I was scrolling through some videos about Gambit recently since the most recent episode and I don’t know how but I had recently come to the understanding that the general consensus around Rogue had changed a lot since season 1. I definitely think more people have started to understand her story but just looking at these comment sections it is egregious how many people will call her a whore, say that she doesn’t deserve Gambit, saying that Gambit should kill her when he comes back and it just brought tears to my eyes. I was making so many posts about Rogue in 2024 when season 1 was coming out, heck I believe I was one of the first big advocates for the Magneto groomed Rogue idea when episode 5 came out but my opinion about Rogue has actually changed a bit over time (her 97 version at least). I used to say that she was a complicated more morally grey character when it came to her relationship choices but I don’t think that at all anymore. I believe that all of her choices regarding Magneto pre dance and Gambit’s death were almost completely selfless and everything she was doing was for the people around her. Now you’re probably asking how is her choosing Magneto selfless when that was because she wanted to be with someone she could touch but I think it’s less about her and more about them. She believes that her being in a relationship with someone she can’t touch would be unsafe and unsatisfying for them. Is there a part of Rogue that just wants to feel people? Obviously but there’s also a part of Rogue that just wants a relationship with the happiness that a normal relationship has and thinks that she would almost be a burden to Gambit because they can’t touch. The second part of this argument comes from something I talk about all the time but believe it or not, and I’m sure there have been hundreds of people who have talked about this but I just haven’t seen, I have literally never seen another person talk about, that being Erik pressuring her using the Genoshan council. The context around the state of their world right now matters so much because Magneto is a very powerful and influential figure at the moment mutants everywhere are looking up to him, I mean he has a giant statue of him built at Genosha. Then looking at Genosha, Genosha could completely change the future of millions of mutants and is already making its mark. So having a figure like him join the council would be absolutely huge, but of course he will only join if Rogue marries him. And people say she isn’t being manipulated. The choice should be obvious, in Rogue’s mind she was doing this for Magneto because he loved her, Genosha and millions of mutants so that Magneto would join the council, and Gambit so that he wouldn’t be tied down to a relationship where he would never be able to feel the person he loved. Choosing to reject Erik and be with Gambit was the first choice she made that was for herself. She was choosing the man she loved over this ideal relationship she has created in her head. With the kiss she realized that this love she has for Gambit can’t be forced onto other relationships no matter how hard she tries. Even if she thinks that this is finally someone who she doesn’t have to be scared of touching and can actually make happy she doesn’t love him. I also think in that moment that she hasn’t just understood the intensity of her own emotions but also Gambit’s. Finally accepting the love that he also has for her, not just writing it off as him being a, in her own words, a “ladies man”. Rogue is very complex but she is also someone who feels very deeply, and just wants good. I don’t want anyone to misunderstand this post, as I said before Rogue wants to touch. She wants to feel and hold hands but this need also comes from a much deeper place in her heart, one that I think mistakes her subconscious need for emotional intimacy into just more need for physical intimacy. Rogue wants to be close to people and has realized that the emotional intimacy and closeness that Gambit gives her is so much deeper than the physical intimacy that Magneto can.
