this is probably the opposite of what this person (and oomf who i rbed this from) intended by adding cinder to this post, so sorry y'all, but it has drawn my attention to how the original post does not solely have to be referring to characters that are unfairly punished or treated worse by a fandom than a comparable male character. it can also refer to people who won't let a female villain, who likes being the villain, just be the villain.
(and, full disclaimer here, cinder is my favourite villain and i love her dramatic ass)
a lot of cinder fans will try to push the need for a redemption arc on cinder because she has suffered and has been/is being manipulated by salem. what they tend to ignore is that she explicitly wants to hurt people. she wants power at any cost. v8 offered what might have been the perfect pivot for her to begin to change for the better, and then doubled down on the fact that she wants to be the villain.
she doesn't think that what she's doing is right, she doesn't regret or feel sorry for killing so many people, she's quite happy to abuse the children she groomed. just look at her in that gif. she's having an absolute blast. she's also not so stupid that she doesn't realise salem is manipulating her. the ending of v8 implies that she isn't even as under salem's thumb as she once was; slyly lying to her face and lending to my theory that she fully intends to usurp salem as the ultimate big bad (whether or not she'll succeed is another story).
and this is great. this is fun to watch. after v8 doubled down on her willingness to be as nasty and vindictive as possible, having her switch sides now would just be...so shoehorned in and narratively unsatisfying. something tacked on because so much fictional media these days believes that having suffered in the past absolves a character of the intentional villainous decisions they've made as a grown adult. and, to be clear, i don't think the show will do this, just that any number of others might have done so in the same situation.
also, that being said, people who react so much more negatively to her than adam, jaquces, watts, tyrian, and arguably even ironwood, piss me off so goddamn much. why exactly do you think she deserves worse than them. why do you enjoy all the male villains as villains but scream about how much you loathe cinder and want to choke her with your own hands. what makes her worse than them in your eyes i'm sooo curious.
basically what i'm saying is. let that female character be mean and nasty and evil if she wants. she can kill people and enjoy it, as a treat. she's more entertaining that way and she's having fun. god forbid women do anything :/
snowghoul
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turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
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