#except maybe dorota and vanya

[terrainofheartfelt]

Why do you think the writers wrote rufly into the show when Derena was the main couple in season 1? Do you think they had an idea who endgames would be? Clearly they broke rufly up so Derena could get married in Season 6

Yeahhhh, I’ve always kind of suspected that’s one reason they broke Rufus and Lily up ultimately, because they wanted to clear the way for Derena, even though they didn’t necessarily need to? But, they established in s1 that if one couple were to thrive, the other couldn’t—a rule asserted by a teenage girl with parental issues galore but okay—and they seemingly drove this summation home in s2 when rufly and derena were dating simultaneously, but, then, in s4 when they toyed around with serena and dan getting back together for more than half a season, their parents’ marriage didn’t seem to matter anymore? 

It’s hard to pin down a reason because even if the showrunners wanted a derena endgame, which – I’m not as well up on behind-the-scenes stuff as others – seems to be the case, there’s still no consistency in the storytelling. If endgame, why were their most profound romantic connections with other characters???

The more I think on it, inconsistency is the thing. The way that good good slowburn rufly got in the first two seasons percolated, ain’t know way they anticipated breaking them up at the end. S has floated on her blog and to me that the main reason they broke rufly up was to further drive home the Great Retcon and the show’s ending moral that: poor bad, rich good! Because the Rufly relationship, arguably more so than Dair, was about two people from different worlds and backgrounds coming together and building something meaningful that didn’t rely on, or give credence to, the machinations of the UES way of life. Rufly broke up because the thesis of the show changed. To prove that “rich good!” Dan could not be allowed to win over the other characters, and that Chuck had to become the hero. And Chuck couldn’t become the hero without tearing Dan to shreds. And the central pillar of who Dan is as a character is Rufus: representational of his Brooklyn roots, an upbringing not based on consolidating wealth and power and abusing women. So Rufus had to be destroyed too, to prove the new thesis of the show.