Moon Knight head writer Jeremy Slater defends the Jake Lockley twist against accusations of relying on the evil alter trope. Marvel's latest Disney+ series premiered March 30 and aired its finale episode on May 4, just in time for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to hit theaters. Introducing a lesser-known hero to the MCU canon, Moon Knight received praise from critics across its six-episode run, and fans are eager to learn what comes next for the titular character.
Much of the show focused on the relationship between Marc Spector and Steven Grant, two alters who share the same body due to Marc's dissociative identity disorder, something the filmmakers have said they were very invested in portraying with respect and sensitivity. In the Moon Knight finale end-credits scene, however, a third alter named Jake Lockley was revealed to be still working with the mercurial moon god Khonshu, despite Marc and Steven having triumphantly cut ties with him after defeating Arthur Harrow. Jake is portrayed as the most deadly of the three, and in his one scene, he calmly executes Harrow at Khonshu's behest, resulting in some backlash that Marvel was falling into the harmful evil DID personality trope.
Now, Slater defends Moon Knight's Jake Lockley twist in an interview with The Direct, arguing that fans might be jumping to conclusions. With his plan always having been to focus on Marc and Steven and introduce Jake in a teaser at the end, the writer and producer notes that viewers don't know much about the third alter yet, and believes any future appearance should dig into why he would continue working with Khonshu. However, he does admit that the future of Moon Knight won't be up to him, and he hopes whoever takes up the story next won't default to the "least exciting" direction for Jake. Check out his full quote below:
The idea of bringing in Jake [Lockley], and not having him be evil, because I don’t—I’ve seen people on Twitter unhappy that they think Jake is sort of falling into sort of the evil-alter trope that you see in movies like Split and things like that. From my perspective, we don’t know nearly enough about Jake to make a determination like that... ultimately, whoever takes over the reins of the story next gets to decide that, but [also] from my perspective, the interesting question about Jake is, what is his relationship with Khonshu? Why is he so willing to do these horrible things in service of Khonshu. Why is he the one guy who sort of believes in Khonshu’s mission? What does he know that our heroes don't? I think there’s a lot of questions like that that haven’t necessarily been answered.
I think that making Jake a generic evil guy would probably be the least exciting, or least interesting, direction to take that character in the future. So, I have no idea where Jake goes from here, and which writers and directors will bring him to life, but, I think there’s a lot of potentials. I think we’ve only teased the existence of this character at this point. We kind of still don’t know anything about him… I don’t think he’s evil. It’s Marvel’s decision, not mine, but I think calling him evil would be a mistake at this stage in the game.
DID has certainly had its fair share of exploitative Hollywood portrayals, with the evil alter trope being one of the most harmful. Individuals with this disorder are more likely to be the victims of violence than perpetrators of it, though film and TV creators have been more interested in using it as a way of grounding the Jekyll and Hyde dynamic in modern science. Since Moon Knight claimed to take mental illness seriously, it's understandable why some viewers would react to the episode 6 Jake Lockley twist as somewhat of a betrayal.
However, Slater makes a compelling case for fans to withhold their judgment on whether Jake is evil until his next MCU appearance gets the chance to flesh him out. Since Marc himself is a trained mercenary and has killed in the past, there's no reason to assume his alter couldn't do the same and, like Marc, still be a well-rounded character. Hopefully, whoever is tasked with the next part of Moon Knight's story will take Slater's advice and not travel the least interesting road.
Source: The Direct
