This article contains spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Ryan Coogler has a talent for creating villains that are a little too reasonable for the audience to actively root against them. After Erik Killmonger in Black Panther had everyone struggling to pick a side, Wakanda Forever‘s Namor is now sparking debate about the validity of his actions.
Marvel has never been one for cookie-cutter good vs. evil storytelling, which is one of its many qualities. Thankfully, this trend has continued into Phase Four with a series of incredibly written villains that make it hard for fans to really hate them. Namor, played by Tenoch Huerta, is not the exception to the rule, as fans debate whether his actions were justified during the events of the Black Panther sequel.
One Redditor believes Namor’s actions in the film were completely understandable, due to his close personal trauma at the hands of colonizers, and his attempt to solve his issues with Wakanda’s protection of Riri Williams through diplomacy before being betrayed by Nakia and Queen Ramonda.
The user had initially used the word “justified” in the post’s title, before correcting themselves, which led fans to argue that murder is almost never justified.
Generally, everyone seemed to agree that they could understand Namor’s point of view and motivation for taking such drastic measures to protect the people of Talokan, even though his methods were highly questionable. “He’s seen some of the worst of humanity and wants to protect his home at any cost. His manner of going about that is where the issue lies,” one user eloquently put.
Namor was compared to one of Marvel’s most famous villains, Magneto, in one of the comments. The two share a similar traumatic past with imperialist forces attempting genocide on their peoples, with Magneto being a Jewish Holocaust survivor, and Namor the child of a pre-colonial Mayan community.
“I felt for his cause and he came across as traumatized and angry rather than evil,” the user shared, adding that Namor’s final fight with Shuri completely subverted the usual hero vs. villain trope.
Everything points towards Namor coming back in another installment of the MCU, at which point fans of the franchise and of the character will have an opportunity to get to know him on a deeper level.