Comparing Fitz and Ward

Meta
Title:	Comparing Fitz and Ward
Creator:	stargazerdaisy
Date(s):	April 19, 2017
Medium:	online
Fandom:	Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Topic:	Leo Fitz, Grant Ward
External Links:	Comparing Fitz and Ward, Archived version
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Comparing Fitz and Ward is a comparative meta post on Tumblr written by stargazerdaisy in April 2017. The essay compares the characters of Leo Fitz and Grant Ward.

Excerpts

I am enjoying the parallels between Fitz and Ward in this Framework arc. They are fascinating and hopefully, give all other characters (SIDE EYES HARD AT YOU, JEMMA ANNE SIMMONS) a chance to re-evaluate their past opinions and actions. However, what strikes me is that the parallels are between Framework Fitz and Original Ward, not Original Fitz and Original Ward.

But here’s the real crux of the situation: When they wake up, Fitz will be Original Fitz. He will have all the memories of Framework Fitz, but he will have his original foundation, memories, and experiences as well. This puts him at a distinct advantage over Original Ward. Fitz has his fundamental personality, one with compassion and loyalty (though imperfect and not universal), and that is his baseline. He also has a big support system. Jemma has unfailing faith in and unconditional love for him. Daisy knows better than anyone else on the team what he’ll be going through, having to face the things you did - that hurt other people - when you weren’t the one in control. Coulson, Mack, Elena, May, etc are all going to know that Framework Fitz isn’t Original Fitz and I’m sure will reassure him of that repeatedly. He will be taken care of. But Ward never had that. Ward grew up in an abusive home, where the people who were supposed to love him actually hurt him and allowed him to be hurt. Repeatedly, for years and years. When he finally escaped from that hell, he was coerced, lied to, and conditioned by Garrett for many more years. Not only did Ward not have any foundation of love and support, but any semblance of that he did end up with (i.e being on Coulson’s team) was continuously and actively undermined and sabotaged by Garrett and Hydra.

Fitz will be recovering, regaining what he once had, who he once was. There was no “recovering” for Ward, no returning to a previous status. For him to become whole, it would have been entirely new territory, a brand new process of discovery and growth. No, Fitz will never be the same again. But Ward was never that way to start with. He would have had to forge an entirely new path, again with no tools, very little or no support system, and people working against him at every turn.

Responses

Exactly. It’s a show of how the good guys never gave him a real second chance. As Radcliffe said it only takes one small change to completely change a person. What would have happened if they had even given Ward a simple chance to prove himself? And let’s not forget the promotion of suicide before he had even done a lot of the bad things when there was a therapist readily available that Coulson was already in contact with…but of course that would mean giving Ward a chance and telling May he was in contact with her ex-husband. And don’t get me started on Jemma’s Hydra speech to that kid. That’s disrespecting all the people being forced into those kind of situations or even May. So yes, if you call Ward “that” now you have to call Fitz and May that too, especially Fitz since he’s going to be the head. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the Framework.

And as for Fitz kills. It will still affect him as even if not “real” it is real in a sense as Ward pointed out to Jemma.

And yes seeing the parallels is liberating in a way. Now everyone else can see what all of us have seen for so long. Especially since it seems Fitz will be following Ward’s footsteps and becoming the head of Hydra in the next episode.

I’m more interested in psychological aspect of this than legal one - in 1970s Philip Zimbardo put a group of healthy, emotionally stable young men into a simulation of reality (that we call psychological experiment). The nature of the simulation was a prison. He gave them uniforms to help them internalize their roles as prisoners or guards and gave them only basic rules. He then allowed them to shape the rest of the situation with their own behavior.

It took 48 hours for normal students to become abusers. The experiment had to be cut short because one of the prisoners had a mental breakdown.

My point is, it takes very little coercion on part of the outside world to change who we are. Dehumanizing situation dehumanizes us and our actions. It takes so very little to do that.

When put into a clutches of an abuser Fitz became worse than Ward. Fitz here, in this scenario has no remorse. Ward did for most of the time we knew him. I am pointing that out for the folks who think Fitz is somehow fundamentally better and Ward turned out the way he did because he was that kind of *person*. Well, when you put Fitz into more or less same situation - note how his father talks to him? The same way Garrett talked to Ward- abusers have patterns - here you go. This is who Fitz becomes. A man who constructs machines designed to torture and kill other human beings. What kind of person does that make him? He should be given therapy to recover from this right? So how do you think Ward should have chosen to be good when everyone was repeatedly abusive to him, and yes, solitary confinement is abuse. Extreme abuse.

As Radcliffe says, anyone is capable of anything. All it takes is the right kind of circumstances. We all have a potential for evil in ourselves.