Can we as a fandom acknowledge the extreme double-standard that many view the kanej āI will have you without armorā quote with?
For the most part, Kaz gets to be as emotionally unavailable, cruel, and violent as he wants, and is celebrated for it. Many of his most heinous actions are taken in a very lighthearted way, joked about, and justified in every manner. Hell, the scene where he straight up dehumanizes Inej and refers to her as an investment, something to be owned, is one of the most beloved quotes in the series!
But Inej has one (count em, ONE) moment of frustration, where she asks Kaz to just TRY to put in an equal amount of thought and effort into their relationship that she does, where she says something that could be perceived as a bit hypocritical, which she later acknowledges, and fans of the series treat her like a villain for it. Like sheās a manipulative and abusive partner who is forcing Kaz into physical intimacy, never mind that she explicitly disproves this about one page after this scene.
I see this trend happening a lot in fandom, where female characters are expected to be overly mature and endlessly understanding, putting in 10x the emotional labor into a relationship compared to their male partner, who is lauded as a perfect boyfriend just for existing. And Iām sure this is compounded by the fact that Inej is a woman of color, and is therefore held to a much higher standard of moral purity compared to the rest of the cast.
Like, Iām āsorryā the scary woman of color said something a bit inconsiderate to your precious white boy, but guess what? Inej and Kaz are BOTH heavily traumatized teenagers with communication issues trying to navigate their romantic feelings towards each other, and to forgive one of them for their flaws while villainizing the other just shows your deeply engrained misogynistic and racist beliefs.
