let’s talk about TUA fandom
y’all are hypocritical - let’s just get it out there.
before you start typing out some angry comments or coming in my ask-box lemme explain my reasoning here.
Luther is one of the most hated characters in this fandom for some unknown reason to me. He is just another victim in all of this and as much as all of you want to blame everything on his actions, he simply acted in what he thought were the best interests of everyone. Luther showed his trauma in the same way the rest did.
In my opinion, Luther is one of the most underrated characters in The Umbrella Academy because all of you are too busy with your thirsting after Diego or uWu-ing over Klaus to notice him.
So here is Luther’s trauma broken down for all of you.
Luther was doomed from the moment he was chosen to be Number One, it’s that simple. From the very moment Reginald chose him, he had no chance, because he had the expectation of being the best put on his shoulders by a man who was never going to see any of them as anything less than worthless.
But Luther was determined to live up to his name, to be what his father wanted him to be – to be Number One.
Because for Luther he was sure everything that Reginald was doing was out of love. But I think Luther deep down knew that their father didn’t love them, but he needed to believe it was out of love, he couldn’t stand the thought of it being anything but love, because if it wasn’t love then it wasn’t worth it. He needed it to be worth it.
We got a glimpse of that in season one when he found all the packages he sent to Reginald. He never had any friends, he never left the house, he gave up his entire life for his father and the mission he believed in. Because he needed to believe it was worth it and when he found out it wasn’t – well, he had thrown his entire life away for what? It wasn’t because their father loved them or believed in them. So what was it?
Just to prove to all of you that Luther is more like his siblings than you all want to admit, here are some comparisons -
LUTHER: needed the moon to have a reason behind it, so much so that his obsession put others in danger. He also couldn’t face it when it turned out his mission was for nothing - so he regressed to his old behavior of thinking his father was right.
DIEGO: needed to be the hero, even though I’m almost positive Diego isn’t a complete idiot and knows that dramatically changing history would be bad - aka saving JFK could make the timeline explode, he needed to save him. So much so he was willing to put all of his siblings in jeopardy.
LUTHER: was told from the beginning he was the leader and that being Number One meant that he had to be the best. Because of this he had an inflated sense of importance. It just meant he had a higher distance to fall when he finally realized that it all meant nothing. He also doesn’t take their opinions or plans seriously because he’s Number One and his plans are superior.
FIVE: is a cocky little shit, who is insistent he is the smartest person around and he might be. But he views everyone around him as lesser, that includes his siblings. He has spent his entire time in the apocalypse trying to get back to save his siblings but still treats them like garbage. He also never lets his siblings in on anything that’s happening, he never sits them down and explains anything, and when they try to contribute with a plan or a theory he looks at them like they are stupid.
LUTHER: was sent to the moon, alone, with no one to talk to. Before that he had no friends his age, his only companions were Grace, his father, and Pogo. He’s been alone for a long time.
VANYA: has been alone for a lot longer than Luther - but trauma is not a competition and they both have dealt with it differently. I just wanted to point out these two similarities between the two characters.
LUTHER: is desperate for love and affection from his father. Everything he has done has been to get Reginalds approval and love but none of it has ever worked. He got small glimpses of things, like his dad’s favorite spot under a tree, so maybe he got a bit closer than the others but it was not real love.
ALLISON: is desperate for love and affection in general - hence her stardom. She needs attention, she feeds on it. It isn’t until she has Claire that I think she truly understands that everything until then has been fake. The unconditional love of a child made her realize that all of that fake love and affection is no match for real love.
LUTHER: has probably felt like a monster since before his transformation - having super-strength means having to be very careful with your own body. But after the transformation must’ve been so much worse.
BEN: literally has a monster inside of him and has always felt like a monster. The difference is he has openly spoken about feeling like a monster.
LUTHER: has always been in control of himself. He is the exact opposite of Klaus in how he uses control to deal with trauma. Luther needs control in order to deal with trauma.
KLAUS: has no control and he does not want it. To deal with trauma Klaus loses control by using drugs and alcohol but he also uses it to control his powers.
So now that I’ve gotten through the siblings a bit, let’s talk about another topic that has a bit of hypocrisy behind it -
For some reason this ship is very despised in the fandom, I don’t know if it’s because of the fact that one part of it is Luther but a lot of the reasons I see are just - ‘ew, they’re siblings’.
Yet, most of the ships in TUA fandom are of the siblings being paired together.
Five x Vanya [fics on ao3 - 372]
Diego x Klaus [fics on ao3 - 687]
Ben x Klaus [fics on ao3 - 311]
The only other ships that top these are -
Dave x Klaus [fics on ao3 - 1409]
Diego x Patch [fics on ao3 - 434]
And let’s be really honest for a second here - them being in any romantic relationship with each other, is not weird. None of them are biologically related to one another. They were just raised in the same household as one another and told to treat each other as siblings. If they had never been adopted by Reginald Hargreeves and met randomly on the side of the road, this discussion would be moot.
I find the Five x Vanya ship much more disturbing if I’m being honest, simply because most of the fics ship a fully grown Vanya, in the body of a 31-ish year old, with Five - who while mentally is like in his 60s or whatever, is back in his 13 year old body. If Vanya did ever get with Five before his body turned 18, it would be statutory rape.
Let’s also just for a second list some other fandom pairings that are pretty popular that people ship that have the same ‘we grew up as siblings but we aren’t biologically related’ trope.
Thor x Loki [fics on ao3 - 10894]
Eren x Mikasa [fics on ao3 - 1221]
John Marston x Arthur Morgan [fics on ao3 - 651]
Max x Alec [fics on ao3 - 357]
Iris x Barry [fics on ao3 - 3689]
It’s incredibly strange to me how unpopular Allison x Luther is - especially since it’s actually canon in the comics. Granted, some things from the comics of course should change or be adapted, but the chemistry between Tom Hopper and Emmy Raver-Lampman is just spectacular, especially during the dance scene in The Day That Wasn’t.
I absolutely loved that scene (still mad it’s nowhere on youtube). I felt like we got to see Luther both as how Allison sees him and for a moment he was out of his head with Allison, relaxed and just himself.
If you just don’t ship it, just say you don’t ship it.
Alright. I think my duty as a member of the Luther-Protection squad is finished. If you can’t see your hypocrisy after this post, I really don’t know what to tell you. If you would like to have a calm discussion about why you think I’m wrong or right, I’m willing to talk about it. However, anyone who comes at me just spewing vitriol or that I’m so stupid will not be taken seriously, if you can’t have a calm discussion about things then I won’t take you seriously.
I do want to say though - I understand having favorite characters, I’m a sucker for characters that are only held back from destroying the world by a hug (Vanya). But I’m also someone who loves to look at the entire picture and appreciate the depth of each character in a series, even the ones I hate. In fact - some of my favorite characters were ones I hated and the actors/actresses soon became my favorite because it takes a lot of talent to make people hate you.
So for a moment, really think if you hate Luther Hargreeves or if you dislike his actions and if it’s his actions, who you really should hate is Reginald Hargreeves because all Luther has ever done has been a reaction to trauma - exactly like the rest of his siblings.
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amandla
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