Anna Karenina is a horrible person and so is the love interest Vronsky and her husband was actually nice—as far as I've read(Part 2 Chapter 9) (Spoilers ahead?)
Man, Idek where to start. I just started reading it and have not gone as far so no spoilers from future, but my genuine confusion is why do people side with Anna and loves Vronsky, when Alexey is the one who ended up with the shorter stick. He has like 3 flaws, I counted so far; He doesn't really ask her for consent before intercourse(but I'm sure as far as I've seen, if she refused, he'd understand and not push, unlike Vronsky, I can bet on that) and second he thinks in almost mechanical/logical way, but he never shows this outside so we can't make the point that Anna noticed that or something and lastly he shrinks away from issues that are too much can't really blame him as this is like a survival mechanism that he developed. But I do understand why women loves Vronsky and hates Alexey (mainly coz of the last 2 reasons) as they like a man who would rather die courageously than survive meekly. And there are other points too, like Alexey gives full freedom to his wife and isn't jealous as he understands that his woman is not really "his" woman, she is just a person with her needs and life and all he wants from her is the emotional & spiritual connection(as when he confronted his wife, he immediately clocked that she was lying and has shut off her connection with him from just one sentence from her, which shows how attentive he is to her and how sensitive he is, eventhough Anna believs otherwise) which again is unlike Vronsky as he literally says that she and him are one(co dependent) and he gets jealous and tried to un-up others constantly, trying to be the center figure, all of which is desirable to women, but in actuality is toxic beyond measure (Dear women, if you meet someone like Vronsky, run the other way don't think it'll be nice). This bring me to the original doubt, Did Tolstoy purposely wrote his characters like this? Uk to get more female audience or just to plainly show a character that is extremely flawed as the main and good ones? Or was it just the times? Like the times then had people believe these virtues were bad and these virtues were good? And my final question, Does the characters take a 180 in future chapter which would make Alexey so bad, that Anna (who is already) cheating on him a good thing?
I am honestly so confused coz people where really supporting their relationship and loving Vronsky and stuff. ( I only seen comments as such from (mostly) women on both the movies and the books, and which is why I specified women, sorry for that)
Also please avoid spoiling the future chapters and just say if Alexey do something bad in future chapters if the whole dynamic changes and nothing more.