I realized something this morning.

[agilebrit]

And maybe I'm just slow.



That final battle?

Tony had lost. Obadiah was fixing to kill him dead. And Pepper--rescued him.

This turns your normal superhero paradigm right on its head. Okay, Obie had her cornered and would have blown her head off if Tony hadn't flown in and crashed into him at the start of the fight, but usually the hero's penultimate goal is to rescue the girl, and saving the world seems to be kind of a by-product of that. She just stands there and screams. Mary Jane and Peter Parker, I'm looking at you.

But in this case, Tony's hanging off the ceiling by one arm, he's lost the helmet and a gauntlet, Obie has won the fight, it's all over but the final shot. The only reason Obie loses in the end is because Pepper is there to blow the arc reactor. Because that's what Pepper does. She takes care of Tony.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE.

I also realized that I mirror this in the not!Iron Man story, because not!Tony is literally (yes, I'm using it correctly there) dying there at the end, and not!Pepper swoops in and kills the bad guys.

I didn't even realize I was doing that. Heh.



X-posted to ironman_lounge.

Comments

[dmdomini.livejournal.com]

I really liked Pepper in the movie. She was absolutely a secretary/assistant, and a girly one at that, and yet, as you pointed out, she saved her boss's bacon.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Pepper is awesome. She keeps him on task (mostly), she doesn't put up with his crap, and she's incredibly competent.

Gawd. Is it Tuesday yet?

[neo-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Yeah when I saw that in theaters I realized you could look at it two ways:

Tony outwitted Obie because he used his most valuable weapon in Pepper (the person who is capable but often under-estimated) and as such he came to realize what was of true value, more than his wealth or his inventions.

And Pepper finally came into her own because she finally got what she needed in the recognition that Tony needed her on metaphorical levels to save him.

And the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow didn't annoy me in that film was also bonus points.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

Yep. She saves him from certain death at least twice in that movie. I've got to buy it when it comes out on DVD so I can watch it again. Too much fun.

[garrideb.livejournal.com]

I loved the fact that Pepper was proactive during that fight. As you said, too many movies would have had the female character just scream.

There's a blog post about Pepper here (http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=157) that makes some interesting points about her awesomeness. Especially comparing her to other superhero movie females, Pepper's heroics seem pretty apparent, so it's weird that the other characters don't seem to see that she saved the day.