CW: La Fayette in FREV Fandom Rant
Honestly one thing that has always bothered me about parts of the Frev fandom is how aggressively La Fayette gets “othered” compared to a lot of other revolutionary figures, and I genuinely think a large part of it comes down to him not fitting the fandom’s preferred political narrative
Like yes — criticize him for the Champ de Mars massacre.. Criticize his constitutional monarchism.. Criticize his fear of radicalization.. Those are all fair topics of discussion. But some people talk about him as if he existed entirely OUTSIDE the Revolution and as though he was just some random royalist antagonist that wandered in from another story, when in reality he was absolutely part of the revolutionary process whether people like his politics or not
It is just that the standards applied to him can get incredibly inconsistent
Because I’ve seen people in this fandom bend over backwards to accommodate, romanticize, woobify, or meme-ify figures who were exploitative, abusive, opportunistic, openly violent, sexually predatory, etc. — but the moment someone was a moderate, constitutional monarchist, Feuillant, Girondin-adjacent, or associated with royalism in ANY capacity, suddenly people start reacting like. slugs under salt???
It creates this bizarre situation where certain figures are granted endless nuance and grace because they’re “on the right side” of fandom aesthetics/politics, while others get flattened into traitor caricatures regardless of their actual historical complexity
And I think that’s such a profoundly uninteresting way to engage with the French Revolution because the ENTIRE point of the Revolution is that it was ideologically fractured, unstable, contradictory, and full of people with radically different visions for France: Constitutional monarchists WERE part of the Revolution. Liberal nobles WERE part of the Revolution. Feuillants WERE part of the Revolution. Girondins WERE part of the Revolution. You cannot meaningfully engage with the period if your definition of “revolutionary” only includes people whose politics align EXACTLY with your preferred faction
There can be no real complexity or discussion in fandom when the second a figure cannot be sorted cleanly into “good radical” or “evil counterrevolutionary,” the nuance evaporates!!
You don’t have to like him to acknowledge that reducing him to “traitor lol” is just completely flattening: Why does he get treated like a cartoon villain who twirled his mustache and loved kings??
La Fayette is interesting PRECISELY because he embodies so many contradictions!!!
American revolutionary hero vs. French constitutional monarchist
Champion of liberty vs. commander during the Champ de Mars massacre
Idealist vs. man completely overwhelmed by the radicalization of events around him
The visceral reaction to Lafayette in this fandom is so deeply funny because it completely relies on historical revisionism to maintain a specific aesthetic. The idea that you "lose your right to be called a revolutionary" the second you lean constitutional monarchist completely erases the entire first three years of the Revolution. 1789 didn't just disappear because 1793 happened. Like him or hate him, Lafayette was a architect of the early structural shift.. the man literally drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Plus the argument that he "joined the enemy" by fleeing is just. completely. historically illiterate. The Coalition didn't welcome Lafayette with open arms; they threw him in an Austrian dungeon at Olmütz for five years because they thought he was a dangerous, king-betraying radical:
If we can give leeway and deep psychological analysis to opportunists, literal sexual harassers, and political chameleons, we can admit that the constitutional monarchists were a core, fundamental part of the revolutionary ecosystem. You don't have to like Lafayette's actions at the Champ de Mars to realize that othering him as a non-revolutionary is just fandom factionalism masquerading as historical critique..
And honestly I think some Frev spaces would benefit from remembering that historical analysis is not a moral purity test where the goal is to prove you hate the Correct People™ hard enough
