You've become The Richonne Whisperer! Adore your blog it's keeping this fandom alive next to our amazing fic writers and the occasional morsel from Dandy. I have something I've been talking to myself about since I heard about it and have now gathered the courage to ask your opinion. Your critical thinking media literacy and character analysis is pretty much always on point so I'm very curious about your thoughts here.
Some context: I absolutely loathe Negan. I'll go out on a limb and confidently guess a majority of us Richonners do too. Why? Because of his character/who he is as a man. For the exact opposite reasons we adore Rick. I'll also say I believe (I don't look at numbers so I'm guessing but it's a confident guess) the majority of Richonners are Black women. We bring big numbers to viewership. I have observed this countless times in the many fandoms I've enjoyed over the years. (Think about how quickly Sleepy Hollow crashed and burned when they betrayed Nicole Behari). TOWL not only created new Richonners, we came back with swelled ranks to put it at the top of the Netflix trending list and helped make it the most successful of the spin offs. Black women bring NUMBERS. They know that. They don't acknowledge it, but they know it, because they try to manipulate us when they need us.
So here's my question. I heard they gave Negan a Black wife. How do you feel about that? Whst was your reaction? Did that work for you? Did it work for any of us?
When I heard this (because I refuse to watch him or anything to do with him), I was immediately disgusted. Because that poor lady was nothing more than a pawn to pander to us so we would tune in and support Negan.
They saw how much we love Rick, and think it's just because he loves a Black woman, failing to realize that who he is as a person is just as important to us as identifying with her and celebrating her. I truly believe they actually thought we'd see Negan's Black wife and be like "oh, ok, I like him again, ooh he picked one of us!" NO. DO NOT INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE.
That's how it made me feel but I confess I haven't spoken about this in the fandom because frankly Negan discourse is the last thing I want to focus on when I can be gushing over my OTP instead. I just couldn't resist asking you though. Ha sorry it's so long-winded!
Thanks so much! On top of the Richonne barista, papergirl, and doctor, I now have to add Richonne Whisperer to the titles I’ve been happy to receive over the years lol. 💖 And I’ve been really grateful for the fic writers, too. Discovering the world of fics has been like finding a Richonne treasure trove. I read some recently that were from 2015 before Richonne was official, and it just always warms my heart that people were beleiving in Richonne so wholeheartedly before they got together, and then that belief paid off tenfold with how Rick and Michonne’s epic love story unfolded over the years. The Richonne fandom truly has years' worth of riches, and I’m grateful for that.
Thanks for asking my thoughts on this question, too. I didn’t watch season 11 of TWD, so I remember back when someone told me about Negan having a new wife, and a Black wife at that, it raised flags for me. The show was already so hesitant to concretely condemn Negan’s treatment of women, and so I had a feeling even with all the years that passed, they didn’t redeem him enough for it not to feel wrong for him to now have a wife. And with him having a Black wife, despite there having been a lot of interracial coupIes on the show, something about Negan and Annie did make me think that the show was hoping somehow the Richonne love would rub off on this new paring. Which is crazy if they thought that was going to work because, as you said for many of us, Richonne isn't loved because it’s a white man/Black woman pairing, but because of the quality character of the man and woman in the relationship.
I also heard about the heartless way Dead City tried to explain why Negan wasn’t with his wife and child, which to me further cemented how sadly disposable they viewed her. While I’m not equipped to fully weigh in on the subject since I didn’t see S11 or Dead City, from what I did get wind of, it does seem like the character of Annie was treated as a pawn in several ways and deserved better than to essentially be used, abused, and thrown away just to try and redeem a character like Negan.
