For some, Lanterns episode 3 was the best episode of the highly praised series so far. Others declared it far and away the worst. In this debate, there is one point of contention in particular that has to do with the selection of Hal Jordan over John Stewart Sr. to be Green Lantern decades earlier.

All this starts with Stewart Sr. admitting he’s afraid when a booming voice asks him the question when he’s trapped in a green bubble construct. Once he realizes that could have made him Green Lantern, he spirals, and he and his wife begin psychologically abusing their son, John Stewart Jr., so he has no fear and can be selected to be Green Lantern in the future.

There is a scene in the middle of the episode where Jasmine Cephas Jones as John’s mother, Bernadette, confronts Laura Linney’s Guardian about the selection process, saying that the Guardians don’t know enough about Earth to consider differences like skin color when it comes to a life lived in fear.

This has produced an online conclusion among some that Hal Jordan got the ring instead “because he was white,” which does not align with this scene, nor is it meant to be the takeaway from the flashback episode.

It is flat-out said that the Guardians don’t know about the racial differences on Earth, therefore, it is impossible that they selected Hal Jordan “because he was white.” It is also made clear that there were many other candidates who were recruited and failed the test, like John Stewart Sr., without us knowing their races. They too were afraid for their own variety of reasons (and as Stewart Sr. himself said, how was he not supposed to be afraid being woken up in a green alien bubble being shouted at?).

It’s very clear that what Bernadette is saying here is her specific point of view. She may be right about the experience of black people in America, but she is hardly a reliable narrator in the context of this episode, and is literally proven wrong about her initial plan to train John to be a Lantern (it’s only when he sheds the no-fear training and pursues what he loves in art school that he’s finally recruited).

It’s very clear that the training by John’s parents, surprisingly led by Bernadette after a misdirect in episode 1, is horrific, where one wrong move could have killed John at any time. Bernadette goes a level past Stewart Sr. when she asks John to shoot an apple off his own father’s head. He refuses, though later she puts her money where her mouth is, and allows him to shoot the apple off her instead. All of this is psychotic behavior.

It is clear by the end of the episode that the Guardians believe either that they made a mistake choosing Jordan in the first place, or at the very least, his behavior and relationship with Sinestro have made him a potential threat. A single conversation about race does not remove the context of the rest of the episode, nor does it make the conclusion drawn from it correct, other than from the perspective of that one character.

There are other things to complain about in the episode, admittedly. An all-powerful being going around to make sure unchosen families aren’t sad by giving them huge diamonds. John getting a dishonorable discharge for whatever on earth happened with that botched mission, which made little sense. But this idea that Jordan was picked because he was white does not track with what we’re shown here, and there is a lot of nuance that is being entirely ignored.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .