Trollhunters Ships Analysis
Jlaire ❁ The first thing we know about Claire is not that he's a punk/gothic girl, a girl with good grades, something about her family, or something interesting about her. The first thing we know about her is this: she's the crush of Jim. And although in the novels it is shown the reason why Jim has a crush on Claire, in the show it doesn't. And not showing why Jim likes her makes you think that reason is very shallow. You could think "maybe he likes her because she's popular" or "maybe she's attractive for him". And the truth is he doesn't know anything about her at the beginning, so he's just in love with an idea of her. Later in the show, they start talking more and become friends, they decide to go together to a ball, and in season 2, they kiss. My question is the following: Why did they go to the ball together or kissed if Claire didn't show she liked Jim in season 1? Yeah, they talked, and Claire told him they were going to get out Enrique from the Darklands together, but when did Claire show she liked Jim too? Last time I checked, during the whole season, Claire was more interested in the safety of Enrique than in dating Jim. And suddenly, she's in love with him. Damn, I know the show didn't have many episodes to develop the realtionship, but at least they could have worked a little more in them (or at least make them take longer in deciding to date). I've seen other movies where a character had a crush in another character, and those writers handled better that relationship with even less time.
Stricklake ❁ At first, Strickler just wants to talk to Barbara because Jim was the trollhunter, without meaning to really fall in love with her (something he eventually did). But in the second part of season 1, he uses her to manipulate Jim into not hurting him (entwining his fate with Barbara's, which is not okay even if he doubts doing that to her). Later, when Vendel is breaking their bond, Strickler says "Forgive me, Barbara", which, fair, can be Strickler's way of saying "I'm sorry", but it would have been better to directly say "I'm sorry". In the final episode of season 2, he came back to Arcadia (after leaving at the end of season 1) and in season 3 we see them going to talk to Barbara. And he could have made it about her, he could have acted as if he cared about her and her feelings, but I got the feeling that talking to her again was something he did to feel better with himself rather than really apologizing to Barbara for "leaving without telling her" (we all know that wasn't the reason why he neeeded to apologize, but that's what Barbara believed at that moment). Their development during season 3 after that was "okay", but I don't like how they got there. Strickler hurt her and her son, even if he wasn't good at apologies, and even if he wanted to show he was sorry instead of directly saying it, sometimes you need people to tell you they're sorry for hurting you. And Barbara deserved that apology. (Strickler might not be a person who directly says "I'm sorry", but other character I've seen are the same, and some of them did apologize even if it "wasn't in their blood")
Darby ❁ The main problem with this ship is how many times Darci appeared. She wasn't one of the main characters, and she wasn't present in every episode (or almost every episode) like Toby, Jim or Claire. She didn't even have a proper development as a character: everything "important" about her was her relationship with Toby, as if she was there just to date him. Besides, their development is almost null. For example, why did Darci like Toby? She said, while taking of her mole mask, that she wanted him to invite just her to the ball and not other girls (what puts Toby in a bad position because he asked all the girls from the high school to go with him to the ball), but why? Why did she want him to invite her? What did she saw in him, when at the beginning of the show she didn't even pay attention to him? Also, why did Toby like Darci? It's the same problem Jlaire has. Toby didn't know her, and for some reason he fell in love with her. And for what? Because of how she acted being the mole mascot? Sorry, but that isn't believable. And they weren't even friends like Jlaire did! Darby went straight from “students who barely knew each other” to “couple". This ship is more like a way to give Toby a happy ending (to imitate Jlaire and Stricklake) than a naturally relationship. You could blame the number of episodes again for that, okay— but there are plenty of other shows and movies with less screen time that handled romantic arcs so much better.
Staja ❁ This ship at first seems like something interesting: a human ex-bully dating an alien princess, but when you look deeper into it, you see there's a lack of good writing there. Mostly because of Steve (not because of Aja). In Trollhunters, he was a bully who changed and started to be better in season 3, but in 3 Below, the writers just threw away that sub-plot as if it meant nothing and wasn't important. Instead of making Steve try to be better, and keep working in his redemption, the writers decided to make him stupid again, reversing all the progress he did in earlier episodes. They made him a flat character, without giving him the complexity they gave him in Trollhunters, and he went from being "the bully who tries to be better" to "the stupid boy who dates Aja, a princess from another world". The writers decided to make Aja a strong independent woman, and that's okay, but they also should have given Steve a good characterization. And they decided to disrespect him and disrespect what he was trying to be in Trollhunters: a better person. I'm not criticizing the writers for giving Aja a feminist writing, I'm criticizing the writers for being biased towards her and making the Steve (the boy of the relationshi) weaker and more stupid to highlight Aja's character. As I mentioned in another post, writers don't need to make the male character in a straight relationship weaker, more stupid, or useless in order to make the female character stronger, more intelligent, or more useful.
Ps: This is my opinion, and while I accept to have a discussion about what I said, I don't accept people forcing me to change my mind or saying "you're wrong because [X] 😡😡!"
Ps 2: I tagged this as anti Jlaire, anti Stricklake, anti Darby and anti Staja, but to be honest I'm not an anti of any of these ships. I don't hate them, I just don't like how they were handled in the show. I can perfectly read a fic of them because the only media I don't like of them is the canon. Honestly, fic writers are definitely better at writing them than the canon writers were.