Gal Gadot Wasn’t The Only Demigod Running Around In ‘Wonder Woman’

Wonder Woman is an immense success for Warner Bros, elevating Patty Jenkins and women directors to blockbuster levels while also setting a successful tone for the DCEU following some critical stumbles with Suicide Squad and Batman V Superman. It hits most of the right marks for fans and proves a lot of people wrong. It also made believers out of many others.

Representation is one of the key points you hear fans praising Wonder Woman for, giving theatergoers a strong female lead in comic films and a few others too. Take Chief for example, the Native American who aids Diana and Steve Trevor with their adventure in France and appears in that photograph we first glimpsed in Batman V Superman.

There was some speculation early on that Chief was the DCEU introduction to Apache Chief from the old Superfriends cartoon series, but it turns out the backstory for the character is far more interesting. According to a review over at Indian Country Today, we find out that Eugene Brave Rock had some control in how his character would look and act, but he also had some great story elements that places him on some similar footing to Wonder Woman:

What I didn’t expect was to be overcome with emotion when Eugene Brave Rock’s character ‘Chief’ met Wonder Woman, who was spectacularly portrayed by Gal Gadot. Why? His first words to her were in Blackfoot. Even better, he introduced himself as Napi, the Blackfoot demi-god who is known as a trickster and a storyteller.

Beth Elderkin over at i09 reached out to Brave Rock on Twitter for some confirmation of the character and found out that this aspect of his character was written into the script and not improvised. That means Chief is a supernatural/metahuman force and there’s a possibility we could be seeing more of him in the future alongside Diana:

Movie Pilot shared some interesting details about Napi and what his possible role could be in any future Wonder Woman tales:

Napi is a fascinating figure from Blackfoot mythology. Unlike other creator gods, Napi is not benevolent or all powerful, but rather fulfills the role of a trickster — a parable about how the natural world might give us life, but it also has a will of its own. Associated with the coyote, Napi was said to give people visions and guide them in life.

With the Wonder Woman sequel reportedly taking place “somewhere between 1917 and 2017,” we could see Chief again and we might get some more answers alongside any extra character bits they want to throw out. Either way, it’s pretty cool that Wonder Woman is full of surprises and have given some new life to the DCEU films going forward.

(Via I09 / Movie Pilot / Indian Country Today)

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