#I will say an example of Romance being done HORRIFICALLY and RUINING character narative is the whole Mara and Mick romance thing....no.

[sora-of-uranus]

Another issue with S3 is they really could've explored personal stories more (Eddie's relationship with his dad which is disregarded after Sweet briefly expels the Sibunas, and the descendants plot). Instead, they over relied on the romance which caused problems for new characters (KT being considered an obstacle for Peddie) and old ones (Patricia being jealous the entire season and Fabian not having a plot due to a lack of a romantic partner and being paired with Mara at the last minute).

I have no idea how long this has been waiting for me to read cuss I never check my inbox but OMG THIS THIS THIS! especially the relying on romance. So often (even before season 3) romance was used as a driving force for the narative or character arcs and whilst thats great...it gets boring. It's quite a large main cast with side characters being introduced every season. There isn't realllly enough school romance plots that can fit in WITH the mysteries for every character to constantly have this romance plot line. But as you said with Fabian, the writers also don't know what to do with a character once they remove that romantic partner. I think it's espeically hard for the writers to continue writing a compelling and strong character arc once the person is in a relationship. Patrica I think is the best example of this character growth stunting because in season 1 she didn't really have a massive romance arc like in other seasons. her growth happened through her platonic love for Joy sure, and eventually learning to be friends with the sibunas and realising that she CAN trust other people to help her. But no massive romantic love stories. Then eddie comes and as much as I LOVE them her own character growth was pushed back to focus on the romance. and that focus on her growth just never returned in a satisfying way for me. But also your definitly right with Eddies relationship with his dad it was such a complex and tricky relationship that seemed to only cause problems when the narative needed it to. Honestly thats how a lot of the characters negative aspects work, they are fine untill the narative NEEDS them not to be. And no this isn't me trying to say "characters need to constantly be suffering from past issues with no growth" even though as I'm reading it back it kinda sounds like I am, but certain things just don't randomly go away before returning at the same extreme level as when it was before. If they had worked through Eddies relationship with his dad and explored it before them finding a working solution, fantastic, but then they don't need to bring it back up UNLESS something new happens that shifts the peace from before. Imagine if Nina never got over her home sickness but it only popped up every 5 episode. That would feel strange and weird. I would like to add that this isn't me saying that season 3 is awful and that the first two seasons don't also have these issues, but its more prevelant in season 3 and there was less 'intresting 'special' moments to make up for it.