Eternally bitter about McGamble’s stripping of Julia’s goddess arc. They took an arc of support and self-discovery and abandoned it, using it for petty drama, and to divide women.
In the source material, OLU is in no way complicit in Julia’s assault, or her aftermath, and not connected to it beyond having once been a victim herself. On these grounds, being empowered and victimized at once, having immeasurable power and having lost part of herself, she recognizes Julia as her daughter in spirit, because they are one in the same in terms of divinity and pain. She gives divinity to Julia because she sees herself in her, and the connection is genuine.
In the show, they made Persephone part of the “trick” on Julia, part of the pain. They also made her an apologist for Julia’s rapist, and one who has nothing to do with her godhead; she is not a supporter, at best, she is a side effect who confirms that no gods are kind in the show-verse. At that, it implies that other women, and other divinities, are never a source of support, but rather part of the same abusive systems.
In the source material, Julia becomes more than a demigod, less than a god. She loses her shade because she lost a part of herself, part of herself died and went somewhere she couldn’t see; she gets it back*, because she finds it, because her best friend supports and helps her through her trauma and depression, and because she is able to sense the connections to herself that heal her. When Q helps her to recover lost bits of her, she goes from Shade to ¾ god, making her as powerful as many a god, but more kind, still human somehow. She literally is helped to her best and most powerful self by healing and support, and uses to it to live out the rest of her life as a goddess in Fillory who answers prayers and is good.
In canon, Julia becomes a goddess, but is stripped for “plot convenient” reasons repeatedly. Her prowess with beyond-human magic is constantly questioned and stripped away from her, or disregarded entirely. Her shade is returned to her, but it makes little difference in her power, and if anything, makes her LESS powerful, perpetuating the damaging idea that more pain = more talent, when in fact, it should be healing from pain that allows a person to explore their own potential. She is never a god, because “gods are always cruel” and her empathy is implied to be something that makes her a better person, but less powerful, as though learning to connect to people again is somehow a weakness worthwhile, rather than a part of healing, for better or for worse.
One final bitter thing; in source material, Janet (Margo-proxy) and the people of Fillory love Julia, even at her most unstable. The show implies she is eternally alone, and pits her against Margo, as if important women can’t love and care for each other.**
TL;DR, the writers had every chance to make Julia a figure of power and self-rediscovery after tauma, and instead disempowered and isolated a survivor at every turn and moralized a “right” way to be a victim that had no basis in anything the character came from.
*note that in the book, Shadeless!Julia is NOT Evil. She is out of it sometimes, disconnected, of a flat affect, or in a difficult emotional spot, but she is still kind, still cares for people, she just cannot connect to the world as easily. In the show, loss of a part of yourself = you are evil now. This is SO fucked up, because it implies damage via trauma removes your potential for goodness.
** I maintain that legitimate conflicts between women in fiction over things other than pettiness or man-centered reasons are important, but their dislike of one another is borderline unexlained entirely.
