It is shown in the comics and implied in the MCU that one of Wakanda’s traditions for the new protector the Black Panther is that they undergo a ritual where they ingest the heart shaped herb and taken to the ancestral plane. It is shown that those rejected by Bast are deemed unworthy and are not only not granted superhuman abilities but also may suffer a cardiac arrest to showcase that they are unworthy. However Killmonger despite his dark heart was able to properly undergo the ritual, communicate with his father and still be granted the powers of Black Panther despite not adhering to tradition and even burning the heart shaped herb garden afterwards, raising the question why Bast deemed Killmonger worthy of the powers of black panther despite scoffing at Wakanda’s ancient imposed traditions. Here are some of my opinions and thoughts.
Killmonger was needed to set a new age for Wakanda and have them play a bigger role in future events.
Wakanda at first glance is portrayed as this perfect city leaving all who visit in all the technological advancement seen. Even T’Challa who lives there is never once bored when coming back home to his country and is always amazed to see the city thriving in ways that the rest of humanity wouldn’t have deemed possible especially for an African nation. Black Panther Wakanda Forever’s villain Namor is even well aware of the beauty Wakanda has and has been told it is a place where no one ever has to leave or change who they were. However despite its absolute perfection and desires to stay far from war in effort to thrive and protect their culture. Even Wakanda has its flaws as its desire to protect their way of life has caused them to unintentionally commit unspeakable acts. Killmonger is a living example. By choosing to not help those in need and forsaken the world they have caused more harm than good as people of color have no access to the resources to tend to their health in a world that does not care about them. Prince N’Jobu witnessed their oppression first hand and tried his best to help in a way that he saw necessary but this left him found out by his brother and later killed. Instead of taking his child to Wakanda like his father promised him, he instead lied about and covered up his existence leaving the poor boy to grow up alone and mourn his father with no family to call his own. T’Challa himself was utterly disgusted at what the culture has caused his family and ancestors to do. This mistake later came back to affect Wakanda when Killmonger grew up a vengeful man. And eventually managed to overthrow T’Challa with plans to arm oppressed people all over the world and make wakanda rule them all as one empire. While he was eventually stopped and killed by T’Challa, Killmonger served as a cautionary tale that Wakanda is not as perfect as it seems as they have abandoned the world for their own self interests instead of helping it. As gods are normally portrayed as omnipotent it is likely that the panther goddess Bast foresaw Killmonger’s actions allowing Wakanda to play a bigger in future events such as the Infinity War and granted killmonger the power to give T’Challa an opponent to force him into a wake up call. Killmonger even reaffirmed his stance while conversing with Shuri in the ancestral plane heavily implying that it was always intended in order to force Wakanda into looking past its own self interest.
This new age ultimately allowed them to assist in defeating Thanos & triumphing against Namor
Without Killmonger to force change within Wakanda’s customs, Wakanda would’ve likely stood on its own and possibly not even interfered in the war against Thanos. As the war also affects them as much as the rest of the world, T’Challa gladly took a stand against Thanos and even brought the danger to his homeland. He unhesitatingly brought his entire army to take another stand against Thanos 5 years later. T’Challa’s new way of thinking has even affected other residents of Wakanda as Shuri, Okoye, and Queen Ramonda were unwilling to hand over Riri Williams an innocent child to be killed by Namor while King T’Chaka would’ve likely sacrificed her or even killed her himself for the sake of keeping Wakanda safe even Killmonger touched upon this fact while conversing with Shuri. The easiest thing for the wakandans to do is to give Riri to Namor or kill her themselves to prevent a war, but instead they chose morality over self interests which Killmonger is somewhat responsible for. Queen Ramonda even chose to save Riri instead of herself when Namor flooded the citadel, effectively sacrificing herself in the process. While their decisions initially created a war between Wakanda and Talokan (in part caused by T’Challa) they were eventually able to triumph and ally with Talokan to have both nations protect each other against a looming threat (the major nation’s desperate for power).
Bast also likely took pity on Killmonger and allowed him to speak with his deceased father whilst simultaneously granting him the powers of black panther
Although Thor: Love and Thunder shows most of the gods to be apathetic even to their own subjects, it is possible that given his hard past, that Bast ultimately decided to have Killmonger converse with his father one last time before being granted the powers of black panther. It is implied that due to their actions both Killmonger & N’Jobu have been condemned to loneliness in the ancestral plane as both were not present with their family or fellow ancestors rather they were seen alone in a place that resonated with them the most, for N’Jobu it was the apartment in which he was slayed and Killmonger it was the throne room which represents his hatred toward the hypocrisy of the royal family and his view that the throne is corrupted by their way of life. N’Jobu’s dialogue on being abandoned or lost seems to reflect on this fact.
An alternate version of Killmonger was used for a similar reason despite his dark heart
Despite this Killmonger being as dark and twisted as the original he was also gifted the powers of black panther despite cheating his way up to the role meaning he was still seen as worthy for the powers of the black panther. He was later brought in by the Watcher, a being who observes the multiverse, to assist in stopping Infinity Ultron before invading his universe. Though they managed to defeat Ultron, Killmonger attempted to betray the group by stealing the stones for himself which led to a tug of war with a programming of Arnim Zola who possessed Ultron’s body. The 2 were later imprisoned by Strange and the Watcher in a small pocket dimension. Ultimately despite Killmonger not being worthy of the powers of Black Panther it is possible that Bast foresaw Killmonger playing onto events bigger than her own reality and could have let Killmonger obtain the powers in order to play along with the Watcher’s plans to defeat Ultron which required separating the stones from the body. This is heavily implied through his interactions with a spirit version of T’Challa whom he murdered beforehand. The spirit of the prince warned Killmonger that his lust for power would be the end of him and his words proved correct when he was punished and imprisoned for his crimes in his own reality and for attempting to betray his team due to his lust for more power.
Comments