now to start, this is only talking about in the tv show. i havent read the books and from what ive gathered, a lot was changed.
I have a LOT of issues with Daphne as a person for the most obvious reasons. I think the SA was absolutely vile, disgusting, unforgivable, and the show treated it as something lesser when it absolutely WAS rape. I think there was absolutely more to it than just rapist/victim, because of the society at the time and the context behind it, but the baseline is that it WAS rape. When people criticise daphne, they’re almost always criticising her character and not who she is as a person, but i think that her character is the completely wrong thing to criticise. Everyone calls her bland and the average ‘trad’ wife of the time, but no one looks deeper than that. If you look even the SLIGHTEST bit deeper than her excitement to be a mother and a wife, you can see fear. And then you start to realise that all she is , is fear. And that makes sense. Think of it. Your whole life, you were raised to be the perfect, bland daughter. You were the first daughter, the trial daughter, so if you dont marry up, the rest of your sisters are doomed and potentially ruined. You were raised to sit down, shut up, marry up, and breed, and after that, your life’s purpose is done. So thats what she does. She finds suitors - remember she had NO intention of marrying Simon - she finds a prince who will give her children. But then they’re caught in the garden, she’s forced to marry him, and now her purpose is taken away. She is under the impression that her entire life’s purpose has disappeared into thin air.
But yes, I’m entirely up for Daphne slander because we do NOT tolerate rapists ,,, a lot of the conversation around her seems like is misogyny, however.