fionna and cake season 2
it's impossible not to be incredibly reductive to the writers of the show and anyone who likes this season in talking about it
but like anyone else notice that the show just bluntly doesn't care about huntress wizard's feelings at all and that the conclusion feels not only deeply misogynist but just kinda mean to huntress wizard
Like I keep seeing people say "oh my god the finale made me cry" and it's like. are you crying because of how much finn doesn't care about huntress wizard or do you just see a character die and start crying
So like to run through why it's very upsetting I first have to explain why huntress wizard is important to me. Briefly, Huntress Wizard is an asocial person who struggles to relate with others. She struggles to feel okay with making herself vulnerable to anyone. She clearly feels strongly for Finn but from the beginning has felt reserved about opening herself up to him because she simply feels that people like them Can't open themselves up to anyone. The show kind of made it clear from the start that Huntress has deeply-seated problems and it's nice to see a female character who struggles to feel safe to be expressive.
Bluntly, Fionna and Cake seems to have had a critical misunderstanding of her character from the start. A lot of things feel like they completely missed the fact that Huntress isn't very expressive, and uncharitably, it feels like they just copy and pasted Fionna's level of maturity onto her because they can only write female characters that are teenage girls. CHARITABLY, it feels like they confused her being asocial with her being socially awkward. Regardless, this isn't strictly why it's upsetting.
The show makes a point to establish a backstory to Huntress, to explain that her behavior stems from a past trauma of losing her parents, but at no point does the show make this trauma matter in any appreciable way at all. The show just kind of takes it as a given that being emotionally reserved is an objective flaw and not a part of her character, and nobody investigates why Huntress is reserved because her feelings do not matter to anyone, they're just growing pains that she arbitrarily moves away from in the process of the show.
In the scene of Huntress reviving Finn, she has to surrender multiple of her own lives to revive Finn. There's two ways to look at the scene- literally and figuratively. Bluntly, there's not really any reason to look at it literally because there isn't really any reason why Huntress knows how to do this, she just does it, and on a literal level this sacrifice means nothing so I don't know why I'm expected to care. The moment I try to analyze it figuratively it just feels so gauche, like-
To save Finn from the injury he got himself into because he didn't listen to Huntress, Huntress has to sacrifice multiple realities worth of her life for him, and even doing that isn't enough, because his consciousness doesn't feel like anyone loves him enough, despite being the most loved man in Ooo, because Huntress specifically doesn't outright express romantic love towards him and let him into her home.
So like...
Finn isn't even given the chance to express literally anything even approaching mutual love with Huntress- she's reclusive, and that makes him upset, but like, at no point does it seem to cross the writer's minds that Huntress is someone who is hurting and has emotionally shut herself off as a result. The solution to Huntress' problems is just to Stop Being Antisocial And Just Act Like A Normal Girlfriend And Kiss Finn And Make Him Your Husband And Everything Is Okay! and it just feels absurdly coldhearted after going out of your way to express that Huntress is like this because of emotional trauma and she should just like get over it I guess and then she does and it saves Finn, because Finn is under zero responsibility to comfort Huntress and make her feel okay, and frankly it's her fault for not being a good enough Submissive Wife to Finn.
On top of that, everything Fionna says is basically just that Huntress was only in this narrative to show Fionna what a Bad Person is like so that she can grow to be a Good Person instead of a Bad Person. Again, a really weirdly coldhearted direction to take when we establish that Huntress is the way she is because of trauma without actually exploring her feelings at all.
In conclusion, Huntress Wizard gets no sympathy from anyone in the entire show and is expected to clean up Her Husband's mistakes and also to go the extra mile and mend his broken heart because she isn't shown an ounce of mercy or understanding, and that's just presented bluntly and plainly.
And don't even get me started about how much this show hums and haws while doing fuck all. Hunter has nothing in common with Huntress and Huntress isn't even allowed to have any sort of attention granted to her identity- there's a pretty solid trans narrative to write given that she's just a genderless plant person and chooses decidedly to present as female and that her entire humanoid identity is imprinted onto her from her parents, but like. OOOHHGHHH WE SEE 1 FRAME OF TOP SCARS ON THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE OF HER!!!! THAT'S HER TRANS NARRATIVE OMG SO BRAVE SO BRAVE SO BRAVE!!!!! And it's just like... it's so hard not to feel petty about this because, again, charitably, like we're so disinterested in exploring Huntress that we'd rather focus on this empty slate version of her that we invented, or uncharitably, like Hunter deserves the attention more because he's a man and who cares what kind of identity bullshit some freak plant has to go through.
What's the point of Witch Wizard? Why does Huntress react to her like she knows her? That fucking double middle finger scene is so fucking embarrassingly desperate, why the fuck would Huntress act like this about something she wants to kill? Why does Huntress feel so passionately about her? Since when does Huntress feel so defensive of The Magic?
If you find any of this oppositional to your stances, please tell me why, because like... I'd be fascinated to hear the opinions of anyone who believes that this show feels anything towards Huntress beyond a deep, burning apathy and that her emotions are a tedious hurdle to jump over to get to the Correct Solution of her being Finn's wife who has to wipe his butt and clean all his problems so The Big Strong Important Man can feel good.
