also, the villainization of poc characters??
nicola: portrayed as kind of an annoying smartass (at least at first) and is completely forgotten about later in the books
,,,and i cant think of any others. the massive lack of poc representation is an issue in and of itself and the very few (only two i think??) characters of color aren't portrayed very well
(maybe theres more than just ravan and nicola but i literally cant remember lmao)
exactly!!! what i meant by racial stereotypes!
nicola is a big example of this. soman even admitted he wrote her to be disliked by the fandom for getting in between sophie and hort which is offensive since she’s like,,, the only black female character with a noticeable role in the story.
he writes her to always speak her mind which is a good attribute but is perceived as annoying and bossy and even tedros makes a comment about nicola acting like a know-it-all. she’s clearly not meant to be liked and i don’t know why soman would write her this way. i’m glad she speaks her mind but this should be portrayed in a positive and empowering light not as an annoying trait.
her whole character in the story revolved around hort (a white boy) who ended up with a white girl anyways :/ and this is brushed off as “oh don’t worry nicola you’re pretty too hort would never judge your appearance you’re still beautiful girl <3″ she gets reassured by AGATHA a white girl who completely misses the point and prattles on about her own life story and being seen as inferior for not being pretty which is uh... we’ll get to that another time.
this whole part of the story came off as so racist to me because here we have nicola wondering if she’s not good enough because her ex emotionally cheated on her through their entire relationship for a white girl who treated him terribly when nicola treated him well. she’s doubting her self worth because of her skin color and smarts and also not being blonde, white, airheaded (well we know she’s actually not dumb but let’s be honest she comes off that way and even tries to). this is clearly a racial matter but gets dumbed down to appearance and vanity. sit down soman chainani. you as a poc should know better than this.
yeah and she gets thrown off to the side with a rebound so fans don’t get mad. after being hinted at that she had a huge part to play in this arc and really was just there to bring hort and sophie the white couple closer by being a disruption. okay then very amazing.
besides that, yeah the poc evers i see are nicholas and nicola (same name! ahahahaha very funny soman), reena, and kiko and nicola is villainized and kiko is just... written terribly. i will get to her another time.
ravan is okay imo cause soman wanted a character based off ravana, his favorite villain from the ramayana - hindu mythology. and he’s balanced out by reena being a south asian ever.
gosh the whole nicola thing riles me up so much a post on her will definitely be coming soon.
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