Final thoughts on Five x Lila situation
I get it. But I don’t want it.
I get it because of the following:
- Five deserved a piece of happiness after his long sad lonely life
- Five also acted totally in character the whole time. He retired and found connection with someone. Of course he didn’t want to leave. But also of course he eventually revealed he found a way home, because he knows it’s right.
- Lila was struggling with suburban life, and allowed herself to fall into this fantasy of living off the grid with someone who treasures her. The SECOND home was found, the fantasy broke and she didn’t run from it.
- Lila didn’t “trade suburban housewife with being a cottagecore wife”. Her life with Diego involved a pessimistic husband, organizing loud children’s birthday parties at arcades, living with family, balancing children schedules, etc. The time in the greenhouse involved survival, which is more “adventurous” than suburban life. It’s also paradoxically more peaceful.
- The mental vs physical age thing and age gap isn’t a big deal in canon for these characters based off their previous work fucking with time
- I did love seeing two hard-ass stressed badass characters be soft for one another.
- After six years, the growing hopelessness and realization they may never go back home, you’re going to intimately connect to each other in ways no one will ever be able to match, regardless of your past experiences with them. This is a very common troupe in fiction.
- Technically it was cheating, but I think the post-apocalyptic space-time forced proximity desperation is a very valid excuse and shouldn’t be seen as cheating, ESPECIALLY when she went back home the second she knew she could.
- Aidan as an adult gave consent to the scenes. We need to realize he isn’t a kid anymore, he can decide what he wants to do and we should respect it.
I don’t want because of the following
- I still feel icky that Lila knew Five with a child body, and now has romantic feelings for him? THATS the taboo troupe I personally can’t get behind. Age difference? Weird but fine. Knowing them as a child? Nope. But I also get this is a personal preference/feeling/reaction with the fiction I consume. And I know I said before their previous professions shows they know different mind/body age, but that doesn’t change the fact he had a child body when they met and she watched him grow up.
- It also feels icky the importance the writers put on Five having a romantic subplot RIGHT when Aidan was of age. Especially cause Five / Aidan are so sexualized. It’s not necessarily WRONG, I just feel icky about it.
- It was shortened because the season was short, so it didn’t land as well as it could.
Here’s the main reason I didn’t want it.
IT DIDNT NEED TO BE ROMANTIC LOVE.
I am aroace. I understand that deep intimate connections can be made without romance. Similar to how everyone says Frodo and Sam were gay lovers when in reality strong platonic bonds can reach that level of devotion and intimacy. Not every character needs a romantic partner, and Five never displayed any romantic or sexual affection for ANYONE until this.
(Before you say anything, YES he did have Delores, but that was also just a need for connection when alone for decades. That doesn’t change the fact she’s not a real person, and he would very unlikely be attracted to her without the traumatic apocalypse world.)
ROMANCE. ISNT. NEEDED. FOR. DEEP. CONNECTIONS. we could have had two platonic soulmates living a happy life together, with kisses on the top of their heads, sitting shoulder to shoulder reading books, holding hands while looking for scrape metal. BUT NO. IT HAD TO BE ROMANTIC. UGH.
Like the stuff post-subway could have been similar still without a dumb love triangle. Five could have been Lila’s person, like Meredith and Christina in Greys Anatomy. And when Five sees Diego and knows Lila’s feelings about their marriage and such, he would go into protective mode.
I will admit I’m bitter about media putting romance on a pedestal. And I’m also not saying Five should be canonically aromantic and/or asexual. I just feel the weird parts of the situation would have been “fixed” if it wasn’t romantic, just a true platonic bond.
