rsofiaa

ok so i'm only on s1ep23 but hear me out. yıldız is 100% the show's pacifist.

1. there may be other characters that preach pacifist ideals, the most obvious one being the greek soldier refusing to comply with violent orders against turkish civilians because greeks and turks are brothers, but he's later killed by mehmet for being a hypocrite. so in the end the only major character to be an actual pacifist is yıldız.

2. she never involves herself in war matters, instead fixating completely on love. for this reason, her actions are disapproved by everyone else: in an environment where anything other than undying patriotism is seen as suspicious, her complete lack of interest makes her an enemy, a greek. as a result she drifts towards those who accept her and praise her for wanting peaceful living between the two people, which end up being the greek (even though they're lying).

mustafa sami's death in my opinion doesn't count as her helping the greek because she didn't think they would kill him, she was only trying to get out of her forced marriage.

she focuses wholly on love instead, but she's not male centered. she rejects war, the highest form of hate, to embrace love. yıldız is the bridge between the two communities, from her friendship with eleni to her situationship with leon and acceptance of her father. it would be a mistake to say she's happy about cevdet's treason, she's just happy he's alive (and yes, sometimes she's happy to use his position as high ranking officer to get what she wants, but that's more about her being highly individualistic rather than a traitor in the making as everyone makes her out to be). yıldız is actually the one character who consistently reminds us about what's really important: life over patriotism, love over ethoreligious sectarianism, peace over war.

3. i watched this video a while ago (though i can't for the life of me find it) about how romances aren't solely about the dream of finding love but, almost in the same amount, about the fantasy of bettering one's economic conditions. a romance will not be fully satisfying to its readers/viewers if the love interest is poorer than the main character (unless said mc is rich enough for the both of them, but that just means the roles are reversed).

while watching the yıldız-leon storyline that's all i could think about, sure she likes him but of course, despite what she says, she doesn't love him (she loves ali kemal, questionable screenwriting decision i thought), she only wants to marry leon for the financial security, to live a better life.

i guess i just realised i wrote this just to reiterate that leon being greek never bothered yıldız because she values her romantic fantasy more than separatist customs.

4. she recognises that her parents love each other, it's war that drove them apart, while hilal and ali kemal approve of azize's marriage to tevfik because they're so blinded by cevdet's uniform they lose the ability to remember their father's nature.