#and b) it’s a stock trope that goes back to greek mythology and earlier to use female characters to motivate male ones

[un-pearable]

further extremely opinionated take but how on earth does that make sally weaker. sally is too intelligent to willingly engage in a relationship that would have put percy in physical or emotional danger, especially given we know she was communicating with at least grover if not chiron himself about keeping him safe from monsters - characterizing gabe as cartoonishly violent and evil does not work with her agency and characterization!!! if anything this makes her MORE believable if this was a man she genuinely did have stuff in common with, that they could have plausibly fallen in love. there’s a tendency to characterize abusers as horrifically, obviously evil masterminds or incessantly violent, but that’s not how actual abuse and domestic violence works*. it grows over time. they have to have actually seen something in each other. i think the show’s changes REALLY sell the idea that sally and gabe could have been together for genuine reasons once, and that she’s clinging after its changed for percy’s sake (the NormalTM vibes to ward off monsters) (assuming that’s still canon)

making gabe that level of cartoonishly horrible in a show - which takes us out of percy’s first person POV - would make sally seem irresponsible or, worse, stupid for not seeing that he could be harmful. he HAS to be realistically garbage for her to feel like a real woman with real agency and not just a prop for the narrative. sally is inherently fridged for the plot of The Lightning Thief to occur, reframing her major relationship is key to making her feel like a real person and begin to compensate for that. gabe (and thus, the discussion of abuse) hasn’t been turned into a joke, it’s how actual abusive relationships start: as relationships.

already seen plenty of stuff re: tolerable-ization of gabe and sincerely i think it’s good. this version of gabe undeniably sucks but in a realistic, i-can-see-why-these-two-would-get-together way. kid’s media has a tendency to create abusive characters who are exaggerated to make it obvious to kids, but the show is targeted at both kids and the original readers who grew up, so it can afford to have a little more nuance and make sally and gabe behave like people who DID have a real reason to get together (once)