i know you didn’t actually mean it, so this is in all good fandom fun and i am not dogging on OP, but sophie is a really good representation of what happens when your self esteem is constantly knocked from bullying and stressful and traumatic situations alike all from a young age.
sophie recognizes and acknowledges various times throughout the years exactly what the boys’ gestures and comments allude to, but she makes the conscious effort to reroute or ignore them. in certain cases, like with dex, it’s because she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, but with fitz and keefe it’s because sophie doesn’t believe she’s good enough for them to actually like her.
if you were or are anything like sophie, you know how it feels to see the signs, but convince yourself you’re overthinking it, that you’re hallucinating simply because of how badly you want it.
this self doubt can creep in regardless of age, but i think sophie’s youth is a massive contributing factor: she’s young, she’s underestimated, she’s uprooted from her home and her worldview is completely blown apart and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, her new government seems to have it out for her, there is a terrorist organization threatening her life, and if you remember up until Everblaze, sophie had no real clue if the black swan were also a threat to her existence. her entire life she has been shown she does not matter. even if she was shown familial love, her environment 100% makes it incredibly difficult for her to believe she could be accepted, both by friends and romantic prospects.
another important point that we can’t forget is sophie grew up in the forbidden cities, meaning she was affected by our society, specifically american culture. she grew up with the adverts, the commercials, the sexual harassment and locker room jokes, the constant pressure to be beautiful, to maintain that beauty no matter what, and that even if you meet the standard, you don’t. sophie being beautiful does not erase her insecurity. sophie meeting certain standards does not mean the damage to her interpretation of her appearance and the sexism she endured alongside every other woman didn’t affect her. it very much did. it’s evident in how she thinks she can’t accept compliments or else she’s vain and shallow, how she must apologize to fitz for being ahead of him in telepathic skill, how she is responsible for her friends’ lives and safety, how she must remain submissive to her leaders or else she might be the sole downfall of the group, how even if she thinks a boy likes her, it’s her own inflated ego because who could want a girl like that?
sophie has obviously grown and become more confident in her skin as the series continues—this is especially relevant when sophie blows up the warehouse and is instantly ridiculed and criticized for enticing and sparking a war, despite being hunted and preyed on mercilessly her whole life. because when a woman finally fights back after years of abuse, she’s seen as over reactive. she’s emotional, she’s irrational, she’s the bitch who can’t keep her temper.
also, while they are teenagers and they had their own right to react in the ways they did to their situations, sophie subconsciously absorbs fitz and keefe’s temperaments and behaviors as confirmation that the little voice in the back of her head is right—at the end of the day, she’s unloveable. keefe constantly pushes himself away, refuses to accept her help, and betrays sophie’s trust and his own promises by running. fitz bottles up his feelings until they are expelled onto the nearest target and it has been shown various times to be sophie, even if she’s undeserving. both of the people she pours herself into seem to throw it right back in her face.
sophie has been taught to stay small and remember she does not matter. it’s no surprise to me that she can’t bring herself to so much as hope that anyone truly likes her.
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