For the Gavin parents, would there be any way that they would've actually love each other or where they two people completely incompatible who forced themselves together?
Also I find it interesting that they had almost everything except cheating for toxic traits. Are they loyal to each other despite being toxic or does it simply seem like its not an option due to appearances?
oh hey perfect timing i just answered something in an ask that's related to this DGHD
tbh im not quite sure myself bc i find it hard to imagine their dynamic as anything but dysfunctional, but i'm sure if circumstances were kinder to them, if they were able to break out of their own cycles of abuse, i think there would've been a world where they would've made it out just fine.
like, i think the tragedy that i really enjoy with them is that they actually did like each other at the start! i think karsten found karen charming, so he's a little smitten like that, while karen thought karsten to be this kind of figure that's safe, someone she knows that would never stab her in the back, because he's just way too blunt and honest to do any sort of underhandedness.
but the problem with both of them is that they are stubborn, unchanging people who believe what they're doing is always the right thing. regardless of whether they notice the harm that they're causing, they just don't care; it's just that, that's how they survived, so then it must be the way things are supposed to be, which means then it must be how they should continue to live.
i think their incompatibility comes from both of them refusing to change, because then they're just stuck being the worst version of themselves.
as for being faithful to each other, it's kind of both. i think karsten does love her, even if he suckssss and she suckssss, he loves her, it's as simple as that. karen, on the other hand, her love for karsten has slowly grown into indifference; she especially thinks his gestures of affection are annoying, but the thought of being separated from him makes her feel nauseous. they stay together despite how miserable they are because they just think that a broken family is simply unbecoming for people like them.
(this was in reply to my friend when they asked me if they had affairs)
i think karen flirts here and there but i dont think shes actually had like affair-affairs. i think shes easily bored with and generally uninterested with people and too wrapped up with this persona she's holding up that she thinks this is the way people are and is afraid anybody is going to stab her in the back. except for karsten, whose bluntness and his confidence in what he says to be nothing but the truth that karen finds herself drawn into. he's the only kind of integrity she's ever known.
(ok i hope this makes sense im a little sleepy right now ASKSKS)
