queerlocus:

I’d really love to see where these accusations of “South Apologism” even come from.  No one I’ve seen is ever going “oh yeah South totally did no wrong ever” or anything like that.  Generally people are constantly just fighting back regarding the vicious double standard that takes place in fandom.  South is constantly being hated on because “she’s horrible” “she killed her brother” “she’s too angry” etc etc.

People who like her have had to constantly justify that and keep having to defend their reasoning with long posts about why she’s a sympathetic character.  Y’know who else did things like South did?  Wash.  You know which character people never have to ever justify liking?  Wash, who on top of shooting a fellow freelancer, also shot a few main characters, and led to Alpha’s death.  The only real difference is that the story actually expanded on him and allowed him to have a redemption arc, while South was killed off during the time she was doing Just as badly as Wash was.

I’m not even going to kid myself by going “maybe if she had gotten a redemption arc people would like her more,” considering there’s still people out there that hate Carolina for absolutely ridiculous reasons (”She’s too cocky”.  Are you fucking kidding me?) regardless of the fact that she was also given the chance to learn from her mistakes and grow.

And hell, even characters like Felix, who are painted as unapologetically cruel and committed literal genocide get more of a free pass, and even given tragic backstories just to justify why he’s so awful.  I don’t see anyone going around asking “why do you like Felix?” at people, I’ve never gotten any asks questioning why I love the mercenaries so much, but I’ve sure as hell gotten asks regarding why I love South.

It’s fine not to like characters, but we have to think critically about why exactly it is that characters that have been in the same position as her, and characters that have literally committed planet-wide genocide, get more positive reaction and portrayals than she does.