i did not make that adorable gif of seth gecko ok

ladykarazorel-deactivated201706:

“Ward had a million choices,” ”he had every chance to leave Garrett and he chose to stay.” Okay, no. This is where you totally missed the point.

First of all, you need to understand that Ward’s mind does not function as yours or mine does. He has been conditioned for over fifteen years to act and think the way Garrett’s wanted him to. The abuse Garrett has inflicted upon him (both physical and psychological) has, put it simply and bluntly, fucked up Ward’s mind to the point where he has no agency and no choice. Or rather, his choices go as far as Garrett allows them to go. You remember episode 22, right? Remember when Garrett told Ward that he was “free” and that he could do whatever he wanted to do? Remember how freaked out Ward was? How desperate he was to be given orders because he had literally no clue of how to function without them? And that’s just a tiny part. THAT is what abusers do to the people they abuse, they rob them of their free will, they twist reality in such a way, that the abused person is left fully believing that they have no rights, no options, no nothing. So when you say that Ward had a chance to leave, and he didn’t take it, you’re completely disregarding fifteen years of abuse, and how said abuse has twisted his mind and his reality. You’ve probably heard a hundred times by now, stories of how people who get beaten up by their partners, are incapable of walking away, and even go as far as excusing them, right? This is why. This is not fiction, this is reality, this happens.

And when you say “he had a shitty past but that doesn’t excuse him,” you’re, again, disregarding everything the show itself has showed us. Ward’s past wasn’t just shitty, because if it had been just that, then AOS wouldn’t have made such a strong point of showing us what went down and dedicating an entire episode to that storyline. Ward’s entire life has been shaped by abuse. First by his own family, and then by Garrett. And the clues are all right there. In the way he tells May, in episode 15, that she can beat him up if that makes her feel better, or how when Skye punches him, he just stands there and takes it because he’s fully convinced that he deserves it. Because that’s how he functions. He fucks up, he gets beaten up, and what’s disturbing here is that he’s totally okay with it. And if that doesn’t raise about 50 red flags to you, then I don’t know what to tell you.

When I said that Ward had been forced into being a douchebag, I admit that my choice of words was probably very poor. What I meant was, that Ward’s entire personality and behavior was conditioned and shaped by Garrett. His actions are dictated by Garrett’s orders. Whereas Hans has always acted out of his own free will. He came up with the plan of murdering Elsa and Anna on his own. He was not acting under anyone’s orders, it was all on him. Now, he had a shitty past, because his brothers would pull pranks on him and pretend he was invisible. That’s what you would call shitty. But his past does not even begin to compare to what Ward has gone through.

Also, Ward is not a serial killer. He doesn’t kill for his own benefit or because he gets a thrill out of it, or because he has some twisted need to show dominance/exert power over his victims, which is how real serial killers work. He’s a soldier, he follows orders. Does this mean that what he’s done is okay and that he deserves to be absolved? Hell, NO. He has to pay for what he’s done, and trust me, if the show doesn’t properly address this, I will be one of the first ones to rage. But this is not what this is all about. There’s a big, big difference between excusing someone’s actions and understanding where they come from. And that is exactly what Agents of SHIELD has been trying to show us all along.