One of the things that bothers me most in discussions about Evil Morty isn't just the fact that many people treat him simply as evil/a villain.
It's the way his age is used in an extremely convenient way by the narrative and by the audience.When Evil Morty demonstrated anger, resentment, impulsiveness, or difficulty dealing with his emotions (in the first episode of the ninth season), I frequently read the argument that he's just a teenager, using it as justification for his abrupt personality change, and I completely agree, it makes perfect sense. After all, he's just a 14-year-old boy who suffered a lot and reacted by creating a mask of indifference around himself to avoid pain and vulnerability.
However, I saw that this logic seems to disappear completely when he suffers.
Suddenly, we're no longer talking about a teenage boy, someone who grew up within a system that the series itself describes as abusive.In the scene of the beating with the Smith family (I simply hate this scene).
Evil Morty is now treated as a fully responsible adult, someone who deserves all the humiliation, violence, or degradation he received at that moment.
If his age is relevant to explaining his emotional flaws, then it should also be relevant when the narrative decides to place him in situations of humiliation or violence. It's not possible to use adolescence to explain his behavior and then completely ignore it when he's in a position to suffer the consequences.
Remember, the problem isn't that Evil Morty is innocent. He isn't!!! But the discussion frequently abandons any nuance when he assumes the role of antagonist, which happened in the episode and seems likely to extend to the rest of the series.
Are you really going to show me a character who for years has been presented as a victim of an abusive system being beaten by members of his own family? Most of whom weren't even the real focus of his anger and resentment in that scene, and expect me to see it as just a joke? Three of the five involved are adults, while Evil Morty remains a 14-year-old boy, and among them is Rick, the figure who most represents the origin of his traumas and who knows exactly the situation of Evil Morty (and of Mortys in general).
Just consider the difference in treatment we would have between Evil Morty and Morty Prime: If we had a scene of Morty Prime being beaten by members of his own family (especially with Rick kicking him "satisfied"), a large part of the audience would immediately identify elements of abuse. We would see many people saying it was a cruel, disturbing, and emotionally heavy scene. But when it happened with Evil Morty, I noticed that many viewers seem to lose that same sensitivity.
The reason is simple: the narrative has already positioned him as the villain, and many have unconsciously accepted this. A large portion of the fans already believe that he will escape from prison and take revenge, consequently becoming the great final villain (if I'm not mistaken, this part has already been confirmed? I'm not sure).
And when a character receives that label, many people start to interpret any suffering they endure as deserved. Their story ceases to matter, and that frustrates me because Evil Morty didn't emerge as just any villain; his origin has always been linked to the destructive relationship between Ricks and Mortys. He was presented as a victim who rebelled against a system built by his abuser! His central motivation wasn't to gain power and get revenge, but to escape.
I think it's perfectly valid that the series tried to explore Evil Morty's more wounded, resentful, and even destructive side, because a victim isn't incapable of making bad decisions or hurting other people. The problem is that's not what I felt watching the episode. Instead of seeing the continuation of the story of a victim dealing with their traumas in a misguided way, I felt I was seeing the construction of a generic antagonist who needed to be humiliated to entertain the audience and justify a future revenge arc.
The story revolves around a Morty who rebelled against the Ricks, realized how abusive that system was, and decided to leave to live in peace. But unfortunately, it returns later, not out of a desire for power, but because, unknowingly, it was seeking some kind of connection with the abusive relationship from which it never fully recovered... The narrative seems to use this moment of vulnerability to ridicule him.
For me, there's something deeply uncomfortable about taking the only victim who managed to escape and having his return primarily serve to prepare him for the role of a resentful villain who will need to be defeated later. Not because victims can't become bad people, but because the series seemed much more interested in erasing than exploring her tragedy.
Why do I have to watch Evil Morty being ridiculed, beaten up, and groomed for the role of a future spiteful villain, but I don't see the same effort being made to get Rick to take responsibility for his share of the blame in this? Why does it seem like even the Rick Prime had a more dramatic and less humiliating downfall than Evil Morty?
Honestly, it doesn't bother me to see him suffer the consequences of his bad choices, but it bothers me that a story always linked to abuse and victimization seems to deserve more narrative humiliation than characters who caused much greater harm/suffering.
If the intention is to explore how pain, resentment, and trauma can transform someone into a worse version of themselves, then the narrative should also demonstrate an interest in holding accountable those who played a key role in that transformation. Otherwise, the impression is that all responsibility falls on the victim for what they have become, while those who contributed to their downfall remain relatively untouched by the same moral analysis.
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