Rosy, do you think that If L was a male, her character wouldn't have caused all this drama? I mean in fandom
I think that if CL was a m/f couple there would have been drama but it would have been different drama. There would still have been huge fans of the ship because it is a glamorous and dramatic relationship. People LIKE that power imbalance and the concept of “taking care of” the princess and saving her from herself. We’ve been getting that romantic nonsense for generations within m/f romance stories and imo, it’s part of why we don’t see these kind of emotionally abusive relationships as actual abuse.
Because it’s shown as romantic.
Period.
A woman giving up her power to a man so he can take her away from all this and put her on a pedestal where she never has to worry about any of that nonsense again. This is a disempowering story and it is NOT the story of the hero. But hey, everyone wants to be the princess on the pedestal, right? Unless they want to have the princess as their reward, right? Either way, the princess is objectified and reduced from a real person to an idealized version of herself, which ultimately, can’t exist in real life.
I would have still seen it as abusive and so would others. And it would have been a FEMINIST issue to see Clarke so reduced that she was nothing but a trophy to the warrior king.
Being a kind of standard, traditional story, it would not have gotten as much press or political attention. But the audience also would have more easily been able to see it as Clarke trying to regain her power and recover, rather than being denied bullied into seeing it only through identity politics, and not issues of psychological manipulation or power imbalances.
