tariqk:

knitmeapony:

briskeboys:

vikingpoteto:

not to be dramatic, but Okoye telling her bitch ass husband she would end him without hesitation when he tried to manipulate her changed me as a person and cured my depression. 

“would you kill me my love?”

“for wakanda? No question.”

a woman in my theater: “oH I HEARD THAT!!!!”

Listen.  LISTEN.  *cups your face in my hands*  Listen to me.  I have never so perfectly and purely seen a Paladin depicted in a movie as I saw in Okoye.  Lawful good to her core.  Pure, unvarnished loyalty to Wakanda and her people evident in every goddamned motion.  Dignified, graceful, reverent respect for the rules of her country and its greater good.

There is something so beautiful about faith, something that just burns through with a beautiful glow that lights up someone’s eyes and every expression.  There is a confidence and a peace that is both palpable and enviable when faith has been tested and come through intact. You could so hear it in her voice.

Personal shit is great, and I’m glad she was seen in a loving relationship.  The Lone Woman Warrior trope is worn thin, and I’m sure even thinner for black women who are often not allowed to be lovable people on screen.  But the core of the Paladin is ‘there is something greater than I, and I will sacrifice everything for it’, and it was beautiful to not only see that happen on screen but see her proved right, see her win, in one case by not even raising her weapon.  She stood firm in her faith and the narrative said yes, it said this is just, it said your very faith will protect you from harm.  And she’s not seen as hard or cold edged weapon for that.  The imagery around her in that moment is more like a saint or an angel, glowing and reaching out a peaceful hand to a symbol of one of the tribes of her country.  Her country loves her back.

Okoye doesn’t just love her country.  She doesn’t just serve her country.  She doesn’t just believe in her country.  She has unshakable faith in an absolute truth: Wakanda Forever.  

She is elevated for her faith as much as her skill.  

It’s fucking breathtaking.  

The deleted scene between W’Kabi and Okoye has definitely got to be seen:

Like, as much as she has deep faith about Wakanda, the fundamental fact is that it is literally tied to what kind of future she wants to see. You really need to tie the question she asks W’Kabi near the end of this question: “What kind of world do you want me to raise my children in?” and realize — for her, Wakanda isn’t just some kind of credo or belief that she holds, but it is a promise of a future, a direction for her nation, and where it ought to go — a matter she struggles with throughout the movie. Her faith lives, she lives with it day-to-day, and everything she does reflects her engagement with her belief in what Wakanda is.

W’Kabi wins this scene by persuading her that following Killmonger will make Wakanda great, but later, when he asks Okoye whether she’d kill him, and invokes their love, in retrospect? This scene makes it very clear that W’Kabi has overplayed his hand. From that moment on the rhino on, W’Kabi had lost literally any right to talk about the future of Wakanda, and any right to persuade Okoye that he had Wakanda’s best interests at heart.

Because by then, she knew full well that W’Kabi was driven more by personal need and vengeance. So, yes. She’d fucking kill him for Wakanda. There was literally no other way, in her universe. Too much was at stake.