Obadiah Stane: Character Analysis | DTB

Hello there, this is Alm with yet another post to #BossTwo

This time, I'm going to talk about the bald villain with a cool name from the first Iron Man movie who also happens to be the first villain of the MCU!

PERSONALITY

It is known that Obadiah had a tough childhood: his mother had died and his father was a gambler who eventually committed suicide. This has left him with a trauma but that also made him become a ruthless manipulator. In the first Iron Man movie we can see his fawny attitude towards Tony, how he pretends to be his friend. Obadiah is such a hypocrite. He's also profiteering because he makes use of Tony's idea and because first of all once Howard was dead, he though that he could get rid of Tony easily with those attacks.

Obadiah loves chess and he lives his life as a chess strategy. He also uses psychological manipulation as a weapon, to have an advantage over his enemies.

"How ironic, Tony. Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever. And now, I'm going to kill you with it!"

HIS AMBITIONS

As any well made villain, Obadiah has great ambitions. He really didn't agree to Tony who wanted to shut down Stark Industries because of his traumatic experience and insisted that "their work kept the world from falling into chaos". Marvel has illustrated through him this idea which is very discussed, whether weapons are the reasons why threats happen in the first place or whether they are the best deffence against any threat.

So, this maniacal person basically wants to destroy everything, to make a big mess with his weapons. Him being jealous of Tony and Stark Industries in general might be his biggest reason.

"Tony, who do you think locked you out? I'm the one who filed the injunction against you. It's the only way I could protect you."

"Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you? Your father, he helped us give the atom bomb. Now what kind of world would it be if he was as selfish as you?"

Of course, that took him to alying with The Ten Rings and building the Iron Monger, but doing that in his iconic maneer, by tricking Raza and paralyzing him.

OBADIAH AND PEPPER

Obadiah testing Pepper's loyalty to Tony was an important moment in the movie. Here we can see the best of his manipulative skills. He even compliments her and says that she's a "very rare and special kind of woman." Then, he finds that Pepper had hacked into his computer and found about his plan. Of course, that angers him but what angers him the most is that the building of the Iron Monger doesn't go well. So, where does that lead him to?

STEALING THE ARC REACTOR

This is one of my favourite moments between a protagonist and a villain. This is one of the few times when we actually see Tony scared for his life. It's not often that a villain manages to do that to him.

"For thirty years, I've been holding you up! I built this company up from nothing! Nothing's gonna stand in my way, least of all, you!"

FINAL BATTLE

Of course, we all know that he losses and dies at the end but let's take a more focused look at his character.

He tries to win over Stark by targeting his weak points: Pepper, people in danger. He also keeps on saying how his suit is better in any way but as they chase each other higher and higher his suit is the one that freezes, not Tony's.

Obadiah survives the fall and proceeds to attack Tony who was already removing parts from his armour. As always, just when he's killing Tony and he thinks that he can do it, he eventually fails. That's what happens to him all the time and now it costs him his life.

HIS INFLUENCE OVER TONY

They say that a hero is nothing without a villain and that's so true. I think that Obadiah had a huge influence on Tony's character. First of all, he was the one who ordered the attacks and of course his intention was to kill him but having survived, Tony realised because of them that he shouldn't be creating weapons. He wanted to shut down Stark Industries. He also made him realise that he could use his suit to defend not only himself but also others.

"When I ordered the hit on you, I was worried that I was killing the golden goose. But, you see, it was just fate that you survived it, leaving one last golden egg to give."

In my opinion, Obadiah Stane is one of the reasons why this movie is so great. Without him, we wouldn't have seen so much of Tony's character development, we wouldn't have had the Iron Man in the first place.

OVERALL

I'd rate him a 8.5/10. He was an excellent villain, manipulative, who had a huge influence on the protagonist. Jeff Bridges had a great performance while playing this character. What I liked the most about it was his way of talking, how he was so fawny and visibly fake.