I need to thank OP for this incredible and well balanced take.
I’m going to hold myself accountable here—I was 14, and it doesn’t excuse me at all, but maturing is realising that just because something makes you uncomfortable it doesn’t mean you should attack or threaten people. I think people misinterpret safe spaces as places where you don’t discuss the uncomfortable stuff in your fandom—and now I know that that’s wrong.
it’s an uncomfortable process sure, to see someone like something you deem as horrible—and to this day, I don’t know what to think about the darkling’s relationship with Genya and how he treated her, and I still like Mal, despite everything.
maybe wanting to act older than my age and wanting to be morally right had a say in this—but at the same time, trying not to see or understand the other side contributes to an incredibly toxic dynamic—and it does absolutely contribute to harmful behaviour.
a fourteen year old shouldn’t have been on Twitter, for one—but then again fandom spaces are supposed to be a place for discussion and not disrespect and disrepair.
disguising attacks as “debate” and creating toxic dynamics leads to people not discussing themes and topics that need to generally be discussed — and very much do need to be understood. Uncomfortability is a way for you to start to realise there’s a deeper dive needed to be done and a more focused approach that you should take to understanding WHY this makes you uncomfortable.
If I didn’t stop interacting on Twitter and step back and see things from another point of view or even lend my ear to a discussion, I wouldn’t be here.
the first step is to listen. The second step is to POLITELY lend your perspective and ask for feedback and ENCOURAGE more polite discussion. Friendly discourse and dissection of text and interpretations TOGETHER is a good way for fandom spaces to slowly unwind toxic threads of hate.
what younger people tend to forget is — a different interpretation does not make you a “bad person” it makes you a complex person as all people are, seeing a different narrative in something that is meant to be interpreted in different, interesting ways. I think when younger people are afraid of something, very much like a lot of people are, they want to attack it because they’re not ready to sit down and try to understand.
I will admit I’m not the most knowledgeable or best person to discuss these things—I was once one of those people clamouring for “the moral high ground” when I was simply creating a ring of toxicity around me. I’ll still admit I understand the perspective of Mal being a pain in the ass—but I get it, I get the perspective of the Darkling not being a villain, even if I don’t particularly like him—because I let myself sit down and listen instead of offering another shallow take or an attack.
I don’t know what about him still makes me so uncomfortable, and even after leaving Twitter and trying to find a perspective to help me see why, I could only come up with the fact that yes, he is a layered character with suppressed mental issues and he was vying for the Grisha’s liberation, but I still dislike him, and even after trying to find out why, I can’t come to a conclusive answer.
and that’s okay. Should I attack someone for liking him? No. Does liking him mean that they’re immediately supporting the death of innocent people? No. But does me disliking him mean that I endorse a monarchy? No. I like that he was trying to dismantle a system and very cleverly—and even I can’t find a way that doesn’t lead to his path, and I admire him for that—but I don’t like him, but taking the time to slowly dissect and learn from what his storyline was trying to tell me made me understand the reason why many see him as a hero, and I would have too, if I found a way to get over my hate for him that I still can’t explain.
Should I attack someone for disliking Mal? No. Does liking Mal mean I think I’m immediately in the “morally right side?” It’s a complex situation and Mal has his flaws that also need to be addressed directly. And that’s an uncomfortable discussion that STILL needs to be had. Mal did some things. I can’t fully understand the hate, but someone with a great dissection probably does. I liked Mal for being someone who dealt with abandonment VERY poorly (and I liked that he represented his distrustful nature and incredibly humane jealousy and self worth being tied to what he wants to have, but I will never endorse his weird possessiveness over Alina, and I like him because he’s a piece of wet paper and weird and that’s fine.) and someone else hates Mal because he dealt with abandonment unhealthily. Neither does it mean that I’m on a morally incorrect side.
Reality does not need to intersect with fiction—and I don’t need to make fandom spaces a place where I pretend that liking something I don’t agree with immediately means that that person is the same type of person that character is — some people, as OP said, like what the character represents on a broader narrative. Like what OP said, it becomes this odd “purity fight” thing—and when we start blocking off spaces for discussion, we block off spaces for people to understand themselves through media.
I think also, it might have been because of very bad and confusing writing on Leigh’s part, trying to sell the Darkling as one dimensional—while also accidentally creating a system that did indeed have to be destroyed. Even I’m not yet done learning from others about the Darkling and why he should be seen as something else other than an antagonist, and I’m definitely trying to figure out why I’m so uncomfortable with him, but I can see how Leigh’s odd narrative pushes so many conflicting and hypocritical ideologies left and right.
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