not everyone’s type: grant ward and the odd defiance of agents of s.h.i.e.l.d.
on the surface, agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. seems like classic b-list spy show fare, marvel’s nod to mission: impossible, the kingsman movies and other similar, gadgetry-and-gag-based shows. it’s got the tried-and-true recipe to get me to watch something from beginning to end-a ragtag bunch of misfits drawn together by a common goal, who end up finding something even better than said goal, a FOUND FAMILY. (yes, i am gay.) my little brother and i watched the (delightfully silly) first season on a trip to see family in india, and lately, overcome by nostalgia for a simpler time, we are in the process of rewatching the show. after the first season, saddled with the herculean task of tying together multiple marvel plotlines from the movies, later seasons got overwhelmed by more subplots than the little show was capable of handling, including some fairly messy time-travel business (when will marvel stop with the time travel?) but the initial season perfectly captured what i always enjoyed about the show-the neat, episodic resolutions, only a few overarching subplots. it’s something that you can turn your brain off and enjoy.
however, the thing that makes aos stand out, compared to other mcu media at the time, is the centrality of the show’s female characters. though clark gregg’s agent coulson (miraculously resurrected after his death in avengers) may initially seem like the central character, he serves more in a mentor-surrogate father capacity to skye, later, daisy johnson, the audience window to the inner workings of this shadowy (shockingly inefficient and unethical) organization, who quickly becomes the focus of the show. played by former chinese pop star chloe bennet skye quickly becomes the beating heart of the show, and her plotlines tend to drive the show more than coulson’s. the most casually badass character isn’t any number of generically attractive young white men. it’s agent melinda may (played with warmth and humor by the excellent ming-na wen). featuring not one, but two east asian women front and center in prominent, non-stereotypical roles was a radical decision for a franchise that is so overwhelmingly male and white. also note that neither one of these characters is a doctor or scientist (that honor goes to peppy, charmingly british agent simmons.) asian people are rarely represented in media like aos, unless they are antagonists or nameless scientists, yet, these two characters had fully realized arcs and were just as important to the plot, if not more, than some of the white characters.
this season patters on in standard spy-show fare until the final six episodes. s.h.i.e.l.d. plays a fairly significant role in the winter soldier, with much of the agency turning out to be under control of the evil HYDRA. needless to say, this has implications for our plucky gang of agents, as they are thrust out into a hostile world that believes their organization is a terrorist group. watching this segment in the uncertainty of the post-trump, covid era is particularly disquieting, as the agents grapple with the realities of hurtling toward an unknown, bleak future. but the team is dealt a further blow when one of their own agents, the generically handsome, tortured, emotionally stunted grant ward, was also revealed to be a HYDRA plant. a walking collection of action movie tropes and by far the least interesting character on the show, ward’s heel-turn made him much more dynamic, and a downright disturbing villain. he strangled patton oswalt’s character (billy koenig) with piano wire, attempted to drown the team’s genial scientist duo, agents fitz and simmons, and later would brutally torture another agent by shoving needles under her nails. he was slimy, devious, and cruel, and adept at making excuses for his behavior.
if you’ve ever been part of a fan base for media with a conventionally attractive white man who’s morally gray, or sometimes even downright evil, you probably know the drill. this twist split the fandom in two, with some turning on ward as a villain, and a smaller, but vocal minority becoming extreme ward stans. “stand with ward-ers,” or “sww’s” for short, became notorious in the aos fandom for rabidly defending all of ward’s actions, harassing the actors and showrunners (especially maurissa tancharoen, one of the lead showrunners, and a woc), and villifying the other characters, especially the characters of color (rip agent triplett, you deserved better). the two characters who came particularly under fire were skye/daisy and melinda may, who had previously been linked to him romantically. skyeward shippers, in particular, were furious, as this pairing had been teased just before ward’s HYDRA revelation. these two were accused of being cold and insensitive to his plight. as a thirteen-year-old-obsessive, i fell in with the “anti-stand-with-ward” platform, started having long arguments with fanfiction authors, and put “SWW-ers DNI!!” in my tumblr bio. ward stans raged. i stood steadfast in self-righteousness and called them “nazi apologists.” they told me i was “the most sjw thing since gamergate,” after which i had to google both “sjw” and “gamergate” and later wished i hadn’t. oh, the joys of adolescence.
coming back to the show as a (hopefully) more rational adult, i can honestly say i no longer believe many of the points i would espouse on my account. i no longer believe that liking characters like grant ward is tantamount to justifying these characters’ decisions in real life, or shipping dynamics like skyeward is normalizing abuse. most people know the difference between fiction and reality. it’s patronizing to assume otherwise. however, i do still believe it is an incontrovertible fact that the media we consume impacts how we see the world. as such, we shouldn’t consume any media without critical thinking, without carefully examining the points that it is actually making or trying to make. in the case of agents of s.h.i.e.l.d., the point that was being made with grant ward was subtle, but revelatory, especially in the early 2010s, when the brooding, dark-haired bad-boy reigned supreme.
as the HYDRA threat is revealed, it seemed initially that the traitor was agent may. this was unsurprising, as she had always been set up as a sort of antagonist to the more free-spirited skye, but disappointingly predictable. she proves herself to be trustworthy through a subplot i won’t get into here, after which the true traitor is revealed to be ward. part of what made this twist so good was that characters like ward rarely get to be bad to the bone. their coldness is stoicism, their cruelty is pent-up sexual frustration and childhood trauma, and really, why aren’t the female characters manic-pixie-dreamgirling them into caring, compassionate human beings? it must be all their fault. part of the appeal of the skyeward dynamic was that it’s a rom-com trope as old as time-troubled, difficult man and the woman who isn’t afraid of his darkness, who can heal him. the show seemed to be going in this direction, with him confessing to skye the truth about his abusive parents and brother. not long after she realizes that he’s HYDRA, they have this exchange, which is probably my favorite moment of the whole season.
Ward: I was on a mission. It wasn’t personal.
Skye: “It wasn’t” — you did not just say that. “It wasn’t personal”?!?
Ward: Skye, listen to me.
Skye: God! You might actually believe that. You — that is — that is the twisted logic that they teach you when you sign up to be a Nazi.
Ward: Stop. Wait. I’m not a Nazi.
Skye: Yes, you are. That’s exactly what you are. It’s in the S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook, chapter one. The Red Skull, founder of Hydra, was a big, fat freaking Nazi!
Ward: That has nothing to do with today.
Skye: You know, you always had that Hitler youth look to you. So it’s really not that surprising.
Ward: It’s not like that. I’m a spy. I had a job.
Skye: You’ve killed I don’t know how many people. You gonna kill me now?
Ward: No. I would never hurt you.
Skye: Once I crack the drive, are you just gonna shoot me like you did with Thomas Nash, or are you gonna have someone else do it, like you did with Quinn?
Ward: I didn’t know that was gonna happen. That was all Garrett.
Skye: Oh, of course it was Garrett’s fault. That was part of the mission, right? You were just gonna kick back and watch me bleed until it’s your turn to pull the trigger.
Ward: You think I had a part in that? That I would let that happen to you? You know how I feel about you, Skye.
Skye: Wait. So, even though you’ve been lying, to everyone about everything, you’re saying that your feelings for me –
Ward: They’re real, Skye.
Ward: They always have been.
Skye: I’m gonna throw up.
Ward: Do you — do you think this has been easy for me? Do you have any idea how hard it was? The sacrifices, the decisions I had to make? But I made them. Because that’s what I do. I’m a survivor.
Skye: You are a serial killer. And you know what? You were right about one thing. I wouldn’t like the real you.
Ward: Someday…someday, you’ll understand.
Skye: No. I won’t. And I will never, ever give you what you want.
this scene is a direct repudiation of this entire trope, and serves to turn the entire direction i thought the show was going on its head. up until this point, i genuinely believed that through another contrived twist, ward would be redeemed. because men who look like him, on tv, brooding pseudo-anti-heroes, simply cannot be what they all too often are, manipulative liars who use and abuse. rarely do female characters get to be as angry as they should be at the men that manipulate them if these men are set up to be love interests. because good women forgive. good women listen. good women believe it when they say that they’re sorry, that they really really love you, they promise.
on rewatch, ward’s behavior seems even more calculating. partly, this is hindsight bias, but part of what makes him such a good villain is how adept he is at telling part of the truth and appearing as though he is genuinely sorry for the things he’s done. initially, when he discusses his childhood with skye, he tells her that his older brother used to beat up his younger brother. later, he confesses to her that his older brother used to make him beat his younger brother up. he also tells her that he’s not a good man, and that she wouldn’t like him if she *really* got to know him. and skye, as per the trope, tells him that of course he is a good man. the scene rings eerily familiar for those of us who’ve had friends, partners, or family members who manipulate-they’re all too eager to tell us how awful they really are, and we’re then obligated to contradict that perspective, to lick their wounds before they turn on us again. in need of skye’s help decrypting a stolen hard drive, he returns to their base, where he needs to pass a lie detector test. when he gets asked why he’s really there, he almost fails the test before answering “skye.” this was cited as evidence by sww’ers that he does truly care about skye, but it could just as easily be another half-truth, close enough to avoid suspicion.
ward apologists always claimed that we didn’t truly care about victims of abuse. after all, ward’s mistreatment by his HYDRA mentor garrett, and horrific childhood were obvious catalysts for his callous disregard for human life. they argued that this was taking a moralistic stance in favor of “good victims”. i would like to refute that claim. not every action someone takes is reflective of the sum total of their trauma, and not every action someone takes as a result of their trauma is a good one. it is all too common in media for (male, white) characters to be implicitly forgiven because their trauma makes their bad behavior excusable, especially by female characters who have been directly affected by said behavior. it is not the radical take that it seems to claim that the actions of a traumatized person necessitate forgiveness. everyone can cause harm, and if they do, are expected to take accountability. maybe ward really does love skye; maybe he is telling the truth. maybe he doesn’t know how to express it any other way. but allowing skye to reject him completely, to call into question his feelings for her, is a perfect touch from the writers. ultimately, it doesn’t really matter how he *really* feels. it matters that she chooses to say no.
despite pressure from fans, the writers of agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. never gave grant ward a redemption arc. and ultimately, it was the women-the cold, unfeeling asian women-who take him down for good in this season. skye lures him into receiving one of the most brutal beatdowns of the season, courtesy of melinda may (i literally would lay down my life for her). maybe he’s not, as he boasts earlier in the season, “everyone’s type”, after all. the writers certainly saw him for what he is. i can only hope those fans will, eventually, too.
