Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Like much of Phase 4,Ryan CooglerusesBlack Panther: Wakanda Foreveras an exploration of grief and the many facets it manifests in a person. Some allow themselves to mourn in order to honor their memory of the deceased, likeQueen Ramonda(Angela Bassett), while others run away and avoid facing the pain, like Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o). But the character who has the most dynamic journey of navigating her grief isShuri(Letitia Wright).
Over the course of the film, Shuri takes her devastation and channels it into her work in order to avoid feeling her pain. She can only avoid her pain for so long, especially after she loses her mother while savingRiri Williams(Dominique Thorne) from drowning. Ramonda’s death triggers the anger that she’s been holding on to for so long, which leads her down a war path. Though she does end the film sparingNamor(Tenoch Huerta Mejía) and grieving her brother on a Haitian beach, her path of grief takes a less noble road, one that puts her arc inWakanda Forevermore in line with her cousin,Erik Killmonger(Michael B. Jordan).
Shuri has always looked up to her brother,T’Challa(Chadwick Boseman). Not only was he a brother and a friend, but she also admired the man and leader he was. After T’Challa dies, Shuri loses faith in every aspect of her life. She loses faith in Bast, who she prays to at the start of the film; she later admits to Nakia that she didn’t think the Ancestral Plains even existed. Shuri loses faith in her abilities. She channels her grief into spending all her time in the lab, figuring out new ways to ensure Wakanda’s safety; her motivation here is less to do with protecting Wakanda and more to do with never letting anyone else down again.
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Shuri’s Grief and Loss
The grief she feels is so overwhelming that she locks it away, leaving it to fester and callus. In the year since T’Challa died, the sadness she feels hardens into anger. She’s mad at the world, but even deeper she’s mad at herself that she couldn’t save her brother. With that anger bubbling up in her, it was transforming her and pulling her further away from the people closest to her and towards a family member who tried to tear it all apart before. Enter Killmonger.
When King T’Chaka (John Kani) murders N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown), Killmonger is left all alone in the world. He saw how the world did him dirty and channels his grief into revenge. Instead of remembering his father’s memory, he pushed away the pain and fixated on finding Wakanda and taking what he believed to be his—T’Challa’s throne. Killmonger’s pain transformed into an anger that he was going to use to burn down the world, like how he burned the Heart-Shaped Herbs, and deep down, that’s exactly what Shuri wants, too. When Ramonda tries to encourage her daughter to let herself grieve, Shuri admits to her mother that there are days when she wants to just burn down the world. However, she doesn’t connect that desire with her cousin until later.
When she loses her mother, Shuri becomes an orphan, alone in the world just like Killmonger. Namor’s attack on Wakanda is the reason her mother is dead, and she’s out for blood. Shuri successfully recreates the Heart-Shaped Herb to take on the powers of the Black Panther. However, her motivation to do this doesn’t come from trying to honor her family and traditions, or even trusting in her own abilities—she does this to have the power to attack Namor and Talokan after inflicting more pain on her. It’s the reason why Shuri sees Killmonger in the Ancestral Plains instead of her father, mother, or brother. Her anger separates her from connecting with her family and drives her closer to her cousin.
Shuri’s Rage and Erik Killmonger
Shuri’s encounter with Killmonger is similar to his own experience with his father in the Ancestral Plains. His reunion with N’Jobu is stunted because Killmonger buried his grief under his anger for so long. He couldn’t connect with his own father—his motivation for wanting to dethrone his cousin in the first place. It doesn’t bring him peace the way it did T’Challa when he first sees T’Chaka in the Ancestral Plains after defeating M’Baku (Winston Duke).
When Shuri finally takes the mantle of Black Panther, her strategy and decision-making are just like Killmonger’s. Instead of trying to broker peace between Talokan, she goes on the offensive and wants to take the fight to them. When Killmonger takes the Wakandan throne inBlack Panther, he also uses his new position to go on the attack. Shuri uses her new abilities for attack, not knowledge or defense. When she fights Namor with her new powers, she’s aggressive in her fighting style, using rage as her strength, and even rips off one of Namor’s wings.
Shuri’s Similarities to T’Challa
Let’s not forget that after King T’Chaka is killed inCaptain America: Civil War, T’Challa, too, is out for blood initially. He hunts down Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), the man he believes to be responsible, in order to make him pay. When he does discover the truth and finds Helmut Zemo (DanielBrühl), he watches Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) trade blows. T’Challa realizes that he doesn’t want that anger to consume him like it has for them.
Though T’Challa had his own fury towards the man who murdered his father, he didn’t use the Wakandan army or resources to go on a scorched earth campaign to serve his vengeance. Conversely, the moment Killmonger and Shuri gained the power of the Heart-Shaped Herb and became Black Panther, they both used their authority and power to feed their thirst for vengeance. They let their anger inform their fighting styles and blind them from seeing a peaceful solution. More than that, their bloodlust towards the people they hold responsible for their pain blocks them from the love that remains. To quote the wise synthezoid Vision (Paul Bettany), “what is grief if not love persevering?”
In the end, when Shuri has the chance to kill Namor for good, Ramonda reaches out and encourages her to remember who she is. Instead of following through with her anger the way Killmonger did when he seemingly killed T’Challa inBlack Panther, Shuri chooses to spare Namor; she offers a truce to end the fighting between their people. Unlike T’Challa, Shuri lives with her anger for longer than him, leading her down a direction like Killmongers’s; however, she doesn’t allow her vengeance to consume her the same way it did her cousin. Shuri finds her own way through her pain, finding her way back to the memory of her brother through means like her cousin.
