Seemingly unpopular opinion but I feel like people only view Heather Duke as crueler than Heather Chandler because we see more of Duke being a bitch toward anyone and everyone. I feel like Chandler, had she lived, would have done some of the same things as Duke, if not worse.
Building off of that point, this is why I think a Heathers series could be amazing if done correctly. Two hours isn’t nearly enough time to know things about characters, and sadly due to a lack of expansion on the intricacies of each character, I think the entire fandom has our fair share of misconceptions.
I think seeing more of how cruel each character can be could cause people to lower their rose colored glasses relating to whoever their favorite character is. The entire point of Heathers is that really none of the characters are good people. (Except for Martha and Betty, they did nothing wrong. Or maybe they did! It’s hard to tell.)
People seem to baby characters like Veronica and Heather McNamara way too much. Maybe they weren’t as bad as the other Heathers, but they still made their own mistakes or were complicit.
The same goes for J.D. in a lot of cases. As much as I defend SOME of his actions myself, others can’t be defended and I think certain Heathers fans don’t acknowledge that. For example.. I’ve genuinely seen someone trying to defend his plan to blow up the school. That’s not something that can be justified in any way, shape, or form.
In other situations I’ve seen SOME people defend Heather Chandler. I’ve seen her get babied. While I don’t think Heather Chandler necessarily deserved to die, she did know what she was doing. She was intentionally cruel, and she knew she was a horrible person.
In other cases, people fully demonize Heather Duke. Even more than they do Heather Chandler. In my (not so) humble opinion, they’re on the same level. Duke was cruel in the same ways that Heather was. But.. I’ve already made this point before, so I’ll save the yapping.
But in any case.. don’t let my ranting ruin your fun. Do whatever you want with these characters, because at the end of the day, fandom is for everyone and you shouldn’t have to comply with strict rules just because some teenager on the internet says you should.
