‘People are mad the main characters are the main characters.’
Hey, look at that! I lied yet again! Shockingly, my mental illnesses to not take a single vent post as an order for them to shut the fuck up!
Even after Goose had to clarify this wasn't an issue of harassment and this entire situation had to do more with a personal mental breakdown I have still seen so. Many. People. Making posts about the phantom cabal of crazy haters/insane Ragatha fans that were supposedly responsible for this. The narrative as it currently stands is that people were 'angry the main characters are the main characters' to the point even the VAs and other indie creators that have pitched in on this situation have propped that narrative up (not that I particularly blame them, it's the most widely accepted version of this discourse and God knows what they've had to personally deal with as creators before). And, yeah, of course when you frame it as 'people were angry that Goose confirmed who the main characters of her own show were' it's going to make everyone come across as fucking insane, because duh, this is her show and her characters and she obviously has final say in what they are.
Except throughout my discussions with people regarding this topic when it was first going viral, I never saw anyone imply that Goose was objectively incorrect for saying Pomni and Jax were the main characters. It was always about the way she set that narrative up that people had issues with. Like, that Reddit thread? The one she had to come out and say she wasn't harassed of off? I saw that thread! I was in that thread! I commented in that thread to voice my agreement and express my anger with Ragatha's treatment! And it explicitly wasn't about Pomni and Jax being the main characters being the issue, it was about Ragatha's exclusion. And I did not see anyone in that thread questioning Goose's authority over her own story - just criticism of the writing. I haven't seen anyone on this site question Goose's authority over her own story - just disappointment and frustration with Ragatha's writing. It's not like this is even a new talking point, this has been a point of discussion since, what, Episode 5? The episode that dropped a year and a half into the show's lifetime that only then started setting Jax up as being even remotely equal to Pomni? Because he had barely done anything up to that point and when he did, he was an equal role to Ragatha? Who he had been shown as a trio with alongside Pomni? The only reason people are saying 'it was obvious from the beginning' is because their Tumblr Sexyman detectors started going into overdrive the instant the pilot came out, if anything, if there was a male character who was initially set up as being in a deuteragonist role with Pomni it was Caine. I've seen a lot of people compare this to the trans Frankie discourse that happened shortly after the KoG pilot dropped, when really there are very few things they have in common - it'd be a lot more similar if, say, Dana had dropped hints for a year of the show's lifetime that Frankie was trans, started teetering that idea off and then confirmed she wasn't, which would be a lot more justifiable of a thing to be frustrated with. (Which obviously isn't to say Dana would deserve harassment if that was what happened either, it's just for comparison's sake.)
And after all that, of Goose confirming she wasn't harassed off Reddit, of a few insane people on her other social medias being awful to her (which don't get me wrong, those people still deserve the highest amount of condemnation), this fandom is back to using Ragatha fans and anyone who thinks her writing is even slightly less than perfect as a scapegoat for everything and painting them all as insane and irrational again. I need to go on Reddit at least semi-frequently because I mod for the (very small) funnygummy sub and every time my feed is just flooded with the same five posts with thousands of upvotes repeating the idea that this situation was caused by a total dogpile from insane haters who think Goose doesn't have final say over her own show, and using that as an excuse to attack Ragatha fans, because we're just doing what they did to Goose, right? They deserve it, they're crazy, they're not real fans.
I'm (hopefully) just preaching to the choir by saying that Goose and the cast deserve all the love in the world for what they've been through and for the arduous work they've done of bringing this show to fruition. It's also fair to voice your qualms with the way she's handled some aspects of it and the trajectory at which it's going. Those things aren't mutually exclusive, and frankly it's a disservice to pretend anyone is exempt from criticism just because their project is indie. Critique of the writing isn't inherently critique of the person behind the writing, and from the people I did see directing criticism towards Goose herself it wasn't of her as a person, just how she handles information regarding the show. Of course, there are certainly very bad faith takes and 'Goose is wrong about her own main characters being the main characters' is definitely one, but that's also not what 99.9% of the people criticizing her livestream statement were saying. Do you think any responsible creator would want their fans crusading against other people in the fanbase in their name? Especially just for the crimes of a few awful people with actual bad faith takes?
Ragatha fans have been told for months we're crazy for pointing out obvious biases and scapegoating and this is just the most brazen example so far. And it does sound insane to be this worked up about one character's treatment, but Ragatha doesn't exist in a vacuum - she's indicative of many unsavory fandom behaviors as a whole.
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