With Black Panther: Wakanda Forever now on Disney+, Fandom asked clinical psychologist Dr. Drea Letamendi to give us a profile for Shuri, who has had quite the evolution since we first met her. Read on to for Dr. Drea’s in-depth analysis!
Spoilers follow for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Shuri is a young scientific genius who also happens to be royalty. She grew up as the Princess of Wakanda, a resource-rich utopian nation in East Africa. Its massive cloaking shield protects Wakanda from the global threats of greed, epidemics, colonization, and systemic oppression. For centuries, Wakandans nurtured a completely independent political, technological, and social system by harnessing the powers of the natural ore called Vibranium. Shuri is the country’s leading inventor, architect, designer, and surgeon who helped make Wakanda one of the most technologically advanced nations on earth. She is sharp, witty, and extremely driven, eschewing the mundaneness of ancestral tradition in favor of the exhilaration of scientific discoveries.
“Your technical advancements have been overseen by a child who scoffs at tradition.” – M’Baku
Despite finding many Wakandan customs archaic and pointless, Shuri is deeply loyal to her family as well as highly committed to safeguarding their lives and their way of life through the discipline of scientific rigor. She values the principles of critical thinking, diligence, and self-betterment. As an intellectual, Shuri is also open-minded and socially conscious. Wakanda does not engage in international trade or accept aid. But Shuri is a tech globalist who respects the interconnections of modern culture and sees promise in the scientific breakthroughs of other worldly geniuses. Her humility exists in her passion toward pursuing revolution for the sciences, not just for Wakandans.
Shuri’s sense of safety is frayed when the rest of the planet learns of Wakanda’s impressive assets, global events which happen to intermingle with a series of devastating personal losses. As her belief system is challenged, Shuri faces the cruel realities that no formula, equation, or innovation can solve.
A Positive Mental Attitude
Shuri is non-traditional and even rebellious at times, because she sees convention as narrow and restricting. To Shuri, the universe is full of opportunities, and one can be weighed down or distracted by the past. She’s also a scientist at heart—her beliefs are guided by measurable data, not by blind faith. And certainly not by emotions, which Shuri sees as impractical products of the mind.
“Just because something works doesn’t mean that it cannot be improved.” – Shuri
For most of her adult life, Shuri maintains a positive attitude about herself and the world she’s in. She is confident and self-assured as the genius sidekick to her brother, T’Challa. Her healthy outlook is characterized as rational and grounded—she has no time for “silly” ceremonies but feels valued by Wakandans as a steward of prosperity, harmony, and wellbeing. Positively charged emotions (like enthusiasm, optimism, self-worth, joy, humor) are generally associated with good physical, intellectual, and social functioning. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we will simply feel better by “faking” positivity or by seeing the world through “rose-colored glasses,” because research shows that exaggerating our own happiness will eventually fall flat. Positive thinking is seen as a trait-like disposition, meaning it endures troubles and challenges. It’s intrinsic. And Shuri’s psychological repertoire is impressively positive because she is a problem-solver. She thrives when facing challenges, perceiving obstacles, or anticipating surprises. She is shrewd, discerning, even rightfully skeptical at times, which makes her constantly invested in the betterment of her work and her people.
But Shuri’s core beliefs are altered when she’s faced with a series of incredible losses and descends into a state of traumatic grief. Traumatic grief is the experience of shock, disbelief, and bewilderment after the sudden and catastrophic loss of a loved one. Traumatic grief can feel like many things, like walking numbly through the world, like constantly surrounded by fog, like seeing nothing but emptiness no matter where you go, or resenting everyone around you. Shuri, who has always found fulfillment in externalizing her genius, must shift her focus, must look within herself to create space for healing, self-repair, and forgiveness.
Snapped
Shuri was among the billions of people exterminated by the Snap, when Thanos killed half of all life in the universe as part of his mission to restore its ecological balance. Both Shuri and T’Challa were victims of this massive tragedy, like other helpless innocents they watched their own bodies disintegrate into nothingness. Five years later, when they were brought back to existence in the event called the Blip, they were then hurled into the biggest battle of their lives, facing Thanos yet again.
Falling victim to the Snap might be an allegory for being adrift, lost, or unreachable. There’s an incredible stigma around it—this violent trauma is not only painful to recollect for the survivors who dealt with catastrophic losses, but there is unspeakable horror surrounding the wounded, those whose disappearances are incomprehensible. Snap victims lost 5 years of life, their bodies were desecrated, their spirits gone. Perhaps being blipped is similar to falling into a deep state of unconsciousness while the rest of the world moves on. Waking up from the “collective coma” can lead to a number of impairments. Short-term, we’d expect to see serious confusion, shock, and distress. Long-term recovery might be characterized by periods of reduced awareness, lapses in memory, hyper-alertness, agitation, and depression.
More debilitating may be the psychological impacts of long-term nonexistence. Grappling with one’s sense of erasure, an assaultive loss of mind and body, may bring about devastating feelings and thoughts. Blip returners may feel that their life is diminished or meaningless, or that they are broken or not their full self. They may feel left behind and forgotten. Many Blip survivors held funeral services for their loved ones, accepted their deaths and moved on. Shuri may experience strong unreconcilable surges of resentment, helplessness, anger, and sadness knowing others were spared while she was among the group targeted. She may have a sense of a foreshortened future. The inexplicable nature of the trauma, its randomness, can lead to episodes of fear and panic, as if anticipating another attack.
Shuri may also experience vivid nightmares or flashbacks, seeing horrific images of her body disintegrating, burning away into ashes. Waking up from a terrible darkness does not mean suffering will end. It takes 10-15 years to recover from a global crisis taking into account the intersecting economic, infrastructural, societal, political, and psychological factors. Much like the COVID-19 pandemic, the Blip will cause longstanding problems in the general public such as lower levels of psychological well-being and increased rates of anxiety, depression, and PSTD.
There is a word that may capture the collective experiences of Blip returners. The “tragic gap” refers to the space between our ideals and whatever the present reality is. It’s the difference between the who we are in the present moment and who we aspire to become. As a dreamer, Shuri must consider what it takes within her to commit to the hard work of repairing her world, day in and day out, while also accepting the faults and setbacks of such an imperfect world. A post-Snap universe is filled with cynicism and heartache. When the tragic gap is so vast, we begin to see little meaning in life and diminished hope for the future.
Within months of reuniting with her family, Shuri is faced with another tragedy. Her brother, T’Challa, passes away from an illness that mysteriously befalls him. Though she tries to synthesize the DNA that would help her regrow the Heart-Shaped Herb that could potentially save T’Challa, Shuri is unsuccessful in healing him. A vital part of Shuri’s identity is injured. She sees herself as the fixer, the problem-solver. Not being able to prevent her own brother’s death is a personal failure that Shuri will internalize, and this huge feeling of responsibility will become entangled in her grief.
The River of Safety
One year after the death of Black Panther, Queen Ramonda takes Shuri to a riverside campfire to take part in a ceremonial burning of their funeral garments. In this shared practice, their clothing is bundled and store, and when they are ready to mark the end of the mourning period, the items are burned. This is a common cleansing ritual, meant to honor the dead and rid oneself of any grieving residue or “darkness,” spiritual and physical. Burning her funeral clothes is meant to give Shuri a connectedness to her brother, to her living community, to her ancestors, and to herself. The prescribed ceremony will give Shuri and Ramonda a sense of order in an existence that isn’t fully explained, it brings to them the comfort of T’Challa’s memories, and gives permission to feel positive emotions such as gratitude, contentment, peace, faith, and love.
Shuri is determined to sit in the chaos of grief. She refuses to partake in the ritual and even questions her mother’s spiritual connection to T’Challa. When Queen Ramonda tells her daughter “I found your brother …[I] felt his hand on my shoulder…” Shuri retorts that T’Challa wasn’t there. “The breeze you felt was just a construct of your mind.” She is a scientist and skeptic, and knows that feelings are not facts. She believes any memories, visions, or voices that remind her of her brother are neurons firing, not a spiritual message deserving of her curiosity. But when pressed to participate in the mourning ritual, Shuri invokes a rage within her.
“If I sit here and think about my brother for too long, it won’t be these clothes I burn, it will be the world, and everyone in it.” – Shuri
Destruction is simply not a part of Shuri’s repertoire. She creates. She discovers. She builds. She does not destroy. Perhaps Shuri was always skeptical of inherited spiritual customs, but it was her cousin, Killmonger, who introduced her to the concept of reclaiming power and agency as an answer to helplessness. That when the rules do not apply to you, the only answer is to eradicate the system that created those rules. At the riverbank, Shuri’s stubbornness is clear, but it also might be hiding an underlying traumatic response.
In times of traumatic grief, our emotions fluctuate like a roller coaster. We may not express what is happening to us verbally, but our bodies send us critical signals, the information our brain needs to understand what is happening. The Window of Tolerance (WoT) is a concept from neuroscience that helps us gauge these signals so that we can achieve homeostasis – a psychologically safe state – during which we can thrive in everyday situations. It’s a helpful metaphor because we all have our own “window” that expands and shrinks from day to day.
A more apt metaphor for the concept of psychological health is the River of Safety. Imagine that you are floating down a river on a small boat, and on each side of you is a bank: one bank represents chaos. When the current takes you that way, you’re anxious, restless, hyper-vigilant and agitated. It’s an on-switch of the senses. The other side represents rigidity. When the current pulls you in that direction, you’re detached from life, withdrawn, depressed, and shut down. Like an off-switch.
When we experience trauma, our personal boat is rocked, and we bounce back and forth from one bank to another. With each emotional assault, the River of Safety also narrows, which means we are thrown out of our comfort zone more easily. Anytime we are triggered, we start to crash on each bank, feeling anger, frustration, and fatigue. Our arms are tired from maneuvering the boat- it’s exhausting! The wider the river, though, the more able we are to stabilize ourselves. When the River of Safety is wide, more safe space is created and the easier it is to deal with obstacles and challenges that arise. In Shuri’s case, we know her River of Safety has narrowed because she is much less flexible, open, and curious than before.
Another way to think about traumatic stress responses include the “Four F” reactions: Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn. All four responses have a healthy and unhealthy way of showing up. Fawning is the least talked about reaction and is related to people-pleasing; the healthy way to express this is showing compassion for others, compromising, and seeking safety. An unhealthy way to fawn is to be overly accommodating and co-dependent, to apologize endlessly, and to allow others to belittle and retraumatize us. Shuri is choosing a flight response, burdening herself with perfectionism, overworking herself and keeping busy, refusing to sit still with tough emotions, and avoiding vulnerability. Trying to stay “on” all the time is considered a flight response because she’s fleeing from the pain that surfaces when she is reminded of her trauma.
Measuring Up, Fitting In
As “next in line” to the Wakandan throne, Shuri faces new doubts and questions. What does it mean to be Black Panther? If she is already hiding parts of herself, who will be behind the mask? She’s made her identity conditional on circumstance—specifically, her purpose is to protect the history, land, and the lives of her family. What if she fails again? Many people struggle with Imposter Syndrome (persistent doubts about one’s skills and achievements), but it can be triggered among people who are experiencing a turning point in their lives like a promotion or opportunity. In fact, most people with Imposter Syndrome are, ironically, high-achievers. And when they are able to claim a seat at the table, are given responsibilities and visibility, their inner critic yells louder. They will engage in upward comparison (“T’Challa was a better leader than I could ever be”) which makes them feel hopeless and deflated, or downward comparison (“I’m a better protector than Killmonger”) which elicits constant pressure and perfectionism. Of course, neither assessment is 100% true.
It is no coincidence that Shuri’s new doubts surface when Wakanda is threatened by a mysterious intruder. At the riverside ritual, a strange figure ascends from the calm water. He is called Namor, but is known as K’uk’ulkan by his people. Namor is the half-human mutant ruler of the underwater kingdom of Talokan.
“My mother told me stories of a place like Wakanda, a protected land with people that never had to leave, that never have to change who they were.” – Namor
The fact that Namor can infiltrate Wakanda with the ease of a backstroke terrify Ramonda and Shuri. He is quietly intimidating, measured, piercing. Namor tells them that Talokan is under threat because their vibranium source has been discovered, and he asks if Wakandans are enemies or allies. It is clear that this is not a negotiation but a warning.
Shuri leads with her curiosity and learns more about Namor and his people. Much like Wakanda, Talokan is a hidden civilization untouched by outsiders and colonizers, and rich with enough vibranium to power their city, advance their technology, and create impressive weapons. Namor is a proud, unwavering defender of his people and their land, stopping at nothing to preserve their way of life. The Talokanil are haunted by stories of conquistadores who crossed over from Europe to enslave their people and take their land. Their underwater refuge is a small but powerful reclaiming of their independence—and unlike Wakandans, the Talokanil have already experienced the greed and cruelties of global conquerors. They won’t take any chances.
The Talokanil invasion of Wakanda results in many casualties, including the loss of Queen Ramonda. Namor attacks the throne room with water explosives, and in her attempt to save Riri Williams, Ramonda drowns. Shuri is inconsolable and has to attend yet another royal burial, this time for her mother. Now with her brother gone, her mother lost in battle, and her nation in ruins, Shuri is consumed with rage.
“Are you going to be noble like your brother or take care of business like me?” – Killmonger
Shuri successfully engineers the Heart-Shaped Herb from the fibers of a bracelet given to her by Namor. She consumes the elixir, expecting to enter the ancestral plane. As her consciousness travels, she sees flashes of images of her mother. But to her horror, it is Killmonger who greets her in this spiritual haven. In this vivid vision, the Wakandan throne room is engulfed in flames. Exactly how this happens is up to interpretation – she may indeed be in the ancestral plane, because Killmonger was King of Wakanda for a short period of time and may have earned a place among their ancestors. However, she may be in a drug-induced state of consciousness. A more scientific approach and more fitting within her beliefs is that Shuri is in a hallucinogenic episode, and the person who meets her there is a product of her emotional self.
Upon seeing Killmonger, Shuri is consumed by selfish feelings of resentment and hubris, desiring to be destructive and deadly, wishing to transfer her pain onto others. Shuri resists the projection, but Killmonger tells her it makes perfect sense for her to manifest him. “You chose me,” he says. “We’re more alike than you think.” His words stir up shame in her, amplifying a deep discomfort. How could she be as broken as Killmonger?
Killmonger appearing as a mentor to Shuri brings to light his undeniable legacy, a warning that as much as Wakandans create harmony within their nation, they are never truly liberated while other African communities suffer. As her subconscious, he scoffs at her attempts to drown her real and valid emotions of radical outrage, the ones she covers up with perfectionism, rigidity, materialism.
But Killmonger wasn’t misguided or confused in his identity. Killmonger’s cultural hybridity was his strength; he grew to be adept, self-reliant, unconfined, and assured. In her time of grief, Shuri’s subconscious sent her an affirmation of her revolutionary spirit. She could be a transformative leader for the people of Wakanda. But Shuri is unable to see past her resentment and returns to her lab with an even narrower state if mind. Fueled by a mixture of rage and self-absorption, she falls deeper into a chaotic self.
Cultural Revitalization
Shuri deduces that Namor can only survive outside of water by taking in oxygen through his skin. She plans to strip him of his power through rapid dehydration, which will weaken him to the point of subservience—and then to death. While the Wakandans and Talokanil are embroiled in warfare, Shuri is successful in capturing Namor. Both fueled by adrenaline, their attacks are aggressive and deadly, and they strike to kill. They heave enormous, oceanic rage toward one another, the easier and more accessible target, the permissible target.
The most powerful modern-day colonial tool is the resulting tensions between subjugated people, wherein oppressed groups are pitted against each other. Intergenerational trauma refers to historical traumas that are passed down through generations. Namor, for instance, copes with a history of genocide, slavery, and sweeping epidemics that his ancestors suffered. He is mistrusting of outsiders, overly protective, cynical, and fears abandonment. Holding so fiercely onto these unresolved emotions and problems may not be healthy but we can understand the reasoning behind Namor’s quiet rage: I will never let anyone take my power again.
Shuri has the opportunity to kill Namor, but as she nears him, she is caught off guard by a flooding of emotions. In turn, Shuri connects to her own feelings of self-rejection. What were to happen if she allows herself to be vulnerable, will her sense of fraudulence surface? Can I face my ignorance? Can I face my inadequacies? Can I face my suffering?
Seeing Namor’s vulnerability sparks a series of images in her mind—she retraces her steps, and they lead her to flashbacks of peaceful times in Wakanda. She hears her mother’s voice with clarity: “Show him who you really are.” In mutual reminiscence, Namor, too, sees a vision of his own mother. Like him, she is prideful and stoic. He sees her reaching toward him, offering comfort. His gentleness surfaces. With this ancestral reflection, both Shuri and Namor have the strength to show up fully in this moment. Shuri realizes that destruction is not the answer, and calls a truce. Killing Namor will not end her suffering.
Though brief and hyperbolic on screen, Shuri and Namor shared a moment of co-regulation. Because Shuri takes in new information and widens her perspective, her actual nervous system is activated. The vagus nerve—the primary visceral channel between the nervous system and the brain—responds to feelings of safety and to social interconnection, which helps a person to feel anchored. The safety between Shuri and Namor frames a new narrative, not one of hatred and erasure, but of strength and survivorship. They achieve breakthrough, a collective liberation.
Reconciliation
Shuri had been waiting for a sign, a message from the ancestral plane, an internal spiritual awakening that might heal her wounds, but what actually sparked change in her was an externalization of her trauma. Seeing Namor’s full personhood—not just his overprotectiveness and narcissism, but his despair and abandonment stemming from familial isolation and displacement—allows Shuri to make some room for compassion. His name, Namor, is a portmanteau of the Spanish words sin amor (“without love”) and was given to him by his conquerors who drove him into hiding. To have to create a safe place in the depths of the ocean is as clear a message as the mental abyss Shuri constructs from an abundance of hurt: Leave me the hell alone. Namor has not known soul-nurturing to come from an outsider. By relating to him at this more honest level, Shuri moves her focus outside of herself and is able to access a much wider emotional reservoir.
Soulfulness as a part of trauma healing is particularly resonant with historically oppressed and marginalized people of color who experience the transgenerational impact of collective traumas such as genocide, slavery, and colonization. Soulful healing is characterized in themes emerging from diasporic African cultural influences. Communities from the Latin American diaspora similarly call upon their ancestor’s remedios, the oral traditions and curative wisdoms of our people. Thus, these themes overlap around an ethos of interconnectedness, spirituality, emotional expressiveness, and resilience, as well as the different but mutual struggles for liberation in the context of historical and ongoing oppression.
In the therapeutic sense, the ultimate goal of cultivating soulfulness in healing work is to give the space to name those dehumanizing soul-assaults, and to elevate the experience of an interconnected human community as part of the shared journey toward social justice.
Not Drowning but Waving
Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever set stories in fictional kingdoms to bring to light very realistic global tensions such as the hoarding of resources and gatekeeping of outsiders. These films also show us the longstanding and irreparable impacts of global grabs: the tensions that eradicate belongingness, identity, and family. After her reconciliation with Namor, Shuri travels to Nakia’s home in Haiti to finally burn her funeral clothes. She is ready to move forward and accept that T’Challa is truly gone. Nakia introduces Shuri to T’Challa’s son, Toussaint. Meeting her nephew renews Shuri’s optimism. She is able to sit in stillness, and be present with the gifts of full awareness. Gone are the harsh stings of resentment and shame. The memories of passed loved ones are positive, warm, and pure. This new internal space is a wellspring of serenity.
Grief sheds light on our sameness. It is fierce. And it is intimate. In grief, we can only experience ourselves in connection with others, and in the absence of that connection is the absence of the self. Deepness, aliveness, authenticity – these are the dimensions of the soul that grief can raise to the surface of our awareness. Seeing her nephew revitalizes hopeful experiences in Shuri, ones that have always been fundamentally meaningful to her psyche: A dwelling place for wisdom, curiosity about the unknown, and exhilaration toward meeting the universe’s mysteries. Even when the mysteries are painful.
