So this is an Iron Fist meta post that grew out of a conversation sheron and I were having in chat today about a post on Tumblr that talks about different ways of showing love, which immediately we started applying to different characters in fandom. As you do.

The post is here and it's actually pretty cool, so I'll just summarize if you don't want to read the whole thing. Basically the post uses the lovely phrase "love language" for the different ways that people show love - not romantic necessarily (in fact the post is mainly talking about friendship) -- just love, in general: by touching, talking, doing things for other people, giving gifts, or spending time together. And it talks about how different people's love languages can be incompatible and people have to learn to show/give love across that kind of barrier.

I'm just going to quote the post's descriptions of the five kinds of "love language" under the cut (it's in Tumblr-ese, so translate to normal English XD). There are probably more than this, and most people kind of straddle several, but it is an interesting tool to have in your characterization toolbox, especially for characters who come down really hard in one category or another (e.g. we decided Neal Caffrey is a gifter, and so is Tony Stark), or absolutely suck at certain categories (like how some characters are touch-averse or wouldn't have a conversation about feelings if you tried to force them at gunpoint).

Types of Love Language (according to Tumblr):

TOUCH got a bro that likes to give high fives? Back slaps? Are they a hugger? Do they not blink an eye at cuddles?

QUALITY TIME this bro will sprint to spend every minute possible with you. Every second that you guys are together is a declaration of affection.

WORDS does your bro tell you how amazing and great and fantastic and wonderful you are all the time? Guess what…?

GIFTS do they buy you coffee? Snacks, energy drinks, spot you at the restaurant? Did that one key chain remind you of them? Ding ding!

ACTS are they always doing things for you? Ie: Nah bro, I got this, I can do that, need me to get anything for you, I can help with…?

PRO TIP - The way people show love is often how they receive love as well.

(sholio's side note: Although it doesn't have to be; it often is, but we also came up with several characters who seem to respond better to love delivered in a different way than they typically give it. Which I'm sure applies to real people too.)


So anyway, yeah, this immediately led to us trying to categorize characters, and I started talking to her about Iron Fist (as you do, when your head is in a brand new show brainspace), and I had an epiphany about late season one, and something spoilery that happens with Ward and Danny in 1x12. Which I'll talk about under the cut.


That's the episode where the Hand captures the Meachums to set a trap for Danny and force him to come save them, and it's also the episode in which Ward does a complete 180 on Danny. Now there are a lot of factors to that; I mean, he's just gone through drug detox and had his worldview turned inside out on a number of things, and having someone save your life will really change how you see a person.

But I think there's a specific reason why it had such an effect on Ward that it changed how he related to Danny from there to the end of the series, while it didn't similarly affect Joy -- I mean, she was relieved and delighted to see him, of course, but it didn't cause a sea change in the way they related to one another.

So when we were categorizing characters by love language, I decided that Ward falls really heavily into the "do-er" category, while Danny and Joy are both talkers (and Danny is a do-er also, but not quite as all-or-nothing about it as Ward is). Ward is geared really heavily towards showing love for his family by doing things for them and protecting them. Meanwhile Joy is on the "talking about love" end of things and this is one reason why she and Ward butt heads over his secretiveness so much. To her, it reads like he's putting up walls and shutting her out; to him, he's just obviously doing what he needs to do to protect her.

When Danny first shows up in New York, Ward slots him into "threat to family": an outsider. (And of course there's lots of personal issues going on there too -- his longstanding resentment of Danny, for one.) But mostly, because Ward is not geared towards talking about feelings, I just don't think he believes anything Danny says about thinking of the Meachums as family. Oh, it's not quite that he's consciously dismissing Danny or thinks that Danny is lying. It just doesn't sink in. Danny can tell Ward that he thinks of Ward and Joy as his family until he's blue in the face, but Ward doesn't get it.

Until Danny comes to save them.

Because that's what Ward himself would have done. That's his love language.

And that's the point when the penny drops for him. I mean, look at how astonished he looks when Danny walks into the penthouse. Ward really, truly did not think Danny was going to come. He didn't see any reason why Danny would come. And, rationally, at this point the Meachums have mostly just screwed with him, tried to steal his company, and tried to kill him, so it's not exactly unrealistic that Danny would leave them to die.

But to Danny, they're still family. And for Ward, seeing Danny demonstrate it (rather than just say it) accomplishes what all the talking in the world couldn't do: it makes it sink in, and it makes him realize that Danny is serious about the family thing. And at that point, on some level of Ward's subconscious, it seems like Danny flips over into the "family" category, and for him, family --> younger sibling --> must protect. And that's when he starts acting to protect Danny like he would Joy.

They might not be close yet; there's still a lot between them. But from there on out to the end of the season, he's in low-key protective mode with Danny -- warning him about Harold, trying to warn him away from the gunmen in the offices, basically working his ass off (while concussed!) to get up to the roof before Harold can kill Danny, and then ultimately shooting Harold to save Danny. (And for other complicated reasons as well, but that was certainly the impetus at the moment -- which, incidentally, was one of my favorite things about the finale: I loved that Ward got to be the one to deliver the killing blow to his abuser, but I also loved that it wasn't for the same revenge/catharsis/rage reasons that he killed Harold the first time. This time, it was because Harold was about to shoot Danny.)

As a nice corollary to all of this, I love that in the following scene, Danny is still performing "love" in a way that Ward understands: showing up to the cremation so he doesn't have to do it alone. That's the kind of thing that Ward gets on a visceral level, where verbal condolences just don't quite do it.

So yeah! Maybe it's not the only way to interpret those scenes, but it's a lens through which it all goes together beautifully.



Even if you're not into the Iron Fist meta-ing above, feel free to jump into the comments and psychoanalyze your favorite characters. What's their love language? Or yours?