#every time someone manages to come up with some twisted logic to misrepresent a completely adequate story i see red😂

[evelhak]

I was googling if a certain book was on the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge and somehow the war on the character was in the first search results side by side and I thought it was funny. 😂

Ok, well, the first one was more about how Yale isn't like she said but the hate for the character in general was also mentioned and a part of the point there. Meanwhile the second one actually starts with how she did do wrong things but it's about how she is criticized way too harshly and hated for mistakes anyone could have made and often victim blamed too.

I'm on about this again, I know, but I have a particular dislike for when characters (or humans too ofc) are not truly being criticised for their mistakes but actually just being hated or punished for not being perfect, because the audience expected them to be a role model of some sort.

A lot of people claim that it's the show's fault because the character was framed as a role model, which just doesn't make any sense to me. It's not an educational show. It's entertainment. It's about someone really young who is striving to do the best they can. And it's obvious from the very first episode that this is a sheltered teenage character learning new things, having a ton of first experiences, and the way she handles them is not nearly always at first the best one, and sometimes she also just has a bad day. That's an integral part of the journey. That's the whole point. That it's okay to make mistakes, you'll learn and you'll survive past them. Because the story is describing humanity. It's not trying to give you straight answers. If you feel like a character betrayed you by not reaching the standards you hold them to, the problem is yours.

Yeah, everyone has blind spots and faults but if you perceive a character (who is honestly a really realistic portrayal of a human being under her circumstances) to be initially so perfect that you have to scrutinize her to find faults and when you do you blow it out of proportion and she's suddenly the arch villain of her generation, just for being human then maybe the problem is that you misinterpreted the show to begin with and held her to standards she was never meant to be held to.

It's just a big pet peeve of mine when characters aren't treated as means to understand human beings and reflect upon your views of the world, but instead as some sort of reflection of your morality based on which character you love or hate and having a 'correct' opinion on who is irredeemable and who is actually just a victim and not responsible for anything they do. That's where this usually seems to culminate.

Characters are tools. Aside from driving the plot forward (because I'm more into character driven stories:) they are there to demonstrate relationship dynamics, behavioural patterns, all sort of gravity of a particular situation, personality traits, and so much more, and you can obviously criticise how the story portrayed some elements or characters but also people kinda need to understand that a story is never objective and it isn't meant to be. It's kind of the whole point of stories to empathise with the point of view. That doesn't mean you shouldn't look outside of it, it's just that if you feel like a blatant, huge, character defining, story-wise very obviously intentional mistake like sleeping with someone's husband or dropping out of school "ruined a character" then maybe you need to consider that you might be rejecting the story because you didn't want this character to be human or something?

Like, the whole point of writing characters in character driven media (which Gilmore Girls very much is) is to give people opportunities to take the character's perspective and try to understand how they ended up doing what they did, how it makes sense for the character and how this can enhance your understanding of other people and yourself. If fiction like this is approached with a desire to judge, and not with curiousity and understanding at the forefront, then what is the point? (Understanding doesn't equal excusing something by the way.)

If you've done all this work and just don't like Rory or someone else as a character, I'm not talking to you. Taste is subjective, that's cool, I'm not saying anyone has to like Rory. I'm just sad about the approach and the completely misguided reasons to hate her and declare her "the worst". That's different than just not vibing with her.

But I guess thinking Rory Gilmore is a supervillain just shows to what extent people are capable of twisting situations and dynamics and exaggerating things in their head when they're disappointed.