User blog comment:LoveWaffle/We Didn't See It Coming - Iron Man 3 and the Future of the MCU/@comment-5977347-20130513205536/@comment-1895174-20130520195147

''Well, you've got to stop calling anything that's supposed to be ignored in analysis, crap. I justified its non-crappy-ness, and justified why we don't use it. Both statements can co-exist.''

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

''No, but if Jack Dawson created the position of "King of the World", and had someone else appear to fill it while he pulled the strings, then yeah, it kinda makes him the King of the World. Killian's boast counts towards reality, because he's the guy that invented the Mandarin in the first place. It's there. I'm beginning to think that you just don't want to see it.''

"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, and anyone who sees otherwise just can't get over that their precious Mandarin story didn't play out as they wanted.

''Well, it's more likely to be because of the Mandarin, because of the number of dragons the Mandarin had on his set, amongst other symbolic things. And although apparently, it means nothing, we know that it is what Black intended.''

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".

And yes, it does mean nothing that it's what Shane Black intended since he failed to convey that in the film.

''Sorry. Apparently I used the word "goals" in Layman's terms. If we're gonna get technical about it, then yes, the fictional character's fictional goals differ somewhat from the Killian's. But their strategies are very similar.''

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.

And if we're going to get technical about it, then we have to take their intentions into account. The Mandarin wanted to kill the president for political reasons. Aldrich Killian doesn't give a crap about the United States, he wants to kill the president because it would make him a fortune. Aldrich Killian and the Mandarin are as ideologically aligned as Arthur Jensen and Osama bin Laden.