hello, it is me, the problematic 2000

Azula:

She is often given very little grace for her actions in comparison to her brother. I think people tend to forget that the only reason Zuko gets his redemption arc is because his banishment gave him access to an environment outside of his abusive home, as well as a support network who helped re-contextualize his experiences. Comparatively, Azula is younger than him, she's a girl in a patriarchal society, and she is systematically denied access to support and education that would inform her of the issues with how she is treated. Yes, the way she treats Zuko and her peers is often cruel, but she is also only 14 years old and lives under the constant threat of neglect and violence from a man who intentionally encourages competitiveness and conflates violence with authority. Any apparent delight she takes in Zuko's mistreatment is experienced alongside the understanding that if it wasn't him, it would be her. She does plenty of horrible things throughout the show, but I think her inability to understand the morality of those actions is more of a tragedy that people like to give credit for.

She is a child! Give her access to a support network, therapy, opportunities to learn about new people and places and the world outside of the bubble she has been kept in her whole life. She deserves a chance to deconstruct her experiences, to learn that how she was treated was wrong and that she deserves better, and that she has the opportunity to makes amends for her own actions and to break the cycle should she choose.

She's treated as an irredeemable war criminal and abuser at 14 while Iroh, a 50 something-at-youngest man who spent most of his life participating in a century of imperialism and besieged Ba Sing Se for 600 days before hanging up his hat as a general only after he personally lost his son and then proceeded to not actually take any steps whatsoever towards ending the war despite being the rightful heir, is a beloved fandom figure. People deny her humanity in every way they can at every chance they get and think she deserves to be psychiatrically abused and is incapable of being redeemed. Even a lot of the people who think she can be redeemed think more or less putting her on a leash so she can be Zuko's guard dog is "redemption." People won't even acknowledge that she's also a victim of her father's abuse.

Despite being a fourteen year old child soldier, she is adultified constantly. This usually comes in two forms - as an evil seductress or as evil incarnate, worse than even her father, Ozai. Some people even claim this fourteen year old girl SLEPT TO THE TOP. Or she is painted as evil and irredeemable despite her breakdown on screen. She is constantly hated on in order to prop her brother, Zuko, up.

She is clever and ambitious. She was able to restore her brother's honor, conquer Ba Sing Se, and kill the Avatar in one fell swoop. Evil actions? Yes but damn she did it well. She's been abused all her life and deserves a chance to heal from her trauma. She's the only one we see in the series wield blue flames, immensely powerful. She slays every outfit and scene she appears in. Insanely quotable. "Do the tides command this ship, or do I?…Then I think you should stop worrying about the tides, which have already decided to kill you, spend more time worrying about me, who's still mulling it over."

I don’t know if this counts as Azula propaganda, but some people are using the actress who plays her in the Netflix remake as the face of NATLA’s mishaps, such as using her exaggerated facial expressions in YouTube thumbnails. They hate her because she’s a bad actress and doesn’t look enough like Azula because she has a rounder, human face.

Azula is such a classic case of 'if she were a guy you would adore her'. She is a traumatised victim of abuse raised in an environment where the "affection" of her only remaining parental figure was conditional on her ability to achieve perfection in every aspect of her life (something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve, right?). She's isolated, intentionally pitted against her brother, obsessive, and is one of the (if not, THE) most skilled firebenders of her generation, despite being raised under a patriarchy that consistently devalues women. She's so wondefully complex, has some of the best lines in the show, and she's assertive and confident. But because she's never afforded the opportunity by the narrative to reframe the way she has been treated as abuse, to learn and grow and to form healthier bonds in the way that her brother is allowed, she's irredeemably evil and a bitch and we should all hate her (at least, that's how some people seem to think.) Her emotional breakdown at the end of her final fight with Zuko and Katara is one of the most harrowing scenes in the show, because it is such a painful and tragic example of a child who has been driven to the brink by an absusive upbringing and is now trapped completely alone with their pain. Why is it that Zuko's experiences and destructive reactions to trauma are given so much grace and he deserves the chance to redeem himself, but his younger sister is "getting what she deserves" when her trauma brings her nothing but suffering? Well, we know the reason. It's misogyny. And this is just in reference to the animated show! The absolutely horrific things that have been said about the live action actress is genuinely disgusting. Fat shaming, a slew of abuse over her acting choices, the near constant commentary on her body (Mai's actress has also suffered a lot of the same treatment.) I remember when the first season came out and the amount of discussions going around about how she wasn't "pretty enough" to play Azula, as if these grown adults were genuinly offended that this ACTUAL CHILD wasn't attractive enough for them. There's so much commentary going around about the writing in this show and how the characters are being represented, but whenever Azula comes up it is an actual struggle to find any discussion about her role in the story that doesn't devolve into a poor-taste dissection of her appearence. Free her!!!

Thirteen:

Despite being a great incarnation of the character, somehow she is uniquely bad. Despite having many of the same traits as the 'male' Doctors, somehow it is worse when she does it. She's constantly held up to greater scrutiny and one cannot help but see that misogyny plays a huge role here

Dared to be an incarnation of The Doctor who was played by a woman and all the needs and geeks were as normal about that as you'd expect

‘Jodie Whittaker (actor) killed the show’ ‘the Thirteenth Doctor sucks and is bad and new who sucks after her!!’ Etc holy moly. So much bashing of the show because of her and not because the writers just sucked for a while (which honestly is the case for most of the show)

She's literally the exact same character the Doctor has always been- hypocritical self righteous bullshit and all. But for sooooommmmeeee reason it's charming and compelling and adds great depth to the character when it's David Tennant but it's shallow and poorly written and inconsistent when it's Jodie Whittaker

She won the poll for Doctor most likely to bite someone even though Eleven bit someone onscreen. She's great

This may have already been said but BBC literally had to apologise for 13 not knowing how to comfort Graham at the end of Can You Hear Me. Which is completely insane because when a male doctor gaslights his female companion that’s allowed but she’s not allowed to be even just awkward?

Iris West-Allen:

Fandom calls her a bitch and annoying for daring to challenge Barry and to be his love interest while being a black woman.

She is sweet but doesn't take shit from her father or love interest and she is a great journalist and a terrible cook (iconic).

Honestly I am overwhelmed thinking about it. To start, the CW didn't even try to protect Candice Patton from online harassment and threats, to the point that she almost left after season 2 it had gotten so bad. Literally every single time Iris challenged any other character on anything fandom called her manipulative, or a bitch, or controlling, or accused her of gaslighting. When she had to make hard decisions, she was called cold/emotionless by some and somehow too angry/mean at the same time (hmm, I wonder why that is). She was accused of "weaponizing" her personal relationships to get what she wanted regardless of the actual circumstances. And to top it all off, the creators and many of the writers were white men who clearly did not get that Iris wouldn't just be getting pushback for being a woman. Way too many times the fact that she was a Black woman navigating her circumstances was completely ignored (e.g. another characters comments towards her came off as racist, not only sexist, and that should have been acknowledged). I gave up on the show entirely after a point, so I am not sure if the writing got better wrt Iris but maybe someone else knows.

IF IRIS WEST ALLEN DOESNT WIN THIS WHOLE GOD DAMN TOURNAMENT. To this DAY there is a LARGE section of the fandom that violently wants her dead. they claim she single handedly ruined the show and ignore the terrible writing around… Quite literally all of it. If the show is so much as MENTIONED. ANYWHERE. you’ll get a swarm of people going “wE aRe tHE fLaSH” even if IRIS ISNT MENTIONED AT ALL. Her character got hate the SECOND Candice Patton was casted; with people claiming Barry (the white mc) “looked better” with Caitlin (a white woman); and I’m mentioning this because I don’t think you can divorce the misogyny leveled at Iris from the racism she’s subjected to. It’s misogynoir. But that said— the fucking fandom’s always just CLAMBERING for reasons to hate her. She’s annoying, she’s a bitch, she shouldn’t have rejected Barry, ‘actually it’s good that the men in her life didn’t tell her important information that (lethally btw) affects her life because she’s RECKLESS and would just throw herself into danger if she knew everything!’ <- same people often claim not to be misogynistic btw. Also their evidence is always a single time in season 2 that she got in a dangeorus situation (while working as an investigative journalist) and called Barry to get her out of it. SHE WAS DOING HER JOB! THE ABILITY TO CONTACT BARRY PROTECTED HER; AND GAVE HER THE TOOLS TO PROTECT HERSELF‚ REALLY. those mfs just want her dead or sidelined. Cause ohhhhhh that’s when they start to hate her even more. In season 4, not only does she not die (in S3) like they wanted her to; she’s given AGENCY and the ability to cement her place in Team Flash. She doesn’t get forced into the role of a love interest. She’s an active character and she helps with superhero and non-superhero stuff. And you know what, by all definitions she is a full-on hero. Because her ideas saved the day MULTIPLE times that season alone (Enter Flashtime‚ anyone? did you mfs want Central City blown up by a nuke?). In fact; Iris saved the entire world in the end of season 4 with her belief in Marlize Devoe. And then later on? Saves the ENTIRE MULTIVERSE by almost single-handedly convincing Ryan Choi to help them in Crisis On Infinite Earths. ALSO almost everything people hate on her for… is just blatantly incorrect. iykyk; there’s MANY examples. so Iris is a case where I will wholeheartedly say: FREE MY GIRL SHE DID NOTHING WRONG! I could go on! And I’m sure others will. The Iris West Allen fanclub doubles as a defense club. Because Iris West-Allen is kind‚ intelligent‚ passionate and compassionate‚ beautiful‚ brave (remember when she jumped off a fucking building to save her husband?), sometimes a little too selfless… She doesn’t take shit but she is INCREDIBLY forgiving at the same time. She built a media empire from the ground up and won a fucking pulitzer. She has an amazing fashion sense and on a CW SHOW! She has an unwavering belief in people and humanity (THAT HAS SAVED THE WORLD/UNIVERSE AT LEAST THRICE AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED). She has been through SO. FUCKING. MUCH it’s actually unfair— but! In the end she got the happy ending she deserved with her husband and friends; and will continue to kick ass with her literal media empire. Her treatment in the show was more than questionable at times, and her treatement by the fandom FAR moreso; but she got her fucking happy ending at least. and I’m happy for her for that. Vote Iris West-Allen! Because she deserved and DESERVES SO MUCH BETTER FROM THIS FANDOM.

Rose Tico:

They harassed the actress off of social media and made burning action figures of her a spectator sport, an incredibly popular YouTuber turned calling fat and ugly into a running gag.

She’s a nice girl who just wants to help and has a lot of anger in her heart because poor people like her are treated like crap!

I mean… we were all there, right? People threw such a big fit about her mere existence that it actually genuinely changed the American political landscape for the worse (and got her basically written out of the next movie)

She literally didn't do anything wrong. Not in an "my favorite character can do no wrong" kind of way, I just mean it's been almost ten years and I still don't know what those dudes were actually mad about. And she's cute and nice and I liked her!

The shit that happened with rose pisses me off beyond belief to this day actually and I don't even gaf about star wars anymore. The fact that not only did she get such a misogynistic and racist backlash to the point of people harassing her actress but that the films themselves capitulated to this and she was completely absent in the next film. Makes me see red fr

Seen as a threat to the finnpoe slash shippers so ofc they lashed out

Eve:

Hi. It's me. I run this blog and make the polls. I submitted Eve because I kept waiting for someone else to do it and then no one did, so the blasphemy you see before you is all mine.

Anyway, it seems kind of silly to explain why Eve is a victim of fandom misogyny. It's pretty self-evident. But I went and reread the relevant chapters in Genesis for this (because I'm just that dedicated to procrastinating lol) and yeah, unsurprisingly, Adam's agency in the eating fruit from the tree of knowledge incident is totally erased. The Bible does acknowledge that Eve was talked into trying the fruit by the snake, just like Adam was talked into trying the fruit by Eve, but Eve is depicted as a far more active agent than Adam. Here's the quote (using NIV for the sake of simplicity): "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." So apparently Adam was just standing there the whole time ig? Just twiddling his thumbs, having nothing to say while his wife actively broke the one rule God gave them about living in the garden of Eden (and He threatened to kill them btw if they didn't follow this rule). And then Adam also breaks that rule, not out of any desire to do so, but just because his wife gave him something to eat. So I guess he has to eat it. It can't be helped!

But of course it has to be written that way, because the point of the Adam and Eve myth is to be an origin story for the patriarchy. That's how creation myths work; they're explanations for the way the world works. There are seven days in a week because that's how long it took God to make the world and also take a nap ig. And women exist because God didn't want Adam to be lonely. But that's not why women have to be subservient to men, it's specifically a punishment for Eve's crimes, or as God so delightfully puts it: "Because you have done this […] Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

Also, let's be so for real, God totally set Adam and Eve up! He builds this beautiful garden right? And then in the middle of the garden He puts a tree that Adam and Eve aren't allowed to eat from. But importantly, the tree's fruit are what grants you knowledge of right and wrong, and also knowledge in general. Before they eat the fruit, Adam and Eve do not have the capacity for knowledge. Like everything else in the Adam and Eve story this is is yet another creation myth explanation for how life works; this is how humanity gained the ability, or at the least the potential to be knowledgeable and ethical. So, in other words, not only is God sticking this really enticing thing right in front of Adam and Eve and just daring them to test His boundaries, He also does this while deliberately denying them the capacity to differentiate right from wrong!!!!! God basically punishes them for pursuing the very thing that could have prevented them from eating the fruit in the first place! Total set up!

Anyway, I know just spent a long time talking about the text, and this is a tournament about fandom misogyny, not the misogyny of the source material, but I think it's relevant because the Bible is famously a pretty influential book. The Adam and Eve story didn't invent the patriarchy, it's a creation myth, an explanation for something that already existed. But it did provide annoying sexist uncles everywhere with ammo for their bullshit sexist beliefs. You see, they insist, we can't challenge the patriarchy, because it's not some bullshit artificial hierarchy that ultimately makes the world worse in every way. No, it's divinely ordained because God decided it would be womankind's collective punishment for Eve's actions.

All of which is especially annoying given that literally all she did was eat some fruit! Her son Cain killed his own brother for no fucking reason! And this was after Adam and Eve gained knowledge and like ethics or whatever from eating the fruit and presumably passed that ability down to their descendants and by extension to all of humanity. So when Cain killed his brother, we know he did so with the capacity to understand right from wrong which is not something Eve was capable of when she committed her big sin (eating fruit). But somehow Eve's actions, not Cain fully murdering his brother, are the origin of all sin??? Make it make sense!!!

Well actually, the reason it doesn't make sense is completely the fault of fandom misogyny. You see, the concept of "original sin", i.e., the idea that Eve invented sin by eating the fruit, is actually not in the source material at all (and by source material I mean the Old Testament of course). See that stuff is a later Christian interpretation that takes the already quite misogynistic text and makes it way more misogynistic for no real reason. I cannot stress this enough, this shit is fully Christian fanon. As a Jew, I can't remember a time when I didn't know this story, but I only learned that Christians believe that original sin shit about Eve by reading His Dark Materials when I was like eleven. And another thing that's fully fanon is this common portrayal of Eve as this like sexual seductress who uses her feminine wiles to make Adam eat the fruit. As you saw, that actually has zero basis in the text. That fucker didn't need any convincing. She literally just gives him the fruit and he eats it like the fucking dope he is.

Speaking of which, because the Bible needs Eve to be the guiltier party compared to Adam, in order to justify her punishment and by extension the patriarchy, it inadvertently results in Eve being a way more interesting character than her husband. Adam is a passive loser who does nothing of his own accord. Eve gives him fruit from the tree of knowledge, and he has no thoughts about it, head fully empty. He eats the fruit because his wife gave it to him. But Eve has motives! It's not just the snake manipulating her, she wants to gain wisdom! She's curious! Within this creation myth framework, she is the reason human beings have knowledge and wisdom. If it weren't for her eating the fruit (and getting Adam to eat it too, because he certainly wasn't making going to make any decisions on his own), we wouldn't have the capacity to know things, to understand right from wrong, or to learn. Eve gave us that!!!! She's kind of amazing!!! She's not supposed to be, obviously, we're supposed to judge her for her disobedience. But idk, I like having knowledge. Learning is one of the best things about being alive imo, and according to the Bible's creation myth, we only have that capacity because Eve decided to break the rules, to defy God openly. And she lived to tell the tale. That's fucking iconic, who's doing it like her?

So shout out to my girl Eve! What a legend! She doesn't deserve the hate and it's definitely not her fault that her husband is a little bitch.

Buffy Summers:

The fandom and punishes her for having relationships outside their OTP of choice

Fandom blames her for Spike's attempted rape of her and in general acts like she owed him her love. In general, fandom is very focused on fighting over which of Spike vs. Angel "deserved" her.

She's an iconic hero with cool hair and deserves better than being reduced to a reward for either manpire.

She gets reduced to just the question of which hot vampire she's going to end up with and then people say crazy victim blaming shit about her to top it all off.

She's the TV Protagonist of All Time.

Moderator's note: this next propaganda entry was too long to put in list format (at least according to tumblr, i tried) so it's indented instead:

I've seen a lot of people in the notes confused at Buffy's presence in this tournament and claiming that she's universally beloved. And I sort of get why they think that. From what I've seen at least, in recent years Buffy Summers has become a lot less controversial due to a variety of factors. And I get how that can make it seem like she's not actually subjected to much fandom misogyny. But what people need to understand is that a big part of the reason that Buffy (the character) elicits such defensiveness in some fans is because a lot of us witnessed literal decades of absolutely rancid misogynistic bullshit directed towards her.

When I first joined the fandom (circa 2012) like every other take I saw was about how Buffy was the worst part of her own show. This is an insane opinion to have, not only because Buffy is just such a fantastic character, but also because I cannot stress enough just how central her character is to show. It's her bildungsroman, everything is a metaphor for what she's going through. The tone and vibe of any given season is entirely dependent on how Buffy's feeling at the time. Like half the characters are there to be narrative parallels to her. The supporting cast is great, don't get me wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen a protagonist who protagonisted harder than Buffy Summers. So I genuinely don't understand what there is to like about the show if you don't like her.

Anyway, as I was saying, she was hated on constantly, called whiny for having what is essentially textbook clinical depression, called selfish despite constantly sacrificing her wants and needs for the sake of everyone else, victim blamed for being sexually assaulted by her ex, and generally punished for not grovelling more for forgiveness for her every mistake. Newer fans might not be aware of all that, hence the confusion, but I was there Gandalf. I remember.

And you don't just have to take my word for it, I have proof.

gabriellabelle ran a livejournal dedicated to Buffy between about 2006 and 2012. It's honestly kind of a miracle that her livejournal is still up. It's a really valuable resource, in part because a lot of her meta still holds up (I don't agree with everything she says or anything, and some of her takes are certainly of their time, but she does have some interesting and insightful analysis that I'm glad is still readily available) but for my purposes, it's also a very well-organized reminder of what the fandom was like back then. gabriellabelle was a Spuffy shipper who actually liked and cared about Buffy as a character, and this put her in conflict with a lot of other Spuffy shippers (not all of them obviously, and it's worth noting that misogyny in the Buffy fandom was certainly never a phenomenon exclusive to Spuffy shippers, that was just who this blogger specifically responded to most because it was her corner of the fandom) who often reduced Buffy to being nothing more than Spike's love interest and reward, while also simultaneously hating on her for not being nice enough to Spike. And I think you can really get a sense of just how dire things were by reading what accusations she had to defend Buffy from. So here is a sampling:

In this post, she argues against the legitimately common take at the time that Spike's actions in Seeing Red should not be constituted as sexual assault. If you're not familiar with that scene, I'm not going to go into specifics, but trust me, the idea that this was ever up for debate is patently absurd. And for all the many many problems with how the writers handled this scene, one thing they never did was suggest that the nature of Spike's actions were even remotely ambiguous. Multiple characters (including Spike!) describe what Spike did as a rape attempt, because that's just obviously what it was. To suggest otherwise requires a level of mental gymnastics that is almost impressive in its delusion. Truly, these people were shooting for a gold medal in fandom misogyny.

In this post, she responds to a lot of anti-Buffy takes, but the main one she addresses is that a lot of fans felt that Buffy didn't do enough to atone to Spike (yes, that Spike) for her treatment of him in season 6, and demanded that she deserved to be punished more.

In this post, she responds to fans calling Buffy selfish, which again, that's just a very very odd thing to say about Buffy Summers.

In this post she defends Buffy from people who call her whiny for having depression.

Also, she wrote this crackfic that was a parody of a lot of Spuffy fics from this era in which Buffy has to beg for forgiveness from Spike and her friends for how horrible she is. It's a pretty accurate if over-the-top summation of what a lot of fic at the time was like.

There's probably a lot more you can find by looking at this livejournal and older fandom stuff in general. I just need people to understand that the state of the fandom on tumblr now is not reflective of how things used to be. And to be clear, it's not like there's no modern day fandom misogyny directed towards Buffy. I've seen posts from this year where people victim blame Buffy for the bathroom scene, and the only real difference between those posts and the type of shit people were saying back then is that nowadays people use woker language to try to obscure the fact that they're doing textbook victim blaming, whereas back then people were comfortable saying whatever. But things used to be so so much worse, so it annoys me when people (unintentionally) whitewash that by saying that Buffy has always been beloved or whatever.

Abbie Mills:

Some fans hated her for threatening the Ichabod/Katrina ship and for being a black woman main character of a genre show.

Abbie Mills was a hero with a great backstory and really fun banter with Ichabod. I have to stop there because if I get into the fuckery that occurred on the show itself my blood pressure will rise.

Black police lieutenant who hesitantly throws in her lot with Ichabod Crane, even to the point of leaving him sticky notes around her house explaining how modern things like indoor plumbing, coffee machines and co.puters work. Gradually they become very close, to the point that when reunited after separation they run to each other and she jumps into his arms. At one point he holds her close, whispering into her hair to remember their bond and that he'd be back for her. Naturally, the primary white fandom basically ignored her in favor of Crane's dead (white) wife Katrina. Around the time it was airing I was cursed with seeing 'racebent' (aka they made her white )art of Abbie because apparently the artist 'couldn't relate to her' as a Black woman. Oh and the series itself did her dirty by killing her off at the end of the first season and carrying on without her for the second. Justice for Leftenant Mills (Leftenant is what Crane calls her, he's British you see.)

The whip-smart second lead who got so shafted by the writing team by season 3 that she was barely appearing anymore (and nearly all the cast were complaining about it, not just her actress) by the time they killed her off for cheap shock value (and some would say killed the show with her, considering the massive ratings nosedive).

Claudia:

She's a young black woman who is constantly ignored over the men in the show and reduced to nothing more than tragic pieces of the mens' life story by many of the fans and sometimes even the showrunners.

Not only is she just the best girl around but she's so incredibly complex---we as the audience still don't know the real and true her. I would die to get to know her but it's shocking a large part of the IWTV fandom isn't the same!

I can't speak to her treatment from book/movie fans but TV fans literally only talk about her in relation to being Louis and lestats "daughter". By the end of her life she's in her 40s and yet the fandom only treats her as their young daughter and she is defined by that instead of her actual character

due to claudia being a black woman who is directly opposed to everyone’s white male pookie (lestat) there has been a lot of misogyny thrown at her in the form of calling her a liar because the events of her personal diary (that was never supposed to be read by anyone) don’t align with lestat’s own account of events. she is seen as manipulative and selfish and someone who was trying to drive a wedge between louis and lestat, and her own classification as a victim of abuse in this family dynamic is undermined by her efforts to remove herself and find her own community. the abuse she faces by other male leads like louis and armand is minimized even if fans are able to see lestat’s abuse for what it is, even though armand staged a lynching for her, louis, and her companion madeleine and lied about it, alongside louis minimizing lestat and armand’s actions against her. the fandom is happy to take all the male characters at face value but as far as claudia is concerned everything she did was duplicitous and self-serving.

claudia deserved better from her “family” and it breaks my heart that her life in the grand scheme of things was cut so short just as she was finding her happiness. she is incredibly funny and the love she finds with madeleine is so beautiful. the struggle of being a woman in a body that is at odds with you and who you really are and what you want to be able to do in the world is very compelling and easy to empathize with from so many different avenues whether it’s by race, disability, and/or gender/sexuality. she is such an incredible character that should be seen as more than just an obstacle and loustat’s dead daughter. her and madeleine are the best lesbian vampires and everyone should be tuning into the yuri.

She's either a horrible and manipulative girl who lies in her own personal diaries for some reason about the abuse she faced from her white father or she's an idiot who got what was coming to her when she was lynched or just a tool to be used to further the relationship between two men. Her story is quite literally never her own, her diaries shared again and again without her consent and picked apart by both the characters in universe and fans.

She's literally so interesting and so well acted by both of the actresses who play her. She has such depth and her life was cut short due to racism, misogyny, and ableism. She deserves more than to be reduced to nothing but a liar or a tragic figure to be used to further the relationship between two men.

even people claim to like her will call her stupid for her actions in season two, even though she quite literally spells out her reasons for being so desperate to join the coven. In season one she's shown trying again and again to turn a person and make herself a companion. In season two she tells Louis (her father/brother who she loves but at this point he had gotten physically violent with her when she tried to convince him to kill their maker Lestat once and for all) that the only vampires she's known are him, their white maker (who beat Louis half to death, threatened Claudia by mentioning her rapist, got violent with her, and tried to kill her), the aforementioned rapist, and her white father's white side piece who he was planning to replace her with. She wants to belong somewhere with people like her, yeah she endures humiliation at first but considering what she'd been through at this point, it makes sense that she can justify it for a while to be a necessary evil. It's also important to note that she doesn't have all the information! Louis does not tell her that Armand threatened to kill him the night she was inducted into the coven. There was no way she could have predicted Lestat coming back or Armand and the coven's plan to lynch them. Why does a woman, and especially a Black woman, have to be completely objective and rational and borderline clairvoyant all the time to be deserving of sympathy?