The controversial classic, Gehrman and Maria!
These characters have infinitely deep potential no matter what you make out of them, they're just such an interesting duo! As ship, as grandpa/granddaughter duo, as just teacher/student duo - no matter! But yes granted I don't even know if /I/ ship them? I am more interested in defending the idea of a ship than shipping it myself, as both characters work better in a ship with other characters! I just always like to see people that ship them, especially if we are on the same page about what ended their friendship and they depict them happy from simpler times before things went into Hell!
I think my biggest discourse point, aside of translation errors and assuming versions as 'THE' truth is that... I don't believe discourse woulda existed if both Gehrman and Maria were the same gender. I will only eat my words if I can travel in the parallel universe where either Maria is a man or Gehrman is a woman and see fandom being the same anyway. Until then, nope!
In my opinion it works better if this ship either never came to fruition and was one-sided from start to finish, or fell apart. Would explain why Gehrman moans Laurence's name in his sleep (ha! GAYYYYYYYY!) but doesn't mention Maria (perhaps enough time passes from her death for him to start to bury feelings even back before Hunter's dream?). And also 'his curious mania' is properly translated as 'insanity of his curiosity' which I always seen as Maria realising his true repulsive Byrgenwerth affiliate motivations for Hamlet massacre? And in my version Gehrman doesn't care or sympathise with anything inhuman - but we know Maria ended up lethally guilty about her crimes, so Gehrman failing to understand and help her with her emotional anguish is a big reason for them growing distant.
It is just so fucking sad. Really. Gehrman has more regrets than anyone else could bear and Maria has to live with disappointment in a mentor she used to idealise. I pointed out 'they can fix each other' in terms of influence - I see that in better turn of events Gehrman could have helped Maria to get less naive and grow tougher skin to manage her natural tender-heartedness better; meanwhile she could influence him to become less ruthless, at least for the sake of people he DOES hold dear. I use 'things crashed and burnt because people failed to properly COMMUNICATE' often in my ideas, huh?
I have to admit it though - dark creativity has its merit too? For example if someone who legitimately interprets Gehrman as sexist and creep showed a messed up dynamic between him and Maria (walking into 'ship' territory or not) through creativity, that'd be interesting to see and examine? Visual art, fanfics or simple presentation of ideas (like theories and essays) just speaks way better and deeper than just bashing character for interpreted reasons. I do not get bitter at hate for the duo as long as it doesn't concern the fans of it, but if someone was to show why for them ship is bad, through art, I'd actually like it despite having different interpretation!
