eggsactly! the way people will bend over backwards to defend rainn and seven is wild as hell. like, yes, complex and morally gray characters make for great storytelling, but there’s a huge difference between acknowledging their flaws and straight-up excusing them. and the mental gymnastics people do to justify their actions??
unreal.
“they could have been worse” yeah, and i could have been hit by a bus instead of just getting my wallet stolen, but that doesn’t make it a good time!! like congrats, they didn’t commit actual war crimes, do they want a trophy??
but what really kills me is when the author themselves jumps in to defend them. like, if you’re gonna write a messy, selfish, emotionally damaging character, own it. let them be toxic. let the audience hate them. stop trying to dress them up as poor misunderstood babies who just made a couple oopsie teehee mistakes. if they humiliated, manipulated, or deliberately hurt the mc, let that stand. some people love toxic characters as toxic characters. no one needs them sugarcoated.
and seven??? SEVEN. that was not just moving on, that was straight-up psychological warfare, because they knew exactly what they were doing when they slept with people from mc’s social circle. that was not just “moving on.” that was spite. that was an entire campaign that was intentional. that was calculated. and people really sit here like,
“but at least they didn’t cheat!!” as if that somehow cancels out the pure pettiness of it all?? that’s like saying,
“well, at least they didn’t commit arson” while they’re actively lighting your house on fire. the bar is underground and they’re still tripping over it.
and
rainn?? ohhh don’t even get me started on that walking red flag. imagine being excited to finally move in with your partner, stepping into a brand-new city just to surprise him, only to find out the real surprise is you’re single now! like, bro really waited until the
literal moment you showed up to drop the bomb, in a bar no less—public humiliation and heartbreak in one go. and then?? has the absolute audacity to get mad when you react like a normal human being?? sorry, was the mc supposed to just nod and thank him, dab him up and say
"good game my g, thanks for the life lesson" for completely blindsiding them?? rainn is the type of dude to set your house on fire and then act offended when you complain about the smoke.
honestly, respect to you for even trying to see where it was going because the second an author starts coddling their awful characters like they’re just misunderstood instead of straight-up selfish, i clock out. let bad characters be bad. let people react how they want to react. if anything, that makes them less compelling because it means the writing is too scared to fully commit.
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