Nobody likes to take the blame for the problems we face. When emotions run high and pain runs deep, being the one who takes the blame hurts.

Sometimes you can shift the blame to someone else, something else, extenuating circumstances or unwieldy fate. Sometimes you can’t. But it’s worth remembering that same feeling when you are blameless and you start looking around for someone to accuse.

It’s easy to pin blame on one person, it’s more valuable to comprehend the context.

Hard core sports fans like to say that they live and die with the team’s performance. Of course, they don’t really have a death wish, so rather than jumping off a bridge because of a blow out or a bad beat, they tend to pin the blame on a player turned scapegoat. Consider Punjab FC, who slipped in form after a strong month of showings just when they needed it most.

To most eyes, the disappointing results fall on the shoulders of a few rookie defenders. First Surabh Banwala gifted a penalty to Golukam, then the defense and Souvik Das were caught flatfooted against Mohamedan, and Mohammed Irshad made a gaffe against TRAU, and before you could say “pakora” the title hopes were in tatters.

But making Banwala or Das or Irshad the scapegoat for a poor turn in form at the last minute ignores all the context that goes with it.

Sure the defenders are easy to see slipping, but they don’t operate alone. As teams bottle up Chencho Gyeltshen and Baba Diawara, goals become rarer. And defenders push up to add to the attack. And that leaves the defense more vulnerable to miscues. So, yes the defense slipped but they might not have if the offense had continued firing.

Even roping in the offense ignores most of the people on the pitch. There’s a whole second team out there, as well as officials. To put Punjab off their game, Golukam, Mohamedan and TRAU had to be on theirs. While their assigned referees whistled for fouls, others might have missed the mark. You can’t control how others play, you can’t control how refs perform. so yes, the defense slipped but would we have noticed if the referees had missed it or if other teams hadn’t capitalized?

This is to say nothing of the complexity beyond the field. The defense can’t control coaching tactics, or training field injuries, or the intense two match a week schedule. One player making one mistake is a comforting target for blame, but it ignores how complex human life is.

All of this is borne out by the current pop culture obsession of our quarantined community: Wandavision.

After a year without daring deeds and heroic exploits, super hero stories came back with a bang. And while you’re still too young for more than five minutes of cartoon adventures, the broader public has gone deep on the story of one superhero, Wanda Maximoff, who commandeers a small town and all the people in it to allay her grief at another devastating loss.

To be sure, forcing people to do what you say without giving them a choice is cruel and immoral. Wanda’s actions here aren’t remotely heroic. At series end she is judged harshly and has been thoroughly criticized by viewers of all stripes.

But demanding that Wanda be punished ignores so much more complexity that surrounds her.

For starters, Wanda isn’t divine goodness personified. She also human, and demanding more of her than we do other fallible humans seems unfair. As your mom said, “she’s not a super hero; she’s a person with super powers”.

Add to that the fraught relationship the rest of the world seems to have with superheroes. At once seeing them as saviors, pleading with them for help at every turn, and limiting them to obedient servitude (particularly with regulations requiring them to check their free will).

In that context, Wanda using her powers to their full potential is less cruel and more a side effect of the position the society around her put her in. Wanda could inaccurately think she’s helping the bedraggled and woebegone residents of a dilapidated New Jersey town to have amusing, idyllic lives. She’s using her powers, and she’s using them for herself and others. Society put her in a position to have these phenomenal powers, when she uses them, we can’t exactly be astonished.

These aren’t excuses or dismissals they are complications. You don’t have to forgive (and certainly on field gaffes isn’t the same as perpetual manipulation), but given the choice between chastising and complicating first thoughts, I hope you take the time to consider the complicated context.