#eva rebuild 4.0 does this in the most insulting way possible by farming him off with....rei?

[daisyachain]

there’s one version of an f/m/m triangle that crops up so often I’m surprised there isn’t at least a tvtropes/vernacular name for it. Miyokichi/Kiku/Shin. Molly/Fitz/Fool. Asuka/Shinji/Kaworu. Futaba/Taichi/Touma. not-really-but-you-could-shove-it-in-here Luthien/Beren/Finrod. Utena/Touga/Saionji is a twisted spun-on-its-head version of it. Specifically comprising:

masculine male character A: either is the protagonist or a character on to which male viewers can project.

female character B: a secondary character and A’s official love interest, often kept apart from A by story/circumstance/gender roles. Shows some resentment of the trials she’s put through by the story in being A’s lover such as being shoved to the side, cut out of his life, or put in danger.

less masculine male character C: another major character, A’s devoted sidekick, feminine and/or conspicuously cold toward women or sexuality, somewhat ill-used by A but not resentful about it, as a contrast to B.

The dynamic is used pretty equally by female and male creators, though probably with different purposes. Outside the story, there’s a clear explanation for how the roles are divided: men are main, women are peripheral. Obviously the female love interest has to be on the margins of the story. Obviously the male main character has to have an ally in-story who can bounce dialogue back. Any human person has to have a best friend (for men, has to be male) and a lover (for men, has to be female). The major character male bestie and the minor character female gf is the minimum character dynamic you need to sustain the main character as a believable construction.

Except within the story, the dynamic begs far too many questions. On B’s part: her other half and love interest uses her for sex once every few chapters and dumps her to go off on another plot-relevant adventure. She’s kept in the dark, talked down to, pushed away, and distrusted. Her place at her sweetie’s side is occupied by Some Dude and no matter how much she puts into their relationship, she’s always going to be a prize for after the mission. Why does she stay with him? What could possibly attract her about this bestubbled grunt machine whose passion for the sword outmatches anything she’s given him?

On C’s part: he gets used as an emotional support crutch, designed to service his best friend’s every need at the expense of his own goals or story. He’s a housewife, he’s a domestic, he does every thankless story task with a smile because he has to provide the exposition/set up the plot/set the plan in action that carries the main male character to victory. He doesn’t have a love interest of his own, meanwhile the most important person in his life is obsessed with a woman he barely speaks to. Why should he care so much about someone who only takes? Why is he committed to this one-way friendship? What does he think of taking the backseat, providing support, submerging his own will for the sake of a person instead of an ideology?

On A’s part: if he’s a red-blooded heterosexual male character who pursues a woman as is acceptable, why does he dig himself so deep in with his designated ally? Through dialogue and because he has to in order to show the audience, he exposes his heart and soul to C and keeps him in his pocket for as long as we are watching, so why then does he cast him aside so easily? He invests the most time and energy into his relationship with C, cultivating love and loyalty there, but he draws the line so firmly in the sand that the audience is sure he’ll never, ever step aside for one minute to follow the friend. Why does he choose a man for his emotional battery? Why doesn’t he communicate with his supposed partner? Why does he choose to use B and C for sex and solace respectively, and why don’t they ever mix?

The gender dynamics wrap around to simple: women aren’t up to being equal partners to a cool guy, so you need a male wife to do everything for you and appreciate the protagonist’s sick abilities. romance with a man is perverse and impossible, so you need a female love interest to prove that the protagonist isn’t gay and fulfil the audience’s needs. But in-between all of that you could ask some interesting questions of the spoke character, A, the male protagonist whose actions are taken as normal. the question being: bro. what’s wrong with you

#kelsey rambles #aaaaaand the only thing that satisfactorily calls the A-character on his mistreatment is the podcast CARAVAN. which is not good #actually i'd go as far as to say it's bad #rgu goes into it a little but it's nowhere near the main focus of the series #using asuka-shinji-kaworu as the example that just sucks so bad #shinji's treatment of asuka is so horrible and misogynistic and despite her screentime. in shinji's mind she's never more than peripheral #and gets dumped at the last second and turned into a corpse. she's an object of desire and he refuses to recognize the ways they're the same #on the other hand shinji loves and idolizes kaworu.....only in as far as kaworu is his own dream guy who gives him everything he wants #and never makes even the slightest hint of a glimmer of expectation of anything from shinji in return #the moment kaworu's desires become explicit--he's not only killed but erased from the story altogether #eva rebuild 4.0 does this in the most insulting way possible by farming him off with....rei? #not to try and take eva rebuild seriously but the way it expands on kaworu and sidelines asuka is somehow insulting to both of them #even moreso than the original series was. which is saying something #someday i have to read the eva manga because i hear it takes kaworu in a more problematic direction that is still a direction and so better #or as for SGRS--shin is far more loving and devoted to kiku than he is to any woman and takes a killing blow for him #he watches him in life and guides him through the underworld. he gives more to kiku than he gives to anyone. #yet as a character any possibility of like-liking kiku is denied. what's the damage there? #how does it make story sense? why does kiku have a more serious relationship with a woman than the ostensibly straight shin? #the answer is The Misogyny but even then it's jarring to have shin's plain love be obfuscated with the constant references to being straight #as opposed to kiku. who actually has girlfriends and not one-night stands #it's nonsensical to read shin as a straight man and yet any possibility of him returning kiku's feelings is barred off blacked out redacted #leaving us with a dog's breakfast of a dynamic that IS fun. because in this case it's intentionally bad. and the author is winking at us