Not sure if this counts as an unpopular opinion, but while Gwen and her dad’s reconciliation scene was absolutely beautiful and I wouldn’t want it any other way, I DO realistically think that Gwen’s dad doesn’t deserve forgiveness with no strings attached.
Obviously he loves his daughter- he gave up his career for her- and yeah, I love that! That’s great! But because Gwen is his daughter, Gwen is going to have this inherent need to just forgive and forget any wrongdoing her father commits. The desperation in her expression and tone during every scene in ATSV with her dad when she’s begging him to understand me says it all:
For a time, her home was no longer hers. It wasn’t safe for her to be there. She wasn’t welcome. Of course the minute her dad opens his arms to her again, she’s going to look at him like a savior even though he’s the reason she had nowhere to go in the first place, leading her to join Spider Society. As a firm believer in the validity of the trans allegory of Gwen’s ATSV arc, I’m going to use comparisons to the queer experience. If someone rejects your identity, there’s nothing to be done about it, nothing that can undo it—that will always stick with you! Gwen is always going to wonder when the other shoe is going to drop and she’s out again, because if it happened once, it can happen again. She might forgive her dad for everything, but she’s never not going to live in fear thinking it could happen again.
Long story short, Gwen’s dad needs to sit in the corner and think about what he’s done. His daughter was homeless and rejected and that’s his fault. Amen
