A Tale of Two Cities

In the early days of storytelling, the good guys and the bad guys were very easy to identify. Good was clearly good, and evil was clearly evil. As the years went by and the art of story developed and progressed, that defining line began to fade. Anti-heroes, who work for good but display questionable means and morals, began to crop up. Villains became humanized when their tragic, relatable backstories became known.

Out of the many hero-villain relationships that have been born from this development, one of them shines amongst the others:

“The Antagonist is the Protagonist if they made a different choice.”

Both lost something dear to them. In a sense, both were orphaned in some way. This relationship confronts the protagonist on their own choices and methodologies. How are their goals any different from their enemy’s? Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a perfect example of this archetype. Here, we have a queen and king, at odds with each other, but more similar than they would prefer. This movie just released on Disney Plus this month, so be warned: Spoilers Ahead.

Fun fact: I went to high school with the Atlantean in the center of this poster, Chris Cortez. He helped me get into film work and screenwriting back in college. Check out his stuff here!

Shuri, Princess of Wakanda

First up, we have Shuri, the protagonist of our story. We met her in the first Black Panther movie. Younger sister of T’Challa, Black Panther and king of Wakanda, Shuri was the nontraditional princess, favoring science over ceremony. She was spunky and passionate, supporting her brother to the best of her ability.

At the beginning of Wakanda Forever, Shuri desperately tried to recreate the heart-shaped herb that her cousin, Erik Killmonger, destroyed in the previous film. T’Challa was dying, and she needed the herb to cure him. Unfortunately, she was unable to create a synthetic version before T’Challa tragically passed.

While this chip dug deep into her shoulder, her country came under threat from multiple sides. Most countries tried to take advantage of T’Challa’s absence and acquire vibranium, whether through political or military maneuvers. The most notable danger came from Namor. He demanded Wakanda’s cooperation in hunting down a certain individual, lest he added them to his list of targets to burn.

As the conflict raged on, Shuri’s mother, Queen Ramonda, died in one of Namor’s direct attacks on Wakanda. Now, Shuri had lost two dear family members. With tensions rising and rage growing, Shuri took on the mantles of Queen and Protector. In Wakanda’s darkest hour, she became the new Black Panther (I personally loved the black and gold colors she picked). She devised a plan to take out Namor and his warriors once and for all.

Namor, King of Talokan

Before we go too much farther into Shuri’s development, we must observe the other side of this royal coin: Namor, our antagonist. Namor was the equivalent of a demi-god, worshipped by his underwater people for hundreds of years.

Namor’s story is not all too different from Shuri’s. Like her, he witnessed his mother pass away. When he brought her body back to the surface, to bury it in the land of her birth, he bore witness to the cruelty of the surface dwellers. The natives had been enslaved and horribly mistreated. At that moment, he decided that the surface was too dangerous for his people and sequestered them to their home in the ocean’s depths.

Now, surface dwellers searching for vibranium came too close to Talokan. In order to stop the threat early, Namor destroyed the machine capable of detecting the metal and demanded that the Wakandans bring him the scientist behind its creation. While he was a benevolent ruler to his people, he was ruthless to those he deemed enemies. As the conflict with Wakanda escalated, some of his beloved citizens were killed during Shuri’s rescue. In retaliation, he attacked Wakanda and murdered their queen.

What’s the Difference?

Shuri and Namor have much in common. Both are royals with a duty to protect their people. Both were exposed to the brutality of their enemies through their mothers’ deaths. Both sought vengeance through violence. So, what is the difference between our protagonist and antagonist?

The scary part is, there almost wasn’t a difference.

Shuri’s desire for revenge nearly turned this story into a cautionary tale. Just like Namor, she sought her enemy’s blood and used her people to achieve it. That thirst, that drive, came dangerously close to destroying what she was supposed to protect.

This point is further emphasized when Shuri entered the ancestral plane in an attempt to gain advice from past kings. She expected to see T’Challa there and obtain his guidance. Instead, she saw her cousin, Killmonger. Although she rejected his advice, her response to her mother’s death, and to Namor in general, bore Killmonger’s ruthless influence rather than T’Challa’s wisdom. Shuri became the very thing she sought to destroy.

We did not see the “different choice” until the very end of the film. Shuri had separated Namor from his people and the water that sustained him. Both were beaten and bloody, but Namor could not get away. Standing over him with a spear to his throat, Shuri had him dead to rights.

However, just before she could deal the final blow, she recalled her people at peace. She remembered her brief time in Talokan, how Namor’s people were very much like her own. Finally, a vision of her mother brought her back to her senses, telling Shuri to show Namor who she truly was. Rather than finishing him off, she chose mercy, accepted his surrender, and spared him.

We have to thank Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole for writing the script for Wakanda Forever. Shuri and Namor were excellent foils for each other, and it’s because of how similar they truly were. They both told the same story. Life’s circumstances had orphaned them. The world had hurt them both. However, like many protagonists and antagonists before them, these two royal orphans made a single choice that set them on different paths.

One said, “The world hurt me, so I’m going to hurt it back.”

The other said, “The world hurt me, so I’m going to make sure no one else suffers my pain.”