Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is both a lovely goodbye letter to actor Chadwick Boseman, and also advances the MCU’s plans, especially regarding the new Black Panther and the appearance of Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and his people of Talokan. Even though he’s kind of the villain of the film, and has unique ideas about the surface people and what they should do, we believe his ideas make sense, and here’s why:
He Wants To Protect His People
Marvel Studios
The most important thing for Namor is to protect the Talokans from the surface people, who are looking for its Vibranium. Although all the Talokans have super-strength from when their people drank the Vibranium-infused herb that got them those powers and sent them to the bottom of the ocean, Namor still feels he’s the one that must protect them by any means necessary.
Namor is going to be a key player in the MCU, and that protectiveness will appear in many forms, as once the surface people know about him and Talokan, he’s probably going to have to defend them even more. His nationalistic approach to life and politics and their way of living has saved them for more than five hundred years. They were never involved in anything surface-related, not even when Thanos (Josh Brolin) killed half the population in the universe.
Namor also knows that it’s a lot easier to protect his people if no one knows they exist. That’s why he wanted to kill Riri Williams, as her Vibranium detection invention is the closest anyone has come to finding them. He knows once people know of their existence, everything will be different, and the Talokan’s security will be put at a much bigger risk. He knows all this because he has seen how it’s affecting Wakanda, who since they went public and showed the world how technologically advanced and rich they really were, have started to have a lot more problems. T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) decided to become public to the world of their strengths, as he felt Killmonger’s (Michael B. Jordan) ideas had some truth to them, and that Wakanda should help other oppressed cultures. Since that happened, there’s been a target in Wakanda’s back, and now the CIA and Allegra Valentina de Fontaine are looking for ways to enter the country and exploit their Vibranium.
Talokan’s History Explains His Stance
There’s been a long road for Namor to get to the movie screens, one so long that there’s already an Atlantis in a big franchise tent pole in DC’s Aquaman (although Namor was created before Aquaman in the comics). The fact that there’s already an Atlantis on the big screen, made the MCU and Ryan Coogler transform Atlantis into Talokan, in what might be one of the better changes for the franchise and MCU in general. Not only does it get Latin American characters on the screen, but it’s also an incredible use of the Mesoamerican traditions and cultures (especially Mayan). Actor Tenoch Huerta told Ashley and Company: “When Ryan and all the team decided to provide Namor with this background, it was a fantastic move. In Latin America, especially Mexico, we deny our indigenous roots. (…) It’s about culture. So culturally, we are apart from our indigenous roots. So [to] embrace those roots and honor these two sources, African and indigenous roots, is really important.”
In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the Talokan drank the vibranium-infused herb as a cure from smallpox the Spanish had brought with them from the Old World, and when Namor goes back to the land to bury his mother, they find other Mesoamerican people made slaves by the Spanish. With that background, it makes perfect sense that Namor and the Talokans would do everything in their hands to keep hidden from the surface people. Especially if it’s ever known they have Vibranium, as many powerful countries would do anything, getting in a war included, to get their hands on this precious material.
Wakanda and Talokan Are More Similar Than They Might Look
Wakanda and Talokan have many differences: one is on land, and the other is underwater; one has African roots, and the other has Mayan roots, and their leaders were much different, as T’Challa is more empathic with those outside his kingdom than Namor. But they also share more similarities that might look at first sight. Wakanda and Talokan are the only two countries with Vibranium (that we know of); they’re both isolated nations, that are more advanced than they might look from the outside and are fiercely protective of their people. That’s why Namor wants Wakanda as their ally, and the MCU-wide conspiracy for vibranium might prove him right.
The ending of the movie even might set up that connection, as Namor tells his cousin Namora that when the surface people go to get Wakandan’s Vibranium, there’s going to be a war. Namor thinks the Talokan can advance their objectives of destroying the surface people as part of that war. He might also have a personal motive for getting the alliance between his people and Wakanda, as his chemistry with Shuri (Letitia Wright), was more than obvious. Maybe he feels that the union of both countries fighting the colonizers might also give him more possibilities to spend time with the new Black Panther and fall in love.
About the similarities between Wakanda and Talokan, Oscar-winning production designer Hannah Beachler told IndieWire: “And they’re not debating it. They have decided they should not. So much of the Mayan civilization was lost. Their books were burned, they were not allowed to speak their indigenous language, and they were forced to learn Spanish. And that mirrors Wakanda as far as the diaspora for Black Americans and their African history. These two cultures have gone through so much of the same destruction from outside forces.”
