The irony is that if the roles between Oz and Salem were reversed, with him being the angry, evil one and she the victim EVERYONE would be “Yes she had to get away from him!! She’s absolutely right to take the kids!”. But because it was the contrary they’re defending her! The double standard for that one just baffles me.
I’ve been ranting about this on and off for literally an entire week lmao.
When is comes to spousal abuse, everyone - and I mean everyone - always believes it is the man’s fault first. Unless there are visible physical bruises or scars on the man’s body, the husband is always believed to be the abuser in a relationship and that is just terribly fucked up.
I’m actually really really proud of CRWBY for daring to deviate from such an expected trope and instead twisting the trope on it’s head and making the reverse true - the wife is the villain of the relationship rather than the man. Not very many writers dare to try doing that, I think, for this exact reason: the fans of the series will automatically latch onto the male character as the bad one, call him weak and spineless for not fighting back - which Oz actually did, but only in self defense and to defend their kids (which is definitely a ‘woman’s role’ in this particular story!) - and claim he was in the wrong for trying to escape the abuse.
The FNDM is, more than anything, proving that female characters are more important to them than actual logic. It doesn’t matter that Salem is a genocidal abuser, Oz should get back together with her. It doesn’t matter that Raven is a murderous coward, Qrow should apologize for turning against her and make up with her. It doesn’t matter that Yang’s temper is getting out of control, she has a right to shout and make threats when she gets angry (isn’t it funny how, if Yang were a male character, screaming in fury and making threatening moves towards others would be seen as VERY BAD and TOXIC MASCULINITY?). It doesn’t matter that Cinder is a villain who has shown no sign of deserving or wanting a redemption, she should get a redemption before Emerald or Mercury, the two teenagers she dragged into a horrific situation.