinely apologized for the way he treated him. Hell, he even hugged him! While he did go after Mary Jane and ended up putting Spider-Man in a real nasty spot with his sadistic choice moment (And implying that he was going to rape her along with murdering her doesn't help in the slightest), I interpreted that scene as the Goblin side coming out when Harry mentioned that she liked Peter. And even after when he tried to play nice while attempting to impale Peter on his glider (Another scene where I feel that the Goblin was in more control than Norman was), he still seemed to care enough about Harry for his final words to be begging Peter not to tell Harry about his actions as the Green Goblin. Is the reason you consider him a monster because of the fact that Norman ended up going along with the Goblin's plans after that conversation they had in Norman's mirror?

And about the whole thing regarding Norman's presence corrupting Harry, I personally thought those scenes were more of Harry's thoughts regarding his anger at Spider-Man supposedly killing his dad materializing as opposed to Norman's ghost trying to turn him evil. Then again, unlike the first movie which I last saw about two months ago, I haven't seen the second or third ones for a long time so if it was made clear that it was Norman's ghost trying to corrupt Harry, I may have forgotten about it.

So yeah, that's all I really had to say. I certainly feel that the Green Goblin is still the most evil of the Raimi-verses' villains, I just feel that Norman doesn't quite qualify due to these moments where he does show that ultimately, he does care about Harry. Still, I'm not going to be a dick and axe the entry before we talk more about your thoughts on Norman.

DocColress: I don't know who sent this, but let me give my thoughts on the matter.

I think you let Wilem Dafoe's acting in the moment where he apologized and hugged Harry fool you: that, like his "apology" and plea for mercy and forgiveness to Peter towards the end, was not Norman himself: it was the Goblin. The Goblin side didn't "come out" when Harry mentioned MJ and Peter: it was already there. At the start of that scene, Harry could hear the Goblin's cackles coming from upstairs, and immediately following the hug we see a shot of the Goblin. This scene was meant to be the moment where any and all humanity in Norman died out and he truly became the Goblin. And his "apology" amounted to "I'm going to make everything up to you by rectifying certain ends" - which was code for killing MJ and Peter, something Harry would not want at all, so he's still being a crappy father. Remember that even in the comics and The Spectacular Spider-Man, both in which Norman is listed as a CM, Norman loved Harry as his son: he just didn't like him as a person because he's not what he wanted him to be. Same here in this movie, he has no unconditional love for Harry. The only series I can recall him having that was the 90's animated series, where he truly didn't qualify due to redeeming qualities and genuine Split Personality.

Yeah, his last words were "Peter - don't tell Harry." Look at what happened because he didn't? Harry believes Spider-Man to have killed his father and that sends him down a path to carrying on the Goblin's legacy. So I think it's meant to be ambiguous whether or not it was Norman or Goblin in control of Norman's last moments, though considering that Norman hadn't been himself for a while, the latter is likely.

What a lot of people miss is that "the Green Goblin" isn't an actual Split Personality: he's the manifestation of who Norman truly is at his core. The movie obscures this a bit by using the typical Jekyll-Hyde, Smeagol-Gollum technique, but the mirror scene and the scene with the mask later are meant to be metaphorical for Norman literally confronting his own inner demon and ultimately succumbing to it. The scene at the board meeting ending on Norman giving an evil Psychotic Smirk suggests that Norman, in both times he became the Goblin to take care of his problems through murder, was fully aware of what he was doing at the time of committing the acts but due to overexertion of the Goblin formula he took, blacked out after he was done and then lost his memory of his actions after he woke up again - just like what happened when he underwent the experiment and killed Dr. Stromm. So prior to the mirror scene, Norman was suffering from black-outs and temporary amnesia, NOT Split Personality. One could argue that deep down he did know about the things he did but didn't want to owe up to them until the mirror scene happened and he started having psychotic episodes. He didn't want to see himself as a crazy monster, but he was. And yes, he did choose to go along with his Goblin nature afterwards, as evidenced at Thanksgiving where he very knowingly says "work was murder" and acts suspiciously regarding Peter the whole time. There's a difference between being complex and tortured, and being sympathetic with truly redeeming features. Norman is the former, not the latter. (Disney's Judge Frollo is another example of it. His reasoning for sparing baby Quasimodo, the "Hellfire" sequence, and even his last moments are all very Norman-esque, with the man confronting his inner darkness but denying it's truly there, choosing to blame someone else so that he can go on with his monstrosity as he pleases.)

Like Norman's last words, it's meant to be ambiguous as to whether or not this is a Hamlet situation where Harry's father's ghost is haunting him, or just a figment of Harry's insane imagination. What matters, though, is that Harry wouldn't even have this psychological state if not for Norman's abuse, and that the "ghost" he sees is exactly how the real Norman would behave. He wouldn't want to dissuade Harry from taking the path he did: he'd want him to embrace it, since he'd finally be becoming a man like him, just as he always wanted.

And again, he does indeed care about Harry. He always does, even in the comics where he chose to initiate the Clone Saga scheme because he learned of his son's demise. But that's not the same as truly loving him as a person, and movie Norman otherwise does fit the criteria. He's the most evil villain as you said, his humanity is not adequate in the face of what a heinous creature he becomes, his remorse is never shown or confirmed to be sincere, and not only is he never redeemed, but the films choose to portray his posthumous character as something evil. Only the butler ever had anything kind to say about the late Norman, but that's because he never saw the monster he was inside. And "the monster that walks among us" has always been what Norman's character was all about.

First off, that was me, NoxiousSludge who asked you. I'm sorry I forgot to leave my signature behind.

But more importantly, I can see more of where you're coming from now. I'm sorry if I ended up sounding like a moron by contesting Norman's status because to me, it just seemed like Norman was suffering from a classic case of Jekyll and Hyde syndrome and thinking about it, it does make sense that the Goblin is actually who Norman really is deep down at his core. If anything, I'm impressed by your analysis regarding his character in the film as it seems that a lot of people seemed to miss that point and share my initial view on Norman. Heck, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders in general and are a lot more fair than TV Trope's cleanup crew. I just wish we had a way to communicate with PM's and the like so I wouldn't flood your User Talk page with discussion about potential examples for the trope, cuts, and so on and so forth. --NoxiousSludge (talk) 20:59, 14 June 2014 (BST)NoxiousSludge

DocColress: No, you didn't sound like a moron at all since debate is encouraged here. I can see why some would think Norman had some redeeming qualities because he is a tragic figure, but tragic doesn't always equate to sympathetic or redeemable. And at the end of the day, he was easily the heinous standard setter of that trilogy. (Dennis Carridine was a one-dimensional thug, Doc Ock, Harry Osborn, and Sandman were all different flavors of Anti Villain, the Symbiote lacked moral agency, and Eddie Brock was a psychopath who could have theoretically been redeemed had he not embraced the symbiote, and even as Venom he only killed one person, which doesn't stack up against the Goblin's crimes.)

Thanks, I've been told! (Though I've been told otherwise by people who share the cleanup crew's views). I wish that too. Are you still on TV Tropes? 'Cause I am, but under a different name. I stick with it even though I know ATT is better, particularly in regards to this trope. xD

Nah, I don't really use that site anymore for editing as I mainly browse nowadays. I've thought about starting a new account at some point, but for now I'm simply enjoying my time here. What name do you go under there? I get the feeling I may have seen you post in the clean-up thread a couple of times.

And I may start a new topic as a way not to inflate this one, but I've looked at the Film section and noticed quite a few Marvel film examples, both in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the other unrelated films. Do you think that we should make a Marvel Films subpage that we can put Colonel Stryker, Sebastian Shaw, Green Goblin, Bullseye, Red Skull, Obadiah Stane, and Aldrich Killian on? --NoxiousSludge (talk) 21:27, 14 June 2014 (BST)NoxiousSludge

DocColress: Anew_man, formerly something else before I got banned for a time due to the ugly incident of Ghetsis' removal from the trope. :(

Eh, I have no problems with how it is now, but if you could give it a shot if you want. I wouldn't be opposed to it.