Theoretical Science: Super-senses

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analysis, daredevil, marvel's daredevil, theoretical science

During my hiatus (sorry about the hiatus, by the way), I finally got the chance to watch Daredevil, Marvel’s 2015 Netflix hit.

 

It wasn’t until Season 2 that my willing suspension of disbelief started to wane.

In an early episode of Season 2, someone tests to see if Matt is actually blind by checking for pupil contraction. Now, this is a bad test for blindness–pupil contraction is a reflex, meaning it pretty much goes on, even if the visual cortex (part of the brain associated with sight) is damaged. As long as you’ve got an optic nerve, your pupils will contract when there’s bright light in your face. (This is my understanding; I’m not an expert.)

Not all blindness occurs from damage to the eyes. (No wonder the Yakuza never get anywhere if they’re this stupid.)

However, later in the same season, Matt gets shot with an arrow and there’s a close-up of his eyes dilating. I’m calling bull on this one. If his pupils don’t contract in bright light, why would they dilate as a response to pain? Either his optic nerves aren’t damaged or they are. Seriously, Marvel. Consistency. Heard of it?

I’m going with the instance when Matt’s pupils failed to contract as that’s an actual plot point, not just something someone thought would look cool.

Hence, we can proceed on the assumption that the accident Matt was in as a child, giving him superpowers, resulted in (absolutely) damage to his optic nerves and (probably) damage to his eyes, as well.

It’s possible that Matt also suffered a head injury during the accident, damaging the visual cortex–but, since the nerves are, apparently, damaged, that’s mere speculation with no actual canon foundation.

On to his actual powers.

Matt’s powers are rooted in the fact that his brain doesn’t filter out seemingly extraneous sensory data.

In plain English, all of us could have supersenses, but to avoid crippling confusion and becoming overwhelmed, our brains filter out all the thousands of sensory impressions that aren’t immediately relevant.

Matt most likely has a sensory processing disorder–his variant is he experiences everything without a filter, which is where Stick comes in. Stick taught Matt how to manage all that data and assemble it into a coherent picture. It takes intense focus to not become overwhelmed.

It’s possible that the sensory processing disorder was caused by a head injury. Alternately, Matt may have had some form of SPD and it was exacerbated by the accident. (Don’t quote me on this. Again, not an expert.)

I can’t say if Matt’s senses are actually more perceptive than the average human’s (Stan Lee says they are, I think?), but his brain certainly doesn’t seem to filter out all the data most people would not experience because it wasn’t prioritized in their brain.

Matt also appears to have a nearly-eidetic memory (in the comics and to an extent in the show.) This, again, could have been something he had before the accident, but didn’t really notice until after.

(Some fans believe that Matt is autistic. I lean that way a bit, but I don’t know enough about it to actually have an opinion.)

If Matt’s visual cortex wasn’t damaged, it’s possible that he adapted to his blindness and his brain sort of repurposed itself to route some of the sensory data through there. (Humans’ ability to recover and adapt is insane, y’all.)

If we take the toxic-waste-enhanced element (and possibility to hear heartbeats–I don’t know if people can do that in real life…) away, Matt’s powers absolutely have an analog in the real world. Whether or not Matt’s senses are actually enhanced to an insane degree (like Stan Lee asserts), Matt’s powers are a tribute to the incredible degree to which people can adapt to things.

If anything in this post was in error, please let me know and I’ll correct it. Hopefully you all enjoyed my analysis!

Why I Love “Daredevil”

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catholicism, christianity, daredevil, g.k. chesterton, marvel, marvel's daredevil, religion, story dynamics, writing

Lately, I’ve been watching Daredevil on a free trial of Netflix that I was forced to get in order to complete a different class. I might as well milk it for all it’s worth while I’ve got it.

It’s pretty different, watching Netflix shows. They tend to be written much more tightly and be more hard-hitting than TV shows. Since it’s sort of a “view at your own discretion” situation, they can also deal with things that most channels would shy away from discussing.

I love the way Daredevil is written. The dialogue is tight and loaded. Not a single word is wasted. Each character has a distinct voice, or even multiple voices–Matt has his “lawyer” voice, which is reasoned and comes across as almost stilted but very well put-together; his “informal” voice–his natural way of talking; and his “Daredevil” voice, which is much more terse than either of the others. The very choice of words builds into the characters.

At one point, Matt asks Karen if she believes; she replies that she doesn’t. In return, she asks him if he does. He replies “Catholic.” The reply is so textured, so many-faceted, not least because of his word choice.

It implies so much. Matt sees his faith as part of who he is, fundamentally; to him, it’s the thing that motivates him to take a stand and not back down; to get up again when he gets knocked down. It’s both a motivation and an example. For him, his faith is something concrete.

But it’s not just part of Matt’s identity that his word choice hints at.

It implies that Matt also believes that it doesn’t just matter that you believe; your exact beliefs matter too. That’s rather an unpopular opinion to hold in these days of watered-down Christianity, where hounded Christians greet any fellow Christian of any denomination as a friend in a world that seems to hate their guts. But that’s just a symptom–a welcome one, though–of a bigger problem.

A lot of people seem to think that it doesn’t matter what you believe, just that you do. Still more appear to be of the opinion that you can believe whatever you like, so long as you follow the nebulous call of “the right thing”–but no one seems to quite know what the right thing is.

But you see… people with all their beliefs laid out clearly on the table do.

The modern school of thought on “the right thing” grows out of a set of damaging beliefs from religions that people don’t dare to call out individually. And thus, they water down beliefs that common thought understands to be hurtful. Christianity gets watered down right along with them, even though it shouldn’t.

As a result, we get a series of feel-good philosophies that are, once you’ve lived them out for a while, hollow and dingy, and when they don’t feel fulfilled people just move on and try the next one, or they throw their hopes into exercise or yoga or things that have much more potential for harm.

That is not what religion is meant to be.

Let me repeat myself: that is not what religion is meant to be!

Religion is hard-hitting. It doesn’t pull its punches. As G.K. Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

Either you believe it all, or you put your faith in nothing. It’s as simple as that.

Personally, I believe that there is God and the devil. I believe in Heaven and Hell; I believe in the Bible, and I believe in the Savior. I can’t compromise. This is, as it is for Matt Murdoch, part of who I am.

I won’t apologize (as in, say I’m sorry.) But I will apologize (as in, live out my faith for everyone to see, and defend it if it’s attacked.)

Another thing about the zeitgeist; anything is permissible as long as “it’s just who I am!” Well, this is just who I am. Are you offended?

If you are, I recommend that you look really closely at the reasons why.

(I also recommend that you watch Daredevil. There’s some language, and it’s very violent, graphic and even gory in parts, but it’s also a very good show, both writing and morality-wise.)

Thanks for reading, and God Bless!