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[titsthedamnseason]

why do you think *some* people cant quite get or grasp Julian's character? srsly, discuss, please, I wanna know ur opinion or if you ever thought about it cause I have my theories and I want to get more opinions cause it's important, it's kind of a "research" for a project of mine, it would help me out a lot to have your 2 cents on the matter ^^

youve already gotten some top tier responses about this issue that i wholeheartedly agree with but! i’ll try

i feel like a lot of it comes down to a misunderstanding of his character to be honest. ive seen a lot of people say they used to like or not mind julian, but as the series progressed and he started getting somewhat morally questionable that declined. when you understand the full capacity of julian’s actions and the reasons behind them, it seems perfectly reasonable that he’d be willing to lie and go to extremes for his family. however, without grasping the full weight of his situation, it’s easy to say “he’s evil” or “he shouldnt be doing that” when, compared to someone who sees the difficult spot julian has been put it, it seems more logical and makes more sense. 

i think this may be an issue for people who hadnt read tmi in a while, or never had at all, who never saw innocent and loving jules that just didnt want his family to be separated. without seeing how he was forced to kill his own father, how desperate he was to keep his family together and the weight that running an institute and raising four kids carries, it may all seem inconsequential and as if he’s just doing “bad” things for the sake of it. 

something else that plays into this is perhaps his more undercut actions. there are a handful of other characters (kaz brekker, kell maresh, victor vale, to name a few) that are considered morally gray as well and yet are widely praised for it. these characters commit their “morally gray” (but honestly borderline evil in some cases) actions much more obviously. they do it through murder, through flashy acts of violence, etc. the way in which julian is morally gray is through plans and schemes that all happen in his head and are never physical. although what he’s doing is nowhere near as bad as what these other characters do, his mental capacity frightens people and maybe seems worse because of the thought that goes into it. not to say that kaz brekker doesnt think before killing someone, but it is clearly less of a process and not as obvious.  

another factor i would say plays into it is rosastairs, which i recently discussed as well. i think sometimes when people ship something noncanon, they look for it in canon and try to read between the lines to find it. as a result, i find that a lot of rosastairs shippers wound up not liking julian under the thought process that emma didnt actually love julian and that his manipulative nature had only made her think so, which is a clear contradiction of the text, something that is irrelevant to people looking to push aside julian so their ship can be complete. 

something else that seems to be true is that julian hate seems to spread like a disease. people who were neutral about or even like julian sometimes curve towards disliking him after seeing such strong negative opinions on him. people see words like “manipulative” or “problematic” and their instinct is to lean away rather than accept a morally gray character because they want what’s easy. it’s much easier to pass off julian’s actions as being blatantly evil or wrong, but it’s much harder and takes much more thought and effort to say “hey, maybe this was his reason” or, “he didnt have much choice because of x, y, and z” and truly analyze the depths of his character. it’s easier to peg someone as being just good or bad rather than acknowledge the area in between just because no one has really figured out what exactly that area entails yet. 

a good example of people misunderstanding julian in general would be him killing his father. that sentence alone sounds awful without context, but when you get the full scope of how his father had become endarkened and was trying to kill julian and all of his younger siblings, it seems much less horrible on julian’s end, and even makes the reader sympathize with him instead of his endarkened father. so many of julian’s so called “questionable” decisions can be broken down like this when you take the time to look and understand that not everything should be taken at face value. 

lastly, i think it comes down to the fact that he is a straight white male. to begin with, people are turned off to characters that fit this description, something that is understandable to a degree. most of the time im wary of characters with the aforementioned attributes however i do try and keep an open mind. in julian’s case and with many other characters, it did not seem that people did that. when it comes down to it, if julian was a girl, if julian and emma’s roles were reversed, if julian was actually the father of the blackthorn kids, no one would hate him the way they do now. they would “understand,” they would make excuses, they would praise a morally gray female character. in julian’s case, they just see an asshole male teenager who’s horny for his best friend and creepily paints pictures of her, never mind the way he was forced to grow up through his responsibilities, genuinely loved emma and yet kept it a secret, clearly struggles w mental health etc. 

at the end of the day if youve really taken time to read this whole thing it seems safe to say:

i think we ALL love julian blackthorn