#in which *i* was supposedly the innocent minor being manipulated by a Very Bad Adult

[joannerowling]

lol they only care about the age gap because the women get in the way of their gay ships. they've also tried to claim it's "weird" or even incestuous that lupin married sirius' cousin, because he was totally in love with sirius and tonks is totes coded as a genderqueer lesbian

The second example is extra delulu, but i've seen even radfems get pissed at JKR for the age gaps. I've never understood why that is such a big deal for some people. Sure, in real life an age gap can be a red flag, but ultimately what makes a relationship toxic and abusive is a combinaison of multiple factors. And here we are talking about fictional characters. We know that neither Lupin nor Bill is going to turn out to be an abusive prick – well, Lupin is kind of a prick here for a bit actually, but not in a way that's really tied to being a man in a relationship with a younger woman – because they're Good Guys™; as in "the narrative says so." It's obviously not *the same* as real life relationships, in which you can never really know who people are, so an age gap can be something to watch out for.