Thread by @thewreathwright

Let's correct some silly misreadings of the Incredibles

Our hero is a has-been. Supers are gone, and they have been for years. He chafes in polite society, and whiles away nights stopping petty crime while his family strains under his yearning for a past he can't return to.

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https://twitter.com/gaulicsmith/status/1930034377783693595

His nighttime adventures are a shadow of the role he once held, a role into which he quite literally no longer fits. Not content, he assaults his boss, breaks his car, and attempts to vicariously live out his lost status through his son—and each effort is a tantrum at best.

In his lowest moments, he thinks he finds a way out—a cleverly prepared trap designed to play his weaknesses like a fiddle. A promise of heroism that means something. Desperate, he takes the bait, and smoothly lies to his family as Mirage gives him the old days back.

He works out. He fights monstrosities on scenic islands after sipping mimosa in a private jet. He lives it up and "does what he was born to do..." and where does that get him?

Oh, that's right.

Caught in the "cheap tricks and gimmicks" of a "total loser nerd" who has beaten him mentally and physically, the last, unspecial hero in a long line of heroes Syndrome has played for fools in the exact same way.

He barely lives—first because he could run and cower under the bones of an old friend who died earlier in Syndrome's path to victory, and then left alive only because that "loser nerd" wanted to gloat.

And there he is, quite literally beaten by his own arrogance made manifest in a child he turned aside, and then exploited by the same. He's saved by his family, thanks only to the foresight of Edna Mode in giving him a distress beacon that finally reveals his lies to them.

The climax of the movie is his atonement for his short-sighted arrogance. "Fly home, Buddy. I work alone" is recanted in terrific detail as he teams up with his family to stop Syndrome and save the city by the slimmest of margins.

And there is glory in this—his repentance is not humiliating, but cinematic, as even the knowledge he gained in his first ill-advised fights is now brought to bear to score the greatest victory in the film.

Syndrome is defeated, fittingly enough, by hubris of his own. And for him, there are no bones in a cave to hide behind for a second chance, as he's sucked into a jet engine by the exact same kind of cape Bob would have worn if he hadn't bowed to his friend's advice.

Does brain beat brawn? Certainly. But prosociality beats both. OP claims that the message is one of triumph of genetically superior caste—all I see is the confident message that no matter what, an arrogant, self-absorbed bastard will always find a way to lose.

One has to wonder what the world of the Incredibles would have been like if Bob learned that lesson earlier. A sidekick who can fly would probably have caught a suicidal jumper far gentler. One who he had given some training wouldn't have been a useful idiot for Bomb Voyage.

Perhaps a clever-but-powerless inventor fighting alongside the supers might have done quite a lot to bridge the gap of suspicion and fear that got the supers sent into hiding in the first place. Who knows?

One can only wonder.

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