Honestly, I think Iāve discovered the actual reason Amber and Alfie donāt work in HOA like they work in the original HHA or DHA. And itās not entirely due to the actual canon events that are written for this version of the pairing (the dating handbook, Amberās ānoā to Alfieās attempt at breaking up, forcing Amber into the trial relationship in the first place, etc., etc.), though it certainly doesnāt help. It actually comes down to how their characters were adapted for the English version of the show, and how they are fundamentally different than the OGs.
Iāll start with Alfie first. Alfie in HOA is a goober. Heās doofy, well-meaning, and most importantly childlike. Not even just childish, but childlike. Heās boyish and bubbly, and he certainly makes some weird, sorta sexual comments (especially in S1), but on the whole heās quite an innocent character. Essentially, he reads as very young. Which he is, especially at the start of the show where heās probably supposed to be about 15/16, but could even be as young as 14.
Appie, on the other hand, is also a goober. But a different type. Heās honestly way more like Jeroen than Alfie is like Jerome, meaning heās a something of a womanizer, a bit douchier, and on the whole reads a lot older than Alfie, which Iām almost certain is canonical across all characters (with HHA characters supposedly ending the show at the age of 19, with the timeline across the 4 seasons being only two yearsā three at most).
The few things character-wise both Appie and Alfie share intrinsically are that theyāre besties with Jeroen/Jerome who doesnāt always treat him well, his love for a good practical joke, and (in earlier seasons) his pining for Amber. Of course, Appie also goes through phases of being a bit of a ladies man (see his random interest in Mara), but on the whole these things are constant. But already, the English version of the character is a lot more twinkly eyed and is like āAmberās really pretty, I hope she notices meā as opposed to the Dutch āDamn sheās hot, lemme tap thatā. Itās very subtle, because heās obviously not a sleazy, bad guy, but itās though being friend zoned by Amber (for the whole series) that Appie begins to loosen up and be less of a sleaze and more of the silly and whimsical guy we know him as; thatās because of Dutch Amberās characterization.
Iāll come back to why all that matters, after I discuss the Ambers. (For the sake of keeping track, Iāll refer to them by their last names). Rosenbergh is a rich, pretty, ditzy party girl, but sheās incredibly perceptive. She sniffs out bullshit in an instant, especially with the Mick and Mara situation, but overall she has wicked foot-in-mouth syndrome and just sorta blurts out the first thing that pops into her head even if itās the stupidest thing youāve ever heart in your life. Sheās extravagant, over-the-top, full of whimsy, and is downright silly. Rosenbergh is simultaneously a ditz and very smart. Simultaneously is the key word here.
Millington is not. She is a much more toned down version of her OG counterpart, and I think that is mostly due to the different actresses takes on the character. This isnāt to say, Millington isnāt any of the those of adjectives I used earlier, but the difference between the English and the Dutch versions of the character is that while Rosenbergh is both smart and ditzy, Millington is simply smart and plays at being ditzy. At least thatās how it reads, and how it reads is incredibly important in this case. Millington would never be caught dead in some of the situations Rosenbergh found herself in, because sheās a fundamentally more uptight version of the character.
So why does all this matter? Because the version of Alfie that we get from the very start is far more like Appie after a good hunk of his subtle character developmentā far more like Amber Rosenbergh. Amber Millington, on the other hand, is not the type of girl to ever mesh that well with a wild, goofy personality like Alfieās. Sheās just not. Alfie would work super well with Rosenbergh, however, because sheās this whimsical girl with a lot of heart. Itās why Appie works so well with her, too.
This isnāt a diss of HOA!Amber, by the way, because her English characterization is a masterful adaptation of the OG, but thereās a reason why even in S3 of HOA, at the supposed established point of Amfieās relationship, they still feel so estranged from each other. At the end of the day, Millington has a different outlook on life and an entirely different mindset than Alfie. This isnāt to say they couldnāt work ever, but theyāre just not the same pairing that Amber/Appie are.
It also didnāt help that Amfie had no best friends era. Like, sometimes I think we forget that Amber and Appie didnāt get together until the reunion movie. Like they werenāt a canon couple in the series. He liked her, but she didnāt like him back and they were besties. Their chemistry was chaotic and silly, and they had to grow into each other for them to work. Which is why they work. Amber and Alfie never did that, and part of me wonders if that wasnāt entirely because of the plot the English writers put down for them, but rather because the ways Ana and Alex played the characters off each other just didnāt allow for it.
Which brings me to my last point: Willow. Arguably, Willow is more like HHA!Amber than HOA!Amber is, and thatās all because of the magic word Iāve been using this whole, poorly-written essay: whimsy. Willow is the glitterbomb to Alfieās fuse. Their dynamic feels exactly the same as Appie and Amber because Willow is the writersā second attempt at having Amber Rosenbergh in the picture, and thatās why Walfie works so much more naturally.
Anyway, this got long and Iām sure I missed stuff but yeah. TL;DR: Amfie was unable to replicate Ampie bc theyāre just different
