#if they hadn't been so focused on making mon-el the love interest

[kitkatt0430]

Mon-El subplots I would have liked to have seen on Supergirl (in place of him dating Kara)

1.) Mon-El's struggles to come to terms with the destruction of his homeworld & the decimation of his people & the part Kryptonians played in it.

Admittedly, it's been a while since I saw season 2 of Supergirl. But I remember being disappointed by the lack of focus on Mon-El's grief. We see bits and pieces of Kara's struggle with being an immigrant and having her homeworld and people and culture, as she knew it as a child, destroyed. But with Mon-El, it's all fresh. For him the destruction of Daxam and Krypton were just days ago when he woke up. And while there's a heavy focus on him conforming to human culture and fitting in so no one knows he's an alien... he's not really left much room to grieve.

Season one of Supergirl established that the environmental crisis that destroyed Krypton was the fault of the Kryptonians - season two further establishes that the crisis didn't end there. Krypton's destruction damaged Daxam, destroying parts of the planet and rendering it uninhabitable. As far as Mon-El knows, he's the only Daxamite to survive his planet's destruction and, if he's lucky, there might have been some Daxamites off planet at the time of his homeworld's destruction so he's at least not the only Daxamite left alive.

But he knows his homeworld's death - the deaths of billions of his people - is the fault of the Kryptonians. Kryptonians who knew was was coming and as far as he - his people's prince - was aware... Daxam was not warned. The tragedy came swiftly and without warning and Mon-El only survived because his bodyguard put him in a Kryptonian pod and sent him to safety.

Kara constantly takes the high ground against Daxamite culture, but Kryptonians are directly responsible for the destruction of Daxam and the show's plot kind of glosses over this. It would have been interesting to have Mon-El hold a grudge against Kara for being Kryptonian and for the narrative to validate his feelings. Kara having to recognize that her people's refusal to acknowledge the instability of their planet's core makes her people responsible for what transpired on Daxam and that she bears some of that responsibility as a Kryptonian.

It would have been a far more interesting take on their relationship if Mon-El was struggling to accept that it's not really Kara he's angry with but what she represents while Kara is struggling to recognize that Kryptonian hubris and prejudices are still things she's carried with her to Earth that it's time to learn to outgrow. It's only after they both grow as people that they can learn to be friends over the course of the season.

2.) Mon-El learning about how humans practice polyamory.

Given that season 2 was also the season where Alex discovers she's a lesbian, it would have been interesting if Alex's self exploration prompted Mon-El to learn more about the queer community himself. I think a lot of aspects of both the polyamorous community and the kink community would appeal to him, as it's implied that Daxamites were more 'sexually adventurous' or whatever than Kryptonians were.

I definitely felt like there was a 'monogamy good' message going on in pairing Mon-El up with Kara, as though Mon-El had to let go of all his culture in order to be worthy of her, and I think that's what really turned me off on their ship entirely. So Mon-El finding aspects of human culture that are marginalized and treated poorly that resonate strongly with him would only be a good thing. It'd put him in a position to push back against some of Kara's criticisms of his culture and to say 'humans actually do the same thing and the only thing bad about it is that people here discriminate against it'.

All of which dovetails nicely with the next point...

3.) A closer look at Daxamite culture.

We get Daxam as kind of a strawman - the anti-Krypton - that Kara harps on righteously because its so bad with slavery and rampant drug use and promiscuity everywhere. And when the rest of the survivors of Daxam show up, Mon-El has to prove himself better than the rest of his people and a hero to Earth. It's kind of gross.

Mon-El does need to learn that not everything about his homeworld's culture was good. Unlearning his acceptance of his people owning slaves? Absolutely needs to acknowledge that was bad. But everything else is an open world to play with people's expectations. Maybe their recreational drug policies actually led to fewer addicts - as we've seen in the real world where drugs are decriminalized, people are far less likely to die of overdoses or bad drug batches and people are more likely to seek help with a drug problem because there's less of a stigma due to the lack of criminalization of what is, at heart, an illness. Of course, this may have been more true for the upper classes of Daxamite culture than the lower classes. And, of course, as noted above I think Mon-El would see the promiscuity of his people that Kara derides as being analogous to how humans handle open relationships and noting that there's a difference between an open relationship and cheating.

But beyond pushing back on the world of straw the show gave us, it'd be interesting to know more about the people of Daxam. Did culture vary in different areas of the planet? What expectations was Mon-El facing as the prince and heir to the throne of an entire planet? What religions were there and was Rao worshipped there too? If Rao was worshiped, how did the worship of Rao differ between Daxamites and Kryptonians?

Ultimately we know so little about Daxam, which is unfortunate given how prominent of a character Mon-El is. It'd be interesting to have a picture of Daxam that shows it wasn't all bad and that Mon-El doesn't have to give up his heritage as a Daxamite entirely to prove himself a hero on Earth.

4.) Mon-El leading a social revolution with his people.

All of the above comes together in this. It would have been interesting if Mon-El recognized his people couldn't continue on as they had been. Instead of him just wanting to stay on Earth because he liked Kara, say he did want to go with his people but the conflict with his parents came from his desire to change the aspects of their culture that needed changing not least of all because without the power they once held on Daxam and have lost by becoming refugees...

When he learns his mother intends to make Earth 'New Daxam' come hell or high water, of course he'd still fight to protect Earth. His time on Earth has taught him that he isn't entitled to having everything he wants just because he's a Daxamite prince and he's extended that understanding that his people aren't entitled to Earth just because they want it. His parents aren't entitled to do whatever they please - even ultimately harming their own people - just because they're rulers. He's learned that with power comes responsibility and intentions don't make abusing that power okay.

And perhaps instead of winding up in the future after leaving Earth, Mon-El becomes the new King of Daxam, spearheading social reforms that will eventually lead to a better life for all his people and ensure all Daxamites are treated with dignity. Maybe they terraform a new planet or become a traveling city like Argo, which still allows for bringing Mon-El back for later story events as dictated by later seasons plots.