>>90791807I like how despite basically being trained by the same guys, Danny and Matt manage to be foils to one another.
Matt's from a poorer background and his teacher was an unapologetic bastard, but Stick's training coupled with his having to cope in NYC without his father made him into a responsible, savvy, and functional member of society who can afford salt to new situations like the Hand pretty easily. Even blind, he strides towards the future though his past often tries to drag him down.
Danny was a son of privelege. Even losing his parents resulted in him winding up in K'un Lun, a place sequestered from larger human civilization. So while he underwent a similar regime to Matt's, arguably harsher in some respects, his upbringing was still sheltered, leaving him naieve and rigid in a lot of ways. The only reason he's as nice as he is is because he was nice going into K'un Lun and dealing with stresses beyond the physical causes that gentleness to often fray not helped by how he holds some of the excessively sterner attitudes of his adoptive home in high esteem due to how he lacked other potential role models. Even his asceticism is depicted as an indulgence rather than a virtue like it is with Matt as he grapples with people who have latched themselves onto things, places, and other persons out of duty and fondness (Colleen, Joy, etc), and there are those like Big Al who aren't living ruggedly out of their own volition. His fixation on the past is his own greatest weakness, wishing to vindicate the existence of his old life when it is anathema to much of the spiritual teachings he respects
