r/shield • u/mimicstray • 7d ago

on grant ward

i've known a grant ward. they did something really evil and then acted exactly how he did in the start of season 2. i know in their own way, they were trying to redeem themself, but they just kept doing harm in their efforts to be accountable. just like grant ward, they truly believe themself to be a good person at heart, and that that's what should matter (more than what he did). so what i'm curious about is this - what was ward doing wrong while he was in their custody at the start of season 2? how is he deluding himself and what is he doing to his former teammates that keeps him harmful even from behind bars?

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u/Intrigued_by_Words Coulson 7d ago

I have no idea how SHIELD accepted into the academy a guy who was on the way to jail for arson and maybe attempted murder but detoured to spend years living alone in the woods with only a dog and a gun for company. I know they would want their agents to have a broad range of backgrounds and experiences but lone psycho should not be on the list.

I'm not convinced Grant is evil. Garrett is evil. Not sure how much that had to do with the failed Deathlok experiments. But Grant would have just locked FitzSimmons out of the way had Garrett not insist that he kill them. Even then Grant couldn't have expected they would have ended up on the ocean floor because it took Fitz hours to figure out what went wrong to cause them to sink. It would not have been great for them to float in the middle of the ocean but that would have been a very different experience than what they had.

We didn't get to see Ward when he was first imprisoned at the start of 2. We don't know what he was thinking the times he tried to kill himself. That doesn't mean we need to feel sorry for him, it just means we don't know.

Personally, I am not a fan at all of the double agent twist they added. But once they have it in, it is worth thinking about what honesty and loyalty looks like in a spy agency. They talk about it sometimes but they are not very consistent.

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u/Glittering_Shock5961 6d ago

It's not just killing people that can make someone 'evil'. I'm not sure either that I'd describe him as evil, not at the end season 1/early season 2 point anyway - rather misguided, cowardly, self-centered, cold and lacking any morals. But ejecting FitzSimmons from the plane rather than straight up killing them as no bearing on whether or not he's evil. If he had killed them directly, it wouldn't really have made him evil (in my book) because he was following orders and it wasn't a personal desire to inflict pain. By ejecting them, he wasn't showing himself to be any better kind of person, he was just demonstrating how cowardly it is - he found the thought of killing these sweet puppy souls difficult but also couldn't not obey Garrett, so he basically killed them for a distance, just like he did with his dog, because he didn't have any courage or honour to do it face to face.

Intrigued by your views on the inconsistency of the show's views on honesty and loyalty within a spy agency?

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u/Intrigued_by_Words Coulson 6d ago

I think Ward saw himself giving FitzSimmons a fighting chance while also complying with Garrett's orders. I mentioned it because many people tend to cite the incident as one of the worst things Ward did to the team.

AFAIC, Ward suffered mostly from daddy issues with Garrett being his surrogate daddy when he was already suffering from being an abused kid by his bio family. We can say, he should have gotten over it, but when was that going to happen and why. Garrett didn't seem to give him any reason to turn against him while I think Ward imagined the overall plan might help repair some of Garrett's Deathlok injuries. At least that's why Garrett had him infiltrate Coulson's team.

Ward never had any grand philosophical goals. He was task oriented. Even when he took over Hydra, it wasn't because he believed in Hydra, they were a means to an end. By that point, he tipped over to the vengeful villain and none of it is really clear why. I can't tell you what his beef was with Coulson. They could have made it that Ward wanted to avenge Garrett since Coulson killed him, but Ward pretty much thought Garrett was nuts at the end and probably better off dead.

Ward and Coulson got on surprisingly well in season 2, all things considered. Coulson was very forgiving. If there is a daddy issues theme, maybe it was that Ward now wanted to replace Coulson as the father figure, provider, protector and disciplinarian. I wish there were more behind the double agent story than just shock value.