Geeking Out About Television #1: Arrowverse Rewrite | Savitar's Character

 

Context From The Author Before Reading

Hey guys, before we get into this character rewrite, I just wanted to give a little bit of context to this whole idea as I feel it's important to know for the more critical readers. First off, I'm not a professional writer by any stretch of the imagination, so please do bare with me on some of the concepts being delivered here. Secondly, keep in mind that I came up with this whole thing in roughly 10 minutes as I wanted to challenge myself with an insanely limited time window. The idea behind this little project is that I wanted to see how I'd fare against a professional team of show writers who had weeks to craft out something amazing versus me, a complete amateur, who had hardly any time at all to make some major tweaks to things.

I also wanted to step into the high pressured shoes of a writer, so as a fan and critic, I can be much more appreciative and understanding towards the obstacles that comes with creating these shows. So, with that out of the way, let's talk about why I specifically chose the 3rd season villain of the CW Network's Flash series to do a rewrite on. You see for me, Season 3 of The Flash was the moment that the series started to decline much more notably in its overall quality regarding dramatic storytelling. Sure, Season 2 had some occasionally frustrating character drama surrounding Wally West's introduction to the Team Flash family alongside the fact that the Zoom arc felt like a more convoluted carbon copy of the Reverse Flash arc in several ways. 

However, at the very least, there was just enough intriguing and satisfyingly displayed plot elements being introduced such as the multiverse expanding the universe in addition to Zoom himself coming across as the show's most legitimately threatening villain yet. 

When Savitar was first fully introduced in Season 3, I remembered being completely over the moon in excitement wondering who this character was and where exactly he came from. Despite being yet another mystery speedster villain three times in a row, the presentation elements of the character was so outlandish (in a good way) as was the whole "God complex" mythos that I was completely onboard with the story moving forward. And then, in typical post-Season 2 Flash fashion, what started off as intriguing and exciting for a new overarching antagonist arc, veered into disappointment and occasional face palming cringe. My biggest problem regarding Savitar was that the potential for greatness was clearly present in the general concept, but the execution completely butchered it to pieces.

Savitar being revealed as a time remnant of Barry was absolutely genius giving the popularized "a hero's worst enemy is himself" concept a whole new layer to unpack with this particular show's sci-fi direction. I absolutely loved the idea that Barry's questionable time traveling decisions in the past was coming back to haunt him in the most dramatically profound fashion possible by literally making him the actual season villain that he has to confront. Unfortunately, as I stated, as great as this sounds on the surface, the actual explanation of Barry's turn to villainy was, shall we say, lacking to put it mildly. So, driven by my distaste for what the writers did, I decided to write out my own alternate background for the character based off of old ideas that I had floating around in my head at the time during the season. 

It may not be perfectly developed and it may very well be filled with enough plot holes to shove a few alternate timelines through (only 10 mins. remember?). However, I still think that this would've been a much more interesting narrative and direction than what we got if given more time to flesh out. So, without further ado, here's my Arrowverse rewrite session for The Flash's Savitar character. 

Savitar's Character Rewrite

Remember when Barry created a time remnant to defeat Zoom in the Season 2 finale? Well, although it appeared as if the remnant disintegrated to his death, that simply wasn't the case at all. Instead, that version of Barry was absorbed into the Speed Force. And after being absorbed, he was immediately thrown into a cosmic prison of sorts (a timeless hell for Barry) as punishment for being a product of a destructive and risky use of time travel. Remember that the Speed Force sends out time wraiths to chase after speedsters exploiting their time travel powers in manners that go against its laws of governing. Hence why Zoom was eventually taken at the end of Season 2 and why Thawne was very much aware of his tampering with time travel after being chased around by time wraiths and eventually the Black Flash. 

I think it was good for the show to follow up Zoom's capture during the finale with the idea that a version of Barry also got "arrested" (so to speak) as our hero shouldn't be spared punishment for essentially making the same risky moves as the villain did. This would increase the sense of imposing judgement and power of the Speed Force as an entity looming in the background whenever the mere mention of time travel or super speed is brought up on the show.

So the general plan here was that this time remnant of Barry's was to take the hit for the team as there still needed to be a Barry living in our present time. We actually get to see a flashback of when Barry ran back to meet with the remnant and made the deal to help fight Zoom despite any repercussions due to them placing his threat to the multiverse as the higher stakes to confront versus the Speed Force's judgement of their actions. With this flashback exchange being implemented, I feel you'd have a strong sense of weight being placed on both Barrys desperately deciding to copy the enemy's questionable methods just to save the world. You'd also have an equally heavy sense of the impending potential consequences to be forthcoming as a result. 

So, as the time remnant of Barry was stuck in said prison for an unforetold length of time (since time and space is a bit tricky in the Speed Force), he began to slowly loose his mind over the course of his sentence. He wasn't able to process the idea that his heroic actions to help our present day Barry save the multiverse against a psychopath would lead to what seems like eternal punishment. Despite being acknowledged as an abomination of time altering by the cosmic forces at be, as well as initially accepting whatever fate awaited him, Barry eventually grew bitter at the prospects of his imprisonment. We're essentially witnessing Barry's disagreement with the Speed Force to do what needs to be done which begins to show a [similar] parallel between himself and someone like Thawne or Zoom who exploited their powers for selfish means. 

I thought this would be a nice natural step towards seeing how our Barry could be opposed to the Speed Force's rules and deciding to "do his own thing" thereby making him in a rebel and a criminal by definition. Even if his actions were initially heroic, from the perspective of the Speed Force, they were illegal. How does such a thing affect the psyche of a superhero with "gifts" that can do more than any average human can?

The time remnant, through his growing emotional and psychological decline into hatred and questionable sanity, begins to show regret towards ever helping Barry to begin with. After seeing himself as the true hero in the situation undeserving of punishment, he begins to slowly develop a God complex out of his madness eventually finding a way to exploit his connection to the Speed Force. He makes a deal with the cosmic entity to become a time wraith for them under the condition that he still wanted his identity intact as he wanted to feel like he could still be a hero serving his sentence (unlike Zolomon forcefully being morphed into the Black Flash). The Speed Force accepted these terms sending him after speedster time anomalies while he secretly used his limited reach in power and freedom to subtly influence and create acolytes spreading his now created legend. 

Here is where the "legend of Savitar" was born and characters like Jay Garrick learn of his mythos.

Editor's Note: Barry is out there slowly influencing people to become acolytes in subtle but effective ways while secretly planning out his escape from the Speed Force's leash around him. A truly dedicated Barry Allen who has nothing to distract him as well as no moral compass limits is a dangerous individual who shouldn't be underestimated. To answer the question that might be on some of you guys' minds reading this, yes, this Barry Allen is able to exploit the Speed Force right under their noses. And even if they are aware of what he's doing eventually, he's able to cleverly navigate things in a way that can still fall under their rules somehow. I wanted to show just how intelligent Barry really is despite how the show frequently treats him.

As for his special armor, I had the idea that Savitar had it created by influencing Cisco in the future to make it as a new battle suit to help him fight metas more effectively only to then steal it further altering it to fit his need. Or, alternately, maybe the Savitar suit is actually what the Speed Force gave him as their time wraith much like how Zoom was physically altered a bit to become Black Flash (though this is a very drastic visual alteration so I kinda like the Cisco idea better). The facial scar could be an effect from him being absorbed into the speed force to which the cosmic forces at be decided to keep on Barry's face as a harsh visual reminder of his actions. I like the idea that Savitar is basically branded as a criminal. A bit dark? Sure, but this is a dark story and Season 3 was definitely trying to go a darker route. I say go all the way as long as it works for the story. 

The time remnant's mentality during all of this is that our present day Barry deserves punishment to equal his (the death of Iris as emotional torture to mirror how imprisonment made him internally hollow) and that he would complete his revenge and be resurrected as a God-like hero that's more effective than the Flash ever was. His plan is essentially a two-parter: get even with Barry by torturing and killing his will to continue on as a superhero while simultaneously becoming a new hero in his own right unburdened with limitations or laws by the powers at be. The story of Savitar in my alternate take is a story of a hero who got casted out for doing what he thought was completely justifiable to stop a villain and decided to fight the system out of his hatred by becoming as powerful as the authorities who shackled him. 

It's also a powerful lesson of how even the best of intentions can lead to negative outcomes shading in a bit of grey in the whole "Good Vs. Evil" conflict. I feel like this would've been a much more dramatically multilayered approach to crafting one of the show's most compelling antagonist by presenting him as an empathetic fallen version of our protagonist. This also would've shined a light on the Speed Force itself as a questionable force of nature with its own controversial sensibilities. So no, there is no Savitar leaving a remnant to become him in the future or any convoluted time loops alongside the terribly brushed aside motivation of "I was shunned by you guys, so now I wanna be a God". That's what the show did and I never understood nor felt any connection to what they were presenting due to several storytelling gaps that shattered the Savitar characterization. 

You can still have our Barry running to the future to learn that Savitar killed Iris, you can still have the idea that Savitar crippled Wally (though my version of that event is much more brutal and action centric than the show's anticlimactic portrayal), and you can also keep Killer Frost teaming up with him. Although, I'd change what the show did with Frost just simply freezing Black Flash from killing Savitar (thought that was pretty stupid) to instead Savitar using his elevated Speed Force knowledge to be able to navigate out of Black Flash's reach. 

Bonus: Zoom's Character Rewrite

Zoom was amazing and terrifying as simply just a serial killer speedster. No need for any convoluted grand agenda of universal domination or being the fastest man alive (which is just childish). Just have it be a question of "What happens if a psychopath in an insane asylum got the same powers as The Flash? What would that create? [Enters Zoom]. As the audience watching, we get to see a terrifying horror-centric supervillain who mirrors our hero and becomes a larger threat to more people than Thawne did because he's psychotically out for blood. 

Barry would have to struggle with someone who's faster than he is and also more dangerous than anyone he's faced prior due to there being no bargaining or emotional connectivity to be had with Zoom. Thawne just wanted to go home and was a long-game schemer, Zoom is like giving Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, or the Terminator super speed. It's frightening. There's no hero speech or deal making to be had. Just run and survive. I think that's awesome. ....Or at least it could've been that until the CW writers messed it up by giving him some ridiculous objective and forced love interest. Zoom could've been to Barry what Carnage was to Spiderman.

Editor's Final Note: So, there you have it guys. My rushed together rewrite of the Savitar character that I hope you enjoyed reading despite whatever errors may have made its presence known. Now yes, I may not have fixed all of my issues with Season 3 as a whole including Savitar himself, and I'm sure that I've opened up a can of issues or plot holes in the process (did the Speed Force just left Barry in a cage or what?). But I do feel that I was at least able to give Season 3 a much more compelling central antagonist for the fans to digest. On a side note, if you'd like to see what I thought of the Flash series and other shows with individual episode discussions, check out my Facebook Page here. It's my central hub of content outside of the Saleem's Expedition blog.