#bc i dont think eliot was ever racist in the original show but i dont think that he really knew | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

agirlinthegalaxy · 2 months ago

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It's been rolling around in my brain the last few days for some reason, but I still hate the family backstory reveals for Sophie and Eliot. I've seen some of the meta for it, but quite frankly, it still makes no sense. If it had been something actually thought of and intentional in the original, I think it could have been so fascinating. I mean, Sophie's willing abandonment of Astrid to contrast with Nate's loss of Sam or Eliot's adoption in contrast with Hardison's and Parker's? Could have been excellent! But they came out of nowhere in Redemption and don't work with these characters.

Sophie was still actively using the fucking alias that she met Astrid under! She met with someone from her past on the show! Like. Quite frankly, that one is unequivocally bullshit that they made up and threw in and pretended could fit with the established canon. (And I'm sorry, but the idea of Sophie abandoning Astrid and never telling Nate about her just... So much of Nate's trauma was rooted in the loss of Sam, and I think that introducing this element after he's gone and unable to respond to it taints Sophie and Nate's relationship in a way bc I'm not exactly sure how Nate would've responded to learning about this but I think that it's something he'd have needed to know. I don't know how to fully express my thoughts on that but yeah.)

As for Eliot, I don't like the adoption aspect literally at all. The way that he would interact with his family and the memory of his family would be different, and I think that it's flat out ridiculous to think that he'd have never mentioned it to the team in the original show, especially when dealing with the kid cases. (I also dislike the biracial adoption as its own element because if Eliot was actually raised by Black parents in the... idk what 80s/90s? That just. doesn't feel congruent with how they write Eliot interacting with PoC, not necessarily in a bad way, but babe, he's written like a white southern man raised in a specific kind of culture that does not jell with that. It also makes Eliot look... really bad that he was apparently raised with the knowledge of how fucked up the military was and his parents' history and made the choices that he did.) Like the show may not have explicitly stated it but the implication of that relationship was vastly fucking different throughout the original show.

Just. These were not backstories that were congruent with their depiction and characters in the original show, and they're also just moves that I don't particularly like or find interesting directions for those characters. There's also something to be said about how it was apparently unacceptable for a woman to not have kids or someone not reconciling with their biological family when that was something that the original show handled a lot better. Out of all the directions to take Sophie and Eliot's stories, that's just not really one that I think was a good idea.

#i'm not sure if i worded this v well tbh which concerns me #bc like. like i said i dont like the adoption plot anyways but part of my problem with that storyline IS that billy is black #bc i don't think that the way eliot is written makes sense if he was raised by a black couple during that decade #bc the way that he would have engaged with his family and community and the world around him would've been different #especially bc he was raised in the fucking south in the 80s #bc i dont think eliot was ever racist in the original show but i dont think that he really knew #how it was different for poc in certain ways that dont make sense if he was raised by a black couple #like the previous implications of his childhood and specifically his father were v much in the stereotypical v pro military be a man cultur #that culture is also v rooted in toxic masculinity and whiteness #God i hope that makes sense bc i feel like that sounds v bad #but i'd love more black characters on the show and i think that for pretty much any other mc that'd have been fine #it's specifically eliot with the space that he occupies that i feel like it's a problem with his backstory #which also is why i dont like that he's adopted at all bc that's an influential part in how you first view your place and family and all th #that i dont think makes sense with eliot's character. like literally nothing about that reveal really feels like it makes sense with eliot #and to move over to sophie for a second i feel like bringing up the abandoned stepdaughter would have been pretty damn important #when sophie was struggling with the idea of who she really was beneath the aliases and the grift #and especially when she's in a relationship with nate who WAS a father like #and that she used the charlotte alias to meet with someone from her past but there wasnt anything about the fallout #which still makes no fricking sense either way #also insert something about sophie being an older woman without kids #(i know there's the ot3 but they're not actually in a position as her kids bc theyre still equals in a sense)#and needing to actually go no no she was a mom! and then bailed and did all this and blah blah but she's always been a mom in her heart <3 #and adding in this relationship as if an older woman cant be satisfied or complete without kids #and i know that ppl might bring up parker but like lbr parker is positioned in a v different space narratively than sophie #ofc parker doesn't have kids she's positioned in a space as the Odd one the kinda broken one #her defying the expectations narratively doesnt necessarily work the same bc of her place #idk i kinda hope these dont end up in the main tags bc idk how ppl will respond nor how well i actually got across my points #but i do wanna tag them for my blog so #leverage #sophie devereaux

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