Stranger Things is a curious, character-based coming-of-age story as well as a thriller. Something between early Spielberg and Stephen King: it’s innocent yet scary, a winsome kids’ sci-fi adventure, and a Lovecraftian horror tale all at once. A story about friendship above all else, full of relatable moments (despite the horror aspect) with utterly likeable characters, and elements of a superhero comic book, a video game, a buddy movie, and much like the like-minded Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it’s an allegory of the trauma associated with puberty. A curious concoction of fantasy and impeccably invoked ‘80s nostalgia. A pastiche show that cunningly borrows elements from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Stepford Wives, Alice in Wonderland, It, A Wrinkle in Time, E.T., Goonies, Stand by Me, and of course, Dungeons & Dragons. Funny, heartfelt, gripping and for those first seasons, a godamn delight.

As the show ended on New Years Day 2026, we can’t help but think back at the many sweet, funny, moving moments it offered us over the years: The boys playing D&D and fighting over their imaginary plots. Steve cleaning Nancy’s graffitied name from the dirty movie theatre (exhibiting the curious and rare phenomenon of the jock who can actually evolve). Those bike rides of the boys with Eleven, which are clearly paying homage to Elliot carrying E.T. in the basket of his bicycle. Eddie’s guitar solo as swarms of those supernatural bat thingies are descending upon him. Hopper rehearsing his speech to Eleven, and then discarding it and telling her that she must leave the door open three inches while she is with Will. His letter being read after his supposed death. Erica conning Robin and Steve into a life-long supply of ice creams. Eleven being hidden underneath the covered with bedsheets table in Will’s basement, or wandering around like E.T. when everyone was at school, searching for food. Bob (poor, kind Bob) having that conversation about fear with Will in the car. Hopper leaving Eleven eggos in the woods, and later booby-trapping the area around the cabin. Eleven discovering for the first time in her life the joy and the blessing that are female friendships when she goes shopping with Max at the mall (What a delight that whole episode was!) That first time, she replied to Will via the walkie-talkie. Or when she made the Death Star toy levitate. Argyle, Jonathan’s stoner friend being smitten with Suzie’s sister, or arriving with the pizza truck to save the day. Those conversations between Robin and Steve at the Scoops Ahoy ice cream shop (and those ridiculous nautical uniforms). That first moment Will makes contact with his mother from the Upside Down via the Christmas lights. Max’s evil brother finding his humanity before his death. (And those flashbacks with his mum at the beach…) Steve shouting “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God” again and again when he first encounters the demogorgons (and at every scene after that, while everyone else is supposedly following the mythology, he, being all of us: bewildered, shocked, in constant need of explanations and incapable of understanding what the hell is going on) Max being suspended in the air in what became an iconic moment of the show, and then being saved by “Running up the Hill”. And finally, Dustin’s Mormon (and surprisingly, not imaginary) girlfriend, Suzie, demanding to be serenated to Limahl’s “Never Ending Story” before offering her mathematical expertise to the group. (“Yes, NOW! Dusty-bun!”) And all the other deeply significant songs for the characters or the plot: The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” for Will, Kate Bush’s “Running Up The Hill (A Deal With God)” for Max, Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”for Eddie, Tiffany’s “I think We’re Alone Now” for Holly, etc., exhibiting in this manner how important pop music was for our youth. How much was a part of us.

The show, which is set in the 80s (supposedly from 1983 to 1987), is peddling nostalgia for an era that was unlived by most members of the cast, and possibly the biggest part of their audience as well. Even though it is at times a kind of idealised version of what the 80s used to be – the writers/creators of the show were born in 1984, a year after the story begins, after all - it got a lot of things right. Not because this is how life was really like back then, but because this is how it felt if you were a kid or a teenager at that moment in time. And if you don’t count the monsters, the supernatural horrors and the military (or else see them as a metaphor for the Cold War scare), it’s like a collage of a GenX’s childhood: Playing outside until it was dark. Being left to your own devices by parents, who only looked for you if you never returned home by dinner time. Being able to trust male teachers and male adults in general, without the present-day, ever-lurking fear that they might be paedophiles and porn-addled weirdos (because yes, it was much less unlikely than it is today!) Running around the neighbourhood with your bicycles after dark. Summers feeling like they were endless and yours, and full of promise in a way that’s is likely no longer possible for kids who spend them in front of screens. Childhood and innocence lasting longer because kids were not exposed to the nastiness of internet porn. Friendships being unaffected by the world of social media and being deep and maningful and life-changing. Big, product-free hair (which means left to be as curly and mad as Nature intended). Electric blue eyeshadow, pink lipstick that tasted like cherries, mullets and squaretops, “prim” lady-like frilly dresses with fabric belts for teenage girls (the kind Robin and Nancy wore when they visited that mental hospital), floral shirts for boys, mammy jeans for teenagers. Geometric-shaped earrings. Colourful, dorky outfits and loud plastic accessories that are hardly what Generation Z imagines them to be, when they are trying to emulate the 80s in feeble attempts to appear cool and retro in their TikTok videos. Walkie-talkies, rotary phones, strip malls, tape cassettes (and rewinding them again and again so that you can hear your favourite song). Book libraries and book library cards. (And books. Lots and lots of books!) Video stores and VHS video tapes. Star Wars, board games, friendships that last a lifetime. Trust. And also, silly pop songs having a life-altering influence on your life, leading you back “home” every time.

It is – sure – a cynical pandering to a specific demographic, not just the Gen X, whose memories are littered with the stuff, but also millenials and Gen-Z who are mysteriously fascinated with the 80s and have created countless alternative (and faux) versions of the unlived by them decade, turning it into money making “content” on their social media and an inspiration for their borrowed, “retro” designs and hipster fashion sense. But for us, it is memories. It is our childhood or teenage years. It’s what shaped us.

So, nine years after the pilot, the finale was upon us during the Holidays and we braced ourselves for another dose of nostalgia as well as for closure for these beloved characters. The Rattag gang was back for once again fighting monsters, demonic-like villains and evil soldiers, jumping dimensions, entering memory realms and trying to save the world from an impending apocalypse that this time comes in the form of another world colliding into theirs. But sadly it was quit the let down. (Read more about the finale here: Stranger Things Finale - A Review - Did Eleven Really Die? A Bittersweet End to a Nostalgic Journey.) Yet, a thing that worked in this final instalment was how, the moment Vecna was dying, hacked by Joyce’s axe (a weird choice by any means), we got to see (much like in Harry Potter when Voldemort died) some of the characters who were met with gruesome deaths: Bob, Eddie, Barb.

In fact, to be fair, there were a lot of moments that actually worked (all relating to character interactions interestingly, a fact that indicates that this was never about the monsters, but the emotional bond between these characters): Will’s fear of not being accepted by his friends (it may have been a cynical piece of writing in terms of intention given the leanth and the timing, but it was still moving), Nancy and Jonathan having a kind of Titanic moment while the world was melting around them (and then for reasons that remain unexplained, congealing again), Steve having an epiphany (his first in the show…), Robin and Vicky being reunited and Vicky (understanably) thinking that Robin is a drug addict when she talks about monsters). Hopper coming to terms with his fears about Eleven’s future. He and Mike bonding over their pain. Joyce and Hopper finally going on a date at Enzo’s. Eleven and Mike saying goodbye before she plunges to her death (Those two never had any real chemistry, frankly, but this was a beautiful moment). Every one of them reacting to Eleven’s death. Luke never giving up on Max, and then the two of them being reunited and finding a moment of happiness in that yet-to-happen date at the cinema. Steve and Dustin’s reconciliation. Steve talking about the six (six!) little nuggets he wants Nancy to give birth to (don’t you love it when men think they are offering a gift to a woman when they tell her things like that?) Dustin’s mum having a moment at his graduation (I love her! We should have seen more of her!) And finally, Mike turning round and watching Holly and her own gang taking over where they left off.

As I said, the emotional goodbyes carry a lot of the weight of the finale. We’ve spent the past 9 years watching Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, and Max come of age, we kinda wanted to see how they would fare in the real world. So it is both sweet and sad that it is only through the hypothetical storytelling of Mike that we see that there might be a bright future for the core group outside the limits of Hawkins. That conversation between the now grown-ups of the group on the rooftop was particularly satisfying. The future they can now see. The plans made, the new roads to be taken. Work and college and real life and creative adventures. Finally sliding into pedestrian lives and normalcy. And at the end, Dustin, Will, Mike, Luke and Max playing one last game of Dungeons and Dragons before they are all off to tackle adulthood. And then we see the torch being passed on to the next generation of kids (Holly, Derek, and the rest of them) who take their place in the basement: the world “below”, where unconscious thought and imagination reside. We see them get their own turn, after the original cast is climbing up the stairs, leaving the basement and closing the door to their own childhood forever.

The adventure, the fantasy, will continue, we are told. It is cliché and heartfelt in equal measures, of course. And more effective, more moving than every single thing that happened in the entire CGI-heavy fifth season.

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…the writers are offering us a Schrodinger’s Cat kind of solution: She is both dead AND alive. But you know what? We’ll take it. They are right to linger between two choices. Killing her off makes sense narratively. Not killing her makes all of us (themselves included, one suspects) feel better. So maybe Kali did create an illusion with her mind before she died herself. Maybe Eleven did escape and is now somewhere in South America in search of those three waterfalls.

Stranger Things, the Netflix series created by the twin brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, is an utterly enthralling 1980s-set supernatural sci-fi thriller that came out of nowhere and instantly became an unexpected hit of gigantic proportions, one of the few unifying cultural phenomena of the last decade. It’s all about a group of four adorable, nerdy boys: Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas Caleb McLaughlin) and Will (Noah Schnapp) who live in the little town of Hawkins, Indiana, which, much like the hellmouth of Sunnyvale in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, is the matrix of all things spooky and dark. As Will goes missing, the rest of them must discover what happened to him and, in the process, save their town and the world at large from otherworldly monsters and interdimensional catastrophes, with the help of Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a strange girl with supernatural powers. A group of older teenagers are added as the story progresses: Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Steve (Joe Keery), Robin (Maya Hawke), Eddie (Joseph Quinn), and the younger ones Max (Sadie Sink) and Erica (Priah Ferguson), who become part of the core group. And of course Joyce (Winona Ryder, whose career the show reserected) and Jim Hopper (David Harbour), while some familiar faces from 80s and 90s culture are added periodically - usually in smaller roles: Sean Astin (Bob Newby), Paul Reiser (Dr. Sam Owens), Cary Elwes (Mayor Larry Kline), Matthew Modine (Dr. Martin Brenner) and in this last season, Linda Hamilton (Dr. Kay)

The pilot of Stranger Things premiered in 2016, just three days before Donald Trump was officially announced as the presidential nominee of the US Republican Party, a fact that was considered as significant by many who saw connections between his presidency and the nefarious activities taking place in the show’s underground government labs, which were aided by the military and threatened to bring about a worldwide catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions, while only a handful of people were aware of the fact…

The fifth and final season was released in three volumes during the Holidays of 2025, culminating in the finale, which was aired on New Year’s Day 2026, as a 128-minute-long movie on Netflix (which was also available in more than 620 theatres across the US). As the actors have aged beyond their roles (they are now twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings pretending to be 16, 18 or 20), the message that they are now adults (or at least on their way of becoming ones) is punctuated with clarity. Besides, battling monsters can age you…

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It begins with Hawkings being again under threat by supernatural horrors and under a military quarantine, as the rifts have been opened. Our interpit gang is trying to find and kill Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), the big baddy of the piece, who has disappeared, while Eleven is being hunted by the army, forcing her to go into hiding. A new - the ultimate as it happens – more scary foe appears in the sky, kids get kidnapped by Vecna to aid the coming of the impending apocalypse, Will gets Eleven-like powers and gets into Vecna’s mind to lure him out of his hiding, Max who is still in a coma, resides inside Vecna’s memories, while Eleven and her lab sister / Eight, make a suicide pack to end the plans of the military to create more of them, and end the cycle of pain and Vecna once and for all. We also get to see Henry’s formative trauma, his beginnings as Vecna, and his connection with a newly discovered world-ending threat.

When it comes to the fantasy genre, sticking the landing is always a big ask, but we can’t help but expect it (I still haven’t recovered from that infuriating Battlestar Galactica ending, btw!) There’s so much borrowing from its own convoluted mythology here, there are so many familiar, repetitive and unnecessary at this late hour twists, and random (and as it turns out open-ended) subplots that were obviously created in order to be pigeonholed into the (unsatisfying) conclusion to add spectacle to the ending that it all stopped making sense.

It’s a common enough problem for the fantasy genre: A core idea that works, that it is even quite spectacular, becomes a massive (unexpected in this case) success, and then the creators need to keep piling on details and subplots and protracted explanations on and on to keep this thing going. Each season expands its lore and scope until the web is so convoluted that none of it makes sense anymore, and there’s no real solution that can satisfy. By that time, of course, you are so invested in it that it doesn’t matter. Then the self-referential callbacks begin, and the fan service. Not that it doesn’t work… Once you love the characters. And we do. But God, there is so much unnecessary drivel being added in the finale that it is almost insulting. That whole thing with the kidnapped kids? What was it other than a way to fill time before we get to the final episode? Not that we didn’t enjoy the Alice in Wonderland quality at times, but what was it other than a lot of running in the desert, trying to leave or reach that cave? How much of that were we supposed to endure before getting to the point? The build-up lasted so long, we were bound to expect some form of mind-blowing conclusion, a spectacular farewell that was promised by the vastness of the lore, but was sadly never really offered. Instead, we were given a safe, CGI extravaganza and more questions, more puzzles that remain (and will remain, given that this is the finale) unsolved and unresolved. In short, the ill-timed widening of the mythology of the show on a new scale just sacrifices the importance of the conclusion.

In earlier seasons we were more easily seduced by our love of the characters into buying the mythos, that yes, they did all the wondrous things they set out to do, armed with walkie-talkies, a slingshot, a high school level grasp on science, a shared knowledge of the Dungeons & Dragons world and their friendship, but here we are asked to suspend our disbelief to an even more ridiculous degree: in the two years that elapsed between the last time we saw them and now, they have all miraculously turned into super soldiers / gorilla fighters apparently, each capable of taking on the United States military singlehandedly, and being nifty with all kinds of triangulating systems, and remote controls that open all doors, and military weaponry, including hand grenades (where did they get those? And how could they smuggle them in the heavily secured periphery of the town? When did they go from being armed with Home Alone-like, improvised weapons from a hardware store and their wits, into becoming full throttled Ramboesque uber soldiers? Wasn’t the point of the story that these are ordinary (bookish, geeky, sure!) teenagers who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances? Also, what was the point of using codes to communicate via public radio - through Robin, who is now a DJ and apparently in charge of the Radio Station, despite that she is still in high school - when they would talk openly about what the codes meant to each other via the walkie-talkies, which surely, the military can intercept?

And why the hell can Eleven jump/fly like Superman now? When did that happen? Why didn’t she before? Are we supposed to just believe that it was because she practised really hard, while wearing that ridiculous exercise outfit? (What was that about, by the way? A Bionic Woman reference? Or did she pissed off the costume designers of the show who got creative with their revenge? Because that other diving/bathing suit was also an abomination… And what’s with the lip filler? Why would a beautiful, young actress do that to herself I ask you?! Nevermind that she is supposed to be a teenager in the 80s…) And why give Will Eleven-like powers, too, all of a sudden, and have him killing demogorgons by staring? I guess it was so we would not be forced to see him rub his neck in horror every time he was in-synch with Vecna (in the manner of Harry Potter getting headaches or Frodo being affected by the Ring, etc., etc.) But why make him the same as Eleven? Just to enter that one time (or two, who cares anymore), Vecna’s mind? What is the use of that out of the blue? Just to have him translate what Vecna is feeling about the cave and his first kill, I guess. Ok, but doesn’t it defeat the point that Eleven was unique in this story (and all her lab brothers and sisters for that matter)? And what was the point of going to Henry’s high school memories? What was it if not another dead end? And how was Max able to furnish the cave with chairs and tables and pillows and things? If it’s Vecna’s memory-scape, surely it was empty and only inhabited by the guy with the suitcase. Also, how come she never saw him in the two years she was there, while Holly and the kids did? And, also, an equally crucial question: why the hell is Dustin wearing a fur cape now?

Henry’s descent into evil was because he was manipulated by the red stone (and the abyss/planet/pulsating heart in the sky, etc), we are told (that apparently had vocal cords, and spoke English as it whispered to him creepily “Find me”). Fair enough. He was “just a kid”, as Will says, but this too is negated as he already attempted to kill the man in the cave BEFORE he got to open his suitcase and be seduced into the dark side. In short, he was an evil child to begin with. Or was he already a goner the minute he entered the cave, just because he was in the proximity of the stone/abyss (like the horcruxes in Harry Potter?) and killing that guy was an indication that he was already under the influence of the abyss? That’s yet another thing that remains unclear and open-ended…. Speaking of the dreaded “Abyss”, as it turns out, it was nothing but another SGI wasteland that looks pretty similar to the upside down… (It’s interesting how the show’s endlessly expandable CGI world made it somehow smaller)

As the show became more and more successul it got “grander”, more ambitious, stacking plot over plot in an effort to sustain the momentum and prolong the impending ending, and it happens here too: new characters are introduced even in these late hour. (All those kids! Why?) Instead of bringing things together, we are led outwards into more and more expanding puzzles and story threads. And who was that guy in the cave Herny killed? And what the hell was in that suitcase? A piece of that - whatever it was - above them, picking from the hole Nancy made with her gun (because apparently you can shoot planets and activate them. Sure.) Though admittedly, the bit about Hopper accidentally shooting the water tank and hurting Eleven, and then turning out to have been a Vecna mind trick to bring her back, was an impressive bit of writing! (Kudos for that one! It felt like it used to, at that moment!) Actually there were quite a few beautiful moments in the finale that brought to mind others from previous seasons (Read more about these here: “The Emotional Legacy of Stranger Things: A Farewell”)

Additionally, how come they went from talking like normal teenagers who are genuinely fond of each other, into being snarky all the time, and demeaning to each other in those first four episodes? Why the constant sarcasm in this season? Snarky remarks work when not ALL the characters are shooting them at each other randomly and on all occasions. It’s the West Wing problem (No, I don’t mean the pomposity and the American nationalism spiel, I mean the dialogues): not every single person is equally witty/condescending, surely?! They can’t ALL possess the same degree of snarkiness, smug dark humour and desire to eliminate each other with one-liners! When everyone is doing it, and at all times, it’s no longer funny; it’s exasperating! This is what the character of Murrey (Brett Gelman) - who is annoying even in the best of times - is there for after all: to spew sarcastic remarks at everybody, (and also WHY is he there? How come he is now part of the core group? I get it we needed someone to translate from Russian to English in the fourth season but what is he doing here now?)

All the new storylines seem to side track into derivitive territory, exposition, repetition: the endless “crawls” (that seem to be there in order to give Hopper something to do in this season), the demogorgons that we’ve seen again and again, and frankly had enough of, Eleven and Hopper fighting, another interdimensional horror that arrives out of nowhere (and is never satisfactoraly explained from where, how or why) our heroes facing a new arachnid-like monster by the end, Vecna again (and again, and again), creepily walking in the distance behind whoever he is chasing, his hand uncoiling into vines as he approaches his pray, etc, etc.

And how annoying, how, permit me to say it, lazy to turn Nancy (a tiny, worryingly thin young woman by the way) into some sort of female Rambo, armed to the gills and shooting at anything that moves? But this is what white, heterosexual male writers do when they want to erase the entire history of their gender/race/kind, (AND safeguard themselves against any kind of backlash possibility): they turn to symbolic gestures (And they all have the same notion about what these should be) So Nancy becomes a warrior queen (because women can be badasses too, didn’t you know that?). On the same note, Will gets a protracted and at this point unnessary coming out speech (because: look at us, we love the gays!), and Robin is the lesbian who is corky, loving, funny, wise, understanding, friendly, clever, brave, witty, hard working, empathetic, a music lover, stylish, and all kinds of cool. Similalry, Erica, (the only black girl in the group) is a sassy, kind of an angry brat who only speaks with snarky one-liners (Because all black women are fearless. And fierce, let us not forget) Ah, yes, and she also happens to love math (because black people can do math too, did you know that?!) I’m actually shocked that no trans “woman” (aka man in a dress) was shoehorned in the story to complete the “Look-at-us-are-woke” set… Can I suggest something to all of you white writer guys (AND the female ones who write like you do, in order to be employed)? What if you wrote people who are not like you, as if they were still actual human beings? What if the fact that they are not white, heterosexual and male is not their defining characteristic and it does not affect their humanity, turning them into the opposite of older formulaic stereotypes and so into new formulaic stereotypes which we’ve seen a thousand times in the last few years? And which - let us be frank - are created in order to protect your own demographic from criticism by proving your virtue? Just a thought. All the above are especially annoying choices when you think that these are gifted writers! In short, we expect more from you, Duffer twins: Look at how great you are when writing boys talking with other boys, for example! (You nailed that, by the way!)

Sustaining momentum for four seasons while offering very little in terms of actual, let alone satisfying solutions to the multi-layered puzzle, is no small feat. (Were we supposed to be satisfied with “Henry opened the Upside Down”. Or “Eleven did”? Is that it?) But here, at the end of things, we do want explanations and satisfying solutions. Coming up with new threats and dangers and dangling them in front of us to prolong the moment these solutions will be offered to us, is no longer OK. We went round and round the same rote so many times already: it was the demogorgons, it was the government and the science guys. the whole upside down. Then the scary bat things that killed Eddie (and never appear again by the way), then it was the army. It was Eleven. It was Herny all along. It was Vecna. It’s another world like ours, but upside down (Cool, explain the logistics). No it’s a different dimension (aha. Tell me more). It’s the upside down, it’s the right side up, it’s the red thing in the sky, it’s the thing in the suitcase… It’s a planet, it’s a wormhole, it’s a heart, it’s another giant arachnid, it’s the abyss, it’s a different world, it’s another dimension, it’s worlds colliding? What? Why? HOW? (Specifically!)

We don’t expect a scientifically solid solution (though one is actually attempted, in the most ridiculous scene of the whole season, when Dustin seems to possess a Physics professor’s kind of knowledge and basically suggests they need to kill Vecna – which was the plan last season too), we just want to hear a convincingly structured mythological solution. Because we are with you, Duffer boys. We are willing to believe it, like we believed the talking Christmas lights, that a girl can kill from a distance just because she moves her hand and stares. That if blood runs from her nose, it means her magic works. That four boys from Indiana can save the world using their Dungeons and Dragons skills. That walkie-talkies work across distances that defy logic, let alone in different dimensions. That a song can save you from supernatural monsters, (or inddeed that an American small-town teenage girl who came from a troubled background has ever heard of Kate Bush) That going through the upside down from a hole in the ceiling is a good plan, that monsters with flower heads share one mind, etc etc etc. We bought it all. That is why we kept coming. And because we thought you – unlike us - knew how it would all end. We trusted that you had a plan that made sense. We thought we were gearing up for the big, satisfactory reveal that would tie all the ends together, but we were offered new ones basically. AND you killed Eleven to distract us! (Ts! Ts!) For four seasons, we bought it all. All of it. Because, as long as there’s an underlying “logic” in your mythology, we are with you, but you’ve abandoned ship. In this final installment, you keep looking for solutions in aesthecs – which is to say, in CGI (or FX or whatever it is called now): in the melting rooms, the giant living fleshy wall around Hawkins, the pulsating red thing in the sky, the desert like plains of Henry’s memory-scape, and more veiny vines everywhere, and more kids with the vine thing in their mouth, and another arachnid-like monster at the end (which we’ve seen before, but it doesn’t count because this one is bigger?) and so on. Which is to say in the creation of more built-up, more labyrinthian road trips that, as it happens, lead nowhere.

It is not the first time that the expansion of the mythos doesn’t work, but it’s the first time that it got really annoying. Given that this is it. We won’t get to know the answer in the next season, as there isn’t one. Which prompts the question. Is there going to be another season, perhaps, and you are keeping it from us? A spin-off? A movie? A book? A cartoon? A comic book? Something? Is that why most of the long-awaited answers are not there? Is that why you’ve added new questions? Are we being mad at you for no reason? Because this is just not satisfying as an ending. Not even if you add the emotional farewells that were used to tug at our heartstrings and distract us from the mess.

Actually, we don’t fault the writers (well, we kind of do, but nevermind…) because, despite the disappointing finale, they can still be credited with creating one of the most memorable shows out there. And because none of it is easy. This business of creating things. We are angry. But we get it. (Forgive us, we are just letting steam off…) The fact that we are THAT aggrieved, that exasperated at the finale, at the creators, is a testament to how much we care about the show, how great it was initially.)

They could have left it at the Vecna plot, him being One / Henry, the house that retains his memories and evil energy, the ticking clock and all that. There was still some semblance of logic behind the world-building up until then. There was even an elegance in that explanation despite the plot holes, (we can forgive those, as long as there is a unifying theory in the end), but they kept going on and on.We went from the sinister government experiments and the villainous Papa and company, to the upside down, the Cold War Russians, the Mind Flayer, the mind hive, then to Henry /Vecna, back to the evil military, the experiments, and now the thing in the sky, the new military sublot, the physics lesson, the pregnant girls (how disturbing was that?!), Eight, the blood transfucions, the melting goop/ liquid walls that suddenly and conviently stopped melting (what the hell was that about?) that Sinister Dr Kay (a criminally under-used Linda Hamilton), who is so one-dimensional she is basically a cartoon, (and so is the soldier with the scar, btw). Then the mysterious man in the cave, diving deeper into Henry’s origin story, climping up that tower, (which was nothing but another obstacle to be overcome, another moment of pointless drama), and the colliding other-dimensional planet. (Planet? Really?? Is that it? Is this what it was all about from the beginning?)

This is not uncommon when it comes to sci-fi. Think of Marge Piercy, Philip K. Dick, etc. So often, the world-building takes precedence over the “logic” of the narrative or the need for a neat ending. It’s a decree of the fantasy genre that as long as the writing is there, the ending is irrelevant, unnecessary even. But is it ever? Given the audaciousness, the boldness, the richness of the created universe, how can we avoid being disappointed when it is not offered? There is no real closure here, only more expansion of the lore. Which is why Eleven HAD to die. Her death, her sacrifice serving as an avatar of closure, where there’s hardly any. Because none of it makes sense, despite the endless explanations. And there are a lot of them.

But the thing that mattered in this season, which marked the finale, is, of course, Eleven’s death. It’s funny how a middle-aged mum, an overweight sheriff and a bunch of teenagers are terrorising and outwitting the American military and fighting monsters, and none of them is ever getting as much as a scratch on them (well, very few at least). Even with Eleven doing the heavy lifting, it’s not believable. And yet it is she who dies in the end. The super heroine. The extraordinary supernatural lab child. It is indeed amazing that there are hardly any casualties, given the endless parade of life-threatening happenings and monsters. These kids are immune to danger, no matter what. They don’t even cough when they are enveloped by those creepy flying particles in the Upside Down! Not one single allergic among them apparently! So far, each “crawl”, each dive into otherworldly dimensions, memory realms and mind worlds, each battle with the badies (the scientists, the army, the monsters, etc.) ends - predictably by now - in near misses, in the nick-of-time escapes. Just like in cartoons. Which makes the symbolism of Eleven’s death unearned. It’s as if she dies because a show must kill off at least one of its leads these days to indicate that heroes and heroines do. Need to. To add gravitas to a weightless, safe and lacking ending. So she evaporates into thin air. Sacrificing herself for the larger good of her friends and the world at large. And it is devastating! Later, Will’s hypothetical scenario about her survival makes her death more palatable. But only barely: we can’t help but wish that his wishful thinking is true, even though it would undo the significance of her sacrifice.

“We are not trying to shock or upset anyone”, the Duffer Brothers have said in an interview when asked about killing off any characters. And yet they did kill off the central figure of the show. In the finale, by adding Will’s theory that Eleven might have survived, they are, however, attempting to take it back, by offering us a Schrodinger’s Cat kind of solution: She is both dead AND alive. But you know what? We’ll take it. They are right to linger between two choices. Killing her off makes sense narratively. Not killing her makes all of us (themselves included, one suspects) feel better. So maybe Kali did create an illusion with her mind before she died herself. Maybe Eleven did escape and is now somewhere in South America in search of those three waterfalls. (Though one hopes for her sake, not in Venezuela… Because the American army may be just around the corner …)

But then again, maybe this was nothing but a mindscape (If so, whose? Henry’s? Eleven’s? Will’s?) I return to Buffy and to that episode where we see an alternative reality to the myth that suggests she is not a fearless Vampire Slayer but a mental patient. A sick, catatonic girl trapped inside her mind, imagining that she is battling Vampires, monsters and supernatural forces, while she is locked up in a mental institution. Locked inside her own mind. This implies that the whole thing, the whole show, was nothing but her own consciousness, her own dreamscape, and what she was fighting was nothing but her mind creations, her own illness. We’ve seen it elsewhere, of course: Matrix (1999), Fight Club (1999), Identity (2003), not to mention in several philosophies and traditions: the world is nothing but an illusion, Buddhists tell us, (or a simulation, if you are prone to seeing things in terms of codes.) What if this is what the writers of Stranger Thinsg intended all along? (Which might explain the video Game aesthetics…)

If so, and if this is Eleven’s “dream”, then her death is nothing but a liberation from a form of mental captivity, and it might indicate that she is finally free!

Art & Words Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou.

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“…Many of these movies seem to be peddling a specific type of nostalgia and a return to the “wholesomeness” of the 50s - a time when family “values”, and family “traditions” were “respected” (and women and minorities knew their place). A time when you didn’t have to leave your town in order to survive financially, and as a result, turn heartless (and possibly liberal). A time when the “family unit” was intact, and still immune to the evils of feminism and divorce, and only broken by good reasons. Like death. But of course, that time was hardly “wholesome”, which explains the amounts of alcohol and prescription drugs required to survive it if you were female…”

Most Christmas movies that are “manufactured” by Hallmark, Lifetime, etc, seem to follow the same recipe in creating mostly anodyne second-screen viewing (as I analysed in an earlier essay) Interchangeable, assembly-lined and formulaic as they are, they also seem to often follow a specific, outdated and sexist agenda. “Christian values” (as defined by American, mostly / Born-again religions) are a great concern for many of them, for example, which are more often than not, centring heterosexual white people, not to mention, are concerned with putting “ambitious” professional women in their place. TheHallmark darling Candace Cameron Bure, for instance who starred in over two dozen Christmas movies, had left Hallmark in 2022 for the channel Great American Family (that set as its goal to create “spiritual or faith-based content”), in order to, in her words: “keep traditional marriage at the core” and “to tell stories” that are not “off-putting to the unbeliever”. This was generally believed to be code for opposing the “gay-friendly” new programming at Hallmark and elsewhere. Incidentally, she also happens to be a “Christian influencer” selling “faith-based inspirational items”, including Bibles. So, this is all on brand.

On the same note, when in 2019, Hallmark dared to deviate from the established conservative course and released an ad for the female-led, wedding planning site Zola that included two women kissing at their wedding, things got real. A Right-winged group that calls itself “One Million Moms” started a petition to let Hallmark and the world know of their extreme outrage for the fact (Apparently only 40,000 signatures were gathered, not 1,000,000 though…) When Hallmark prompted by their reaction pulled the ad, it caused a counterreaction from many who support Gay Rights, and who used the hashtag #BoycottHallmark across social media. This, in turn, forced Hallmark to reinstate the ad and to even issue an apology, and declare the intention to commit to “diversity and inclusion”. They seem to have kept their word, as each year they release at least a few Christmas movies that have some “inclusive” plots and characters. (There is nothing like the mighty power of a hashtag entering any conversation, obviously)

The need to expand the limits of the viewing audience and to avoid the same pitfalls of cancelling has forced many of the other production companies and channels to focus on “diversity” and “inclusivity”, which have become a must even for this innately conservative genre (though of course only for a fraction of it). So, there are more gay and mixed-race couples, but there are still unspoken “rules”. Even though “diversity” has fairly recently become a goal in the making of Christmas movies, many of the old atavistic rules (especially when it comes to heterosexual, single women, the one group that will never have any keyboard warriors signing petitions and fighting on their behalf) remain intact: farmers good, city folk bad; country good, New York and L.A. bad; Southern States good, Northern ones bad, trucks good, cars manufactured in this century bad; army good, civilian life bad; men who work with their mind good, men who work with their hands (farmers, mechanics, firemen, marines, construction workers, lumberjacks - or at the very least men who wear lumberjack shirts), better. And finally, women who bake, good, women who are successful at their job, bad, and most crucially: married women or single ones hoping to get married, good, single women bad.

The innocuous, on the surface, Christmas movies seem to offer a comforting, cosy feeling to a lot of people. They are like a vacation for your brain, and are becoming more and more popular because they are undemanding viewing, offering, on top of that, inspiration for Christmas decorations. But they are hardly harmless: many of these movies seem to be peddling a specific type of nostalgia and a return to the “wholesomeness” of the 50s - a time when family “values”, and family “traditions” were “respected” (and women and minorities knew their place). A time when you didn’t have to leave your town in order to survive financially, and as a result, turn heartless (and possibly liberal). A time when the “family unit” was intact, and still immune to the evils of feminism and divorce, and only broken by good reasons. Like death. But of course, that time was hardly “wholesome”, which explains the amounts of alcohol and prescription drugs required to survive it if you were female. It was instead a time when women were punished for their ambition and independence (on the rare occasions that these were expressed as a possibility) and when they couldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) work, get a loan from a bank, buy a house, or open an account without a male co-signer. Besides, their job was to look good at all times, be sexually available to their husband, and to dutifully (and grateful for the opportunity) spend their days cooking and baking and servicing him. And it was also a time when the men were perpetually pampered and rewarded for their misogyny, and women were asked to just give in, and accept their gender “destiny” and be happy for it. It is a toxic as well as atavistic fantasy that is annually resurrected in many of these Christmas movies that exist like a black hole transporting us into a parallel universe in which all the above are still acceptable.

Yet, at a time when women have been fooled into thinking that the commitment-free promiscuity offered by the “dating” / hooking-up apps, is “fun”; that prostitution is a “work” like any other; that porn (that vast reservoir of misogyny) is about sex “positivity”, that the violence of their partner and his need to humiliate them in bed is “sexy”; that men calling themselves women are indeed women, simply because they say so, is it any wonder that women turn to the fake, safe, mind-numbing “wholesomeness” of the cookie-cutter Christmas movies world? Is it any wonder that they need to momentarily forget that they have been cornered into the remarkable position of working for the demise of their own self, their own sex, and are calling it “feminism”? Because as they are repeating their prescribed by the new Patriarchy mantras about “female empowerment”, “sex positivity”, “sex work” and “trans Rights” (ALL of which interestingly have at their centre the fulfilment of male needs, priorities and sexual fetishes), they have that uneasy feeling that this is all bullshit. Not that they would come out and say it, of course. Given the cost.

So, yes, women are drawn to these movies because they are longing for old fashioned romance: men who actually care, men who don’t see them merely as sexual props, men who want a family, who have the capacity to feel human emotions (even on the most basic of levels, like being sad by their wife’s death for example like all those widowers in all these movies), men who can be a loving father to their child (and not a possible paedophile, which is disturbingly likely these days), men who are not addicted to the violence of porn and who won’t treat them like pieces of meat hanging from hooks at a butcher shop, etc. But is there such a thing out there anymore, now that men’s minds have been thoroughly saturated by years and years of porn addiction? Can it be realised as a dream for women, without also having to sacrifice big parts of their self-worth, their dignity, their safety, their very self, given that the men who are on the other side of the coin are possibly religious misogynists who are, frankly, as bad? (Or possibly a combination of the two?) Do they exist? These men who will neither treat them like disposable sexual objects, nor ask them to sacrifice their own dreams on the altar of a “safe” domesticity that will take away their agency? Is there anything other than the polarity offered by the sex addict/sadist or the conservative “family man”/“good guy” who hides his entitlement and misogyny behind scriptures and “faith” and who will treat them like they are inferior and keep them financially dependent on him in order to control every aspect of their life, because God “says so”? In short, is there a way for romance to exist between the sexes that doesn’t cost women dearly? The answer offered by these movies is interestingly, definitely “not!”

The remedy for the mess created between the sexes is for heterosexual women to regress because men won’t progress. This is the message that is being sent by these movies. If you want to leave the culture that asks of you to keep sending nudies to the phone of creeps in order to keep them “interested” (and pretending you actually want to see theirs), if you want to stop “hooking up” with strangers with whom you feel no connection and who treat you like trash, if you want to stop pretending that being humiliated by your sexual partner is “hot” (and finally find the guts to face what it really means about the kind of man he is), and lastly, if you want the romance and the family, you’ve got to shut the fuck up and get in the kitchen. This is where we are for once more. What a fucking predicament! What a fucked-up choice! (Which explains why so many women today consciously - and gladly - choose singlehood over all of it)

Half of the women in these (extremely popular) Christmas movies, for example, have a wife-adjacent profession: they are bakers, caterers, cupcake makers, kindergarten teachers, inn owners (who will at some point make pancakes and do the beds, exhibiting that despite being business owners, they can still be housewives). The other half are big-city executives, as in heartless workaholics who, by the end of the movie, will be punished for it and forced to see the light: they will give up their careers for “love”, marry the handyman, the veteran, etc., and stay in the small town, where they will also become bakers, cupcake makers, or simply housewives. In short, if you are a woman, all roads lead eventually back to the kitchen, where gender “balance” is nicely restored. Where your financial dependency on a man is your only option. It’s either dreams or rings. “This is the price of romance” is the cynical message offered by these supposedly sentimental, “harmless” romantic movies. This is what you need to do, what you need to lose, if you want all that. Sadly, they are not wrong.

In addition to that, there’s another reason why this genre has become so popular, especially in specific parts of the US: rural economies had been hit by the industrial revolution irrevocably, and the memory of better times still lingers obviously. (Americans expect prosperity to last forever after all, unlike Europeans who carry the weight of their long histories on their back, which is gifting them with a scepticism about positive assumptions concerning the future – theirs and the world’s) The way technology invaded commerce, personal lives, gender dynamics, sexual relationships, and attitudes in the last 30 years has left an additional mark that can’t be erased. Much like how feminism and the pill changed women’s lives dramatically and, at the same time created a censored, “idealised”, and utterly fake version of what life was for women without them among religious fundamentalists and Alt-Right wingers (that is lately being resurrected in the phenomenon of the “trad” wives and interestingly, “liberal” feminism), the minute small farms and family-run businesses became obsolete, their way of life became instantly romantisised, apotheosised, wished for. It became symbolic of all that was lost, and all that they yearn to recover. The idea of them (not necessarily the reality) became, therefore, a source of comfort and emblematic of a return to an imaginary “Ithaca”. To a way of life that’s simpler, familiar, easier to control, predict, plan, and count upon. And just “better”.

The small town with its picturesque square, the vendors selling Christmas ornaments, mulled wine, candy canes and balloons, the tiny shops selling cakes that somehow can survive in this economy, the crafters who make hand painted Christmas ornaments or the artists who paint Christmas scenes, and who can still miraculously pay their rent without pimping themselves on social media, the children who are overjoyed with a wooden toy train because apparently they have never owned smart phones or played video games, the community that rallies in the face of trouble that comes in the form of a mega corporation/invader and somehow wins in the end, the little town with people who are kind and supportive and who know your name, the absence of nationwide chains of any kind, (or cheap, made-in-China products for that matter), and the economies that run on small businesses alone, don’t exist outside of the Christmas movies. Much like the “bliss” of being a traditional wife, it’s nothing but a romanticised, glossed-over, censored look at a past that was never there.

But then again, life in the big cities has betrayed most of those who left their small communities, too. The fact that rural life has become idealised in Christmas movies (and equally, in country songs), is perhaps indicative that Americans have created a world (for themselves, and as it happens, for the rest of the world as well) which they do not want to inhabit. (Aggressive capitalism, as it turns out, benefits the few – yeah, who knew?) The promises of a better life are rarely fulfilled. Most people in big cities will spend their lives doing service jobs they hate, for rent and medical insurance. And if they are young, being trapped on the wheel of the gig economy, trying to piece together enough money from a dozen sources that pay peanuts, so that they can move out of their parent’s basement or friend’s couch. And if they are artists, working for free, their unpaid work keeping the Internet going, so that the rest of the population will have something to scroll (or copy) for free. Young or old, they feel equally disconnected, disillusioned, and betrayed by the unreachable dream they were promised, now that hard work, education, skills, and talents are just not enough. Privacy will continue to be invaded, and individuality will continue to be crushed by the big corporations that are as cartoonishly vile as the ones featured in this sort of movies (or in actual cartoons), and by every Silicon Valley man-child/billionaire (or narcissistic politician) who imagines himself to be immortal and immune to morality and consequences. By the sharks who are circling all of us with open mouths, breaking the economy, so that they can profit from the damage caused by the loss of family businesses, smaller companies, and the middle classes. Calling themselves “disrupters” (because “destroyers” and “scammers” doesn’t have the same appeal…) and who are waving at us from their private islands, drinking their outrageously expensive vintages and their “wellness” potions, as they watch us sink. Who are holding the strings attached to our backs and we dance for them on their social media apps, hoping to survive too, but only making them richer, more powerful and by that, hungrier.

But life in real little towns is hardly the panacea promised in these movies, either. Even today, tiny towns that have survived are not exactly beacons of kindness and support, full of gigantic Christmas trees and fairy lights, but more often than not, centres of small-mindedness, racism, homophobia, and misogyny. They are not full of empathetic neighbours who bring you homemade apple pies every Sunday and chicken soup when you are sick, or sing carols in the snow holding candles in matching outfits, but more likely, preachy hypocrites whose nose is forever in your business. They are possibly gun-carrying, religious fanatics, people who collectively hate Art and strangers, and anyone who is even a tiny bit darker-skinned than they are, with a scary intensity. (With some good people thrown in the mix, sure. Like in every other community on Earth.) They are more likely to be trapped people who are doing dead-end jobs that suck the life out of them before they turn thirty, often turning to alcohol or opioids or the Mega Churches for comfort. Or who, (much like the aforementioned Christmas movie “star”), are waving their Bibles in your face, citing verses and using them like a weapon that guns down anyone who is not exactly like them. Not to mention, these tiny towns are possibly filled with relatives you can’t stand even for a couple of days during the Holidays. In short, in real life, small, rural communities are more often than not NOT the place to which you really yearn to return, but the place you are running to escape, which explains why so many people have done exactly that. And not just for financial reasons. In short, if the Christmas movie fantasy were to become a reality, it would turn out to be quite the nightmare…

Likewise, farming is not having picnics on the lawn by the vineyard, with chilled wine and homemade three-tiered cakes covered in blueberries, and a cornucopia of fruits and cheese beautifully spread on a red-and-white gingham tablecloth, or picking strawberries in your cutest fashion overalls, tasting them playfully and sensually as you go. And it’s not about male models with great abs chopping Christmas trees for your pleasure either, or ice skating in red and green checkered pleated skirt and angora gardigans, like some 50s starlet. It’s about harsh Winters, and shovelling snow until your lungs seem to burst and your fingers feel like they are about fall off. It’s about a tough, back-breaking, manure-smelling life. It’s about constant disappointment and being dependent on the whims of the weather and the big corporations that may or may not buy whatever you are selling, and who are still calling the shots even in your tiny corner of the world. And it’s about sick livestock - and heartless decisions, in case you know they won’t survive the Winter. And it’s about waking up at dawn every day of your life - including weekends - and being daily knee-deep in manure. (Did I mention the manure already?) And it’s about toughening up, crashing your sensibilities, losing that part of you that can only remain intact when you can breathe a little, and be afforded the luxury of thinking about anything other than your survival, and when you are not being daily hit on the head by the need for more hard, manual labour and a lack of prospects. And it’s about holding on to traditions with white-knuckled hands - and elevating them into a dogma - because that is all you’ve got. In short, it’s about hardened, rigid, set in their outdated beliefs, weather-worn, rule-following, tired people. Which explains (and even frankly, excuses) the conservative politics and the religiosity. Because what else is there for them, other than the empty promises of the arrival of Deus ex machina? The belief in a “salvation” by someone they consider “powerful”? In this life or the next?

In short, the romance, the appeal of small communities and the charm of farming life these movies celebrate and sell are as real as their snow: it’s painted cornflakes, cotton, paper. And occasionally, even asbestos!

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Art & Words Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou. All Rights Reserved.

On the same subject, read also: Christmas Movies - The Origins, The Formula and The Subgenres.

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Christmas movies have become a massive business for many channels, even streaming services (such as Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, Disney, Hulu, etc.), and they seem to follow a rather precise formula. Must have elements: Christmas Tree farms, snow-covered idyllic little towns filled with kind people and tiny but somehow prosperous coffee shops and cake shops. Winter carnivals, Christmas festivals, Christmas Galas, Christmas open-air markets, baking competitions. Also, cutting your own wood, cutting your own Xmas tree, detangling Christmas lights, snow falling on cue on Christmas day, (and miraculously staying pristine), ice skating, falling on the snow and being unable to get up, widows and widowers, families wearing matching pyjamas on Christmas Eve, single mothers, single fathers, death in the family, gingerbread houses, homemade sugar cookies, some form of rivalry between families/neighbours/companies about some Xmas related event (who gets the job, the contract, and more commonly, who puts up the best light decorations) Parents of grown children who have been together forever and speak like they are medicated, losing your spouse a year ago, losing your mother to cancer two years ago, Marines, army veterans, the Troops. Also, cosy inns, rustic cabins, and cute dogs (acceptable breeds for movies aimed at Generation Xers: Golden Retrievers, Labradors, Beagles, Cocker Spaniels. For movies aimed at millennials and Generation Zs: Pomeranians or pugs – needless to say, “rescued” ones. For baby Boomers and older: Collies.) And last but not least, an endless supply of hot cocoa.

The small-town charm /Rural Life Vs the Big City nastiness is a popular Christmas movie trend now, and it is reminiscent of the 1994 Olivia Newton-John movie “A Christmas Romance”, which was very likely the prototype, the original “sinner” that launched a thousand cookie-cutter ones. Its plot is similar to so many other contemporary Christmas movies of this kind: a rich city guy comes into a small snow-covered community in order to foreclose the home of a single mum. He smashes his car, gets snowed in with her, learns the real meaning of Christmas, the value of homespun life, home-baked goods, and hand-crafted decorations, and falls in love with the widow and her adorable kids, and three days later, gets inspired to leave the big city and become an artist. The difference is, it was actually a rather good one, as these things go (corny and cheesy, sure, but kind of sweet too), but too many cheap variations were born out of it, that make its viewing tainted, so to speak, as it reminds you of the countless facsimiles, instead of the other way around.

Most of these movies are obviously aimed at being heartfelt and heartwarming, but end up being predictable, formulaic, and a little silly, while the actors seem to have forgotten how human beings react or talk. They are “sincere” in a bad way, and there are no jokes, no sense of irony, no edge, no conflict of any kind, or often not even a plot, and the stakes are so low, they are practically invisible. This is common for so many of these movies, that it might mean that this is all on purpose! That there is a scheme behind it, a self-awareness in whoever is making them, that demands this kind of blah acting and these kinds of vacuous storylines, so you won’t be distracted. This is obviously meant to be background viewing, something you watch while you are cooking the Christmas dinner, or decorating the tree or scrolling through social media. Speaking of acting: even actors you know can act, seem to have forgotten everything they know about their craft, which prompts you to shout to your screen: “You are better than this!” Or sometimes there’s a good actor who was usually big in the 90s or early 00s (a child actor, a sitcom star etc, so that the Generation Xers and the millennials will be hit with a good dose of nostalgia) who is deviating from the formula and is really making an effort, taking it seriously and trying his/her best not to get drawn in a sea of mutated performances, clanky dialogues and utterly silly storylines. But it somehow makes the whole thing even sadder.

The characters of these movies live in tiny, single-traffic-light towns that have a population of 200 people, and yet somehow manage to miraculously make a living selling homemade pies or jams, wooden trains, or hats. (Just hats, no other merchandise in the shop. Hats.) Of course, some of them are mending porcelain dolls, handmade toys, or even old-timey clocks (yes there’s an actual movie with a clock-mending woman, who incidentally, goes on to become a princess…) Not only do they make a living but they apparently can afford to buy three-storey town houses with big driveways and attics (you gotta have attics!) and an abundance of very long, very elegant coats. Not to mention, they can afford to leave thousands of Christmas lights on, day and night, and for the entirety of the Holidays.

The truth is, if you see enough of these movies (or if you see say, three) you will start noticing the patterns emerging. The basic elements stay the same but there are definitely subgenres. Here are some common ones:

Small Town Vs Big City:

Big city gal’s expensive car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Small town hunk in a beat-up truck (or even better, on horseback) appears out of nowhere to save her. Mildly snarky remarks from him, about the inaptitude of city folk and the thinness of her coat. Mildly snarky remarks from her about his taste in music (Country of course!) and the lack of a decent espresso in small towns. She is stranded until her car is fixed, which is exactly the amount of time it takes her to fall in love with the charm of a small-town kind of life, and the hunk who is, as it turns out, rather sophisticated. Who knew?!

Or: Big city guy’s expensive car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Meets homey single mother/army widow/coffee shop owner who has an adorable kid and a propensity to bake life-altering Xmas cookies. He is stranded until his car is fixed for exactly the amount of time it takes him to fall in love with the small-town kind of life, the army widow and her baked goods. (This variation is trickier and the ending a more ambiguous one when it comes to what happens with the guy, because we can’t have him leave the city, his money, position and company, since that would jeopardise the power dynamics/gender hierarchy to a dangerous degree… That’s only saved for the successful woman as a punishment for being ambitious, while female of course.)

Single Parents:

When the hero or heroine are single parents (and they are that a lot!), that is because of death, never (God forbid!) divorce. Especially in the case of the female character. If you are a woman, marriage is until death do you part, is the message that comes loud and clear, not because of having a choice. When it comes to the male character, on the other hand, being a widower is a common trope even in mainstream cinema, which is often used to indicate that the guy has the emotional capacity to feel human feelings, despite being nifty with the axe (or the gun in the case of army officers). It is actually a very common, cost-free way for a writer to make even a contract killer likeable (see John Wick, etc)

Death in the Family:

When the guy is a single father and a widower, the woman has recently lost her mother. (In short, a woman HAS to die for this genre to work) It’s a nice way to introduce a touch of drama in an otherwise “meh” plot, and a scene about a treasured Christmas ornament gifted by the deceased wife or mother. This usually comes in the form of an Angel, a star ornament, a snow globe, a heart locket, or a diary, which is for reasons unknown - always hidden in the attic, and often discovered while looking for ornaments. Speaking of snow globes: they are more often than not the gift offered to the woman by the man in most of these movies. It’s a wise choice actually, since they all appear to have never seen one before in their entire life.

When the woman is a widow, it is because she lost her husband, who was an army officer. (Cue for pompous statements about the heroism and sacrifice of American heroes “serving” abroad, etc, etc. Cue also, for the guy to talk about his own father/brother/grandfather, who - what a coincidence - also happened to “serve” in the army.

The Enemy at the Gates:

A mega conglomerate threatens a sleepy town and its way of life by planning to close the Christmas market and turning it into condos, or by building a mall where the Christmas tree farm is, or by paving the whole town and turning it into a resort, or by closing the factory that employs the whole town and which manufactures something quaint, old fashioned, and Christmasy, like Christmas tree Angels, or Christmas cookies, etc. The community always bands together in solidarity, and the big bad corporation is always miraculously defeated and leaves them alone by Christmas.

Engaged:

One of the leads in these movies is often engaged to be married. This adds an “edge” to the generally lukewarm romance with the newcomer. Given that these movies are created to be consumed mostly by women (and older guy men), the one who is engaged is usually the female lead. Being chased by two love-struck handsome men is a female romantic fantasy after all. The other guy is usually a dud (if she is a small-town girl, he is a practical, realist, penny-pinching bore (an accountant usually fits the bill) who doesn’t support her dreams. If she is an heiress or a big city executive, he is an arrogant, heartless prick. In either case, he is still sufficiently handsome so that the fantasy can still work.

It is rarely the other way around, mind you, namely the man being the one who is engaged and therefore in the position to choose between two or more women, because that would make the whole scenario too creepy and too close to the reality of everyday women. And who would want that?

Christmas Carol:

This subgenre is inspired by Dicken’s Christmas Carol: a beautiful but cranky woman who owes her crankiness to the fact that she is single (because married women are the epitome of serenity, obviously!) and the fact that she is prioritizing work over men, meets a variety of ghosts (past future and present, etc) who are cautioning her about her choices, which led to her success, and also her husbandless state. Somewhere in the middle of all that, an ex, a handyman/widower will appear who will teach her the meaning of Christmas so convincingly that she will leave her job, her (obviously sinful) ambition, and her dreams behind, in order to cook for him and raise his kids

Royals:

This subgenre deals with the royals of imaginary countries (Zoonopia, Atropia, Whatever-the-fuckia): an everyday woman meets a cute unassuming guy who happens to be a prince, etc., etc. It is often vaguely suggested that these countries are situated in Eastern Europe, and yet people originating from there always speak with a perfect posh British accent for some reason.

A “proper” British actor of yesteryear is usually added to the cast (as the King, Queen, butler, etc) to add some semblance of gravitas and to fool us into thinking that this is anything more than thinly disguised silliness.

The winery Xmas movie:

These movies are usually set in the wine country of Napa, Northern California, and if the budget allows it, France and are all about winery owners. If the winery is big, they are villains, if the winery is small (or “independent”), they are undiscovered geniuses who create magnificent vintages nobody has heard of and are gearing up for a discovery, with the help of the newcomer (who is often part of the family of the villainous big winery, so some pseudo “conflict” is introduced)

There’s usually a lot of “serious” talk about grape varieties, “years”, family tradition, quality of soil and a lot of sniffing into glasses.

The childhood sweetheart:

The professionally successful man/woman is reunited with his/her ex, who has never left their small hometown. Sparks fly when they meet again, even though the woman is engaged with a big-city big shot. In the final scene, the choice is made. The big shot is ditched - and in the case of the woman, so is the big city life and her job.

One of us is a celebrity:

Famous writer, actor, model, influencer, pop singer or (ideally) country singer, arrives in a small town (often their own hometown) and they meet someone who by some miracle has never heard of them, or else their childhood sweetheart / high school crush, who helps them reconnect with what’s important, the Christmas spirit, and all that. In this subgenre, the famous person (even the woman!) does not return to live permanently in the small town by the end of the film. (Being famous is the line that won’t be crossed over, apparently)

Heiress / Heir gone wild:

A variation of the above is the heiress/heir gone wild: rich, irresponsible, philanderer or socialite/party girl are forced to learn the meaning of hard work and simple pleasures when they are stranded in a small town. This is forced upon them by a sick-with-their-shenanigans parent, or often by amnesia (yes, amnesia)

Let’s salute the Army:

Big city gal meets small town marine/army officer/veteran. He is a single father/widower. Teaches her about the meaning of life, sacrifice and the wholesomeness of “serving”. At some point, he chops wood. They sing at church and bake cookies. She forgets the career she has spent her entire life creating and becomes a baker/cupcake maker / tiny coffee shop owner. And supports the troops.

Or: Big city guy meets the daughter of a veteran . Teaches him the meaning of life and sacrifice and the wholesomeness of “serving”. They sing at church and bake cookies.

These American army-worshipping movies (which are mostly, not filmed in America but in Canada…) usually insert some form of “mystery” to be solved to make the patriotism more palatable: an army-related object (usually in the form of a letter, an army jacket, or a medal) is found (in an attic, a thrift shop, a curved box), whose provenance the two leads set out to uncover, giving them the opportunity to visit army bases and have more talks about the army. The discovery eventually leads to a war hero of some kind, and to a cue for more bombastic army rhetoric, and eventually, to a love affair between the two characters.

This patriotic subgenre is targeting a specific demographic obviously and it usually also has a bit extra about “family values” (that’s code for “women must get married, have babies and leave work”) and some church scenes as well: Christmas mass, Christmas sermon, hymn singing, etc., some bible verses, a minimal amount of kissing (if at all) and no alcohol. Seriously! Check it out.

Combinations:

Of course, most of these movies offer various combinations of all these subgenres. For example, you can have the widower being a winery owner who also happens to be an ex-marine, who is also saving his town from the big conglomerate etc. Or the female executive who is visited by the three ghosts, can also be an army-brat, engaged to be married with a big shot, and meets her ex in a small town and they start a winery together. The possibilities are endless obviously…

In all these movies, there is a shorthand, a need for familiarity and safe homogeneousness, a certain aesthetic that needs to be followed to keep the illusion intact. An absolute must-have is packing as many Christmas decorations as possible in every single scene. Multiple trees, ribbons, bells, lights, wreaths, and bubbles are scattered around the houses, even in the bathroom, so that there is not one single shot that is lacking “Christmas spirit”. When it comes to fashion and looks, the women’s hair is usually styled in S-shaped big waves (long if they are home-grown, shoulder-length if they are a big shot city executive). The small-town women will at some point (if not for the entirety of the movie) wear cute short cardigans which they will style with jeans, or better still, with knee-length, A-line skirts or dresses, and “safe-but-feminine” kitten heels. Now the big city women will be dressed in “intimidating” trouser suits, tight, knee-length monochromatic dresses, black or red pencil skirts with white men’s shirt’s, and high heels. Also, long, white, red or checkered coats, a different one for every day, which somehow, we are to believe they could fit in that tiny hand luggage they schlepped from the airport in their high heels. They usually walk in big, confident (and therefore “unfeminine” strides), that indicate they are frigid, cold-hearted, single women who prioritise their career instead of what they ought to: men and babies.

Now, if the Christmas movie is more “liberal” (see: Netflix), the woman is donning the wide-leg “Utility Crop” pants with ankle boots or white sneakers. Also, wide, woollen crop tops, or “ugly Christmas sweaters”. And if the Xmas movie is on the whimsical side (or British), then it is oversized faux fur coats, short floral or animal print dresses, patterned leggings and bon bon earmuffs. For this style to work and spell the message that this is a quirky girl and this is an “independent” Christmas movie, not at all like the others, all the colours and patterns must never match. Only reluctantly and surreally mix. And the girl must get drunk and sing at the top of her lungs, at least once (so that we get it that she is not uptight, but really game. And possibly, artistic)

For the male lead, things are simple but equally revealing as a shorthand for who he is: For the big city guy, it’s always (ALWAYS) dark, slim-fit suits and grey, mid-length Trench coats. If we are going to get really crazy, then maybe also a woollen scarf? Also, a white or off-white fisherman sweater if he is standing near a fireplace, to indicate that he possesses a more relaxed side.

For the small-town hunk, it’s jeans and flannel shirts all the way, that will at some point be taken off during some wood cutting/tree cutting activity. Also, when outside, a parka in red or blue, but preferably in a khaki colour so that the army connection will be implied, in case it was not properly spoon-fed by the scenario in an earlier scene.

For the fiancé who will be ditched by the end of the movie: if he is rich, dark, very tight suits, if he is poor, sweater vests.

The trend of the anodyne, generic, second screen viewing has branched out to TV shows, streaming shows and series of movies as well, the kind that would not have survived back when you had to be good at the writing business to be given a writing gig, and before our attention span was not shorten dramatically by years of social media scrolling and a lack of reading. Shows and movies like “The Good Witch”, “Virgin River”, “Sweet Magnolias”, “Sullivan’s Crossing”, “Cedar Cove”, “When Calls the Heart”, “When Hope Calls”, “Garage Sale Mysteries”, “The Chesapeake Shore”, the 14 (yes, 14!) “Signed, Sealed & Delivered” movies. etc. fall into that category. And so do The Meghan Markle Netflix “shows” by the way. “Young” and “Emily in Paris” do the same with a much bigger budget of course. (Many people would include “Gilmore Girls” and “Hart of Dixie” in this category, just because they also take place in small quirky communities, but only because these people don’t know what the hell they are talking about, given that unlike all the above, Gilmore Girls is sharp, witty, intelligently written, with well-developed characters, storylines that (mostly) make sense, a stellar cast, and actual jokes, while Hart of Dixie is just pure fun. Actual fun, not Im-hate-watching-while-I’m-doing-the-dishes-and-occasionally-half-smile-ironically fun. Which goes to show: it’s not the lightness we hate. It’s the pointlessness and the paint-by-numbers quality.

Most of these shows and movies are forgettable, predictable and only distinguishable from their secondary characteristics (the Christmas decorations, often the scenery – which is usually Canadian - and in the case of the bigger budget ones, like the aforementioned “Emily in Paris”, the designer clothes, the parties, the magnificent European locations, etc) They are not passionate and colourful enough to qualify as soaps, (in fact I’ll take an outrageously fun soap over them gladly) and not well written enough to qualify as “proper” series, (keeping you engaged in a real manner, making you feel things, forcing you to root for characters and have an actual connection with them, in the way a well written piece of work can). They are created in order to be forgettable (on purpose!) to just be “there” while you are working, cleaning the house, wrapping the presents, or falling asleep. Keeping you mildly and lukewarmly interested. But not really, you know? They are the lollypops of TV viewing: they will keep you from feeling hungry, but they are nothing but boiled sugar. They sell a generic, palliative, outdated, glossed-over version of reality that doesn’t make you think, feel or wish anything. That doesn’t – and shouldn’t – really exist.

But then again, who can argue with popularity? And the sad, gut-wrenching, marching towards inoffensive and sedative generalities, shifting of the times?

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The mutual attraction between Strike and Robin is a delightful aspect of this book series that keeps the reader invested in their relationship. The will-they-won’t-they trope is one hell of a plot device to keep us interested and coming back for more, and this is a particularly delicious version, because the author took the time to craft these characters little by little, book by book, with such detail, elegance and humanity that we love them to bits.

The eighth Cormoran Strike novel, The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith (which is a pseudonym of JK Rowling), finds Strike and Robin trying to reveal the identity of a mutilated corpse that is found in a silver shop that specialises in Masonic artefacts. As they start looking closer, they realise that the murder victim could have been any one of four suspects who have gone missing. The writer devises several methods that render what would have been easily proven with DNA or fingerprints unprovable, making things more difficult for the two detectives.

Robin and Strike follow evidence that leads to many labyrinthine paths, as more and more characters are being introduced, each playing a part that unravels a hidden truth about the identity of the missing. Every clue branches out to ten more, on and on, before all stories are brought together and the mystery is revealed, each question answered, and the fate of all suspected victims made known. There are so many characters in this book, in fact, that unless you plan to read it in one go (that is to say, take 4 days off work to go through all 897 pages without stopping to breathe, eat or sleep), you might want to consider taking notes of all the names. Because if you read a few pages today, and a few more next week, you might be lost.

“Belief” systems and the way these are used, misused, and interpreted obviously fascinate JK Rowling as they play a significant role in the plot of her latest books in the series. In the Trouble Blood for example, we come across the symbolism of the Zodiac, The Tarot, and the theories on magic of Aleister Crowley; in the Ink Black Heart, we encounter the symbolic significance of runes; in the Running Grave, we are faced with religious symbolism in the workings of a cult, and in The Hallmarked Man, masonry: rituals, artefacts, ciphers and temples, as well as excerpts from masonic books, exist in the background while the story unfolds, adding another layer of mystery to the story.

Strike’s past is catching up with him in this book, as this case forces him to meet people who were related or closely connected to Charlotte, his now dead ex, and this brings memories and stirs up emotions he was forced to leave behind.

Even though J K Rowling’s world-creating abilities are unparalleled, and her talent for weaving insanely complex plots is a marvel, her strength also lies in her knack for writing natural and convincing dialogue (A quality that is actually not always a given when it comes to crime novelists). Aristocratic pompous fools, drug addicts, thugs, ageing beauties, Yorkshire mums, wannabe rock stars or sex traffickers, each part of England, each class, each voice is unique, each sounding genuine. Strike having a go at arrogant, rich, posh, narcissists, is particularly priceless. It started with his encounter with Tony Landry in The Cuckoo’s Calling, the very first book of the series. (In the TV series it was with that: “Mention my mother’s name again...”) There is something deeply satisfying in the way he puts them in their place with the self-confidence of someone who remains unimpressed by their unearned power and inherited class privileges, and who is additionally disgusted by the way they often use these to trample all over those who lack them. Going through life assuming they deserve admiration, adoration, lenience, favours, and your time. His dressing down of that ridiculous (to my eyes at least, Stephen Fry-inspired) Lord Oliver Branfoot, and then of Tara (Charlotte’s mother), are so enjoyable! Almost as good as the one Strike saved for “Papa J“ in the last chapters of The Running Grave (What an enjoyable scene that was!) I wish that we would get to see him address that despicable piece of work Valentine Longcaster, as well. (Robin was no match for his degree of upper-class nastiness)

This is, in short, one of the better ones, even though we could do with fewer mentions of Strike and Robin’s day-to-day routines: every beer consumed, every cup of “creosote”- coloured tea made, every take-out ordered, every cigarette lit and smoked, every pack of crisps opened, every bathroom visit made, every sip of coffee taken, they are all mentioned. That’s the only bit that can be seen as a minus about these books. (That and maybe the numberless references to Strikes’ “stub”. And his weight!) These occasional longueurs cannot possibly be there to fill space, as this author does not need it, since she has no shortage of ideas for plots and subplots (and subplots of the subplots). Her kind of uber-fertile mind that created the fantasy world of Harry Potter with such precision, sees things in such detail, that when she is placing her story in a contemporary “real”-life world, she can’t help herself I guess, and still sees things with the same, almost excruciating detail that can be exhausting, because this is a world we already know, that does not require this level of describing as a made-up world. This, yes, is probably unnecessary (especially for a work that is so accomplished otherwise), and it takes something away from it (at the same time as it adds girth to the volumes), but on the other hand, it also adds a sense of realism: it makes you smell the cigarettes, the beer, the take-out leftovers in the fridge, follow in their steps as they visit all those London pubs. Live their day, meet them in “real-time”, so to speak.

Wardle has left the police and is now part of the agency. Whether it is going to work remains to be seen, as he is obviously not used to by-passing proper police procedures and is reluctant, if not shocked, when asked to follow Strike’s unorthodox methods when faced with the guilty party. Kim Cochran is another addition to the group, and she seems set on seducing Strike. A social media user (who speaks for all of us) wrote, “I hated her the minute she stretched in front of Strike”. Well, Kim certainly has a lot of cheap tricks in her arsenal that would have worked on him quite effectively, actually, in any of the previous books.

Even though Strike is in this book set to change his life, the way he treated women in the past seems to be catching up with him, and he finds himself in trouble as one of his fuck-them-and-leave-them “girlfriends” decides to take her revenge, while another involves him in a pregnancy scare. This prompts him to rethink his own relationship with his father, who was found in a similar situation all those years ago, when Leda (Strike’s mother) got pregnant with him. The reconciliation of sorts that follows out of a necessity (Strike needs a lawyer recommendation from his father) at least half-opens the door for healing. The interaction between father and son is actually sweet, and Rokeby (who is possibly not as horrible as Strike imagined him to be) restores Leda’s memory, as he reveals that, despite the rumours, she was not a casual (and public) one-night stand for him.

The mutual attraction between Strike and Robin is a delightful aspect of this book series that keeps the reader invested in their relationship. The will-they-won’t-they trope (that special mix of sexual tension and antagonism, bad timing and fear, unfavourable circumstances and an inability to commit that feeds this volcanic fire that swallows hero and heroine, whole) is one hell of a plot device to keep us interested and coming back for more. It is often found in many of our favourite iconic pairings of “old time-y” TV: Sam and Diane (the ultimate will-they-won’t-they TV couple) on Cheers; Ross and Rachel on Friends; Daphne and Niles on Frasier; Lorelai and Luke on Gilmore Girls; Lee “Apollo” Adama and Kara Thrace on Battlestar Galactica (who remembers that soul crushing, heartbreaking boxing scene?); Maggy and Shawn on Psych, etc. In short, we’ve met it before, we know it well, but this is a particularly delicious version, because the author took the time to craft these characters little by little, book by book, with such detail, elegance and humanity that we love them to bits.

That is not to say that this prolonging is not getting too much by now, given that this is the 8th book, and readers are getting antsy. It’s a common enough problem. Because authors and screenwriters know that once the potential lovers finally get together, the story must either end or else they will have to dismantle their relationship and start anew. It’s a well-worn trope for a reason. Many TV shows, for example, had to be cancelled once the will-they-won’t-they aspect was gone, because ratings would plummet. This is because once the screenwriters spend a little time showing us the couple’s bliss, there’s not much they can do with them, other than portray their everydayness... This often prompts them to introduce new characters who come in to shake things up, to jeopardise the relationship, so that the same sequence will be played anew: jealousy / brief separation /reconciliation, etc. In short, the same old thing. It turns boring and the show is cancelled... So my guess is that she will keep the will-they-won’t-they until the last pages of the last book... Either way, we will follow in their steps.

That’s the thing about many female crime novelists: they create lovable characters for whom you feel affection! When was the last time you felt a warmth, a real connection with a character from a Jo Nesbo book, for example? Or from most male crime novelists’ books? Are their novels gritty? Well crafted? Sure. Complex and dark? No doubt. But the ‘lovable characters’ bit seems to often escape them. Now think of Jane Harber, Karin Slaughter, Ann Cleeves and yes, Robert Galbraith (who could only ever be a woman!) or that master of the genre, Tana French (those conversations in her last two books between Cal and the kid, alone!) Each relationship they craft, each character they create breaks your heart (and I don’t refer here to love stories necessarily, but to human interactions in general). The Strike novels keep us coming for more, for all that is happening between Robin and Strike, as much as for the intricate plotlines. Because JK Rowling breathed life into these two and made us feel affection for them, made us root for them. And she added humour, humanity, decency to the mix, making the unflinchingly gritty, dark (occasionally pitch-black dark) parts (and there are many), more bearable (though frankly, barely).

The road to love is not going to be easy for them, though. Thoughtful, hurt people are tough to pair up. Because they know about the cost. This is what’s keeping these two lovable characters apart. Wisdom is a scary, cold thing keeping us from jumping in, eyes closed, brakes unchecked, and we see it in both Robin and Strike. Though the latter seems more ready to enter the next phase. Not that he is good at it: in the first chapters, we are faced with a Strike whose inner monologue reveals him to be as immature as an obsessive teenager who plots how to get a girl alone. Yet isn’t that what is happening when you are in love? (“Is not general incivility the very essence of love?” to quote Austen). So, yes, we get to see Strike’s less-than-honourable side in this one. Scheming away, trying to get Robin alone on long road trips (that somehow never materialise) to declare his feelings for her, even though she is anything but available, sicne she is in a serious, committed relationship with another guy (Ryan Murphy), and as far as he knows, happy with him, given that they are planning to buy a house together, and therefore create a common future.

Independent people have specific needs. And therefore, a stubborn, well-justified resistance to the allure of romance. Because they are not as eager to pay the price. Women, especially, are, however, discouraged from such tendencies and are expected to find a guy and stay with him, no matter what. And if he happens to display the least amount of decency, then they are in his debt forever: Robin, who is also going through some growing pains in this book, sadly finds herself in the same situation as when she was with Mathew. Actually dreading spending time with her partner (Ryan Murphy), trying to downplay her work-related victories, lest he feels antagonistic or hurt (or start drinking), hoping he won’t ask her to live with him or marry him, yet doing absolutely nothing to get rid of him. Like many women out there, she rationalises her decision to stay in a relationship that does not fulfil her out of gratitude because he was good to her after she escaped that horrible cult (in the same manner that she stayed with Mathew because he stood by her after she was raped).

When she has a miscarriage, she somehow finds her courage, as she is faced with the urgency to decide whether or not she wants to be a mother: she actually hesitates! Because she knows that if she chooses motherhood, she will have to forgo her dream job for good. When she is pressured by Ryan (fucking) Murphy to follow the doctor’s recommendation and freeze her eggs because he will “support” her, she is outspoken and puts him in his place, telling him that his “support” is meaningless, pretty much, since she is the one who will have to go through the painful, invasive process, not him.

It’s a delight to see her finding the courage to say this very simple, very basic, rarely uttered truth about the realities of being a woman in this world. And about believing in her right to have a choice in the matter of motherhood. And it’s also a delight to see how far she has come from the days of Mathew, in this. While she was married to him, she would not even react each time he was making yet another one of those degrading “jokes” that revealed his true nature and his thinly disguised misogyny (Thank God you don’t always look like that - when she was in disguise - and the like). Back then, she would just let it pass. She would smile. And possibly do as she was told. But here we see her turning into an outspoken, brave, adult woman! She always had the type of courage that made her face serial killers, prompted her to jump in front of a train to help a stranger, or put her life at risk to save a little girl from her abuser. But this is a different kind of bravery that was not always there. (That is rarely “there” in everyday, real-life women as well). And it is very gratifying to see it in writing (more of this on a different article you can read here: Whose Choice is it Anyway? Robin Ellacott’s dilemma.

We know, of course, that Ryan Murphy is nothing but a “Romantic False Lead” plot device. Someone who was brought in to play the part of the “obstacle” for a couple of books or so. To sabotage the chances of the two leads getting together and prolong our expectation by delaying their eventual union, feeding our interest in them. To prompt them (and us!) into anticipation. To ignite jealousy in Strike and, by that, “help” him realise that unless he steps up, he’s gonna lose her for good. And it works: In the last page, we finally see Strike running after her, shouting that he loves her, and offering a spring-of-the-moment kind of proposal, which she has trouble believing it to be real and not in fact made out of his desire not to lose her as a friend and/or business partner (aren’t fools in love, foolish?)

Admittedly, there is something deeply satisfying in a proposal that is refused, when made out of place, out of jealousy, out of spite, or when it is tinged with a degree of selfishness, possessiveness or even a desire to offend. Or, as in here, to stop a woman from marrying another guy. In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane refuses Mr Rochester; in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet refuses Mr Darcy; in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, Margaret Hale refuses Mr Thornton, etc. etc. Of course, these heroines accept the wedding proposals once the hero loses his vanity and male ego and is faced with realisations that bring humility, introspection, understanding, and we have every reason to believe that this is what is going to happen with these two as well, in the end.(Yes, female writers are good at creating what reality is stingy to offer. Namely, men who evolve - not to mention women who refuse to marry them unless they do…) Well, these two have two more books to sort all this out. And we will be here for it!

The idea of the male hero who is capable of evolving (and needs to) brings to mind an interesting bit in the Ink Black Heart novel (which remains my least favourite in the series - those small-font messages alone….), namely, a conversation Robin and Isla had about Strike: how it was acknowledged that his treatment of women was questionable. This is admittedly an annoying characteristic of the books: how the character of Strike is written from a male perspective, almost, while all the women are judged harshly in terms of their looks. There is a “beauty contest” hierarchy: Robin is beautiful, but not as beautiful as Charlotte, etc, while at the other end of the spectrum is poor Pat, who is actually described as “simian” (!) While when it comes to Strike, we are told again and again that he is an ugly, fat, disabled, unkempt, emotionally broken, commitment phobic, (who I imagine possibly smells of stale cigarettes and curry all the time), but has all these gorgeous, young, accomplished, intelligent, mostly upper class women fall on his feet the minute they meet him, and when he ends things, they all beg him to stay. In short, what if the protagonist of the piece were an ugly, fat, one-legged, unkempt, smelly woman in her 40s, with wild hair and no fashion sense, sleeping in her rundown office, overeating, drinking beer after beer and chain-smoking? Would she be presented as being irresistibly attractive to dozens of younger, gorgeous, sophisticated men, who would be running after her, book after book? Strike is decent, brave, moral, kind, confident and certainly lovable. But would a woman who has these same great qualities (and more) but looks like the one I’ve described above be written as being lovable, let alone desirable by hordes of men?

It’s a common enough trope in literature, movies, TV - given that all the above are always seen from a male perspective – even when women are doing the writing. That’s Patriarchy for you. Even feminist icons - and JK Rowling is undoubtedly one, God bless her for all she’s done for Women’s Rights! - can be affected by what it (Patriarchy) prescribes as acceptable: men (even when they are in their 70s) are seen as having the right to choose women on the basis of looks and age, and on top of that, to expect these same young gorgeous women will see beyond their own less than perfect looks/age and on top of that, disregard their limitations, their emotional immaturity, their inability to commit, etc., and see only their good, lovable qualities, while these same men are retaining the right to ignore the good, lovable characterists of a woman, and only judge her on the basis of her fuckability. So when Isla tells it like it is, it is a “phew!” moment, revealing that at least the writer is aware that she is doing it...

And that she has a plan for him.

***

Posted on the 28th of September, 2025. Art & Words Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou. Feel free to share on social media by using the link.

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