I'm sorry, but claiming that the people who are upset with how Cassandra and Varian were handled are not only part of the fandom, but misogynistic is absolutely insane. I'm sorry that I don't think one measly apology to Rapunzel, and no one else, after going out of her way to try and hurt and KILL Rapunzel and her loved ones is enough to redeem her or make her any type of hero.
She was handled SO poorly, and so was Varian. Varian played an important role as the antagonist and to Rapunzel, challenging Rapunzel's morals and having to force her to ask the question: who do I prioritize, my friends or my kingdom? and then he was left to rot in a prison for an entire season. And then he was brought back and used as essentially bait and nothing more.
But then the next season with Cassandra goes against her entire arc with Varian, because then she just drops everything, ignores her duties as a princess, and fixates on Cassandra. She ignores the fact that Cassandra is hurting her subjects and her loved ones, kidnaps Varian, and tries to fucking KILL Rapunzel, but somehow, she's more important to Rapunzel because "she can fix her", which is a problematic concept in itself.
So, yeah, I think it's entirely unfair to assume that people who don't like how your favorite and least favorite characters were handled are part of the hatedom, and even worse, misogynistic and racist. It's really bold and disgusting and downright delusional. Please, think about how your words affect others and realize how the world doesn't revolve around you.
beloved are u trying to insinuate that i think the writing in season three was good? SKDHKLGSKDF
s3 was objectively bad on technical merits
s3 is where the myriad structural weaknesses in the tts narrative collapsed, after two seasons of the story mostly making the 'grand overarching quest narrative but rigidly episodic storytelling' thing work. this is largely because cassandra is, structurally speaking, the protagonist during s3
the character writing from ep to ep was exceptionally poor for everyone in the cast, with cass, rapunzel, & varian getting the lion's share of the fucking-over
i am categorically anti-redemption arc for reasons i have discussed at length, literally just search 'redemption' on my blog lmao
the primary reason cassandra's villain arc got fumbled so badly is that tts was unwilling or unable, as a narrative, to tackle the actual legitimate grievances she had against rapunzel, and therefore resorted to using the gothel fig leaf and not allowing rapunzel to reflect or grow or change meaningfully throughout the season; varian's s3 arc suffered in a similar way but to a lesser extent from the inability of the disney princess cartoon to actually like. focus on the systemic problems that harmed him. the blame for this lies squarely on disney and corporate fiction in general
being cognizant of / acknowledging / talking about narrative weaknesses or failings and/or expressing disappointment or irritation at the way a story turned out =/= participating in hatedom, hatedom is the toxic phenomenon that emerges when subfandom spaces begin to revolve primarily around vitriolic vivisection of a piece of media
i want u to look me in the eyes and tell me that the tts fandom by and large taking the arab-coded man whose central motivation is attacking the kingdom that conquered his people a few hundred years ago and going 'this is a sadistic insane child rapist here are a hundred fics about him viciously abusing varian often so the white protagonists can brutally retaliate' isn't racist jesus christ anon
tts put the 'don't be blatantly racist about the racially diverse separatists of saporia' bar under the ground and the tts fandom collectively pulled out a shovel
in s1, varian slips through the cracks of corona's non-existent support network and is let down by his friends while the king sends secret police to hunt him down after the traumatic (apparent) death of his father, and as a consequence he slides into a downward spiral which ends in him terroristically attacking the capital, grievously injuring many guards, kidnapping and threatening to murder the queen, and then trying to personally murder three people before he's stopped.
the typical hatedom stance here is that varian did nothing wrong because he was just a child and how dare that bitch rapunzel not help him like she promised (even though she...did, without hesitation, as soon as he got in touch with her and she discovered that her father was lying to her about having handled his problem!)
in s2, after two years of being taken for granted and having her boundaries stomped into the ground by rapunzel--who for all that she does truly care has zero experience with what it takes to be a good friend and fucks up a lot--& a LIFETIME of being expected to do two or three times the amount of work for a tiny fraction of the reward as anyone else, cass gets her hand burnt to a blackened husk by her best friend, who then 1. does not apologize for this, 2. gets mad at her for being upset, and 3. blames her for the injury. as a consequence, cassandra decides to trust the weird ghost who is kind and sympathetic to her and grabs the moonstone, then spirals hard on account of the ghost being a malicious demon bent on manipulating her, and eventually returns to corona to... terroristically attack and eventually raze the capital and try to murder rapunzel.
the typical hatedom stance here is that cassandra is a narcissistic abusive power-hungry bitch who had zero reasons for doing what she did and deserves to be executed or at least imprisoned or otherwise harshly punished for it. (even though the entire point of varian's imprisonment and subsequent radicalization by the separatists, and his hasty redemption arc after rapunzel offered him a second chance, was to illustrate the vague stance tts takes that punitive measures are not the answer to criminal behavior and are in fact actively counterproductive and harmful. which. is a stance that the folks in the tts hatedom will largely agree with as long as you are talking about varian instead of cassandra)
like u see the contradiction here, right. i invite u to explain to me why "boy does bad things because trauma = boy did nothing wrong, girl does bad things because trauma = girl is evil bitch who should die" isn't a misogynistic double standard gmksdfh