Headscratchers / Wonder Woman (2017)

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Ares killing the gods

• We learn early on that Ares managed to kill the entire Greek Pantheon except Zeus, how? There is no way that Ares could take out ALL of them by himself or is this meant to be a huge reference to the God of War trilogy?
  • As the God of War, Ares was likely one of the only Gods who actually knew how to fight which would give him a huge advantage. Ares also shows incredible destructive powers during the climax; and he's supposed to be weakened at this point. Diana, despite being half-god herself, struggles against him. Without her training she would not have survived. The other gods, despite their immense power, would not have had nearly as much combat training or experience which would allow Ares to win.
  • So we're just forgetting Athena, Artemis, and Apollo now? Not to mention the more subtle powers (and the numerical advantage) the other gods could have used.
  • Maybe Ares didn't exactly fight fair or figured out a secret weakness that can make him easy to exploit against his enemies?
  • Or maybe the stories we've been told about the Greek Gods aren't all that accurate. Apollo is certainly a badass from what we've been told, but we've also been told that he pulls the Sun across the sky, and it clearly gets along fine without him in the movie's universe. Perhaps the myths and stories that have been handed down to us had a basis in fact at one point, but exaggerate the Gods' powers and characteristics.
  • This also presumes Ares fought and beat all of the other gods at once in a big battle: he might have instead murdered them one at a time, while never revealing his hand until it was too late to stop him: like a godly serial killer. After all, the movie shows him to have some skill in manipulation by providing the right ideas to the right people.
  • Given the universe this is set in, and the fact that we know the Amazons have a Motherbox, perhaps he had help.
  • There's also the fact that the Olympians are generally supposed to be unkillable. Also Ares is one of the lower ones on the proverbial totem pole. Artemis, Athena, Apollo (who, being the god of the sun and prophecy should have seen Ares coming), Poseidon, are all stronger than him. Hell, Hera was able to take out Artemis during the Trojan war.
  • It's possible that that was a lie and the gods are still out there, in one form or another.
  • Doylist explanation: Adaptational Badass. Ares may not be that powerful in the original myths, but in the DCEU's version of him, he is. In-universe explanation: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist, or in this case, that he was weak. Its possible that Ares, influencing humanity the way he did, allowed them to think he was one of the weaker gods and so couldn't possibly be behind humanity's wars, at least back during the times where they would have actively believed in such things, or even went as far as to convince his brothers and sisters he was low on the totem pole so they wouldn't expect him to defeat them.
  • Alternatively, he's the God of War, conflict literally makes him more powerful, so even if the Gods could have fought back, they'd have just been giving him more power by fighting back. Remember that in the end, Diana defeats him by embracing the love and compassion of humanity and hitting him with her bracers-objects designed to defend against attack. Basically, he can't be beat by war because he is war, he could only be defeated with love and compassion, something the others gods wouldn't have thought of.
  • *cough*Aphrodite goddess of love*cough* *cough*Athena goddess of wisdom*cough*
  • As noted above, Aphrodite and Athena put together wouldn't have been able to do anything against them if he'd gotten them first, while not revealing his true motives. In fact, it's entirely possible that Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, was the first one that he killed.
    • Which would move them even further away from the mythological Greek gods, since Athena always beat Ares when they fought - and while these gods don't have to be exactly like their mythological inspirations, one does have to wonder why the writers bothered using the Greek gods if they needed to change them so much.
  • Hippolyta does say "it's just a story" when Diana talks about the God Killer. So the other gods may still be alive, and it's just their version of a Creation Myth.
  • And maybe Ares rallied other gods to his cause to fight a war. In said war, his forces killed the opposing gods. Then he turned on the others and killed them too.

Super-serum

• So Dr Poison makes for General Ludendorff a gas that makes the user super strong, and she doesn't mass produce that for the army? The movie never states that it's hard to make or rare, she just gives it to him and says "I made this for you to regain your strength". You would think that a gas that makes someone temporary super strong would be very useful in a war. Heck, the entire point of Captain America was that he was supposed to be the first in a long line of Super Soldiers.
  • On the other hand, given that Ares is shown to be influencing Maru and Ludendorff and that he wants the armistice to occur, it makes sense that he wouldn't want one side or the other to have too much of an advantage.
  • Just because it "never states", it doesn't mean it's not that way.
  • Considering how Ludendorff treats his soldiers, he might have feared they'd use their newfound strength to turn on him.
  • The serum doesn't last very long, and doesn't make one bulletproof. It's also probably pretty rare, and may have some nasty side effects that Ludendorff doesn't care about, but the rest of Germany will.
  • Maru and Ludendorff seem to be, essentially, acting rogue. While someone above them, upon seeing it, may have ordered them to cease developing weapons and work on the super-gas, they never showed it to anyone and Maru seemed to consider it just a side project to their main focus on the gas weapons, so they didn't bother trying to mass-produce it further.
  • For that matter, though, what did Maru mean by helping him 'regain' his strength? With The Reveal that he's not Ares, it doesn't make much sense.
  • Well Lunderdoff doesn't like he that young and if he fought in a battlefield before, he might be still suffering old injuries. Maybe it was attempt to give him back some youthful vigor ?
  • I agree that Ludendorff seems to like hurting the enemies more than helping the allies. Maru herself gives it to him as a form of help, not as a weapon, and it might even have been a kind of private gift, considering how close the two are. Also, Ludendorff seemed to be a little addicted to it, so he might have wanted not to risk running out.
  • The serum has existed for a couple of days. There hasn't been time to mass produce it.
  • As noted in the WMG page, the serum might be a precursor to Bane's Venom.

Godkiller sword

• What's the true purpose of the Godkiller sword? Obviously, Diana was the Godkiller all along and the sword was a decoy. I get that part. I also get that Hippolyta didn't want Diana knowing she was the Godkiller, but what's the point of going to all that trouble forging a sword and putting it up in a heavily guarded tower? Why not just keep the entire idea of a Godkiller a secret? The fact that Diana was aware of it at all makes her leave the island to fight Ares, which was exactly the sort of thing Hippolyta wanted to avoid. What's worse, she sees Diana take the sword off the island to fight him. You'd think at that point, Hippolyta would tell her the sword was fake just so she wouldn't get herself killed waving a dud at the God of War.
  • It's likely that while the Godkiller sword can't kill gods, it is still a powerful sword. Considering that the Amazons have multiple magical weapons (the lasso, the shield, etc.) Hippolyta likely decided to rename the sword Godkiller in order to hide the truth from Diana. It's still worthy of protection just like the lasso is. As for the fighting bit, Diana and Ares's fights hint that gods can imbue objects with power. Hippolyta was probably betting that Diana would do the same without realizing it.
  • The sword doesn't seem that powerful. It was blasted to shards when she tried to use it on Ares and it didn't seem any more or less sharp than all the other swords of the Amazons when it was used in battle. If there was some sentimental value to it, you'd think the Queen of the Amazons would respect that as opposed to attributing the Godkiller lore to it. And again, if Hippolyta wanted to hide Diana's nature from her, it would be best not to say anything at all about a Godkiller, whether it be a sword, a person, or what have you.
  • Hippolyta didn't tell Diana about the Godkiller, Antiope did. The narration switches voices back and forth as the two tell Diana different parts of the story. Antiope didn't specifically call the god killer a sword either, merely calling it a weapon left to the Amazons by Zeus. When Diana brings it up to Hippolyta at first you can see she's afraid Diana knows the truth, until Diana asks to see 'it', at which point Hippolyta probably did some quick thinking and decided to tell her that the sword they had in the vault was the Godkiller.
  • She also never outright says 'this sword is the Godkiller'; all she does is show her their vault and say 'the Gods gave us many gifts' and Diana just assumes the sword is the Godkiller. Its more likely that the sword has some other divine specialness to it.
  • I think the original posters point is that Diana thinks the sword is a cheat code to killing Ares, so much so that her entire strategy is pretty much just to show up and stick him with it. She is utterly unprepared for the actual threat she was facing which is a very dangerous way to pick a fight. Her mother knew that and let her leave the island fully committed to that delusion.

Annihilating mankind

• When Ares is explaining his motives, he initially says that his defeat at Zeus' hands left him too weak to carry out his original mission of destroying humanity. He's clearly regained that strength at the end of the film, as shown in his final confrontation with Diana (and his statement that only a god can kill a god). So what's stopping him from just annihilating mankind personally before Diana even made it off the island? Why bother duping human minions, or seeking Diana's help for a purge he's more than capable of administering single-handedly?
  • Ares doesn't just want the human race to be destroyed. He wants the humans to destroy themselves to prove they don't deserve to live.
  • Also, Ares is very well aware of the existence of the Godkiller and the Amazons. Since he has no idea who the Godkiller is, it makes sense that he not draw attention to himself. It's only until he finally meets Diana that he believes she's not a threat to him.
  • Who said he was at full-power? He demonstrates a lot of magical abilities, but nothing says this is his full power. If he's really capable of vanquishing mankind, then realistically Steve and co would have been completely wiped out just by being in the blast zone of his attacks against Diana.
  • At his full strength, Ares took on the entire pantheon and killed everybody. But in this film, he get killed by a single foe. Clearly, he's not at full strength.
  • He's also not exactly the most reliable of narrators.

Doomsday sword

• Tying this into the climax battle of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Where did the sword Diana uses in the fight against Doomsday comes from, since the 'God-killer' sword that she used in this movie is destroyed by Ares in the climax? The two swords also look very much identical to each other.
  • It's almost a hundred years between Wonder Woman and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; Diana could well have returned to Themyscira during that period to acquire a similar sword, or have obtained an ancient Amazonian sword during her years as a dealer in antiquities, or learned how to forge one for herself for that matter. Even having it forged by some average human would do, actually.
  • Given that Ares seems to be capable of creating his own armor and weapons, it's possible Diana learned to summon hers as well.
  • They aren't even close to identical, other than being one-handed double-bladed swords of similar length.
  • The Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Tech Manual calls it "Sword of Athena". Perhaps an artifact Athena herself gave to the Amazons before Ares killed her.
  • Well given that there's going to be more Wonder Woman movies, that's probably something they're saving for another installment.

Photograph

• How did Diana get her hands on the photograph taken of her with Steve and his crew after the entire village gets killed by gas the night after? The photographer is never seen handing the finished print to Diana or anyone else who could have passed it on to her.
  • She didn't. Bruce Wayne did, as shown in the beginning of the movie. He goes to great lengths to find the original photograph and arranged for it to be sent to Diana. Given the influence of Wayne Enterprise, it's not too far-fetched that Bruce has his ways so he can recover the photograph. Since the village wasn't directly destroyed, only its villagers are killed by the gas, so the photograph's still there.
  • The negative was, with no one to develop it. On top of that, judging by the camera, it was probably a glass print and the film goes into great detail about what Dr. Poison's recipe does to glass.
  • Presumably that's exactly how the original negative and any prints from it came to Lex's attention circa Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — a photograph of an unidentified mystery woman and several unidentified men taken shortly before a mystery chemical weapons attack would come to somebody's attention if they were trying to dig up info on the last time Diana was active as Wonder Woman. Either the photographer left town and escaped the gas attack, or the photograph was recovered from the photographer's personal effects and later developed.
  • And don't forget the photograph is also of a mystery woman who charged into town and sent the Germans packing in a matter of minutes - when they had been occupying the area for over a year. The soldiers involved in the fight would talk, and that's the sort of thing people would want more evidence of.

Amazon aging

• The height of ancient Greek civilization was approximately 2,500 years ago. Does time flow differently in Themyscira, or have they experienced all 2.5 millennia of that time? Did Diana age at a normal rate, approximately 20 years to reach maturity followed by 2.5 millennia of adulthood? Or did she age more slowly because of her non-human origins?
  • It's very likely that the Amazons are immortal like Diana, since they were direct creations from the Gods to act as mediators between them and humans. In addition, we don't see any children or elderly among the Amazon population, and they don't really have any sort of concept of time, as evidenced by how Diana was completely perplexed by why people would need something like a watch.
  • The question isn't how the Amazons survived, it's reasonable to assume that they're also immortal. The question is how Diana could remain as innocent as she is if she experienced 2,500 years of life, even in a place like Themyscira. Her confusion about the watch was presumably the trope about people from "simpler" times not understanding the need the structure time so exactly instead of relying on more general measures like the sun and stars and seasons.
  • It's a bit of canon that no-one else has really followed up on, but John Byrne established during his run on the Wonder Woman comic that Themyscira functions a bit like a TARDIS, existing in "a time that is not a time, a place that is not a place" and randomly drifting in and out of different time periods as well as locations.
  • Diana was immensely coddled by the others. Its likely she remained innocent because she never had reasons to mature, her mother actively discouraged her growing up and everyone seemed to see her as basically their niece, so she never grew up. Add in that we don't know how her aging worked (its possible that her aging is super slow compared to humans), and the fact she was rather isolated, she's 'innocent' because she's been essentially a child up until that point.
  • And Diana isn't that innocent and naive when Steve first shows up. She's trained for fighting but she's the only resident of the island who has never been in a war. She displays plenty of maturity and quick-thinking in the battle. She's merely sheltered and unfamiliar with the culture she suddenly has to blend into. The other Amazons would probably react in similar ways if they went to 1918 London - although they'd probably be less nice than Diana about it.
  • Diana's caregivers also had a very strong motive to keep her somewhat naive, even in adulthood. A girl more inclined to doubt or suspicion might've thought to question her mother's "sculpted from clay" story, ages ago.

Traveling from Themyscira

• Diana and Steve set sail from Themyscira in a small sailboat. The next morning, they're in London. How did a small sailboat travel from the Greek islands to the British Isles in one night?
  • Who's to say it only took one night? They could have used a time skip in order to save time.
  • When they arrive in London, Steve specifically explains that they managed to hitch a ride with another ship.
  • Even if they shortened their trip by hitching to another ship, it would still take days or weeks to travel from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to London.
  • It's called editing. There's no indication it took one day, it could have taken weeks but for obvious reasons the movie is not going to show that.
  • Etta and Steve's military superiors noted that he was gone long enough to be considered dead. Since it doesn't seem like he spent a long time on Themyscira, likely the trip from there to London took quite a bit of time.
• The only real explanation is magic, we know the Amazons have access to it so they could have cast a spell which shortened the journey and enchanted Steve's memory so he doesn't think it unusual.

Sinking boat

• During the wide shots of the battle on the beach of Themyscira, the German warship can be seen listing to the side and starting to sink. What caused this?
  • It most likely ran aground because they weren't expecting to sail straight into an island.
  • And where there's an island there's likely rocks in the water. The water around an island is much shallower.

Crew

• What happened to the rest of the crew? Did the Amazons kill them all?
  • It would not be surprising if the crew was desperate enough to join the battle on the beach, or were all killed off by Amazons in retribution and to keep the secret of the island.
  • Given the Amazons are more 'attack only when attacked' (the only reason they're even aggressive towards Steve is because he looks just like the soldiers who attacked and isn't answering questions, combined with anger over the deaths of some of their number), them just slaughtering them to keep the island or retribution is unlikely. More likely, anyone who didn't join the battle turned around and fled the Themyscira seas, possibly dying at sea.
  • Themyscira is also hidden by a mist, chances are once the ship ran aground they started to abandon ship, which way are you going to point your life boat, at a weird unknown misty area or open sea in the direction you came in? Most likely they chose the latter and were either picked up by other ships or died at sea.

No one in British intelligence recognizes Turkish?

• It's mentioned that the British cryptography department determined that Dr. Poison's notes were written in a combination of two languages, but couldn't identify any of them. Diana quickly identifies the languages as Ottoman and Sumerian. Given that Sumerian is a long dead language, it's reasonable no one in modern times would be able to recognize it, but "Ottoman" (which seems to mean Turkish) would have been the primary language of a major imperial world power and one of the main factions on the opposing side of the war. You'd think someone in British intelligence would have at least been able to recognize it.
  • It seems like barely a few hours had passed between Steve handing over the notes and the British trying to decipher it. It's possible they just didn't catch the Ottoman parts yet, especially since it was encoded and mixed with a second completely different language.
  • It was the British war council, not British Intelligence. Realistically they would need to have the entire journal decoded before bringing it to them, but that's an extra step that would slow down the story. In any case, the split language makes it more difficult to determine precisely which language is being depicted, as different languages have related scripts (Latin, a dead language, informs the alphabet of most of Europe). Diana was able to decipher both intuitively, and it is unlikely anyone in British Intelligence could do so.
  • Regarding the word "Ottoman," the word likely referred to Ottoman Turkish, the variety of Turkish that was used in the Ottoman Empire. It was largely unintelligible to the less-educated lower class and rural Turks, who continued to use kaba Türkçe or "raw/vulgar Turkish," which is the basis of the modern Turkish language used since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.
  • Still, one would think that British intelligence should be somewhat familiar with both versions of said language.

Is the German leadership holding a gala within artillery range of the front line?

• The castle the Kaiser and all his buddies are holding their gala at is apparently within artillery range of the village from earlier, which itself was within a couple hundred meters or so of the front line. It seems rather reckless to gather your country's leadership in one spot within shelling range of a war zone, upcoming armistice or not.
  • Well Ludendorff needed to be able to demonstrate the power of his new poison gas where people could see it, which means having to be close to the front. In addition, he was definitely counting on the Allies not taking any action in order to preserve the armistice.
  • At the same time, the gala was planned before the Allies liberated Veld. So was Ludendorff planning on gassing a German-held land and ceding it to the allies?
  • We don't know the range of that weapon. He might have initially planned to send it into the trenches, which seemed to be a few miles away from the village.
  • The gun mounted on top of the castle is huge. It looks like on of those railway guns that can shoot 30+ miles. It easily outranges Allied artillery (which usually has a range of 5-7 miles), so the gala venue can be safe from Allied fire while they can pound well behind their lines.
    • Which is also so loud as to deafen everyone nearby, big enough to be seen by areal reconnaissance, and only movable by TRAIN. SO why would a castle be next to train tracks? Not to mention a theater level artillery piece would be kept track of by Allied Military Intelligence.

Shortest night ever?

• Diana, Steve and co. infiltrate Ludendorff's gala just as the sun is setting, and it's nearly completely set when she returns to Veld. The group immediately rushes from there to Ludendorff's base, where the fights with Ludendorff and Ares happen in rapid succession. When done, the Sun is well into its day break. Did night only last one hour?
  • Oops.
  • Could have been some weird side effect of two gods clashing with each other.
  • Editing. We don't see how long it actually takes to get from Veld to the base or how long the following skirmish lasts, not to mention other things that would happen in-between. Its possible that a lot of stuff was cut out and so what seems to be about an hour probably lasted several. Plus, yeah, Diana embracing her role as a god maybe brought the sun out.
  • When they were contacting Etta while still in Velt, she mentioned that the Gala (and Ludendorff) are a few hours from their position.

Ben'd

• How was Steve not accidentally killed by the amazons during the beach fight? He's a man, wielding a rifle, wearing their colors. They didn't even have a shot of the amazons noticing he was protecting Diana, and they do try to attacks him, but only after they've paused to let Antiope die.
  • They probably saw Steve drag Diana into cover to protect her when the Germans open fire, so they don't assume he's a hostile immediately. Plus he and Diana were standing at the beach long before they arrived at the scene. If Steve was indeed an enemy, he would've killed Diana already. And Steve was unarmed at the time. He only picked up a rifle from a downed soldier and joined the battle later.

Super Strong

• Wonder Woman and the Amazons has been almost as bulletproof as Superman for decades in comics now, and in the film, Diana is shown shrugging off being thrown dozens of meters by explosive force and being in collapsing buildings. Yet they never lampshade or handwave why she needs her bracelets or shield, and the other Amazons are brought down by normal weapons.
  • Amazons are not in fact bulletproof. Their magical protection keeps them from being hurt by blunt forces like punches from super powered characters or from explosions, but things like bullets or even swords will still hurt them the same as anyone else.
  • That's mainly because Diana herself does not know she's a god, so she takes measures to defend herself under the assumption she's still a "mortal".
  • That doesn't stop Antiope taking a bullet for Diana despite knowing that she's a god. Though this is reasonably chalked up to an immediate reaction out of her deep love for her niece.
  • Also the fact that Diana had been quite sheltered back then, and likely no other amazon ever actually tried to seriously kill/hurt her, and while partially a goddess, she is also daughter of Hippolyta who, herself, is not immune to bullets and such, as shown by Antiope. Basically, the amazons could only assume the limits of her resistance/invulnerability, and Antiope didn't want to/couldn't risk being wrong on that one.
  • They're also facing a totally unknown foe and unknown weapons. For all Antiope knows, these are agents of Ares packing Godkiller-class magic bullets.
  • This is actually more clearly explained in the comics...Wonder Woman has super-man strength immunity to everything EXCEPT "That which pierces"...arrows, swords, and bullets explicitly can push through her skin as long as they have a fine enough point. It's a bit of a handwave...but it's canon.

Diana not heroing between this film and BvS

• By the end of Wonder Woman, Diana comes to an epiphany after seeing Steve's sacrifice and listening to Ares that humanity is worth keeping around at the very least, that with all the hate they have, their love conquers all. She even ends World War I herself with the people around her possibly freed by Ares's influence. Why between this film and Batman V Superman does she decide to stop being a hero, having believed the age of heroes to be over? Everything she just experienced in Wonder Woman should be reasons to keep being a hero.
  • Especially egregious is that she says in Batman V Superman that the impetus from her walking away was the belief that mankind couldn't stand together — but she saw plenty of examples of standing together: The Chief is friends with Steve and fights beside him even though he acknowledges the horrible past between their ancestors, Sameer also fights for good even though racism destroyed his dreams, the young German soldiers were relieved and even hugged The Chief after the fighting was over, and the majority of both sides were willing to find middle ground. And Steve gave a Heroic Sacrifice for the good of millions of people and his friends were willing to do the same. Plus her despair at seeing men continue to fight even after she supposedly killed Ares loses ground somewhat when it's revealed she never actually killed Ares and things do look up after she kills the real one, and instead of the war ending with her upset or disappointed in humanity she still sees the good in humankind (she says as much to Ares) despite their flaws. That she would eventually walk away because, well, Humans Are Bastards is absolutely plausible yet her dialogue in BVS states it was the first World War that made her turn her back. World War II was a more likely culprit.
  • I have a theory that I already put in the Fridge page: presumably Diana hits her Despair Event Horizon again when World War II broke out and is even more chaotic and destructive than the first one, because it means everything she and her friends did, including Steve's sacrifice, was All for Nothing. It also proves Ares's words right that humans will almost always end up fighting each other, even without his influence. Not to mention the other smaller wars and conflicts after WWII that just won't seem to end even into the present day. No wonder why Diana loses hope in humanity for a long time until she comes across Batman and Superman. Also, reminiscing the good times that she had with Steve and reminding herself that humans are also capable of being good and loving plays a factor in convincing her to come back as well.
  • I agree 100% — though in BVS she says she walked away from world a hundred years ago, which would be after during World War I. If BVS takes place 20 Minutes into the Future however this is likely the most accurate considering it made most mortals lose their faith in humanity as well.
  • Also, the armistice. She knew it was at least partially arranged by Ares, and it's where most of the problems for World War II actually came from. Fascism in Italy benefitted greatly from the vittoria mutilata ("maimed victory"), as it was known, and the heavy conditions imposed on Germany brought on the dissatisfaction that allowed the nazis' rise to power. Diana believed that killing Ares wouldn't have just ended the war, but make humans pure again, seeing how even peace ended up being empty and with darkest sides might have been what made her turn her back, convincing her it all was meaningless, and World War II merely confirmed it.

Ludendorff Dead and Hitler's Rise

• So IRL Ludendorff survived WW1, and his position that Germany could win the war (as well as his reputation as one of the men who turned Germany's early difficulties and saved them) were used by Hitler to drum up support to the Nazis. Ludendorff was a major figure in the Beer Hall Putsch. Though the two had a falling out by the time Hitler rose to power, one has to ask, would Ludendorff being dead change the history leading to World War 2?
  • Not much. Hitler didn't meet Ludendorff until May of 1923 in real life, when Hitler was already speaking to packed houses about the glories of the German people. The German Worker's Party would just have needed to ride the coattails of some other German soldier.
  • Possibly he used Ludendorff as the proof Germany could have won instead, wondering about what would have happened had Germany listened and helped him instead of forcing him to work alone. Or Maru took his place in spreading the idea.
  • On that note, one of the German commanders that Ludendorff is shown gassing is Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who survived the war and became President of Germany in 1925 and, in 1933, appointed Hitler as chancellor. Unless whoever took his place appointed Hitler anyway, might this change the lead up to World War II?

Why Ludendorff?

• As the topic above points out, Ludendorff was a real-life person that survived World War I, while the Ludendorff in the movie was an in-name-only super-powered megalomaniac. And since they're basing him on the Captain Marvel super villain, Captain Nazi, why didn't just they use him? Sure, this was before the Nazis rose to power so it wouldn't make sense to use that name, but they still could've used his real name (Albrecht Krieger) instead.
  • Because Ludendorff was the current commander in chief of the German forces at the time and was firmly in the faction that believed Germany should have continued the war.
  • He was not, the Commander in Chief was Paul Von Hindenburg. Ludendorff was his deputy. The movie even mentions Hindenburg being Ludendorff's superior.
  • The DCCU tries its best to make things as "realistic" as possible and as "this happens in our world" as possible using as much as they can real life historical characters and events, both as a way to keep the "Nolanish" feeling and to make a difference with the MCU. Obviously when you see aliens and gods fighting with thunders that becomes a stretch, but still will be out of character for them to use a fictional German character.
  • They did use a fictional German character - they just gave him a historical name. Ludendorff was by no means an admirable character, but he didn't resemble the character from the film very much at all. For starters, he was one of the Generals who advocated an immediate Armistice the Kaiser in September 1918.
  • But most viewers won't know that, they only would hear the name and whether they will think in a name they heard on one of those documentaries about Hitler in Nat Geo or they'll think in nothing, until they google it.

The German High Command

• During the gala, did it not cross anybody's mind that the entire German high command failed to show up except Ludendorff? Okay, Ludendorff probably killed everyone at the base where the German High Command was in so there's no one to inform the Kaiser of his treachery, but isn't there anybody who suspect that Ludendorff may be behind their sudden disappearances, especially when it's implied that everyone knows he and the rest of the generals don't get along?
  • Maybe. But would you say anything?
  • Maybe not, but surely even Ludendorff wouldn't go so far as to murder the Kaiser himself and everyone else at the gala just to keep the war going on if I tell them that he killed the German High Command? Or would he?
  • He somehow infiltrated and eliminated the whole German High Command, no one would have felt safe. Also, perhaps some of them weren't brave enough to support him, but secretly wanted him to be right. That way, they could join his side should he have started getting actual victories, and blame him as a rogue element had he failed.

Hundreds of Languages

• If the amazons live by themselves on a magical hidden island and they have a rule that says anyone who leaves is not allowed to return, why do they know so many languages? Also, why do they know contemporary languages so well that Diana can walk around England without drawing linguistics-related attention to herself?
  • Good point. Some of the languages Diana uses, such as modern English and modern German, would have developed long after the Amazons became isolationist. If they couldn't have learned these languages normally, maybe they have a magical gift from the gods that allows them to understand any human tongue?
  • They were supposedly directly crafted to serve as warrior-diplomats, so it would fit with that.
  • A God Did it, they seem to be magically capable of speaking all languages. Notice that Diana says they speak hundreds of languages IIRC not that they learn them.
  • They never actually say anyone who leaves isn't allowed to return, just that it would be difficult to find their way back, especially for Diana who's never learnt to sail. It's entirely possible that Amazons have in fact left multiple times in the past, which could aid in their language learning pursuits, assuming that the above 'magically speak everything' thing isn't the solution. They seem to have a strong interest in knowledge, so it's possible that they do have parties venture out to acquire knowledge and return back with what they learn.
  • Hippolyta tells Diana that if she leaves, "she *may* never return." That could mean that she's not allowed to return, or that she might not return, perhaps because Themyscira is so well hidden. It's ambiguous.
  • She might also mean "may never return" because, well, she's walking out into the middle of a war to try and kill something that slaughtered a dozen gods. It's perfectly reasonable to fear Diana simply wouldn't make it through that alive.

The more she knows...

• Near the beginning of the film, Hippolyta cryptically says that "The more she knows, the sooner he'll find her." But she meets Ares pretty much the minute she sets foot in London anyways, and only he is aware of the other's true identity, which he says as much to Diana later when saying he could have killed her the first time they met. So what did Hippolyta mean by this? Even after we find out that Diana herself is the God Killer I cannot figure out how the knowledge would have led Ares to her any sooner considering she just stumbled upon him anyway.
  • If she knew she was the 'Killa, she would have been even more aggressive and bold. And remember, Hippolyta doesn't actually know what's out there. She's guessing.
  • Well, Hippolyta couldn't possibly foresee that development. It's likely that Ares had a sort of awareness that could have used to look for Diana, and she would have made it easier had she known about her nature and manifested her powers more. Mundane ways of meeting weren't included, but she was covering it by not having her leaving the island.

So how do the Amazons repopulate?

• I've never read the comics before so I have a limited knowledge in this, but I'm curious. If I remember correctly, in the original myths the Amazons made a deal with another similar, all-male island nation, that they will make kids together, with the Amazons keeping the girls and leave the boys for the men. What about in DC universe? Diana says that 'men are indispensable for procreation', which means even the Amazons needed males in order to give birth to new children. But then again, Diana has been the only child in Themyscira for hundreds of years, so that means the Amazons have not had any new member for quite a big while now. Do they even have new members in their society at all? Or when they reach a peak age, they stopped aging and effectively becoming immortal, rendering the need for new members pointless? If they even have new children at all, are they all girls? What happens if the child is a boy? Again, just curious.
  • In the comics the respond will depend on the writer, but for what we can grasp of the movies; Yes, all Amazons are immortal, we never see if they are ever little girls or they were all except for Diana made already adults by Zeus, and Diana was for what we can see the only child as she was Zeus daughter so technically she's half Amazon and half god and had a normal birth.
  • It appears that the Amazons were directly created by divine power, and they don't have children (because they don't have sex with men). Diana is the only exception (hence her maternal delight at spotting a baby in London). That means that the total number of Amazons can only decline; there is no repopulation. Thankfully, they're immortal unless they're killed in battle.

How the rest of the Universe works here regarding creation?

• So in the DC Cinematic Universe the Greek gods created mankind, fine. But who created Kryptonians and other aliens? Does each planet has their own creator gods or the same Greek gods (with other names I assume) went planet to planet making people?
  • Since the New Gods are going to be a thing in this setting, I would call it safe to say that there are all kinds of gods and god-like beings across the cosmos. And Zeus "creating" humans might not necessarily mean straight up making them out of nothing, either — he could simply be a more advanced being who uplifted the proto-human hominids into full sapience, for example.
  • This was, in fact, the exact route John Byrne took during his run on the comic, where he explicitly made the Olympians an offshoot of the New Gods.
  • The fable shown at the beginning of the movie seems to be a story that was told to Diana by her mother, rather than hard fact (it was somewhat inaccurate regarding Ares' nature and motives, for example). Zeus definitely existed and the Amazons credit him with creating humanity, but that might also not necessarily be entirely accurate.

Senseless Sacrifice?

• The reason for Steve Trevor's heroic sacrifice was that they couldn't let the plane be launched and if they simply grounded it, the timer would simply release the gas there and kill everyone in the area. But why couldn't they just disable the timer/gas release mechanism and pitch the gas canisters into the fire?
  • They might be worried there's a risk that if the timer is tampered with, it'll set off the gas prematurely.
  • Who could have done it? Diana hardly knows about technology at all. Sameer, Charlie and the Chief have all different areas of expertise, and even if Steve is a spy, he is more into the infiltration side and was never shown with some mechanical expertise. Identify it is one thing, sabotage it another.
  • Given that the plane was supposed to be bound for London (which is quite a distance from Germany by plane, especially back in 1918), you'd think the timer would be long enough that it's not like the bombs were about to go off in just a few minutes.
  • The base was in the Flanders region of Belgium, just across the Channel from Britain. Veld is shown to be within a day's walk from the sea. This means that the base was only one or two hours flight from London.
  • Although in that case couldn't he had just land the plane by the Belgium shore and drives it into the Channel, sinking it after making some preparations for an escape?
  • One guess that while there might still be enough time to disable the bombs, there isn't enough time for everyone to get on board the plane. The plane was beginning to take off when Steve barely managed to get on it. With him alone, he couldn't both fly the plane and sabotage the bomb at the same time, and knowing his personality, he wouldn't just throw them down on the ground even in empty fields, either. One could argue that he could've just landed the plane somewhere in the Allies territory, but then again, he's on a German airplane. The Allies could've shoot it down on sight, blowing the ordnance on board and release the gas on the Allies, as well as killing Steve in the process. Plus it's 1918, radio communications on planes is not a thing yet, and sign communication is not an option since it's night time.
  • Sadly, this is all irrelevant. Steve is able to blow up the entire plane by shooting one bullet at the gas. STEVE IS ABLE TO BLOW UP THE ENTIRE PLANE BY SHOOTING ONE BULLET AT THE GAS. The reason they did not radio other planes to shoot down the plane was that it would crash and gas a fifty mile area. But, given that one bullet hitting the gas blows up the entire plane, that would not have happened. And, Steve appears to know this, given the fatalistic and cavalier manner he shoots the gas. He seems to be pretty sure he's gonna die right there. So. One guy, in a plane, could have shot many bullets at the plane with the gas, and if one bullet hit the gas, the plane with the gas would have blown up and no one would have been gassed. Or a guy on the ground with some artillery. Or some flaming arrows. Yeah. If Steve needed to be dead, they really should've come up with another way to do it.
  • There was no one around except Steve and co. at the airbase, and the above comment said that in WWI radio communication from air to ground or vice-versa is not a thing yet. There's no other plane nearby for Steve and co. to use except the bomber that's already going to take off, not to mention dozens of German soldiers shooting after their backs, and Ares himself shows up personally to wreak havoc. There's literally no time to contact any nearby allied forces. They don't have heavy weapons except small firearms, and if they blow up the plane while it's still in the vicinity of the airbase, everyone is dead. Steve and co. are on their own, and they make do with what they have in tense and outnumbered situation with limited resources, which ends with Steve having to pull a Heroic Sacrifice. In my opinion, it makes much more sense than Captain America deciding to go down with the bomber into the Atlantic without parachuting out or use one of those flying bomb-thing to escape before it crashes, just so he could end up in the present day.
  • Not planes in the air. Planes on the ground - an airfield on the ground, WITH planes, which can then take off. Or people on the ground with guns. Anywhere between where they are and London. There is a line in the movie that they cannot radio anyone to shoot the plane down because it would crash and gas a large area, so the writers did think of it. Just not very much.
  • Pardon me for this but I don't understand. What do you mean by planes on the ground? What do you suggest our heroes should do? 1. Take another plane and fly after the bomber to shoot it down mid-air? That risks pieces of the bomber to crash into a large area and release the gas, and that is assuming the plane is not heavily armored so that normal bullets could piece through it into the ordnance inside. Plus if they really do find another plane they could use to go after the bomber, do you think the German soldiers would just let the plane take off? 2. Shoot the bomber down with guns and artillery? Where would Steve and co. find weapons in the airbase that could shoot the plane down from such a distance that the gas wouldn't kill them all, assuming they can even get to them without all the German soldiers shooting them to bits? And remember, they don't have time to go warn other allies nearby because the bomber can go faster than they do. By the time Steve and co. reaches a friendly base and tells them to 'look for a high-speed bomber in the midnight sky' to shoot them down, the bomber would've already on its way across the English Channel, and that's even assuming the bomber would've been flying at a low enough height for the anti-air weapons to shoot it down reliably, which is unlikely. Even if we assume everything goes their way, there's also a risk that the wreck of the plane comes crashing down and release the gas anyway, just like the first scenario. The only, only way to be sure is to destroy the gas themselves from the inside of the plane. That way, the gas would be destroyed for sure, so even if parts of the plane crashes into the ground, there won't be any gas to harm anything or anyone. And the only way to achieve that is to get someone into the plane to do what Steve did in the film. Sure, they could find a time-bomb and put it into the plane and watching it blow up from the ground instead, but again where would Steve and co. find a time-bomb in the airbase before the bomber takes off? Putting Steve on the plane to destroy the gas himself was the only surefire plan. The others have chances of failure that the heroes cannot afford to risk.
  • There's one to two hours to London, so, radio any airfield between there and London. Even in London itself, because when the gas blows up, it is harmless. (Apart from the shrapnel, obviously) There is not just the one airfield. There is not just one set of guns. There is not just Steve and Co. A single bullet (not even an incendiary round or anything) blows up all the gas. One bullet. One tank of gas. One hole. Everything. Spectacularly. Boom. And Steve is not doubtful about it. He does not hesitate as if he might just release the gas and kill everyone on the ground. When he fires the bullet he is very certain he has done the job. There was no guarantee that Steve was going to make it on to the plane and punch his way into control and blow everything up anyway, so they should have probably gotten on the radio and told people just as backup.
  • They had to get someone onto the plane first as to be sure. Like I said earlier, the bomber was already beginning to take off when Steve and co. are trying to get on it. Presumably they don't have time to do both things at once: radio command for backup and try to stop the planes on their own. They chose to do the latter because it has a lower risk of failure. Even if they radio allies, there's a chance that they could still fail to shoot the bomber down (anti-air weapons in WWI aren't exactly famous for their reliability or have widespread usage yet except on the German's side, so not every allied base will have one), and there won't be anyone on the bomber to stop it in case that failed. Ludendorff was confident enough to just send only one bomber (with only one pilot in it, to boot) to London without fearing that any anti-air weapon or enemy planes could shoot it down, plus it's nighttime, so the bad visibility plays a part as well), so it's implied the plane is very advanced that anything the allies throw at it would be ineffective long enough until it delivers its payload on London.
  • Sure... but then once Steve's on the plane, why not just ditch it in the Channel? That's what the Entente did with Germany's mustard gas stocks in OTL.
  • Knowing Steve's personality, guess he didn't want to contaminate the water in the Channel perhaps? He did see firsthand what the gas is capable of, after all, and he probably didn't want to take chances. Also, dropping the plane in the sea means the Germans, or whoever wants to make use of the gas, can still recover it later, even if it's at the bottom of the channel.
  • I guess Steve forgot to bring a grenade?
  • If your suggesting he simply toss a grenade on the plane while its taking off, then the plane wouldn't have gotten anywhere near high enough before the grenade went off (they only have about 4-8 second fuses) for the explosion not wipe everyone in the airbase out. And that's assuming all the gas was destroyed.
  • He could have grabbed a grenade and parachute, dropped the grenade and jumped out of the plane, giving himself at least a chance of survival. Or better yet grabbed a single stick of dynamite and a longish fuse, giving himself more time to fall out of the blast radius.
  • It would have to be a German Parachute, which he wouldn't know how to use (and Allied members were actually forbidden to use, see below). Second if he did that then the plane would simply fall back down with no one piloting it. We have to remember its easy to sit here and spend as much time as we like thinking of all the clever things Steve could have done, but he only had around ten seconds to make a choice and could see no other options.

Ares’ power set

• I've seen this movie three times already and seeing Ares use Zeus's lightning irritates me more than a little bit since I can't remember Ares ever being able to do that. ESPECIALLY considering that his initial power set is more than capable of dropping Diana.
  • It makes a bit of sense since they explicitly point out that Ares is Zeus' son.
  • I took it as being something Ares stole/took over from Zeus after Zeus' death. Trying to use it on Diana was ultimately a mistake, though, as she is Zeus' legitimate, declared heir, and what was once his lightning now serves her. I think this is visually indicated by the way it plays over her bracers, which she is NEVER seen without and which, in the comics, represent Zeus' Aegis, the defensive portion of his personal armory.
  • If you're referring to the Ares of mythology, he also didn't have telekinesis, or do anything else he's said to do in the backstory.
  • In mythology, the actual power set of gods could be fuzzy, and was most story serving (lightning bolts themselves, actually, weren't a power of Zeus, but a gift from the Cyclopes, so it would justify Ares having them once the owner isn't around, but Zeus could shape shift, despite it not being related to his area of influence). In the movie, they seem to be more basic reality warpers, so he can use energy attacks, cast illusions, teleport...
  • In the novelization, it explicitly states Ares was in his weakest state, and needed to siphon off power from Diana and her lasso in order to regain his godly form and power. His ability to use lightning was probably stolen the same way during the fight as Diana is the daughter of Zeus.

Finding Themyscira

• We see that the island's veil keeps it hidden but doesn't stop anyone from going in by ship. How has it not been discovered by humans before now? If it's the Mediterranean Sea especially, that's a very well-traveled area.
  • I assumed from Steve trying to use his compass that instruments may not function correctly near the island. Of course, this just brings up other questions, like how far up does the veil work? Can you see it from an airplane? Does GPS work? Does space imagery show the island?
    • I would assume that the veil around the island is like a bubble, rather than a cylinder. Meaning it would be invisible no matter the angle you’re viewing from.
  • Perhaps it may be a sign that Themyscira's veil is weakening over time, especially considering that Zeus, who erected the veil in the first place, is long dead.

Sir Patrick's Actions

• Since Sir Patrick is actually Ares, why would he fund a plot by Wonder Woman and the others to undermine his own plan to keep the war going? Furthermore, he didn't seem to be actually making any effort to sabotage the armistice negotiations, even though he has every chance and reason to do so.
  • See the Fridge Brilliance section. But in summary, Ares funded the expedition because he wanted Diana to see the horrors of WWI with her very own eyes, thus planting the seeds of doubt in the inherent goodness of men and hopefully convincing her to join him. Note how the moment they captured Veld and decided to infiltrate the gala, thereby actually becoming a threat to Ludendorff's plan, Ares immediately ordered Trevor to call off the mission. As for the armistice, he was actually trying to push it because he knew the armistice was only going to be a temporary measure and war would inevitably break out again, either by a crazed zealot like Ludendorff who despises the idea of peace or someone else years down the line where discontent over the wildly unfair terms of the treaty would provide the building blocks for the next World War. Either way, Ares gets what he wants, in humans destroying each other in endless wars.

How did Steve's plane gets heavily damaged in the first place?

• In the flashback, we've seen that Steve steals the only plane that has already started its engine, then he circles back to shoot the landed planes and pilots so they cannot pursue him, before destroying the bomb factory for good measure and flies into the distance with nobody pursuing him. But then his plane somehow gets damaged and crash-landed in the sea around Themyscira. There's a German warship there, yes, but how did Steve got shot down by it in the first place? It's implied that Steve is an ace pilot, so he could've avoided the warship with ease. And given that the sea where Themyscira is located is implied to be an uncharted water for it to remain undiscovered for thousands of years, how did Steve's path back to London as well as the German warship's patrol route ended up there in the first place?
  • When Steve is escaping the base on the plane, he flies through fire at one point, which definitely looks cool, but isn't very safe when the plane in question is made of wood and fabric. It doesn't seem like it's set on fire, but something might've started to burn, and the flames could've inflicted enough damage that by the time he reached Themyscira, the plane was no longer capable of remaining in the air.
  • As for how everyone ended up near Themyscira in the first place, it's admittedly more than a little Contrived Coincidence, but two possible explanations are: we don't know where exactly in the Ottoman Empire Steve was at the time, so his path to London might've taken him over the Aegean Islands, where Themyscira (being Greek) is most likely located. Another possibility is that Steve didn't want to fly over the front lines and was keeping to the sea. The German ship, in turn, might've been scouting those uncharted waters precisely because they were uncharted in the first place, and thus an unknown quality.
  • It's not out of the question for the ship to have shot down Steve's plane, as early WWI planes could not fly very fast or high and their light construction made them extremely vulnerable to small arms fire. Plus it was highly likely that the ship had been warned to be on the lookout for Steve's plane, otherwise they wouldn't have been searching for what was supposed to be a German plane so aggressively with entire boats of fully armed men. In addition, plane engines at the time were notoriously unreliable compared to their modern equivalents, and a very unfortunate malfunction could have occurred.

Let's all shoot the tank!

• When Diana crosses no man's land, it is so beautiful and so cinematic and so... inexplicable. Why do the Germans keep shooting at her, and only her? It is clear that the bullets are not landing. There is a thing in WWI that you cannot kill with bullets, it is called a tank. You do not shoot at it. Certainly not to the exclusion of all else. Now, barbed wire and anti-tank weapons aren't going to slow Diana down either (although the barbed wire seems to be missing?), but she is also not firing a ranged weapon like a tank. She, at first, is kinda just walking around. And then, to either side of her, here come some ordinary people that bullets DO work on, at least we have no evidence that they do not, and nobody shoots at them. They are not standing behind her, they are flanking her. Meanwhile, she walks into the trench and she takes out ONE gun and more people, more TARGETS, come pouring into no man's land, and they do not get shot, either. And, the way trenches work, there is not just one trench. There is another trench behind the first trench. With more guns. The Germans do not shoot at anyone except the very small target that cannot be shot. I-I don't understand. Diana should be alive and everyone who did not employ even rudimentary tactics in following her should be dead.
  • Maybe the German soldiers didn't notice Steve and co. because they were too busy trying to figure out just what the hell they are dealing with regarding Diana. Steve said that months, if not years, have gone by without anyone taking an inch on no man's land, and then Diana suddenly shows up in her shining and a bit revealing outfit, just walking out there into the battlefield, and nothing the Germans do seem to stop her. The Germans are probably just too confused or panicked as to just what happened to notice that Steve and co. is ambushing them from the sides, plus the Truth in Television is German soldiers late in the war are young, inexperienced conscripts, further adding as to why they seem to not use any tactic at all during the battle.
  • Not to mention that at this point, they're hungry, exhausted, and just ground down...honestly, it would be more of a surprise if they were thinking straight.
  • Very likely that since Ludendorff had already planned to gas Veld and the nearby Allied trenches, the German troops in the village who Diana and company fought and took down were preparing to pull out anyway, and the Germans at the trenches was only a skeleton force there to maintain the illusion that they were still holding their lines while covering their main forces' withdrawal as a rear guard, and then would secretly abandon their trenches during the night.
  • It looked to me like Steve and the others made a point to find cover before they stepped to fire...y'know, like most soldiers do. The Germans waste all their time shooting at Diana because she's the only one they have a clear shot at.

WWI had a happy ending!

• Did this movie imply that Ares's death is what ended WWI and everyone, such as the German soldiers at the airfield, sort of woke up and decided to be friends again? Because, then, why did we have WWII? We had a lot worse stuff in WWII, you guys. I don't really want to get into it. It happened really soon after WWI. A lot of people know about it. And WWI did not end on friendly terms. People kinda even knew that at the time. Everyone was really annoyed about it. And, we end on the power of love being stronger than war and hate? Well, then, no, it's really not, then, is it? What is the message I'm supposed to be taking away from this? Unless history is dramatically different in the DC cinematic universe?
  • When is it established in the film that WWI had a happy ending? Millions still died during the war, and humanity goes back to fighting at the first opportunity. Check the Fridge page. WWI was going to end with or without Ares's death. The peace treaty was already in progress, and even the Germans themselves (or at least the High Command generals that Ludendorff killed) see that there was no way they're going to win the war. But Ares himself says in the movie that, as Sir Patrick, he deliberately creates a flawed peace treaty that only serves to fuel vengeance for the German people. It was not in any way a happy ending for WWI. The war just ends, but as you know, Humans Are the Real Monsters, we have WWII, Cold War, War On Terror, Nuclear Tests, Government Surveillance, you name it. That's why Diana retired from super-heroing just after WWI, because she thought humanity don't deserve her help. Yet at the end of the movie, when she reminisces her WWI memories, she remembers that there are humans, such as Steve, who are capable of kindness and loving as well. They might not be stronger than war and hate, but at least it proves that Ares was wrong. Humans are not destructive all the time, we are also capable of doing good things as well. That's what Diana learned at the end of the film, she basically relearns the lesson she had learned during WWI: Wars and conflicts bring out both the worst and the best in humanity. That's the message.
  • Well, Ares dies and all the Germans take off the gas masks and start hugging each other and also Sameer and the Chief and Charlie, and we cut immediately to victory in London. We had the speech about humanity being the real cause of war when the war kept going after the guy who was NOT Ares died. It was very sad. Diana was very sad and almost gave up, yes. Then it turns out Ares is real and she really kills him and the war appears to be over right then so... That either ended the war or it did not. It REALLY looks like it ends the war and it REALLY looks like the German soldiers wake up. If killing Ares didn't end WWI then... it did what? He stopped giving people really bad ideas for war stuff? No, because Nuclear Tests and everything above. If the implied happy ending is not an implied happy ending then what did Diana do? I am pretty sure we were supposed to be happy about the ending. I mean, good for the endurance of the human spirit. I guess Ares deserved to die because he wanted to wipe out humanity and that's it, but then why bother ending the war at the exact same time? Yeah, it was 1918 and the war was gonna end, but there's a convergence, here.
  • I admit, the way they killed Ares and just have all surviving German soldiers suddenly stop fighting feel a bit like an Ass Pull because it's implied Ares really does control them to fight personally when earlier than that he told Diana that humans fight their wars on their own. But I certainly didn't feel that happy watching the ending. Sure, people are celebrating and that, but it's normal because for all they know, the most destructive war in the history until then has finally ended, but notice that Diana and co. didn't celebrate at all, but they look solemn because they lost Steve in the war. For Diana even more so because, like Ares said, Steve died because of mankind's destructiveness. Plus it's implied that some time has passed between the scene at the airport and the scene of the peace celebration in London. Maybe the war didn't end immediately after Diana killed Ares, but it certainly was about to end. It's called Bittersweet Ending, and it's common in movies nowadays. The heroes ended a war/conflict but lost something important in the process. In Wonder Woman, it's Diana's innocence. Earlier in the film, she wholeheartedly believe that 'mankind = good' and 'Ares = bad', but then the end of the film changes all that. She realizes that mankind is not as good as she believe them to be, and it breaks her. Sure, she helps put an end to WWI and kills Ares, but then what? Mankind goes back to fighting again and again anyways, meaning Steve died for nothing, the people of Veld she had saved died for nothing. That's why she retired from heroing for a whole century until present. It's not in any way happy, at least for me. The point is it doesn't matter when during the war the movie took place. Even if Diana killed Ares when the war's going only halfway, it'll end mostly the same way. She realizes the horrors mankind can unleash and gives up fighting, but yet without her involvement the war was going to end and the German loses anyway because history says so.
  • "I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But now I know...I've touched the darkness that lives in between the light. Seen the worst of this world, and the best. Seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred...and the lengths they'll go to for love. Now I know. Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight and I give for the world I know can be. This is my mission forever." That's how the film ends. That's how the main article ends, too. Not "I give up." The bitter part is "Steve is dead." I really think we're supposed to just be happy about WWI ending. Sad that war takes a toll, happy war is over. No context of history. Or even necessarily that Diana quits fighting for 100 years for some reason, because we haven't really established what that is yet. That's another movie. I don't want to pick nits. I just really want a better movie to love. It could've been so awesome. Everyone loves it. I don't love it. I WANT to love it. There's so much stuff like this in it that I can't.
  • To be honest, I think WWI is just a background for Diana to see the cruelty of mankind firsthand. This is all in all Diana's journey to learn that the world is not all black and white as she thought, even if she thought that her journey was to stop the war. If we are supposed to feel happy that WWI ended in Wonder Woman, then what does that make World War II ending in the first Captain America movie? It ends mostly the same way. Most people celebrate the ending of a world war, but the heroes are solemn because one of their friends didn't make it. In my opinion, the world war is just a setting, nothing more. And we all know from history that world wars, however cruel they might be, eventually ends on a positive note for the 'good guys'. Unless Steve happens to be a German agent, and Wonder Woman ends up fighting for Central Powers instead, then we might have a movie that has the message that you wanted, I think.
  • The reason the German soldiers at the base stopped fighting after Ares died was because they just saw two literal gods duke it out. They were probably more relieved that they actually got through that night alive more than anything else. Plus, soldiers transcending national pride to stop fighting when they see no reason to actually happened in WWI.

If Ares dying did not end WWI (as proposed above) what did Diana do?

• If we accept any of the other proposed reasons up there for the German soldiers stopping fighting, and if we accept the Humans Are the Real Monsters message and what Ares says when's wrapped up in the Lasso of Truth (and the movie does not seem to suggest that he's stronger than the Lasso of Truth) then what did Wonder Woman accomplish over the course of her movie? Diana saves Steve. Yes. Great. I approve of this. Diana and the Amazons kill a bunch of Germans. Okay. Good. Diana defies her mother AND a bunch of British generals and sexism and goes off to the front and saves and an entire village. (Implausibly, I think, see above, but let's leave that aside) Also really great! Then the entire village is gassed. Okay. Necessary for a message about the scale of war and the toll of war and all that, I guess. Then, at the party, she prepares to kick some serious ass and she rocks a sword in a dress but she is not subtle and she endangers the whole "save lots of people from the gas" thing Steve is trying to pull off by hollering about Ares who may or may not be real or who she thinks he is. Then she REALLY endangers the whole "save lots of people from the gas" thing by throwing in the towel and BSO Ding after killing the guy who is obviously not Ares fails to put a dent in the war. Then she snaps out of that and kills the real Ares while Steve takes care of the gas, but... What does killing Ares DO? If it DOESN'T end the war, if all he was doing was giving people ideas and letting them destroy themselves... We didn't need him to do that. In a historical context, it is very obvious, we did not require Ares to do that. We destroyed ourselves very nicely in the following war, within a generation, without him whispering in our ear. Ares did not like us and he wanted us to die. If all he did was that and ideas, and we were capable of the ideas (if not necessarily exactly the SAME ideas) on our own, then Diana just killed a mean old man who had no power over humanity at all. He played politics. He didn't bring out the force lightning until she showed up. And he only used it on HER. He wasn't even sadistically frying individual people.
  So, in my really good female super hero movie with the strong feminist message, the hero saves a man - who then goes on to save a lot of people via self-sacrifice while she... kills an unnecessary concept? Even if he was very very powerful and evil, which evidence would seem to suggest he is not (at least not in the world-corrupting sense) killing him doesn't seem to have had much of an effect. I would feel a little bit better about this if she got to save the village, or at least a couple people out of the village, but looking at it this way, it starts to seem like this is on PURPOSE. It's a systematic undermining of everything good she might have done once she gets off the island. Like it's a THEME. Please prove me wrong with reasoned arguments. I feel sick. (My god, she doesn't even kill Dr. Poison. Ares manipulates her into letting the woman go.)
  • Ideas or not, Ares did play a part in exterminating mankind. He deliberately put deadly weapon ideas into people he knows are evil, like Dr. Poison and Ludendorff. He deliberately advocates a peace treaty he knows is fragile and will instead lead to a much worse war which, as we all know, does happen not long after WWI. Imagine if Diana hadn't kill Ares and he gets to live to see WW2 happen. He'll have a field day with nuclear developments and mass-produced deadly gas. Sure, we came up with those on our own, but Ares could've turned them into something much worse. He could manipulate politics into letting the war drag on and on until every super power nations have nuclear bombs and manipulate them to use them. He could've turned the Cold War into a Boiling Hot Thermonuclear War. How do you know he doesn't have the power to reign over humanity? He's a god, after all. He can do anything he wants. Maybe he's just content to have us killing each other for his own amusement. Harmless old man or not, he's still a villain whose ultimate goal is our extinction, even if all he does is manipulating us into doing it ourselves. Point is, Diana did manage to achieve something in her film: she resisted Ares' influence and didn't let her vengeance for Steve's death consumed her and turn on mankind. (And yes, Ares manipulates Diana into killing Dr. Poison for her role in Steve's death, not letting her go.) I admit, the execution could've been better and it should have been some random young German soldiers in the place of the Obviously Evil Dr. Poison to make the moral Diana learned to have more weight. Letting Dr. Poison go makes little sense, this I can agree with, but my point still stands: Diana managed to learn that mankind, while capable of committing atrocities, are also capable of being good as well, and that is a reason enough for her to keep her faith in humanity instead of destroying them all per Ares' manipulations. Better yet, she stopped Ares from manipulating mankind as a whole even further. Imagine if Ares could live on to see the present day. He would've eventually achieve his goal in wiping us out
  • It's not always a bad thing if the main character of a film doesn't save the world or have a huge impact, if the themes of the film are about that. The film was about Diana basically growing up, seeing her naive views on good and evil dashed over and over again, but developing more nuanced views that help her realize that there's good and evil in (almost) everyone, and that the good parts have to be nurtured.
  • It also should be noticed that we actually live in the most peaceful period of time in human history after WWII. Yes, there were some other local wars but no other global conflict to that scale. Actually at our current time period is the first time in history that no country is at war with other country anywhere. Yes, there are some very violent civil wars most notably the Syrian Civil War but although Civil wars are terrible, they are less dramatic than wars between states as states use all their resources in wars against each others. Think about it, right now no country in the world is officially at war with any other country, that's really new. So if the DCCU is not that different from ours, Diana's actions did work, it took several decades for Ares influence to fully disappear, but it did.
  • Part of the movie's point is that Diana is left with the feeling that she didn't really accomplish anything. The enemy she set out to kill was barely doing anything, the evil she thought she was destroying turned out to be just a part of human nature, and at the end of it she's seriously wondering if there was ever a point to defending humanity in the first place.

Honor vs. Fairness

• Where does Diana get off judging Charlie for a lack of "honor" because he snipes his enemies from a distance? Antiope already drilled into her that she has no business expecting a "fair" fight. The Amazons may not have any experience with firearms, but they know what a Combat Pragmatist is.
  • Yes, but remember that Diana had to be told that. Some Amazons may be combat pragmatists, but one of the film's themes is that Diana is an idealist. She could quite possibly still expect honor in a fight (possibly before reason).
  • But Antiope is the Amazons' greatest warrior; her tactics should be every Amazon's tactics, especially since they seem as though they can be reasonably brutal when the situation calls for it; at least one of them is willing to kill Steve in cold blood due to his German uniform, and the process of extracting information via the Lasso of Truth, while not necessarily Cold-Blooded Torture, isn't exactly painless either. It seems like we're supposed to take Diana's reaction as indicative of a culture clash when up until that point we haven't seen anything that implies the Amazons have much of a concept of battlefield honor. Even if Diana is just tender-hearted, you'd think she'd be able to come to terms with it after someone she respected as much as Antiope told her to brace up, and that she'd be able to figure out that what Charlie does is just what Antiope would do in the same situation.
  • Antiope told Diana to be a Combat Pragmatist literally minutes before the Germans attacked Themyscira. It's very likely Diana either didn't have time to process it fully, or just forgot.
  • There's also a difference between hitting someone that is distracted and the other sorts of dirty fighting one can employ in a melee, and shooting someone from a few hundred meters away, who doesn't even know someone's aiming at them. There's a grand continuum of dirty fighting, after all.
  • Yet one can still do the same thing using a bow if they're good enough with it, especially Amazonians. A gun is basically a more advanced form of bow, and the principal is still mostly the same. You can snipe enemies from the distance without them knowing you're even there using a bow no different than a gun. (In fact, a bow is even deadlier during an ambush because it's silent. Sniper Rifles make very loud noises when fired unless they have suppressors, and yet one can still track the muzzle flash from them.) My guess is that Diana dislikes long range fighting in general. She's never seen using long range weapons like bows in the movie.
  • Also, despite training for thousands of years, she's never fought for her life. She's sparred and trained with Antiope and the others, but she's never been in a kill-or-be-killed situation. Antiope taught her to use whatever methods necessary to win, but Diana's probably never really had to go all-out, because she knows her opponent won't actually kill her.

The Origins of "Sir Patrick"

• In his disguise as "Sir Patrick", Ares is clearly a public figure with enough standing to propose an armistice, sit in on war council meetings, and, based on his title, receive a knighthood. So where does everyone think "Sir Patrick" came from? Did he just show up out of the blue with a fake birth certificate that nobody examined too closely? Did Ares go all the way and incarnate himself into some random woman's womb so he could be born into and live a full human life? Or is he really so powerful that he can just overwrite reality so that nobody finds anything odd or mysterious about him? And how is everyone going to take his disappearance after Diana kills him? Will they just assume he dropped off the face of the Earth?
  • Yes, he has been Sir Patrick all along. Why not? He's a god, and he's immortal. Living a whole man's life (including building up studies, ranks and whatever was needed to become what he was) is just a mere afterthought for someone like him. As for his disappearance, we are talking about war. People that goes missing and likely killed near battlefields are a common thing. In fact, he was last seen in an airport where a huge monster and an amazon who could lift tanks with her bare hands thrashed everything. Who would really ask questions about his fate?
  • Although, who in England knew Sir Patrick was going behind German lines? Steve's allies might have briefly spotted and recognized him, but it's likely they would not talk about everything they saw for fear of not being believed - especially the part about him being Ares. His disappearance may well have been a sensational mystery like Judge Crater.

Antiope's Sacrifice

• In the fight on the beach, Antiope sees that Diana is about to be shot, and dives in front of her to take the bullet, dying in the process. Diana's life is certainly worth protecting at any costs, especially after we discover her origin, so this checks out, until you consider Ares' "takes one to kill one" speech. Unless that German soldier was secretly a descendant of Zeus, Diana was never in any danger, and Antiope threw her life away for no reason. And none of this can be written off as something that Antiope didn't know, as she clearly knew what Diana was.
  • Diana can still be wounded by mortal weapons (she gets grazed by a bullet during that battle even if it heals up in a few hours), and perhaps most importantly she doesn't know she's the real Godkiller. While Antiope wasn't too keen on hiding Diana from her true nature, having the facade get shattered in that instant probably would have thrown Diana for a loop exactly when she didn't need it (and perhaps alerted Ares sooner rather than later).
  • Don't forget that Antiope is Diana's aunt; even if Diana doesn't need protecting, Antiope was acting on Mama Bear instinct. She got thrust into battle where strange hostile men are arriving with weapons that can kill an Amazon from a long range, mere moments after Diana sent a shockwave after her by accident; those men could have been gods or Ares's men reinforced to be stronger. While Antiope is a great battle strategist and the greatest warrior, she is a human being who will act on reflex to save the ones that she loves.
  • I think it's pretty clear Diana CAN be wounded or killed by gunfire. After all, we routinely see her using her armor and shield to block bullets throughout the movie. If she was immune to bullets, then she wouldn't bother blocking them, she'd just take the hits. I suppose you could say it's because she doesn't know her powers, but I doubt that. If she really was invincible, then I'm sure her mother would have told her before she left the island.

No parley with the Amazons?

• The Germans chasing Steve immediately open fire on the Amazons, who were maintaining a defensive stance over strangers heading to their shore. Um, wouldn't it have made more sense to fly a white flag and bargain for the Amazons to hand over Steve and the notebook, or was that not war protocol? At that point the Amazons had no stake in Steve's life, but when the Germans attacked, they made it personal for Diana and it made the skirmish All for Nothing. So, Nice Job Fixing It, Villain?
  • Remember the Germans didn't even know the Amazons existed until they were shooting at them. They arrived on the island chasing Steve, the Amazons saw them arrive and obviously assumed they were being invaded (heck they might have even assumed they were Ares’ soldiers, not moments earlier Diana had accidentally displayed a sign of her demi-god status, now armed soldiers were arriving for the first time in thousands of years). The Germans had no idea they were invading a neutral power, and were just caught by surprise anyone was attacking them. By the time they realized, they clearly realized their weapons were a lot more advanced, and several of their own men were already dead, so they probably believed they could and had reasons to want to win, so surrendering and negotiating didn't cross their minds.

Diana's royal status

• Would Diana being Princess of Themyscira hold any water in Europe, assuming people would believe her? Steve doesn't seem to think so, but Europeans tend to treat royalty with grace. Would she be treated the way the Austro-Hungary monarchs were, or more like Princess Liliuokalani, who was unceremoniously deposed? After the war, did it just become a title without weight since she's working in the Louvre under Diana Prince?
  • She's princess of an island no one's heard of, full of at most a few thousand people who still fight with bows and shields. Her title wouldn't likely get her that much respect. If it weren't for her abilities, she'd probably just be a really interesting curio, and Themyscira a really nifty primitive nation for Italy or Greece or someone to get all imperial on.

Why does nobody in the movie speak German?

• Why do none of the Germans in the movie speak any actual German? Furthermore, Steve is supposed to be a top spy, but he gets by with just an accent, and Diana speaks a multitude of languages, but if German is among them, she doesn't put it to good use when she's infiltrating the enemy base.
  • Probably just a translation convention-it's easier to have everything sound like it's in English, rather than have subtitles everywhere. Still annoying as heck, though.
  • The implication, though not as clear as it could have been, was that they were speaking German. The audience just heard German accents for the sake of convenience. It otherwise wouldn't make much sense for Steve Trevor to be infiltrating a German castle and a) everyone to just be speaking English to each other and b) him to not know German and just be hoping that nobody uses it...in Germany.
  • But he does speak German at one point. And it really took me out of the movie. Near the end when they’re infiltrating the airfield, he (wearing a gas mask) says ‘Guten Abend’ (Good Evening) to the German troops passing by. Why English with a German accent thought the film, but real German at one point?
  • Probably because that was just a single line of dialogue. The filmmakers seemed to decide to have faith in the audience being able to tell when they were translating German to English for convenience (since it's not practical to have entire conversations containing important plot information conveyed with subtitles) and when they were leaving it as it is to emphasize a point (Steve naturally speaks English, so to have him say a simple, insignificant sentence in German indicates that he's doing it to try and blend in).

Blowing up vs. crashing

• When Steve incapacitates the bomber’s pilot, we can briefly see that the pilot had a parachute on his back. Instead of blowing the plane up, why not instead take the parachute, set the plane on course to crash in the North Sea, and bail out while the plane was still over land?
  • He doesn't know how to use it, Allied pilots in the war were forbidden to use them since they'll jump out when hit. The majority of pilots were killed in crashes following maneuvers and the backpack parachute cramped the cockpit to the point they cannot get out easily so they were ditched for better survival.
  • He's also holding the fully-loaded bomber in a climb which he doesn't have time to figure out the parachute before the bomber stalls out and spins in.
  • Do you think he had time to think of that? I doubt he had to calm down to think that "Hey, maybe I should grab that parachute!" He is more focused in saving London from being gassed. Do you think he had time to think about what to do to survive? I think at this point he would care more about saving lives than his own. This was a high pressure situation and just because you know what to do doesn't mean everyone knows what to do if they are in a high pressure situation. Also like the first comment said, he probably has no clue how to properly use a parachute and without training, you are going to hurt yourself pretty badly. There is more than just opening the parachute, you have to figure out how to maneuver it in a way to find a spot to land and how to land properly without breaking your legs. Also parachutes were not very reliable back then so there is still a good chance Steve would had died or getting seriously injured.
  • It is a (little known, apparently) fact that people in life-or-death situations don't have the benefit of calmly re-watching the scene in the comfort of their own homes to see what everyone around had on them. They also typically are unable to take the time during that re-watch to think up with a plan to optimally use everything at their disposal to get the 100% completion ending.

German Military Situation

• Ok, how the heck are the Germans still fighting? Even if Ludendorff takes over the German military by November 1918, how can the army keep fighting? The Hundred Days Offensive has just broken the German lines and the Allies are rapidly gaining ground and will soon be entering German territory, the German people are starving due to the Allied blockade, and Germany's allies Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire are in even worse shape, with their armies disintegrating and the countries themselves surrendering or collapsing (Bulgaria already capitulated on September 30, 1918 with the Armistice of Salonika, Austria-Hungary effectively collapsed as a state after the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in late October-early November 1918, and the Ottoman Empire capitulated on October 30, 1918 with the Armistice of Mudros). I haven't actually seen the movie but as a history buff, I would at least like someone to explain this one to me.
  • Chaulk it up to Ares since he's manipulating Ludendorff to continue the war when everyone else has given up.
  • The whole point is the German army can't carry on fighting, the high command actually bring this up when talking to Ludendorff. Lundendorff is an arrogant, deluded sociopath who can't accept the fact that they are going to lose, and believes his new super weapon will turn the tide, when it's clear to everyone else (and part of Ares' plan) that it simply means that the war ends with an even larger death count.
  • Ludendorff as depicted in the film was stark-raving mad, and quite similar in personality to Soviet General Orlov in Octopussy, in fact. Had his plan succeeded, it would not have ended the war in Germany's favor; a mass gas attack on London, with thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dead, would have thrown any armistice out the window, with the Entente out for blood and not stopping until the whole of Germany would be overrun, no matter how many Germans they would have to kill to do it.

Awful Amazon Battle Tactics

• Do the Amazons not realize the advantage of holding the high ground? They have perfect terrain for defending the beach from an amphibious assault on top of the cliffs. Yet they deliberately give it up to do a Zerg Rush because...reasons? Why not just stay on the cliff and keep raining arrows down on the Germans?
  • They are trying to adapt their tactics to try and deal with an opponent with vastly superior weapons. From the looks of it, the majority of their army was already saddled up and ready to make a charge before they realized this, with the archers just to provide cover (as was the general tactics for quite a long time before guns came along). Besides, holding the high ground only goes so far when trying to face bows against guns.
    • It seemed to me that the Amazons’ super-natural skill with bows made them just as effective as if they had guns. Their volleys were inflicting severe casualties on the Germans every time they fired. Also keep in mind most of the casualties the Germans inflicted against the Amazons happened at close range after they came down from the cliffs. If they had stayed on top of the cliff, I think they would have repulsed the invasion while taking less losses.
    • But they didn't know that. They've been isolated since ancient times, when half-decent steel was the pinnacle of military technology. Combined with them being stronger, tougher, and faster than ordinary humans, their military doctrine when dealing with non-Amazons probably defaults to "close as quickly as possible to bring our superior abilities most directly into play." They didn't know what guns were, or how effective they would be, and by the time they found out, they were already in a melee.

Diana no-selling poison gas?

• It's shown that Diana can take damage from human weapons. But when she rushes to Veld to check on the shelled civilians, she's clearly unaffected. Even if she wasn't breathing (and she is), the gas has plenty of exposed skin to permeate.
  • Chalk it up to how Amazon invulnerability works. They can take blunt force, explosions and fire, but their skin can still be pierced by knifes and bullets. Clearly poisoned gas falls into the first category.
• Because she is a demigod?

What did Diana do to the woman she stole the dress from to get into the Gala

• Anyone else wondering what Diana did to the unsuspecting victim in order to steal her dress? Did she beat her unconscious and take it, or tie her up and leave her stranded in the woods? Either one would be pretty brutal since as far as we know, that woman was just a random civilian who was not guilty of any wrongdoing.
  • She's most likely tied up somewhere in the woods.
  • Diana either tied her up or commanded her to get away from the castle as fast as she could. The woman was probably more concerned for her own safety than that of the German officer corps.
    • Either way it would involve leaving an innocent (as far as we know) woman naked and stranded in the woods. Not very super-hero like behavior.
    • She's in spitting distance of a castle filled with people. It's not like she dropped her off in the middle of the Serengeti.
    • I didn't mean to imply it was going to kill her, just that having to go up to the castle naked and explaining that some crazy lady stole your clothes can't be pleasant experience. Also you gotta figure Diana had to do something to ensure the woman wouldn't be able to reach the castle while she was in it.

A woman openly carrying a sword at the Gala is no cause for alarm?

• So none of the Germans have a problem with Diana openly carrying a sword on her back at the Gala? There is no way that could have gone unnoticed. It's pretty easy for anyone to see.
  • She didn't stand around dancing for 30 minutes. She walks into the room and makes a beeline for Lutendorf, taking maybe 30 seconds, tops, to cross the room. That's enough time for anyone watching to go, "Huh, what is that..." It might be hard to believe, but there is not an instant "GET HER!" reaction to anything that might seem a little out of the ordinary.
• I’ll buy that the sword hilt could be confused with decoration for the dress. What I don’t get is how did the light, flowy dress hold up a very heavy sword?
  • It looked like a pretty obvious sword to me.
    • And you're one of the people who A. know that Diana has a sword, B. have been looking at the sword in numerous scenes throughout the movie up to that point, and C. get a long, slow-motion shot deliberately showing the sword to you as she walks into the room.
    • Also, swords are not, in fact, "very heavy." A very heavy sword is too hard to wield. A longsword like that would be between 2.5 and 3.5 pounds, max.
  • Since the attitudes of the time likely made it unimaginable to anyone at the gala that any woman would be carrying, much less using, a sword of any kind, anyone there who noticed it maybe just took it to be a very eccentric and exotic type of adornment with her formal outfit.
    • Also, Diana was the only person in the whole war using a sword. Of course they're not going to be expecting it.
  • Later in the film as she's riding away from the gala we see Diana toss off the dress while she is in full armor, scenes in the gala show her wearing her boots/greaves and not shoes matching the dress, the implication is that she wore the dress OVER her armor so the sword is resting on that.

Differently aged Amazons

• It's implied in the movie that, just like in the comics, the Amazons have no way of procreating by themselves, as no children are seen on Themiscyra, and Diana is utterly delighted to see a baby in London. But the movie Amazons are shown to be of different physical ages, unlike in the comics, where they are immortal and don't grow older. Are we to presume that these Amazons do age, only very slowly? If that's the case, won't they eventually face extinction? Another alternative is that Zeus created them to be of different ages to begin with, even though they're still immortal... But what purpose would that serve?
  • The talk on the boat proves that the Amazons do procreate, to the point of having books with information about sexual reproduction. The most likely reason the movie doesn't delve into it further (other than "because family film, at least nominally") is because the Amazons would most likely reproduce like their mythological counterparts, and considering how much flack Azzarello got for establishing that, the movie made the wise choice of sidestepping the issue.
  • The talk on the boat just proves they know about procreation as a side-effect of sex, not that they do it - they clearly don't reproduce with anyone in any of the different ways the myths say because they've remained isolated on Themiscyra ever since Zeus hid the island. (Not to mention how Diana's lived there some unspecified length of time depending on how long Hippolyta was pregnant. Perhaps the gods made them different ages for aesthetic reasons; perhaps some of them had children back when they lived among mortal humans and they aged until they reached a state they felt comfortable in; perhaps it's like the Perez origin where they're reincarnated from victims of domestic violence, and they appear the ages they were when they were murdered.
  • Possibly looking somewhat older (albeit still very fit) was an indication of superior military rank, reflecting how human military forces' officers are usually older than enlisted troops. Even among the gods, elders of Zeus's generation held authority over the second- and later-generation deities, so the idea that "older = more status" could pre-date the creation of both humans and Amazons. The rare young-looking Amazon officer might be one who repeatedly proved herself in battle, so was elevated in rank for her heroism, while any older-looking grunt soldier got demoted for some past screw-up.

No one hit her legs?

• In the no man's land scene, Wonder Woman is running towards the German trench while protecting her body with her shield, as dozens of German soldiers are shooting at her with machine guns. The problem with the scene is that her shield is a buckler, and it only covers her upper body. Earlier in the movie it was established that Wondy can bleed, even if her wounds heal pretty quick, but after the attack her legs are completely unharmed. So none of those soldiers shooting at her managed to hit her lower body, even by accident?
  • Soldiers are trained to aim for the chest, since it’s the easiest part to hit and contains lot of vital organs. The Germans are likely young, freshfaced teens, and in their panic fell back on their training.
  • If you look closely, before she kneels down and puts her whole body behind the shield, there are a few sparks of bullets ricocheting off her armored shinguards.

Can Diana not go back?

• When the queen said, "If you leave you may never return." Did she mean "I fear you won't make it back alive," or did she mean, "You're not allowed to come back." It's never mentioned, and she never does go back. Is she exiled now because she left? Why?
  • Almost certainly she meant the former.

People not getting what they deserve

• If people deserve nothing bad, then they deserve nothing good either? Isn't that philosophy flawed?
  • Not at all. Deserve - as Diana spells out - has nothing to do with it. Diana believes you should try to help people whether or not you think they 'deserve' it.

Reason for going incognito

• Steve and Diana have to go looking for the gas themselves because one of the Brits (who isn't Ares) says they can't forcefully invade German territory when they're in the middle of arranging an armistice. Now, I can see where the logic lies in that, but they have evidence that Germany is planning another attack, and the reason the Germans are willing to compromise is because they don't have the resources to maintain the war effort and keep their people alive anymore. Even if a full-scale invasion isn't the right call in this scenario, it seems like the war council isn't intending to do anything about the information Steve found and is letting the negotiations proceed without taking it into account.

Why reveal the truth?

• Why does Ares reveal to Diana that she's actually the Godkiller? If his plan was to either kill her or sway her to his side, wouldn't it be better if she was left in the dark about it? That way, she'd be under the impression that all hope of defeating him was lost once the sword was destroyed.
  • His plan was to break her by first showing her how terrible humans can be with their destructive weapons, then showing her that she herself is a destructive weapon. A deception being exposed won't make much difference to a spirit that's been betrayed and cast down. It nearly worked if it wasn't for her remembering Steve valuing her as an ally and lover.
  • Ares wanted to show Diana she had a choice between fighting him and losing or joining him, and he doesn't want her dead, at least not at first. He also prides himself on his honesty. During their battle, he treats her as his kid sister, which she is technically, and does a No-Sell on all of her attacks. Ares also told Diana that her mother lied to her for all her life, that she doesn't have a destiny but instead a chance at freedom and remaking the world.

Steve Trevor's modesty

• On the boat, Steve apparently has qualms about sleeping next to a woman to whom he's not married. But earlier on he's perfectly fine with showing her his junk?
  • Correct me if I’m misremembering, but earlier on was when he’d just met Diana and doesn’t know anything about her, yes? So mayhaps, after learning how naive and innocent she is, he doesn’t want to come off like he’s trying to take advantage of her or anything by sleeping next to her without her consent.
  • When was he "perfectly fine" with it? She walked in on him while he was in the bath and wasn't expecting her, and he quite clearly covers up when he realizes she's there.
  • Actually, he makes as if he’s going to cover up, but the way he’s shot from the waist up during part of the scene implies that he doesn’t actually get around to it, and is just standing there completely naked. Plus, there’s when Diana asks him, “What’s that?”, and he clearly thinks she’s referring to...something else, other than the watch.

Pyxis

• Was Diana actually fathered by Zeus in the traditional sense, or was the story Hyppolyta told her about being sculpted out of clay really true, and Zeus’s blessing of life was enough to make her a god?

From Themyscira to London

• As Film Theory points out in this video, how did they reach London in what is probably a single night on a sailboat? Judging by the crash site, the island is off the Aegean Sea. London would have been a gassed city by the time they reached there, even with the tugboat assisting them when they reached the English Channel.
  • This was already discussed in the "Traveling from Themyscira" folder. We've no reason to assume that the one night we were shown was all the time it took for them to get from Themyscira to London, especially since Steve was out of contact long enough for everyone to think he was dead. As for how London wasn't gassed by the time they made it there, that's because the Germans weren't able to perfect the gas without the notebook that Steve took, at least until Dr. Poison had her "Eureka!" Moment.

Diana speaks English to Steve first

• Before Steve has said a word, Diana asks him in English if he's a man. How did she know which language to use?
  • As I recall, before she says anything to him, he looks up at her and says "Wow..." Unless that has a meaning in some other language that was also befitting the situation he was in, it's not unreasonable for her to assume he spoke English based on him saying it.

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