Comments | hated_character: In Defense of Relena Darlian

thislilchicken in hated_character

In Defense of Relena Darlian

Jan 18, 2011 21:31

Oh, Relena Darlian. Despite your political inexperience and young age, you very willingly lay your life on the line to bring peace to a war-torn world, and people somehow find reason to think you should die for your braids or your pink limo. It's hard to think of a character more infamously hated by yaoi shippers, UC elitists, casual anime fans, ( Read more... )

character bashing, fanon =/= canon, character exaggeration, female = mary sue, gundam wing

Comments 23

insaneladybug January 19 2011, 07:06:50 UTC

Poor Relena. I have never understood hatred of her. She's one of my most favorite characters on the show! You've crafted a lovely defense for her that goes very in-depth and explains a lot of things. It's been a long time since I've seen much of the show, and I myself haven't always known what to say when bashers pull the stalker card. Now everything makes much more sense. Except for the bashers' arguments, of course. Those never do make sense.

And seriously, people hate her for her braids? ... The stupid. It burns.

thislilchicken January 20 2011, 00:08:12 UTC

Ohhh man. I've seen people use the braids argument as a kind of "the straw that broke the camel's back", as though that actually makes any kind of sense. "Oh, I was willing to put up with her character, but it was the BRAIDS that got to me. OH, the BRAIDS. Those unholy BRAIDS." Sigh. You simply can't un-see the stupid once it's burned into your memory.

inuyatta January 19 2011, 08:26:00 UTC

This is awesome, and here is my icon of another lady who likes pink and is also quite the BAMF.

dawnrune January 19 2011, 10:08:36 UTC

I'm one of those from the yaoi-loving side of the fandom (but don't get me wrong. Relena's actually one of my favorite anime girls.) The problem most people have is that they're not terribly familiar with the canon, thus only have superficial things like the limo, the braids, and the so-called "stalking" to rank on. A lot of them only watch the first 5-8 episodes, thus have only been exposed to the more spoiled/naive/pink-loving side of Relena.

Not to say this excuses the bashing. On the contrary it makes me want to shove my head through a desk. Pass judgment on a character you barely know? FAIL. Ignore character-development? FAIL.

Relena is awesome! There is so much more to her character than a decent chunk of the fandom realizes. The treatment of her character's always been a massive thorn in my ass. If it weren't for a few good fans and writers that actually bothered to give her a chance I'd be so done with this fandom.

thislilchicken January 19 2011, 23:39:29 UTC

This! So much! For some reason people can't understand that yes, you CAN ship 1x2 or any other yaoi GW pairing and STILL do Relena right by her canon characterization! You don't have to pretend she's a bitch just to justify your yaoi pairing. Who says Relena won't actually support 1x2?

Yes, the lack of familiarization with the actual anime is a big problem in the Gundam Wing fandom. You have to watch through the entire show, politics and 2 minute long sermons on war and peace, and all to get to see not just Relena, but all the other characters evolve as well. Heero at the beginning is far different from the Heero that screamed "I WILL SURVIVE" at the end of the series. Hell, Endless Waltz went even further with developing Heero and Relena.

I swear I was about to change this icon, dammit. dropsofgleam January 19 2011, 11:23:52 UTC

Let's not forget that Relena is supposed to be the "queen" of St. Gabriel School, but she really doens't seem to have friends there. The students are either blinded by her super high social status or too afraid to really treat her as one of them. No wonder she flocks to the first guy who treats her differently like a moth to a flame, and not to mention Episode Zero DOES explain how she and Heero truly met. And hey, Relena herself aknowledged this was, well, silly even for a teen girl like her, so it's not like she's completely blind to her own flaws ( ... )

Re: I swear I was about to change this icon, dammit. morrienymph January 19 2011, 15:52:48 UTC

I assume that Relena was brainwashed as soon as she woke up, or that there's some kind of mind control going on. Then again, I haven't really read Frozen Teardrops, so all I know is what I've read in summaries.

Re: I swear I was about to change this icon, dammit. dropsofgleam January 19 2011, 17:15:59 UTC

I *suppose* that's the case and it makes sense, but I'm still not exactly comfy with it. FT, whether summaries or not, sometimes sounds more like a fanfic than a real GW novel, and as I said I'm not really sold on the idea of letting more than a decade pass and then suddenly throw a sequel in. Wut?

(The comment has been removed)

Thread 9

chaos_by_design January 19 2011, 12:34:17 UTC

I've only watched the first few eps of Gundam Wing and honestly, I can't see why I'm supposed to hate Relena. She seems young and idealist so far. That's it. And sure she's rich, but she doesn't seem spoiled to me. She gives off a "poor little rich girl" vibe, since it seems like a situation where she doesn't see her dad as much as she would like because he's working all the time.

So yeah, I don't get the hate. At least not so far.

thislilchicken January 20 2011, 00:30:43 UTC

I still don't understand the hate either. I've read "civil" discussions on non-bashing sites to try to understand why people feel so strongly against Relena, and I still don't see good reasons why.

Some people are extremely irritated because she's young and idealistic. It goes against the typical portrayal of cynical, snarky young adults. As they interpret it, she "thinks she's better than everyone else and doesn't have to live in reality". Huh? Does not compute.

chaos_by_design January 20 2011, 01:42:13 UTC

I don't get it either.

To be fair, after Heero threatened her in the first ep, my thoughts in subsequent eps was "why doesn't she go to the police? This guy totally threatened her life!" But she seems like she has ideals she believes in very strongly and while they'll probably cause her to do some foolish things in the series, I liked that she seems the type of person to take a strong stand on things and stands her ground, and you gotta respect that.

Of course, shipping doesn't tend to influence my opinion of a character at all, unless the person just seems like a flimsily written shallow love interest, so I'm something of an anomaly in fandom there.

thislilchicken January 20 2011, 05:31:34 UTC

Yeah, she's really gutsy to call Heero's bluff, multiple times! I was bowled over the first time I watched the scene where she brushes off the fact that he was pointing a gun to her face, and asked him to dance with her. It was like, "Please, the noise would bring everyone here. Killing me would just complicate things for you and turn public opinion against you and the people you work for. Stop being silly ( ... )