WTF? Fic moment of the day

[transemacabre]

I was a-gog at this throwaway line in an Avengers fic found on A03:

"[Bruce had] spent last Christmas sweating in a Maori hut in New Zealand. His hosts had known it was Christmas but they didn't care, and honestly neither had Bruce. Bruce had more important things to do than spend money and wear sweaters, and in the end he'd been able to trace that tribe's dysentery outbreak to donated foodstuffs from overseas."

Like, wait, WHUT? Okay, this raises so many questions.

-- Maori tribe in huts? Really?
-- Why did this Maori tribe have dysentery from donated food from overseas? Why were they eating donated food from overseas in the first place? I mean, it's New Zealand. Not really a place that, even during national disasters, needs donated food (from aid workers?) sent to it.
-- Even if these hypothetical hut-dwelling Maoris got dysentery, why do they need Bruce Banner to care for them? Why not go to any of NZ's excellent, free hospitals and partake of that godless socialized healthcare?
-- It's 20-fucking-14, I'm pretty sure it's not a Thing for Maoris to be aware of the existence of Christmas.
-- I don't give a shit what anyone says, that is straight copy-pasted from Medecins Sans Frontieres website, with cholera replaced by dysentery and Haiti replaced with NZ.

Comments

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

I suspect the writer had vaguely heard of the Maori and knew they were "tribal," and knowing nothing else about them or New Zealand, she/he decided to use them as generic dark-skinned people Bruce could be a White Savior to.

ETA: I read it, and the writer sounds very young, like a high school kid.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

It's so confusing to me, because on one side Bruce is sort of a White Savior in canon, which could totally be talked about; but the author ups the ante by shoehorning in this tribe of hut-dwelling Maoris. Like every group of brown-skinned people is interchangeable. Next week, join Bruce Banner on his mission to bring clean water to the impoverished Hong Kong tribe!

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

LOL. You jest, but it's probably already happened in some other fic out there.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

I jest only to keep from crying ;)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they'd heard something vaguely about the Wellington earthquakes of recent years and got things screwed up?