u/Wednesday_1488

Disclaimer: This is a thought provoking discussion. If you isolate and read just the portions that refer to the character you're interested in, you might get the wrong idea, I implore you to finish reading, and sorry if I don't have the gift of synthesis!

Hello! The tv show has been in development for over four years at this point, and along the way many people have expressed frustration and unenjoyment surrounding the male characters. While there's ships involving some of them, basically everyone ( including Jenna ) conclude that the love triangles were bad and inappropriate.

I think people are too quick judging the triangles.

Or rather, I wanna point out that judging the whole concept of triangles on the basis of those we got in the show is faulty reasoning.
It implies that what we got is the peak potential, or even a decent example, of what the trope can offer. I don't think it's correct.

Wednesday is, in and on itself, a Supernatural Teen Drama.

It is not wrong to say that it didn't ( to date ) bring anything new to the table. There's endless amounts of parallels with the most popular, slightly older TV shows of the same genre, with The Vampire Diaries being the most obvious of them all.
This isn't a TVD ad or anything so I'm gonna TLDR some parallels just in case you haven't watched it.

- The protagonist's got a doppleganger. Someone that looks visually identical to them but acts shady.
- The protagonist's got dark past and has a best friend that's blonde and bubbly.
- The friend duo is actually a trio, with third member being useful and grounded.
- The protagonist develops romantic interest towards someone who's secretly a supernatural creature.
- The guy has the potential to be healthy, but the evil within his powers is hard to control.

I'm not telling you all this with the intention to de-mean the tv show or strip it from its uniqueness. It's early in development, with just two seasons, and there's potential to be more.

But truthfully, as of right now, going to someone who's a TVD fun and telling them Wednesday is TVD with Hydes instead of Vampires, woudn't be too far from truth.

Except when isn't the truth, of course.

Because what most Supernatural Teen Dramas have that Wednesday smh hasn't, is well developed men:

- Gomez: This is the poorest iteration we ever got in all Addams media. Truth be told, he's visually the closest we got the the comics. But this isn't a plus, given the show doesn't aim to emulate the feeling of the comics.

On screen, this Gomez is a parody of himself. The guy climbed the tower in 2x08, fully knowing his family was in danger, then went back down to "call the police" leaving his wife fight the villain on 8 inches heels ( lmao! ). Lets not forget Morticia's quote in 1x05: " I let your father think he's in charge of the family. " Since when do the Addams have a leader? The very reason it got popular was due to Gomez and Morticia being equals.

- Ajax: The literal nice guy. He can't keep up: Too unsure of his feelings, to late in catching other's. He's also clumsy. He's got one of the strongest powers in the show and yet he stones himeslf ( 1x03 ) and goes melee range to a hyde ( 2x05 ).

- Bruno: Zero background information, zero screen time, " you're being hunted outside your cycle " then 15 mins later melees the hyde outside of his own cycle ( 2x05 ). Never transforms, never fights, doesn't get distracted by socials and stuff yet STILL can't spidersense Agnes.

Why of course the love triangles in this show aren't good. Have you double checked the male interests?

Let's talk briefly about Tyler:

Many people like him. I don't HATE him, and he's def somewhat better than the others up in the list, but there's many, many issues.

First of all, those who like him, I think, do not exactly like HIM, but the person they think he's destined to become: The guy who breaks free of his chains, the one that gets the girl, the one that will carefully explain on screen what happened behind courtains in season 1, how Thornhill just told him "get the girl" and he was smart enough to understand anything about her. Immense, right?

I agree. It will indeed be immense. When it will happen. But it hasn't happened until it happens, and for now all we have is someone whose lore got him stuck obeying old women, massively shrinking lifespan upon transforming, then losing fights because the women of his same kind are, for some reason, three times his size.

Again, the potential's there. But I'm very practical. The dude left 2x08 in yet another woman's car, I don't see him breaking free of anything until season 4.

There's people who say they don't want him to get with Wed because he's "toxic and evil".

He isn't any more evil than LeFou from the Beauty and the Beast, really. He's evil in so far the stuff he's forced to do is evil. That's not actual evil.

That said, Wednesday DOES need to get with someone. Her words against her mother's lifestyle in 1x01 were too strong of a signal. If she says she doesn't want love and ends the show without love, the moral of the story will be that the protagonist was right up from the start and therefore no character development. She NEEDS someone.

Can that someone be Enid? I don't know. The point I'm making with this post is that if you think it should be Enid because "love triangles are annoying", "I can't deal with one more season of these boys", you're right.

But you're right in so far these men are atrocious, not in so far manhood sucks.

THAT idea, the one that men should be weak because this is a women led show, is actually misogynistic if you ask me.

If you try not to be misogynistic and make a women led show where men are bad, you're actually tryharding so much it circles back. Wednesday is very intelligent, Enid is very strong, and they can show that to us by having intelligent and strong men lose to them.

Because, I say this as a woman: women CAN do that, you know? We don't need "men are stupid" type of motivation to beat them. That's false. Men aren't stupid. Men are smart. And sometimes we're smarter than them. That's what Wednesday's tv show should be about.

TLDR: Triangles are bad because THIS SHOW'S specific triangles are bad. Give us some Damon Salvatore/Sam Winchester type of men, given you're already at it at mirroring these shows. Then you'll see if people want or not want triangles.

Disclaimer: This post is flaired for discussion, no ship bashing please

Hello there! Having read a lot of comments from the Wednesday fandom along the years ( but also some others, like Stranger Things! ), I feel the lines defining it sometimes get blurry or outright forgotten.

For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, COMPHET comes from COMpulsory HETerosexuality. It is a societal theory. At the core of it, there's the assumption that given the overwhelmingly majority of people on earth are straight, people who aren't straight will face ( along their entire life but expecially, in this case, growing up ) assumptions or expectations that might push them towards heterosexuality, even if they aren't meant for that.

In simple terms, comphet is used when talking about someone that's very likely queer, but can't realize it at X point in time due to being busy as "doing what's expected".

This is the full fledged definition and, up until here, I think most people who mention it are aware.

But there's also boundaries to it.

Does the plausibility of comphet's existence automatically imply that anyone at any point can be assumed to be comphet? Not quite.

That's dicto simpliciter ( the sweeping generalization ). E.G: Exercising is healthy, therefore anyone should run marahtons.

Comphet has very precise boundaries in media.

In books, for example, introspection goes big:

In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, through the diary entries of Celie, you see her complying with a terrible marriage out of sheer survival and social expectation. The signal breaks when she meets Shug Avery, sparking a deep internal awakening where Celie explicitly unpacks how she had never actually experienced desire or attraction toward men.

In TV shows, where introspection isn't a thing, comphet requires discomfort through the interactions with the other sex. Stranger Things is a perfect example through Will. In season 3, his friend are obsessed with their GFs and he does try to emulate them in caring as much as they do, but can't. And I won't explore what happens later just incase I don't spoil it for ppl.

There's no discomfort in the straight interactions our characters go through. Enid, in particular, is very passionate into it. She actually looks desperate for it, and even has a mental breakdown somewhere through first half of s1 after Ajax goes missing from her date.

Don't get me wrong here, I perfectly understand the sentiment of those who find the characters she got with to be underwhelming.

This is a rabbit hole I kinda don't wanna get into atm ( will be worth another post ), but in general all men in this show have sort of an irrelevance problem.

This had been noticed as early as 2022 with an article from Jackson Weaver ( CBC ).

The fact we do not have smart, attractive, saphisticated men really is an issue, but if it was a basis onto which define someone else's comphet, every woman in the show would be ( I'm winking at you Morticia & Weems shippers LMAO )

That's pretty much all I wanted to say!

There's some other shenanigans out there ( takes on what'd make x or y comphet ) that doesn't involve men, such as Enid's sweater colors and wolfoutcamp, but I find those to be very weak arguments:

- Sweater colors are never been a sign of comphet, it's queerbaiting at best.

Had we really be forced to apply such a thought process, then Wednesday's also wearing a straight-ally striped sweater. Why would Enid's one count and Weds' not?

-Wolfoutcamp: In-universe, it's a socially accepted and proven-to-be-working way of having young werewolfs come out. Conv. therapy irl isn't that at all. It has ruined people lives and is LITERAL nightmare.

If they really had in mind to mirror that through the wolfoutcamp, they would have made it BE nightmare too.

At the end of the day, Netflix has ( thankfully ) been pushing queer couples for over a decade. With like 90% of the fandom wanting them to be queer, there's nothing stopping Netflix from making them so. If they don't, it's yet another hint they just aren't.

EDIT: Small clarification here: Commenters seem to perceive that I'm saying Enid can't or shoudn't be comphet. That's not the case! I'm just saying the basis typically presented by the community aren't sufficient to deem her comphet. That's pmuch it. Of course if she ends up being so, good for her!

Hey there! Recently the actress who plays Ophelia got injured. I don't know much about cause it's just a quick news on socials but there's gonna be articles about it 100%. You think that's gonna make them postpone the release date? That'd be so sad. I hope she gets better soon

Title. As Illaoi main I often go for Gwen but I think Mordekaiser could also do it pretty fairly.