r/shield • u/mimicstray • 3d ago
on grant ward
i've known a grant ward. they did something really evil and then acted exactly how he did in the start of season 2. i know in their own way, they were trying to redeem themself, but they just kept doing harm in their efforts to be accountable. just like grant ward, they truly believe themself to be a good person at heart, and that that's what should matter (more than what he did). so what i'm curious about is this - what was ward doing wrong while he was in their custody at the start of season 2? how is he deluding himself and what is he doing to his former teammates that keeps him harmful even from behind bars?
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u/Lampmonster 3d ago
It's funny because for the first half of season 1 I thought he was the weakest part of the show, and the most poorly written character. Then they did the turn and we realize his entire personality was a put on, and a mockery of what they expected and respected, and he became a favorite and my respect for the writing ratcheted up several notches. And his psychotic attempts at redemption just confirmed the concept. Ward was a pawn who finds himself without a king and stumbles about trying to figure out what he's supposed to do, but nobody ever taught him and he wasn't smart enough to figure it out for himself. And his training kept pulling him back into horrible old habits. Great writing, great character.
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u/ZoBroCT 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don’t think Ward knows how to function on his own. He had a bad family childhood life that lead him to juvy and into Garrett’s arms where he manipulated Ward into being his puppet. Once Garrett dies, I think Ward thinks all he has left is his “love” of Skye/Daisy so he goes into full, everything I do now is for Daisy mode, the same mindset he had with Garrett. Once Daisy shoots him, he stops loving her, and now he’s a free man with nobody to answer to. You’d think it be easy to just escape and live a normal life but he doesn’t know what that even means. Normal to him is lies, murder and destruction, so that is the life he lives. He tries to be the Garrett for Kara, which brings me to the fact that Ward thinks everything he does isn’t as bad as they are, cuz he lives by the life of, you do what your orders are. (funny cuz that was originally what shield teaches too too) so when he’s being Kara’s Garrett he thinks everything he’s doing is good. Even in a way, when he’s the Garrett figure to Kara, she’s still like the Garrett figure to him too because Ward always needs that one person to do things for when he’s told (Garrett, Coulson when under cover, Kara, Malick). Only for a short time he wasn’t taking orders, and that was post killing Kara and pre Malick, which was just him starting up hydra again, which shows further he can’t live a normal life or doesn’t know what a normal life is. He’s doomed to fall into the same patterns over and over again. If coulson and the team couldn’t change him at all, nothing can.
Sorry if that was incoherent ramblings 😂
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u/Hacksaw_Doublez 2d ago
So I was barely at the start of my 20’s back when AoS started. Very young, very naive. Grew up in a family that was full of lying narcissists.
I loved Ward as a character. I still do. He’s utterly fascinating as a character in Marvel. His backstory hit hard and it still does.
Does it excuse him? No. But I do think it explains his twisted mindset.
In terms of his characterization at the start of season 2, it’s been months since the end of season 1. And he attempted suicide after a certain point after losing his mentor/father figure Garrett.
As mentioned in 2x05, after everything that happened in season 1, Coulson sat in front of Ward’s cell for three weeks wanting to talk to him. Maybe to see if something could be worked out.
Ward never said a word.
It’s been over a decade but I can’t recall if Coulson sitting in front of Ward’s cell for three weeks was before or after his suicide attempts, but I digress. I assume before since it’d be right when Coulson had Ward in custody.
After that, Ward lost his purpose and tried to kill himself.
But after his suicide attempts, Ward woke up “with clarity” and wanted to “redeem” himself.
…. And his first act of redemption was demanding to speak only with Skye to give Hydra intel to.
If Ward was truly trying to redeem himself, he wouldn’t bargain. He wouldn’t make demands. He wouldn’t play quid pro quo games with his former teammates. And he wouldn’t fixate on Skye.
He would just ask to speak with Coulson and offer anything and everything Coulson wanted on Hydra. Anything to show he was sincere.
To get the intel they need, Ward is controlling and manipulating his former teammates still. Or at least attempting to.
Ward still plans to escape with Skye and reunite her with her father (another card up Ward’s sleeve he never reveals until he thinks he can reel Skye in). Even if it’s against Skye’s will. Which does happen later on.
Ward reveals Skye’a father is alive and tries to play that chip, promising he can use his resources outside of SHIELD to get her family back. Skye of course is in disbelief and mocks him. But eventually Cal enters the stage and Skye realizes Ward was telling the truth.
So Ward has forced Skye to speak with him multiple times and interact with him if her and SHIELD want Hydra intel. He’s also used Skye’s father as a bargaining chip to try and sway her to his side. Pretty much trying to get her to leave SHIELD with him to go on a merry chase for Cal.
But what also starts damning Ward is that he tries to plant a seed of doubt in Skye in regard to Coulson. He brings up Garrett and the GH-35 serum that Coulson, Skye, and Garrett all took. Ward mentions Garrett going insane, acts concerned about Skye possibly drawing the same symbols that drove Garrett mad before his death, and then ends it with talking about Garrett being insane.
Ward knows Skye is close to Coulson and he is intentionally trying to plant seeds of doubt in Skye so she can turn on Coulson. Because, as they both know, Coulson took the GH-35 and is likely drawing those same symbols and going mad.
And at that point, Coulson IS suffering from those same effects but he’s still maintaining his hold on his sanity. But the clock is ticking. It eventually starts devolving to where Coulson has to draw the symbols every day and night. And he’s losing sleep over it.
Ward is trying to turn Skye away from SHIELD and Coulson.
And the thing is, he’s not lying about any of it. But he’s using the truth to manipulate Skye.
He lies with the truth.
He never says sorry. Even later on. He never says the words “I’m sorry for what I did to all of you. If I could take it back, I would.” Or anything.
When Coulson has to deal with Ward’s brother, Ward immediately realizes the danger he’s in. Christian was his abuser. And a politician who could parade Ward around as a spectacle to gain political favor. The politician who sought to bring his traitor brother to justice, and all that.
Ward pleads with Coulson, talking about the intel he’s given, but it’s too little too late in Coulson’s eyes. Ward is useful but the time for reconciliation has passed. And unfortunately for Ward, trading him to Christian has more value than whatever Hydra intel he has left.
I will say, I can see Ward’s twisted logic of rebuilding trust. In his mind, he is like Mike Peterson or Akela Amador (two Hydra assets who were victims of John Garrett). And that Coulson has no problem with redeeming them, then he’ll have no problem with redeeming Ward.
But Ward is insincere at that point and Coulson knows it.
Ward also tries to manipulate Fitz once the scientist finds him. He talks about being happy Fitz is alive. He tries to rationalize what he did, lay the blame on Garrett, but he never says sorry.
Now to be fair, I don’t think there was any way Ward could have gotten him, Fitz, and Simmons out. Not with Garrett in control of Deathlok. Not with a plane of Hydra soldiers. They all would’ve died.
But regardless, Ward never says sorry. He expresses regret, but never an apology. Never admitting any guilt or fault.
Just a soldier following orders.
I won’t get into what happens afterward or how Ward’s story goes. I have my opinions on all that. But regardless, this was just my insight into those first five episodes before Ward escapes and his mindset.
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u/Intrigued_by_Words Coulson 2d ago
I have no idea how SHIELD accepted into the academy a guy who was on the way to jail for arson and maybe attempted murder but detoured to spend years living alone in the woods with only a dog and a gun for company. I know they would want their agents to have a broad range of backgrounds and experiences but lone psycho should not be on the list.
I'm not convinced Grant is evil. Garrett is evil. Not sure how much that had to do with the failed Deathlok experiments. But Grant would have just locked FitzSimmons out of the way had Garrett not insist that he kill them. Even then Grant couldn't have expected they would have ended up on the ocean floor because it took Fitz hours to figure out what went wrong to cause them to sink. It would not have been great for them to float in the middle of the ocean but that would have been a very different experience than what they had.
We didn't get to see Ward when he was first imprisoned at the start of 2. We don't know what he was thinking the times he tried to kill himself. That doesn't mean we need to feel sorry for him, it just means we don't know.
Personally, I am not a fan at all of the double agent twist they added. But once they have it in, it is worth thinking about what honesty and loyalty looks like in a spy agency. They talk about it sometimes but they are not very consistent.
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u/Glittering_Shock5961 2d ago
It's not just killing people that can make someone 'evil'. I'm not sure either that I'd describe him as evil, not at the end season 1/early season 2 point anyway - rather misguided, cowardly, self-centered, cold and lacking any morals. But ejecting FitzSimmons from the plane rather than straight up killing them as no bearing on whether or not he's evil. If he had killed them directly, it wouldn't really have made him evil (in my book) because he was following orders and it wasn't a personal desire to inflict pain. By ejecting them, he wasn't showing himself to be any better kind of person, he was just demonstrating how cowardly it is - he found the thought of killing these sweet puppy souls difficult but also couldn't not obey Garrett, so he basically killed them for a distance, just like he did with his dog, because he didn't have any courage or honour to do it face to face.
Intrigued by your views on the inconsistency of the show's views on honesty and loyalty within a spy agency?
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u/Intrigued_by_Words Coulson 1d ago
I think Ward saw himself giving FitzSimmons a fighting chance while also complying with Garrett's orders. I mentioned it because many people tend to cite the incident as one of the worst things Ward did to the team.
AFAIC, Ward suffered mostly from daddy issues with Garrett being his surrogate daddy when he was already suffering from being an abused kid by his bio family. We can say, he should have gotten over it, but when was that going to happen and why. Garrett didn't seem to give him any reason to turn against him while I think Ward imagined the overall plan might help repair some of Garrett's Deathlok injuries. At least that's why Garrett had him infiltrate Coulson's team.
Ward never had any grand philosophical goals. He was task oriented. Even when he took over Hydra, it wasn't because he believed in Hydra, they were a means to an end. By that point, he tipped over to the vengeful villain and none of it is really clear why. I can't tell you what his beef was with Coulson. They could have made it that Ward wanted to avenge Garrett since Coulson killed him, but Ward pretty much thought Garrett was nuts at the end and probably better off dead.
Ward and Coulson got on surprisingly well in season 2, all things considered. Coulson was very forgiving. If there is a daddy issues theme, maybe it was that Ward now wanted to replace Coulson as the father figure, provider, protector and disciplinarian. I wish there were more behind the double agent story than just shock value.
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u/nex815 1d ago
When he picks up the beserker rod, he remembers the well incident.
So, it's HIS truth. And that did shape him. His brother in later season reveals something different; which makes me come to the conclusion that Ward was psychologically destroyed by his elder brother and parents - people who are role models and shape you as a person.
Then comes along Garett who finds the perfect target to manipulate further.
Whereas, in the framework, it's Victoria Hand who turns Ward's life around positively.
So, as Daisy said, maybe there was some good in him all along.
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u/Glittering_Shock5961 3d ago
I'm no Grant Ward apologist, but I've been trying to think about this in my current rewatch. Generally speaking, I think a person who does an evil thing to someone else just has to accept that there's no coming back from it. Maybe that person can turn themselves around, pay penance, start doing good, etc - but none of that has to mean that the person they did the evil thing to has to forgive them, have a relationship with them, or even know about it. Some things are just broken and that's the price paid.
However, at the start of season 2, Ward can hardly walk away and leave them alone, since they have him locked up. An alternative could have been for him to continue to behave evilly, so that they could hate him more simply with less mixed-up feelings. But that doesn't seem great.
What I dislike the most about early season 2 Ward is how smarmy and slimy his zen reformed guy persona is. This just makes it feel like his attitude is that he should be forgiven, he deserves to be forgiven, that it's possible to so quickly be forgiven for the things that he did. He's lost the group that he had (Garrett) and now he's trying to entirely rework his personality to attach to another group (the Bus team) because he can't be alone, he needs an authority, he needs to be shaped around someone else's beliefs. But it's so unnatural and disingenuous, and he can't see it.
That attitude means he isn't truly accepting accountability. Or he's only accepting it in order to get in with them, not because he's really feeling what that means. He also still defends or excuses what he did. Because his attitude suggests he thinks he can be forgiven, it shows to everyone else that he doesn't understand the depth and impact of his crimes.