User blog comment:LoveWaffle/We Didn't See It Coming - Iron Man 3 and the Future of the MCU/@comment-5977347-20130513205536/@comment-3317214-20130520233143

Except that it's crap because you're supposed to ignore it in the analysis.

Clearly we have different opinions on what "crap" means.

''"The Mandarin" isn't a position, and Aldrich Killian didn't have someone else "appear to fill it". It was a character. Aldrich Killian is as much the Mandarin as Matt Groening is Bart Simpson or J.K. Rowling is Hermione Granger. It's not there at all''

If JK Rowling claimed that she was Hermione Granger, then I would believe that. If Rowling was to say that, she probably means that Hermione was based heavily off of herself, or something similar. Of course she wouldn't mean it in the literal sense. With Killian, he's not saying that he is the exact character that Trevor Slattery portrayed. He's saying that he is the essence of that character. And he gets to say it, because the Mandarin is very symbolic, and he created it.

''Number of dragons the Mandarin had on his set? Again, you're assuming he has the dragon tattoos because of the Mandarin. Maybe the Mandarin had the dragons because Killian has an affinity for dragons? You can't just assume "Mandarin therefore dragons".''

Yes, I am assuming that Killian has dragon tattoos because of the Mandarin. It makes sense to assume that. For the record, it's also what the creators who put the tattoos there in the first place assumed.

''Their strategies aren't similar. The Mandarin's strategy has nothing to do with AIM, the Iron Patriot armor, or Eric Savin. Meanwhile, Killian's strategy has nothing to do with bombing several random locations. The Mandarin's strategy is Killian's obstacle.''

The Mandarin's strategy had to do with killing the President, which definitely involved the Patriot armour. And it also involved kidnapping him, which involved Eric Savin and the Patriot armour. Similar.