#eg offering drake an apartment of his own instead of stying in the palace

[lizzybeth1986]

Hey Lizzy, can you share the screenshot of Drake saying Liam lead MC on?? I still can't believe that happened! 😱

Sure! It's from Book 3 Chapter 16, in that diamond scene where you take your LI around different spots in Vegas and remember important moments in your romantic journey with them.

The setup for this dialogue is that Drake and the MC are at a replica of Liberty Island, and are remembering how they first met. This dialogue is unlocked (I think) when the MC mentions she was intrigued by Drake, and he can't believe it because she and Liam seemed so attracted to each other. The MC then tells him that it was because Drake didn't even seem to want her there. Here's his response:

(Screenshots from HIMEME's YouTube channel)

I find this distasteful for a couple of reasons:

1. It erases Drake's actual first response to her, which was to continue to call her a waitress instead of her name unless she dressed attractively enough, and accuse her of being a crown chaser just a day after this meeting. There was zero protectiveness involved in either of those gestures.

2. Liam...leading the MC on. Read that together in a sentence and try to make sense of it. LIAM...LEADING THE MC ON.

3. The problems I have with that way of viewing that entire sequence. Where do I even begin:

- So this comment can be viewed two ways. Either Drake is talking about the time Liam was spending with the MC in NY - or in a larger sense, about Liam's behaviour during the social season. I lean more towards the first one, since the context of the conversation is clearly the NY bachelor party. But I can argue that in both cases, claiming that Liam "led her on" is inaccurate and actually pretty damn insulting to both the MC and his so-called best friend.

- Liam was more open and honest than he even needed to be that night. He didn't have to be. He wasn't obligated to tell her his true identity, in fact it was seen as a better choice if he didn't. Liam tells us as much if we ask him point blank why he didn't tell us straightaway who he was.

- If the MC reveals she has started having feelings for Liam, he is very clear about not being able to give her what she wants even if he wants it too. He makes it clear throughout - from the get go - that while he is intrigued and fascinated by her, nothing can come out of this. It's the MC's choice to kiss him (either at Liberty Island or at her doorstep), despite her knowledge of this, and she acknowledges that especially in the Liberty scene.

- Also...Drake was clearly not exactly involved in this conversation so why the fuck was he making judgement calls based on something he didn't completely hear.

- How...the fuck...is spending ONE (1) evening with a guy she'd probably never meet again equivalent to "Cordonian royal politics ruining another hopeful girl's life". How. What even is the connection. I -

- But...suppose we assume he was also speaking about the social season, going by the latter dialogues about "those nobles". Could Liam be viewed as "leading the MC on" even then? You'd have to really stretch logic to read it that way. Bringing her to Cordonia was Maxwell's idea, not Liam's. Liam doesn't even know she's there until the Masquerade Ball, and up until the Regatta, he worries constantly about being fair to her (and until Lythikos about being fair to the other ladies), asks her repeatedly how ready she feels for the role of queen, keeps her in the loop about how confident he feels about choosing her. Up until he actually feels confident about his own choices, he doesn't make any promises. Hell, even their first official date is after he has made his decision.

I can't see him as leading the MC on if even he wasn't aware what would happen next at his Coronation. He did everything in his power to protect and help her, and Drake knows this because Drake was the one he trusted with that task.

- I'm still willing to give Drake the benefit of the doubt. Maybe what Drake meant was that no matter what Liam's feelings were, he should have waited until the end instead of being open about them (if we're talking about the social season). Maybe he expected Liam to act like a complete monk at his own freaking bachelor party idk. Maybe Drake is the kind of guy who values 'honour' over 'emotions'.

But even then...Drake doesn't exactly live up to his own lofty principles for some reason. In his final Book 1 diamond scene, he asks for a kiss regardless of whether you have feelings or not the night the MC is expected to be engaged to Liam. He is aware Liam has feelings for the MC but it never occurs to him to talk to her about her not telling Liam anything...or to his best friend about how he feels. He doesn't exactly mind flirting with her even after she is engaged to someone else (including said best friend), telling her this:

(he's said this to both my MCs - Esther [Liam MC] and Persephone [Hana MC] - who have zero romance points with him).

Is "honour over emotions" only meant for lesser mortals like Liam then, and not for The Almighty St. Drake?

- Also by the time of this conversation Drake already knows that Savannah ran away from Bertrand because they're both stupid and they both suck at communicating. You can't still be blaming that on "those nobles" now!

So...yeah. I find it even more distasteful because Liam is practically never allowed to say anything but positive things about Drake. Drake is amazing, Drake is great, Drake saved me from a capsizing boat, Drake found me when I got lost while camping once, Drake helped me in difficult times, Drake saved my life, I'd trust Drake with my life, you'll love Drake when you get to truly know him, I wouldn't be alive and here if it weren't for Drake. Drake Drake Drake.

Drake on the other hand can call Liam out on his privilege, without ever once examining his own. He speaks a lot about his obligations to him and what he owes Liam, but at the same time he also makes Liam's life sound more charmed than it actually is (except maybe for a handful of scenes, and the last chapter, where he conveniently notices the flip side now that his own kid - in his playthrough - may go through it as well). He can say shit like this, and it's supposed to be justification for his own shitty behaviour in the first few chapters of the series. Like I really don't even like to consider him a friend anymore to Liam tbh, if he can do his BFF dirty like that.

I honestly believe the team was trying to retcon most of the narrative behind Drake's initial behaviour to her, by framing it as protectiveness rather than mistrust. I just wish they didn't throw Liam under the bus to do so. How difficult is it to have Drake say: "I made snap judgements without even knowing you. I was an asshole. I was wrong" in that sequence?

Edit: This post was written quite a while before PB released TRR 2.0 - the "rewrite" where the team drastically rewrote the first four chapters of Book 1. While opinions on Liam's behaviour and characterization in those chapters vary, many agree that he was cockier, more forward, more hesitant to open up about his identity and more flirty around the MC, while Drake was written to be more helpful and more friendly. Ergo, Liam in this rewrite would be more open to being interpreted as "leading the MC on"

Whether the team wrote those characterizations to prove Drake right is something we cannot say for sure, but one can see the connections between this scene and the eventual rewrite, if one remembers how Liam was originally written and how different that is from the very deliberate framing Drake gave to Liam's first interactions with the MC.