I'm just gonna ramble on this because the point really bothers me.
Normally I like Bobby's essays, but saying people are just misogynists for having issues with Lanolin is disingenuous. The whole “it would be okay if she was a male character” is such bullshit, plus the listed ones were presented VERY differently.
Firstly, Silver lives in a world with no hope and the manipulation hinges on a chance to change it. He's not an asshole to everyone. He's good to Amy. He's pals with Blaze. He's set on a mission and nothing is gonna get in his way. (I haven't played Rivals, but from what I've seen I think he's also a “get it done no matter the cost” guy there, too.)
Here's my confession as an SA2 fan: I didn't like Shadow when I first played the game (: I was like “he's a mean hedgehog!” then the last story punched me so hard I cried at the end. The story put in the work to make me like him and it paid off. He wanted to destroy everything because he was programmed to think that was his best friend's dying wish, which shows how much he valued her, and, again, was set on a mission by Gerald. Shadow always focuses on the mission.
Knuckles was a loner and told Sonic is coming after the Master Emerald. Knuckles's duty is to protect the Emerald and nothing is going to stop that.
are you noticing a pattern with these “manipulated to do bad things” characters. It's almost like a specific thing very important to them was preyed on.
Lanolin doesn't have that excuse.
The reason she joined was because she didn't want to feel weak anymore or let anyone else feel like that.
Looking at this, I kinda think her protecting Duo could've worked if it was framed better. Standing up for the underdog because she saw herself in him. But she was never given that time.
The comic has pacing problems and I think this needed extra attention because you don't get Lanolin's perspective as she's berating fan-favorite characters like Silver and Whisper.
That's going to color the audience's perception.
This exact issue happened in Xenoblade 3 and is a reason I and many others hate the ending of chapter 6.
They bring back an anticipated fan-favorite character just to have this new villain who's barely got any meaningful screentime KILL HER
Then you're supposed to immediately forgive him and be sad when he dies.
I wish he didn't die in a cutscene so I could push him off the cliff myself it has been 4 years I will not let this go HE KILLED MY GIRL NIA. AND GETS TO WHINE ABOUT HAVING AN INFERIORITY COMPLEX WHICH COMPLETELY EXONERATES HIM TO THE PARTY. BITCH I AIN'T IN THE MOOD. see it's not just female characters, it depends on how that character is written (:
Tangent aside, unlike the games where there was a full self-contained adventure where every beat flowed into the next and left little space, they're chilling!! There isn't an urgent matter they have to attend to. They have loads of downtime after the one training issue and between races! Duo has time to drink tea and Lanolin does...whatever she does. Box, I guess.
There isn't an urgency where it can be said "we don't have time to focus on this right now" which means there really isn't an excuse besides being dedicated to beating down your friends/allies you've known longer than this new guy.
And when there is that urgency, she still chooses to be stubborn when there is a clear right thing to do. You wonder why people thought she was going to be a twist villain.
It's important to remember, Duo's thing went on for like a year. There was so much time to address it. So much time while everyone was off doing their own thing Lanolin could've done some investigating, could've had an actual conversation, could've done literally anything than alienate everyone around her.
Lanolin's story has not put in the work to make me like her, unlike Shadow. There isn't a specific threat pushing her to trust Duo over everyone else, like Silver. There isn't even a mission she's bound to, like Knuckles.
It's obvious she's stubborn and serious. The writers clearly took her on a different path than we were expecting, which wouldn't be bad if it was played better.
I said it before, but the readers have context. We know Lanolin is protecting Mimic, he was not hidden as a twist. We know Whisper and Silver are right in accusing Duo. We don't get the framing from Lanolin's side and that makes audience perception worse.
Like with Joran in my Xenoblade 3 example, any character, regardless of gender, can fall flat and have a negative reception with the audience if the framing device used is hurting a character we are more attached to. The way to avoid that is make us care about the character doing the hurting. Often this is done by playing on our sympathy with tragic backstories, but being able to see how someone could reach that conclusion and get a full understanding of where they're coming from is also a good way.
A key point is a character's actions must be justifiable to them, though if the reasons are pretty outlandish, such as your friends being more skilled than you but always going out of their way to include and prop you up validates a lust to make them suffer and murder fan-favorite cat girls, you might lose people. (And this is for a bad guy!)
I can like asshole characters, I can like asshole female characters. I have a few asshole female characters myself! I certainly don't have issues with internalized misogyny, plenty of men have made that clear. If I really believed women needed to be nice and gentle all the time, X!Amy wouldn't be my favorite version, now would she?
Lanolin isn't even a character I hate, I just haven't found anything likeable about her.
