*A few Katy-related spoilers.*
It might feel like strong words to go for a Favorite Characters post over a Character Highlight, considering she’s a supporting character who’s only been in one movie so far, but honestly? I kind of love Katy. I’ve talked before about her relationship with Shang-Chi, and I think she deserves some space for herself too.
Relationships factor big into pretty much any MCU property, and I really appreciate that, amid the familial connections and the romances, the friendships never get the short shrift. Over the years, I’ve sung the praises of many a non-powered best friend of the hero. Katy fits into that group well, joining the likes of pre-Winter Soldier Bucky, Foggy, Malcolm, Maria, and others.
I like that, for all that she’s an underachiever who’s well aware that she’s disappointing her mother, we also see qualities in Katy that will come in handy in a superhero movie. Her penchant for fast cars and claim of being “the Asian Jeff Gordon” is instrumental to their survival more than once. When Ten Rings members attack Shang-Chi on the bus and the driver gets knocked out, when they make their escape from Wenwu’s compound, and when they travel through the moving bamboo forest to Ta Lo, they wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for Katy’s adrenaline-fueled driving skills. And in Ta Lo, she turns out to be a quick study in the bow and arrow, making a crucial shot at a critical moment.
(By the way, I’ve decided that Katy shooting the Dweller in Darkness isn’t all that unreasonable. You could argue that a novice archer might have trouble shooting that far, but in terms of aiming for it and hitting it? The Dweller in Darkness is huge. In this case, the target basically is the broad side of a barn. Honestly, it probably would’ve been harder for her to hit all the mini-soul suckers flying around than the ginormous dragon demon that, at the moment, was mostly stationary.)
Those skills and that ability to perform under pressure doesn’t mean she instantly rolls with all the punches, though. She’s thrown for a loop, hard, when she realizes that her best friend was raised by an immortal war lord who trained him to be an assassin, and there are plenty of, “Wait, say what??” moments for her. Similarly, she doesn’t become an immediate badass who can handle herself in every situation. When they’re attacked in Macau and need to climb across the scaffolding to escape, she has to dig deep to find the bravery to just keep inching forward, and the only weapon in her arsenal at that point is to start shouting the lyrics to “Hotel California” in the hopes of distracting the martial arts assassins who are after them.
She doesn’t have it all figured out—far from it—and she seems to move between a nervy bravado and criticizing herself with her mother’s voice. But she’s there. From the moment the Ten Rings come back into Shang-Chi’s life, she’s at his side and won’t be dissuaded. Throughout, she offers Shang-Chi what help she can, whether that’s her wild driving or just her willingness to let him open up without fear of judgement, and she takes the time to recognize and affirm Xialing too. Katy isn’t someone who was “meant” to get tangled up in any of this, and she doesn’t have the same tools/training as anyone around her, but by the end of the film, she’s more than proven her place.
I’m so happy that, when Wong comes for Shang-Chi in the last scene, he comes for Katy as well. It can be hard to say when the threads are really going to start coming together in these next phases of the MCU, but I’m excited to know that Shang-Chi and Katy both will have a place in things going forward.
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