brutally honest opinion on Ghoulia, Abbey and Spectra.The other mains
Ghoulia: the smarty pants neurodivergent coded character that simulates all of her experiences and feelings through science and is socially inept. Classic.
However I like that they do more with this trope than just that. Even if she strays towards logic rather than emotion, you can tell that she genuinely wants to be both helpful and liked, and values integrity. She also learns to value emotions and try to understand why people feel a certain way, and that science isn't always the answer. She even finds herself sometimes being happy to indulge in her emotional side instead of emotionally neglecting herself.
She's prone to getting tired of stupid people and, while she can stand up for herself and others, a lot of the time she just gives up and puts up with it, likely because it's easier than dealing with the source of what's annoying her, plus she's a zombie and zombies aren't taken seriously. And also because she's pretty much used to it all by now that, in some way, it doesn't faze her much.
You can tell she isn't really included much, though. Another classic. Her friends genuinely love her, especially Cleo and Frankie, but even still she's prone to having to solve things on her own, being babied, or just simply left behind. They all mean well and Ghoulia appreciates it, but you can tell she's sort of affected by it.
She herself loves her friends and boyfriend ( Slo Mo ), and overtime has made more effort to understand them. Remember when Ghoulia tried simulating her own perfect partner ? Yeah. And then a good while later she's taken what she's learned from that failure and applies it to her relationship with Slo Mo. She loves him for him.
Her science loving has wound up in her being in situations that are harmful for her. She strives for answers and directness, and has a " this HAS to be right " mentality. She stayed with Heath for so long because of what science told her, and is still friends with Cleo despite how she used to treat her. If science or clues tells her something, it's hard for her to understand why it was wrong or why it didn't apply. She is also a pretty lonely person, and likely gets attached easily. That's just how I read her at least.
I feel like a lot of the above could also be because of her parents being so strict iirc. Not that they're bad, just strict.
However with every logic centered character, Ghoulia can be a poor communicator and a bit harsh.
I really like Ghoulia ! As a neurodivergent, I can very strongly see my experiences with friendships in her, and I think she's a very good representation of a disabled and neurodivergent friend in a group of people who don't fully understand her but want to. However, because of how often zombies are made the butts of jokes, it makes characters like Ghoulia feel disingenuous.
Abbey: neurodivergent 2 Electric boogaloo. She is very autistic to me.
I don't agree with people who call her nonchalant or whatever. She reads more as an autistic person who doesn't know how to show her emotions properly. The lack of social cues, flat tone, trying hard to fit in, following schedules and routines strictly, not knowing how to react in situations, misinterpreting people, the fixation on stuff from her village, the lack of a filter, easily breaking down...
She cried because she thought people didn't like her and that she wouldn't make friends, got upset when Frankie assumed she had no emotions, got upset when she was left on her own, is very humorous, gets scared quite easily in certain situations, got upset when Heath pushed her away... That's not really stone cold imo
She's another case of a character being more emotional than they are believed to be by fans.
Obviously her neurodivergence / coming from a different environment doesn't excuse her being blunt and too forward or joking in situations in which she shouldn't be as, you know, that can be hurtful or insensitive. But the fandom sees these moments as cunty diva baddie moments wow so original. She's still hurtful.
I also think Heabby is. Kinda ass. Girlboss x failboy wowwww so new so tasty so seasoned, I sure hope this doesn't lead to them only getting a few interesting scenes, being flanderized in canon, and sexualized by the fanbasssseeeee....
We can tell that Abbey and Heath both genuinely want to get to know each other even if their perceptions of romance are flawed. They are both sensitive people who want to find the best in situations and may make jokes to lighten things up. Why not show Heath's responsible side through him comforting Abbey ? Or them joking together ? It's such a missed opportunity, thrown away for the sake of " heehee loser guy gets"dominated" by big cold girl " and turned sexual by fans.
Abbey is adorable and cool and I like her but fuckkkk...... The flanderization reaches outside of just Heabby. She got turned into " haha socially inept foreigner " and was eventually forgotten about just like the very ghoul she was meant to replace ( Lagoona ). Yet another case of Monster High making a great character and either handling them poorly or throwing away all the good writing they did. I already really like Abbey but I'd have liked her way more if they did her better.
Spectra: wow three neurodivergents in a row.
With how old she is, it's no surprise she held bigotted values and acts selfishly, and got bored so easily. She's undermined other monsters for being their specific type of monster, undermines people for other petty reasons, stalks students and posts personal and or harmful messages without much thought, she has delusions of grandeur and importance, and has gotten into disagreements and arguments over it.
She is somewhat integral, and if things get bad enough, she apologizes to those she's wronged with her incorrect news. But nevertheless, as much as she fixes her reporting mistakes, she still easily takes people's words for things, even when she knows she shouldn't trust them. She also, initially, cared more about the fact that she was wrong rather than the fact she wronged others.
She has fun with her ask blog. It helps her cope with reality, she's not a very social person, and that's just her easiest way of connecting with people and being liked, but that doesn't excuse the harm her ask blog does. She apologizes and apologizes and keeps doing the same things over and over, so her apologies feel disingenuous.
She's quick to use what she knows ( or thinks she knows ) about others against them and is easily slighted by criticisms. She thinks in black and white, quickly jumping to conclusions and sticking to stories. She's even made up stories about herself because of how much her death pained her.
She's still a teenager and has been dead for a long time. It's no surprise that she spiraled and that her coping mechanism turned into something like this, and anything that challenges said coping and comfort is met with instant hostility.
As she grows and learns to be kinder and make friends, she finds new comfort in that. Mix that in with the previous, and you get a kid so fucked up by immortality and death that she regularly escapes reality, falls into delusions, spirals, attacks anything that exposes the truth, yet simultaneously tries righting wrongs to keep another comfort, to do better as a person, yet continuously falls back into old habits.
I think her redemption arc is done well. She isn't fully reformed, but we see her take an even bigger step to recovery. She's slowly letting go and replacing her comfort with something similar and less harmful, and she starts learning and understanding people better. She even meets someone ( Porter ) similar to her: using arts to cope with reality and is prone to escapism, and can be kind of a jerk. In a way they learned their lessons partially thanks to each other.
I think Spectra is still kind of an ass. But she definitely used to be even worse. She was a stalker, gossiper, manipulator, racist, self important, pushy, and invasive person. Her trauma doesn't excuse what she's done, but she's taken steps to grow.
I really like Spectra :] one of the few characters in Monster High who developed normally methinks
