People love to drag Dan and Serena for being hypocrites (rightfully so). But people forget that Blair is ABSOLUTELY a hypocrite as well. Especially when it comes to judging Serena’s dating life. In season 4 she’s annoyed about Serena being unable to choose between Dan and Nate. Not even a season later Blair is in the exact same spot unable to choose between Louis and Chuck then has the AUDACITY to date Dan knowing how Serena bread crumbed him.

Also I’d like to make it clear I still love Blair, but she’s a definitely a hypocrite like most of the characters on the show. Thanks for coming to my ted talk

Disclaimer:

I would like to start off by stressing that I have no credentials in psychology nor am I a licensed therapist. However I made sure to do extensive research on this topic, if anyone is a professional or currently studying psychology please feel free to fact check me in the comments, I want to treat this topic with the utmost respect.

Deconstructing Chuck and Blair's Relationship:

I'm aware that many in this sub are die hard Chuck and Blair shippers, I would never try to persuade anyone from their opinions, these are all just my thoughts and observations I made after my rewatches of the show.

I'm sure by now we've all heard that Chuck and Blair are a toxic couple. It's been talked about to death but I really want to go into depth on why that is. Their relationship starts in episode 7 of season 1 after they sleep together for the first time in the back of his limo and at first Blair immediately regrets it and for most of the season she's trying to fix her relationship with Nate. When we first meet Blair it's established that her father left her and mother for a male model and Serena had also left to boarding school around the same time. Being abandoned by her father and her best friend in a short amount of time had impacted her. Both events happened when she was still only 16, and that was before she had even found out that Nate and Serena slept together. I wouldn't go as as far to say Blair was traumatized by these events, but it's clear that they really changed her as a person. These events led her to using extremely dangerous coping habits, in episode 9 of season 1 we see that Blair uses purging as a coping mechanism whenever she feels like she's losing control.

By now we've established that even very early on in the first season Blair is struggling mentally and without a solid support system to keep her grounded. This is inevitably when Chuck comes into the picture. When they first hookup it's right after Blair has just broken up with Nate, and she was looking to have an escape from reality and I think most people forget that. When Blair got on that stage at Victrola it wasn't Blair, it was a version of herself that she created to hideaway from her harsh reality and that's the version of Blair, Chuck "fell in love with." This might be a controversial statement but Chuck took advantage of Blair at one of her lowest moments.

Now I have a lot of unkind things to say about Chuck, but I'll do my best to be unbiased. In season one Chuck starts off as Nate’s sleazy womanizing friend and he encourages Blair in her schemes early on. But if you remember in the pilot Chuck was there when Nate slept Serena, which means he knew the whole time and never thought of telling Blair. I think that was an early warning sign that he never really cared about Blair, he liked Blair when there was a game to be played. To him Nate cheating on Blair was just more drama for him to be entertained by. He also liked to enable the worst parts of Blair, because in episode 3 we see Chuck jump at the opportunity to be part of a scheme. Later on in the season we see Chuck trying to sabotage Blair from ever getting back with Nate. He holds the fact he took her virginity over her head as a scare tactic because he knows Blair wants to get back with Nate. On the surface he's hurting Blair but he's betraying his apparent best friend by sneaking around with his girlfriend. It becomes a pattern, Chuck only wanting Blair when she's a prize to be chased.

After Chuck doesn't get his way he ends up sending a blast to Gossip Girl and in the blast he essentially slut shames Blair for losing her virginity to him. He only sends in that tip because Blair still wants to be with Nate. Of course Nate ends up getting mad and turning Blair away, which leads Blair seeking comfort in Chuck. In her lowest moment Chuck says this straight to her face.

"You held a certain fascination when you were beautiful, delicate, and untouched. But now you're like... one of the Arabians my father used to own. Rode hard and put away wet."

He said that with his chest and meant every word. Chuck and Blair don't have any development till the last two episodes where Chuck continues to pursue Blair. It isn't until the finale where Blair reciprocates Chuck's feelings but we all know what happens. Chuck ditches Blair for the summer.

Their relationship is built entirely on sex and the chase and from the very start there's clear signs of a trauma bond being formed.

Trauma Bond: A trauma bond occurs when a person develops a deep and unhealthy bond with their abuser.

There's seven stages of a trauma bond, in the first season we really see stage one of a trauma bond payout. Stage is one is love bombing. We can see this in Chuck's grand gestures soon after they sleep together. On Blair's birthday when Nate doesn't show up, he takes advantage of that to gain Blair's trust and present himself as the better option. It doesn't help that Blair lost her virginity to him which is where her attachment to him starts. Then in the finale he apologizes with another grand gesture when he invites Blair to spend the summer together in Tuscany, which ultimately bails on. This is just the start of an extremely toxic cycle that we see only get worse throughout the seasons and all these examples are only from the first season.

Thanks to anyone who read till the end, I know this is an extremely long post, but I wanted to give a detailed analysis of this couple. I'm sure many won't agree with what I've said and that's completely okay. Hope you guys enjoyed!

Unfortunately I couldn't come up with a fancy introduction in my head, so I'll simply start of by saying this is a space for respectful and constructive discourse. I'm aware some of my opinions aren't exactly popular and others might come off as insane rambling. But these are thoughts I've had since my second viewing of the show that I thought I'd share with this sub. Hopefully I can offer a fresh prospective on this nearly twenty year old show.

I'm aware this subreddit is over saturated with discourse on the ships from the show. It's been almost fourteen years since the series finale aired and there's still ongoing debate about who should have ended up with who. I'm sure you've all read the title, so today I want to throw in my two cents on Dan and Blair. I'd like to acknowledge that when Dan and Blair got together the show already jumped the shark when the writers brought back Louis who stole the backend of season four and the first half of season five. As a die hard Dair shipper I have to admit that when Dan and Blair got together in the second half of season five it felt rushed and as many fans have pointed out, like it came out of nowhere. In retrospect Louis offered nothing new to the overall show, he was just a rehashed Marcus that left no long lasting impact on Blair.

Now when you go back to the earlier seasons, there was plenty foreshadowing for Dan and Blair's relationship. It might seem small but in hindsight it's Chekov's gun. I'm of course referring to Dan's cabbage patch kid Cedric. In episode two while Jenny is over at Blair's she finds Blair's cabbage patch doll and tells Blair that Dan also has one. Cedric isn't seen until episode nine when Blair goes over the loft with Serena and immediately recognizes the doll. It's a small detail but it's ultimately something that Blair remembers. I would also like to point out that Josh Schwartz also wrote the OC and in that show Seth and Summer have their own version of the cabbage patch dolls in Captain Oats and Princess Sparkles. Am I looking too deep into this? Most likely.

That's only the tip of the iceberg of course. I'm aware that most adaptions stray from the source material, sometimes for the better. For those who are employed, Gossip Girl is based off a series of books by Cecily von Ziegesar. To get to the point, in the books Dan and Blair hardy (if at all) interact with each other in any meaningful way. Unlike the show where dan and Blair have a mutual distain for each other from the start, Dan and Blair in the books don't have any rivalry let alone an opinion of each other. The writers intentionally made this change when writing the first season, there's even a scrapped storyline of Dan attending Blair's essay contest which is referenced in season five. Of course this can be nothing, just thought I'd share this fact with you guys so feel free to do with this info as you will.

Thanks for reading the whole thing, I have a lot more say but I'll save it for the second part. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts!

Now before I begin most of my knowledge of the series is from the first book and a lengthy recap of the book series I watched (linked video). So if anyone here has read the book series please feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong!

I think it’s really fascinating (amongst the several differences) that Dan and Blair are genuinely indifferent towards each other and have no meaningful interactions. But the show the writers establish this rivalry between Dan and Blair that didn’t exist in the books. Not to mention in the books his main love interest is Vanessa throughout the books, him and Serena date briefly in the beginning and later near the end but he ultimately ends up with Vanessa.

This was just something that I found and interesting and wanted to share. I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this