I didn't know people were so weird about Lin, Tenzin, and Pema. JFC
Ugh yeah that whole thing is handled so badly by the fandom. Conveniently a lot of it is at the expense of the women involved too.
You have Lin, who clearly had a focus on her career and her own issues, drifting apart from someone who clearly had a different end goal. Then you have the fans trying to mitigate her feelings and say Tenzin was being “selfish” when he wasn’t forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. Would you rather her have suffered through having children and raising a family? Like sure, maybe she would’ve been good at it, but she had no other option if she wanted to stay with Tenzin given his responsibilities. If anything, it was extremely mature of them from a macro level to break up.
And then you have Pema, who we’ve I guess determined couldn’t possibly have a *real* relationship with Tenzin because she’s not a main character or the offspring of a prior main character. She’s constantly given the “breeding sow” label because, again, this is the fandom that determined that having children is anti-feminist (unless it’s Lin with Tenzin, because fuck you).
I think there’s a lot about the scenario of the Linzin breakup and subsequent Tenzin x Pema relationship that is just circumstantially tragic yet not any of the characters’ faults. That’s what makes the dynamic interesting. The whole situation doesn’t need any scapegoat for who “messed up” or who “ruined the relationship” or whatever. Sometimes shit just doesn’t work out, and I think it’s made very clear in a very powerful way that Lin and Tenzin still love each other in a different way that doesn’t require either of them to give up on their goals to be with each other.
