Question..why won’t you ship him with any interracial ships? Like I understand early on in his life, but why not later? Like a few centuries in/around seasons 1-5? Personal preference or do you genuinely believe he wouldn’t at all be interested? (No hate, just curious)
the answer to your last question is both. for the record, i’ve tried the love is love attitude for marcel, with having ships with white and muses of color ( human and other ). going along with julie plec’s writing team’s disregard for some of the nuances and complexities that come in a package like marcel and focus on other aspects to expand upon but i grew up.
i’m seeking to change the narrative when it comes to the treatment of black women in the VD/TO/LEGACIES universe. this includes black women in marcel’s space, both familial and romantic dynamics. there’s a lack of presence of black women characters in his life and on the show. that’s silly and unrealistic. to begin, black women are the most disrespected, neglected, and unprotected women in america as the late malcolm x once said. the cw’s treatment of their black female characters does well to hammer home his point without difficulty. marcel is a byproduct of a union between a black woman, a slave, and a racist white slave master, this dynamic is inherently troublesome ( i’m 100% positive his mother was raped ).
then to have that same former slave enamored with a white woman is flat-out insulting, from a young age. as if he isn’t aware that merely looking at someone like rebekah would have gotten someone that looks like him tortured, dismembered, shot, and or hanged. the writers ( whether they were conscious of this or tone-deaf ) tried glossing over the racially negative connotations of ‘marbekah’ by pretending as if the only drawback was klaus’ possessiveness of rebekah. for example, in the show, klaus repeatedly threatened marcel’s life and decided to dagger rebekah to teach her a lesson on what “she can and cannot take from him” ( marking marcel, a former slave, as his property, to control and punish ).
with that being said, rebekah is just one of the many pieces in marcel’s background that serve as a reminder of what’s unattainable to men like him. for him, apples literally express the phrase “ forbidden fruit ”. on the plantation he grew up and worked on, there was an apple orchard beside the house. apples use to be marcel’s favorite but after being whipped numerous times for eating them, even if they were spoiled, he grew a distaste for them. this goes into equality, both racial and familial ( hardly a difference between the two, honestly ).
the series consistently profess the white savior complex that marcel is subjugated too, using the white savior himself, klaus, in his admitted jealousies, to remind marcel of this. and it is marcel who reminds klaus and lets it be known to the audience that being part of the mikaelson’s life hasn’t exactly been a gift and he paid the debts he owed to them a long time ago. the sense of unease, of distrust — the fear of marcel becoming his better and wanting to take away everything he worked for — that’s a sentiment that many colonizers can relate to and it’s a reason among many as to why black american’s suffered inhumane ordeals. being called little whelp ( kol ), burden ( elijah. do i need to go into the poem entitled the “ White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands ” and the response H.T. Johnson gave that with “ The Black Man Burden ” ? ), scavenger ( elijah ), and lost children ( elijah ) is just more evidence of the emotional damage that marcel’s character was inflicted. i’m aware the conversation was about elijah helping out a community full of new vampires, but when elijah posed the question, “ why should i play benefactor to a collection of lost children ” marcel was visibly bothered by that, remembering the time where marcel treated him as a disposable charity case.
canonically, marcel has come to be the oldest living black american. his background embodies so many aspects of the ADOS ( american descendants of slavery ) / African Diaspora. he lived through the black treatment throughout history. just a year after he met the mikaelsons, the 1811 german coast slave revolt transpired, leaving the leader, charles deslondes — after being brutally maimed — and over 90 black rebels decapitated, with their heads put on spikes that ranged for forty miles from the woodland plantation all the way to what is known today as jackson square in the french quarter. years thereafter, more rebellions sparked as new orleans grew to be one of the most important ports in the south, as well as the largest slave market in the deep south.
marcel bared witness to, in his words, “ watching history unfold, to see barriers fall, to see the oppress rise, we get to watch it all ”. to list some of the things he got to either endure and or come to know about is racial discrimination, institutional racism, genetic annihilation, police brutality, jim crow laws, the formation of the first slave patrol, kkk lynchings/hangings, harlem hellfighters ( which he joined, serving from 1916-1918. the series struggled with what they wanted. using real history as a driving force behind these characters, try to have these characters believe they’re “above race”. case in point, klaus calling marcel’s men, “ food ”, telling him to let them fight amongst themselves and his place is with family. the men he refers to as food are a unit comprised of solely black men that were abandoned by america to fight the germans. ). and other events in relation to black folks in america. red summer ( 1919 ), tulsa riots ( 1921 ), civil rights ( marcel studied law in the 50′s and was a lawyer during the civil rights era. he likely attended grambling state university or some other hbcu because i don’t believe blacks were allowed to attend white colleges around this time ), chicago riots ( 1968 ), the rise and fall of the black panther party, the apathy of the american government when katrina hit, crack epidemic, etc.
in addition to that, there has been some ugliness concerning the marcel and elijah dynamic. i’ve already spoken about how it was problematic above, so, to touch on modern-day let’s go ahead with when elijah banished marcel to algiers in season one. to quote the wikia, “ Many neighborhoods in Algiers are occupied by low-income African American families, with many homes over-filled with relatives living in them as well. In the late 1960s, some neighborhoods in Algiers began to decline with boarded-up houses and overgrown grass. Trash lined the streets, and some of the French-textured shotgun houses didn’t have air conditioning units. This led to families sitting outside on their porches with fans and kids busting the fire hydrants open to play in the water. In a 1971 article, certain areas in Algiers were described as “dirty” and “nasty.” During that time, residents in the poor neighborhoods didn’t have as much money as whites to keep their houses in good condition. ” that’s enough said about that. we can move on to when marcel compares himself to a rabid dog and elijah saying nothing to refute his claims. its a suspicious glimpse into how historically black people, especially black men are seen as uncontrollable beasts that need to have their necks stepped on, lest they got up to attack.
after that, we get an uncomfortable scene where marcel proudly proclaims he’s nothing like the mikaelson’s and the imagery is clear in what it wants us to see. a collective of oppressed white people vs an evil mad black man. they’re the ones that have the high ground. kol tells him to get over it and everybody, including his ‘father/brother/savior’ klaus is mute and continue to look on in apprehension and abhorrence. the writers may have given marcel all the power and his city back, but white privilege prevails as the true power and as long as marcel feels and knows he’s the black sheep in the family, as long as he’s hurt by the rejection, as long as the troubled nuances to his behavior shows, he has nothing that’ll outweigh the love and acceptance he internally sought after. moving on.
next, we get a problematic scene where elijah mocks/taunts and delivers his infamous speech to marcel after subduing him in shackles and having him confined in an underground dungeon. if we’re not talking about the controversial biological vs adopted kid narrative, we can look to the painfully obvious truth behind elijah’s statement. he never cared for marcel’s slave status. had he never showed promise in being a tool to be used to ‘fix’ his brother and redeem him, then he wouldn’t have to play family to him. but now that hope is born and marcel done ‘acted up’, he fulfilled his ‘use’ and is no longer needed for their agenda. hope, a white character, is born, she’s healthy, she’s a good thing for klaus. marcel? not so much. he has no value. elijah took it upon himself to cement that in marcel before walking off like he was above having a discussion.
in season two, marcel tells elijah he doesn’t know he ever survived the mikaelsons clan. i know how. he studied them. his oppressors, his so-called family, his people’s history ( rebellions, pain, perseverance, their uprisings, their falls ), etc — he soaked it all in like a sponge and used the tools he was given and everything he taught himself to be the self-made man we know today. for better or for worse, that falls on perception. you see, marcel is so emotionally affected by history that he created laws reminiscent of jim crow laws when he ruled new orleans in season one. there were even consequences to interracial — in a supernatural sense — relationships.thierry had been his friend for 70+ years and katie was beneficial when it came to divulging information about her own kind, the witches — although a vampire and a witch, relationship privileges were given. the oppressed became the oppressor. erik killmonger teas.
marcel had to deal with klaus, elijah and other factions telling him the city doesn’t belong to him. that it belongs to all of them. i really shouldn’t have to get into details about this but… witches and vampires have had war and peace with each other for years longer than marcel has existed… werewolves and vampires are natural rivals. no difference than lions and hyenas, cats and dogs, killer whale and great white sharks, humanity and mother nature. so, yes, when tensions came ahead in 1925, it was natural for marcel, joe dalton, a vampire he turned in wwI, and his vampire army to have slaughtered the guerrera crime family. yes, it was wise to have his enemies cursed and banning them outside the space where his people lived. let us not forget werewolves bites are toxic. that being said, marcel curse on werewolves and oppression on the witches doesn’t compare to the 400+ years of abuse african slaves and their american descendants suffered and still suffer to this day. to quote my girlfriend, “ imagine saying, this city belonged to the colonizers, but it was built on the blood of slaves. ”
the fandom likes to play the struggle olympics and vilify marcel but honestly, the most disgusting thing his character has done is kiss a white woman, rebekah, who was parasitically inhabiting a black witch’s — the species he once oppressed — body. if nothing else, that’s reason enough to knock the idea of interracial romance out of his narrative. pairing a former slave with a white character is insulting enough, but to have him intimately engage a white woman in a black girl’s body? how does the idea of a jewish holocaust survivor romancing with the children of nazis sound? there’s too many uncomfortable racial contexts behind that. i want to refer to books like killing the black body: race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty by dorothy roberts and medical apartheid: the dark history of medical experimentation on black americans from colonial times to the present by harriet a. washington and at the dark end of the street: black women, rape, and resistance--a new history of the civil rights movement from rosa parks to the rise of black power by danielle l. mcguire. they’re great works that give extensive knowledge on the dark side of the destruction of black families, specifically the black woman. my marcel puts way more value on black woman than what was shown on the show.
to encapsulate my marcel’s mindset on black woman and black love, here’s a quote from video i watched the other day on black women in history. “ the first documented woman in history came from african religion. her name was aset. her main temple was in nubia. she is among the earliest documented gods in human history. she was the ideal mother of nature and magic. she was so popular that she began to be worshipped in egypt, rome, and greece as isis. the kushites called her the great lady of kush. she was adored by the kushites. and in the ancient text aset said herself, “ i am the nubian and i have descended from heaven.” in this african context, aset comes bringing with her the rich blackness of the heavens. of fertility and of healing magic. the color of blackness of course taking on a very different connotation to ancient african people. blackness meant fertility, life and resurrection, amongs many other things. given this ancient african historical context, aset was quite literally the first representation of black girl magic on our planet, in which all other black women descend. the presence of a matrilineal system, all throughout africa, and the mention of one of the first gods in african religion being a woman is very significant. it says as though the africans knew that their women birthed humanity, it was as if they knew about mitochondrial eve. they seem to deeply respect this and recorded it. they seem to believe their women were literally magic. starting with nothing yet creating everything. ”
there’s no doubt in my mind that if he was written better, marcel would only pair with a black woman and if he could, he’d procreate with one. especially ados! black women are his sisters, mothers, daughters, ancestors, goddesses and their strength is unlike any power he has ever experienced. their magnificence goes beyond the white powers that would keep them down. a black family, genuine black love — that’s creating a powerful statement right there. in-depth reasonings aside, sometimes, people are more attracted to their own race or a race, since he’s biracial. it’s his PREFERENCE. he simply finds black women beautiful in all aspects.
one could say any sexual relationships with non-black POC is either due to him being a playboy and wanting to have fun or a tactic for political gain. yet he has handsome men and beautiful women in his army to do his bidding, he doesn't have to partake in having sex with non-black POC for any political advantages or information. in addition to that, he’s not the type of vampire to rely on compulsion to get far in life. that’s usually a last resort.
white woman are a no-go because of the aforementioned reasons as are werewolves ( diego told elijah that when his family was torn up by wolves, marcel found him dying and saved him by turning him into a vampire and taking him in. who knows how many other vampires share similar stories? to respect diego and the men/women of his army with troubled pasts with werewolves, he wouldn’t take up one in a relationship. it’s just his moral code). i portray my marcel as more of a businessman than one that’s looking for relationships anyway but when it comes it, you best believe the kingdom of nawlins will be run by black.
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