Another 'Avengers' post.

Like the rest of the world, I recently saw the Avengers.

Two things stood out that I have not seen mentioned yet.

Scene: Agent Coulson giving Loki his 'the reason you suck' speech. (from IMDB-quotes)
 
Agent Phil Coulson: You're gonna lose.
Loki: Am I?
Agent Phil Coulson: It's in your nature.
Loki: Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky... where is my disadvantage?
Agent Phil Coulson: You lack conviction.
Loki: I don't think I...
[Coulson shoots Loki with his BFG, causing Loki to be blown through the wall behind him]
Agent Phil Coulson: So that's what it does

I feel that this is an accurate description of why people need to have a central morality in their lives. As portrayed Agent Coulson did, 'truth, justice, and the old fashioned American way' to borrow from another superhero. Loki's central morality 'It's all for me.' This is evident in the conversation that Thor and Loki have, through out the whole movie.
As a callback, Thor understanding about this selfishness versus selflessness idea was one of the major character development points of his movie.

People like Agent Coulson are not hard to find these days, but they are generally derided for being naive and simple, and not being thoughtful or smart enough to grasp all the nuances of modern issues. Actually, I think they are that smart, but most of them also get one other insult thrown at them by pop-culture: they get called 'conservative.'

An echo of Agent Coulson's sentiment was The Old Man in Germany, standing up to Loki. It seams that the greatest lesson of World War II is 'there will always be men like that,' and so there will always need to be people who will stand up to them. Or maybe that is just the lesson of Captain Steve Rodgers.


The second point that stood out.
In his final scene talking to the World Security Council, Nick Fury tells them in so many words then that he is not interested in pursuing the Avengers for what they did in fighting off the invading army.
One exchange I was waiting for in that conversation would be as follows:

World Security Council: They need to be held accountable. They did over three billion dollars of damage to New York City. And that number is still rising. Hundreds of civilians dead, more missing, and thousands injured...
Nick Fury: That is cheep, compared to what YOU tired to do to it.

I was once in a school presentation, the guest-presenter being an USAF Colonel, who was talking about how bombing people in to submission is not how you solve problems. I quipped under my breath, but loud enough to be heard that 'it depends on the bomb.' The Colonel stomped on that. I am not an advocate for using 'the biggest stick,' but I have enough insight to understand that escalation is a real principle, and sometimes the enemy will push until only the nuclear option is viable. A moral and upright people will seek to use every other option first, but will not hesitate long to use the worst if it is necessary. Of course this is why such an array of weapons is had today: peace through strength is moral people having enough intermediate options available to bring the enemy to the realization of the untenable position of force of arms.
For a good example of this, the local Law Enforcement Officers carry a variety of force-options: Talking, pepper spray, a baton, a tazer, and a fire-arm. Most also carry a knife, and have hand-combat training, but the knife is used as a tool, not a weapon, preferring distance and their firearms to the close quarters of a knife fight.
Moral and upright people are not afraid of seeing armed men and women among them. The thoughtful recognize the various levels of force are a mercy against the villains, allowing the villains a place and time to repent, they just need to be smart enough to yield.

Back to the movie, the Avengers were a better force-option than the nuclear one. As the movie bears out, the nuclear weapon was the right tool for stopping the invasion, but not in the way it was initially intended. Boots on the ground proved that out.

I see a whole lot of the current issues of the day echoed through out this movie. The question is: which real world people do the individuals watching line up with which hero-world characters?