Alice Jones and fandom perception
I haven't technically been within the OUAT fandom for a long time. But something I have noticed with the fandom is extreme mischaracterization. Especially with mentally ill characters such as my favorite character in the entire show, Alice Jones. I've scraped every social media app I have for fan content of her and watched every panel I can find for her actress. What I can confidently say is 90% of people who enjoy her character and actually watched season 7 do not understand her at all, or at least not to the extent they think they do.
I'll start off with the popular headcanons of her being representation for ADHD or autism. To this I can see where some people are coming from, and I know it's mostly people with those disorders who have the headcanon. I also think it is EXTREMELY telling of your lack of awareness for other neurodivergencies. I've always thought of Alice as schizophrenic and while it was mostly through me vaguely remembering her from my first watch of season 7 when I was 11-12. Having recently rewatched the whole show and currently rewatching season 7 AGAIN, I can more confidently say that YES she is likely meant to be a portrayal of schizophrenia, before and during the curse. People have the misconception that being schizophrenic means being highly unstable, always hallucinating, and being violent. This couldn't be more of a harmful stereotype, not only are there three different stages of schizophrenia, hallucinations aren't always necessary to be present in any of them! Neither is aggressive behavior. I'll refrain from making this a post explaining what the actual symptoms of schizophrenia are because 1: I'm not a professional, and 2: that'd make this post a million times longer than it already will be.
What I will say, is that if you even look up the symptoms for it you will see it align with Alice's character. Even her actress has stated that Alice struggles with hearing voices ๐ญ THAT'S NOT A SYMPTOM OF AUTISM OR ADHD BUT I'VE SEEN NO ONE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT! Yes she is neurodivergent, no she doesn't have autism or ADHD (technically it is a possibility to have it be a comorbidity but it's unlikely.) People often forget that there aren't just two disorders that are under the neurodivergent umbrella, schizophrenia is there too.
What basically no one who doesn't do any psychological research will know, is that schizophrenia is a spectrum disorder and can have people with lower support needs!
Now, moving away from her mental illness, another way plenty of her fans mischaracterize her is by making her out to be more childish than she actually is. While yes she is chaotic and eccentric, she has several scenes showing the maturity she has and her emotional depth. People also don't consider the fact that she's a woman in her mid twenties by the time she's in the curse! We meet her years after escaping the tower, she did that at 17. And the curse is 8-9 years after she even met Henry. Yes my goat is whimsical, and joyful, but she isn't outright childlike or as immature as people make her out to be.
I've also seen several of her fans (mostly in fanfiction) make her out to be dumber than she is. And while the writers have dumbed her down for certain lines (like not knowing what candied apples are, she's always outside on the streets and frequents a deli, HOW would she not know????) She is canonically not dumb by any means. Even before the curse she is insanely good at getting out of dangerous situations, she went at least 2-3 years not knowing how to pick locks and adventuring across several realms. She FUCKING OMG. SHE KNEW THAT BEING IN STORIES THAT WEREN'T YOUR OWN WAS A BAD IDEA. SHE KNEW ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY'RE IN STORIES AND THAT'S LITERALLY OUR INTRODUCTION TO HER! The more we learn about her the smarter she gets if you pay attention and clearly not enough people did! She's a talented artist, being shown to not just paint fucking masterpieces but also play piano. And chess! CHESS is literally her favorite hobby and y'all wanna sit here and make me think she's just this chaotic doofus who's only focus is her girlfriend and running around everywhere???? Or that she's just an innocent girl who does no wrong and she can't stand up for herself??
And YES I KNOW SHE HAS THE PUREST HEART, SHE'S THE GUARDIAN! But that doesn't mean she's innocent to no fault??? Or even in some older things that I've seen make her out to be romantically and sexually inexperienced or extremely dependent on Robin??? This is the same woman who we got introduced to because she drugged Henry, worked with and BEFRIENDED Rumplestiltskin aka the dark one, IS LITERALLY DATING A THEIF! Killed jabberwock, and outran a different beast, yeah SHE NEEDS PROTECTING?? ARE WE FORGETTING SHE'S ALSO ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL MAGIC USERS IN CANON? As for the whole making her entirely experienced thing and dependent thing, SHE'S THE ONLY ONE OF THE TWO WITH A CANONICAL EX. Ignoring the fact Robin has no fucking game and she literally ran away when Alice was flirting with her (episode 18), ALICE IS CANONICALLY NOT INEXPERIENCED AND THE MORE INDEPENDENT ONE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP. She has several storylines that have nothing to do with Robin and not to mention they're a healthy couple. NEITHER OF THEM ARE DEPENDENT AND IT DEFINITELY WOULDN'T BECAUSE OF ALICES MENTAL ILLNES. ALICE JONES WHO'S BEEN TO SEVERAL REALMS, AND HAS A LARGE SUPPORT SYSTEM, IS NOT A CODEPENDENT DORK ๐ญ๐
There is more that I can say but my final part to say is no Alice wouldn't have sloppy handwriting or be insanely messy. And yes I'm calling ableism AND classism on that one. Okay I'm done. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
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