I am begging people to stop the “carmen and gray are siblings!!” discourse and not even in a shipper way. Before i dive into why i dislike this perspective, let me reiterate that i am not asking you to ship redcrackle😭 okay. I just think insisting “theyre so siblings-ish!” Is kind of a cop out and really reduces their relationship to somehing it isnt really.
For one there is a difference between words and actions. For how much of the series do we see carmen and gray behaving in a “sibling” sort of way? Its only in the island flashbacks in ep 1 & 2 and thats only if you look at it a certain way.
After the fact, ALL of their interactions are approached differently. When Gray meets Carmen in Sydney, he asks her out in a ROMANTIC way. Yes dates can be platonic but here he’s just met a pretty girl and asked her to meet him for coffee….hes not doing that because he wants to make a new friend. His intentions are pretty clearly romantic.
Carmen, on the other hand, is more ambiguous. She says gray is like a brother to her, and we can assume she is torn over meeting him out of fondness for their old relationship rather than a specific desire to go on a date with him.
But Carmen isnt stupid. She knows that Gray is not asking her out in a ‘just friends’ typa way. She knows that, and at no point does she seem to oppose or seem uncomfortable with it. In fsct, she perpetuates the “romantic” light in which he sees her by flirting with him at the next time they meet, in the Crackle Goes Kiwi Caper.
And sure, Carmen flirts with a lot of people, but if she truly staunchly saw him as a brother figure, she wouldnt act like that. Insisting the “THEY ARE SIBLINGS!!” Take on characters who have flirted is just…ehh.. man idk.
And that brings me to point 2. How would Carmen know what having a brother is like? She grew up as the only child on an island with adults. Literally she didnt come into contact with ANY ither children in her youth, besides player on the phone. Her family dynamic is FAR from normal. She doesnt know what any of thats like.
Because carmen is presented as this cool badass who can do no wrong, the viewers make the mistake of assuming shes always 100% in tune with her emotions or 100% knows what shes doing. But shes only 20 years old with very poor socialization experiences. She doesnt have a great grasp on any of that stuff. Its very well that she could misinterpret things like that.
Point 3. Both Carmen and Gray are characters for whom CHANGING, and meeting each other as different people, snd having different relationships with different sides of each other, id a big part. So to reduce their relationship to the way it started feels like a disservice.
Even if u dont ship redcrackle, Gray at least does not see her that way. (Chief called him a smitten sap, cmon.) If Carmen DOES see him that way, its weird that she proceeds to flirt with him. They may have started like that but they certainly didnt end like it.
Instead of celebrating their “brother-sister” relationship 😐 you can just say “i like their friendship.” Or “they have a complex relationship” and then go ship whatever else u prefer. Thats it. Thats the take.
