Helena Bertinelli's True Fate SPOILERS

[mrrightnow]

Wow. You are hilarious.

[Ed Sizzers]

I have a great love for the characters and stories I'm reading, I just don't take it personally when they don't end up how I'd like. I don't know how much clearer I can make that.

No, you've made it clear enough. It makes no sense to me at all, but you did make it perfectly clear.

[Lemurion]

No, you've made it clear enough. It makes no sense to me at all, but you did make it perfectly clear.

Do you mean that treating changes you don't like as a personal attack and dwelling on them does make sense to you?

[Ed Sizzers]

As a devout hockey fan whose team got bounced in the first round of the playoffs after the second best season in franchise history, I can tell you that it hit hard. However, it doesn't mean that I'm going to dwell on it forever. One needs to accept the fact that a change you don't like happened and move on: either focus on what you liked in the past or look for something else in the present.

But what evidence do you have that anyone here is going to 'dwell on it forever'? All I've seen so far is an immediate reaction to what happened in a book that was only published today (and previewed a few days ago).

Besides, since when haven't comic book fans dwelled on things? That's why Hal, Barry, Babs and more are back and why Spidey ain't married.

[Ed Sizzers]

Do you mean that treating changes you don't like as a personal attack and dwelling on them does make sense to you?

Why do you keep equating being angry/disappointed in the fate of a favourite character with taking said event as a 'personal attack'? I don't consider the 'death' of Helena B to be a personal attack on me. Frankly, I ain't even sure how it could be. I just ain't happy about it.

Now, if you're suggesting that being unhappy about something is the same as feeling personally slighted in some way, then why just single out this thread? Cos I think you'll find people are unhappy about all sorts of things across all the boards here. Are they 'taking it personally' too?

[Lemurion]

Why do you keep equating being angry/disappointed in the fate of a favourite character with taking said event as a 'personal attack'? I don't consider the 'death' of Helena B to be a personal attack on me. Frankly, I ain't even sure how it could be. I just ain't happy about it.

Now, if you're suggesting that being unhappy about something is the same as feeling personally slighted in some way, then why just single out this thread? Cos I think you'll find people are unhappy about all sorts of things across all the boards here. Are they 'taking it personally' too?

Being unhappy is one thing, not buying the new book is understandable, but there are people who certainly sound like they're taking it a lot further; and it's not just Helena Bertinelli fans who are doing it.

[Xarcon]

I just don't see how it's disrespectful, they didn't publish rude remarks about your mother or make comments about race or religion...they just wrote a story that you didn't personally care for.

Even if it wasn't DC's intention to disrespect or insult Bertinelli fans, it doesn't stop them from doing it. I don't believe that DC sat there saying, "Gee, what else can we do to make our fans angry?" They made a creative decision and went with it. The end result is that eliminating a beloved character is disrespectful and insulting to that character's fans, even if that wasn't the intent.

As to the last part I guess I wasn't clear before: you should care about what they publish only so far as it gives you enjoyment and should stop caring when it is no longer fun. At the end of the day that's all it is, fun and I just don't see taking a diverting hobby so seriously.

I'm not saying it's wrong for you to feel that way it's just that I don't understand why you'd want to put yourself through that.

We don't want to put ourselves through that. However, most humans can't be like Vulcans and just suppress our emotions. It's not like flipping a switch, where as soon as something happens that we don't like, we just immediately stop caring. Most Bertinelli fans will get over being angry eventually, but you can't expect it to happen immediately. In the meantime, people are going to vent.

There's being emotionally invested in a character or story and then there's feeling personally slighted because the character or story isn't being written the way you'd like and from were I'm standing there's a world of difference between the two. I don't think I'll ever understand the latter stance, getting upset and dwelling on something that is only meant to be entertaining just seems like a waste to me.

There's also a difference between feeling insulted and feeling personally insulted. With the latter, the idea is that DC made it personal and that their intention was to disrespect its fans, which isn't true (hopefully). With the former, it's just feeling let down that one of your favorite characters is gone.

As for the question of whether Bertenelli was the same or not I prefer to go with the assumption that allows me to enjoy an otherwise entertaining story.

In which case, your statement was just an opinion, not a fact? That might have been worth noting in the original post.

But what evidence do you have that anyone here is going to 'dwell on it forever'? All I've seen so far is an immediate reaction to what happened in a book that was only published today (and previewed a few days ago).

Besides, since when haven't comic book fans dwelled on things? That's why Hal, Barry, Babs and more are back and why Spidey ain't married.

Agreed. I, for one, am not going to be on my death bed and still cursing DC for killing Bertinelli.

[JasonTodd428]

Why do you keep equating being angry/disappointed in the fate of a favourite character with taking said event as a 'personal attack'? I don't consider the 'death' of Helena B to be a personal attack on me. Frankly, I ain't even sure how it could be. I just ain't happy about it.

Now, if you're suggesting that being unhappy about something is the same as feeling personally slighted in some way, then why just single out this thread? Cos I think you'll find people are unhappy about all sorts of things across all the boards here. Are they 'taking it personally' too?

I don't think everyone is "taking it to personally" myself but there have been a lot of people whose basic complaint has been that somehow DC is personally attacking or slighting them by having made the changes that they made and/or by changing/killing/benching the characters they have a personal attachment too. I can understand that people would be angry about the changes ect. For myself I hate that certain characters are in limbo right now and that certain other characters seem to have been changed beyond recognition but I don't think DC has made the changes that caused this because they wanted to personally attack me or really any group of fans. I think there are some people though that are taking it a bit too far and that perhaps see almost anything as a personal attack on themselves even when it isn't.

[carabas]

Even if it wasn't DC's intention to disrespect or insult Bertinelli fans, it doesn't stop them from doing it. I don't believe that DC sat there saying, "Gee, what else can we do to make our fans angry?"

Although if they did, I think the result would have been pretty much the same.

[Lemurion]

Even if it wasn't DC's intention to disrespect or insult Bertinelli fans, it doesn't stop them from doing it. I don't believe that DC sat there saying, "Gee, what else can we do to make our fans angry?" They made a creative decision and went with it. The end result is that eliminating a beloved character is disrespectful and insulting to that character's fans, even if that wasn't the intent.

This is where I have the problem. To put it bluntly, the idea that DC's choice to use a new version of the Huntress character in the current DCU because that version fits better with the stories they are wanting to tell is somehow either disrespectful of or insulting to fans of the immediately previous version of the character is lunacy.

Do those fans have a right to be angry that the version they prefer is no longer in play? Of course! People can be angry, upset, or just fed up about it because we all have feelings and emotional investment in these characters. My DC fandom is old enough to vote twice over - I have an emotional investment in the characters and the Universe.

Was the introduction of Helena Bertinelli disrespectful or insulting to the fans of Pre-Crisis Helena Wayne? No. Helena Wayne did not fit the new continuity and so was not included in the Post-Crisis DCU. In the same way, the DC's decision to use the Post-Flashpoint Helena Wayne (who is a new character, and not the same as the Pre-Crisis one), was not disrespectful of the fans of Helena Bertinelli. Using the version of the character that best fits the current storyline is not disrespectful of the fans of another version. No one is belittling the character or her fans - they are simply using a version that best fits the stories they are telling. That's not disrespectful or an insult any more than Robert Downey jr.'s version of Sherlock Holmes is insulting or disrespectful to fans of Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett.

No one is entitled to read about any particular version of any given character.

You want to be angry or upset? Go ahead.

Don't play the "disrespect" card though, all that does is devalue people who really do suffer from disrespect.

[Captain Jim]

I think it's time to bring this thread to a close. It served a good purpose initially, bringing this matter to everyone's attention. And everyone has had their chance to express their opinion. But lately we just seem to be going around in circles. Time to move on.