No, I agree! I just prefer to talk about it from an in-universe perspective because that's where I feel Kal's toxic and abusive behavior is most evident, and because whatever KT might have intended, she did write a very good portrayal of an emotional abuser. Trying to talk about whether KT meant to have written a very good portrayal of an emotional abuser is beside the point, for me. I feel like those are two separate conversations and I can't juggle them both at once.
This is primarily because I know I get a little lost in the sauce because sometimes I read him and think there's no way KT didn't write him that way on purpose? She hit just about every single check point of emotional abuse that exists; it's like she had a list on her desk as she wrote. Sometimes the other characters even notice these things, which muddies the waters even worse. It leaves a niggling bit of doubt for me that maybe the series just ended too early for all of this to blow up in Kal's face the way it might(?) have been intended? (Or, more accurately, the way I just wish it had been intended, because KT had the perfect set-up. She had all of the pieces she needed to make a really amazing narrative about the different forms of abuse and she just set it all on fire.)
But at the same time she bends reality to support Kal's status as the moral center of the universe and every single other character we are meant to like constantly argues against why Kal can't possibly be a toxic and harmful man as KT's mouthpieces. So.
The unapologetic and extremely prevalent sexism and racism in the series don't exactly improve KT's credentials, either.
So I mostly assume KT either didn't intend Kal to be taken as emotionally abusive (which is alarming, considering how textbook of a portrayal he is), or realized she'd written him that way only belatedly and that's why most of the series is her backpedaling and hitting us all over the head with the 'Kal is GOOD and GREAT' mallet from the other POV characters, similar to the way she decided she liked Vau and immediately went about sweeping his shit under the rug. But there's that 'but what if' little part of me that persists.
Re: Kal Skirata
This is primarily because I know I get a little lost in the sauce because sometimes I read him and think there's no way KT didn't write him that way on purpose? She hit just about every single check point of emotional abuse that exists; it's like she had a list on her desk as she wrote. Sometimes the other characters even notice these things, which muddies the waters even worse. It leaves a niggling bit of doubt for me that maybe the series just ended too early for all of this to blow up in Kal's face the way it might(?) have been intended? (Or, more accurately, the way I just wish it had been intended, because KT had the perfect set-up. She had all of the pieces she needed to make a really amazing narrative about the different forms of abuse and she just set it all on fire.)
But at the same time she bends reality to support Kal's status as the moral center of the universe and every single other character we are meant to like constantly argues against why Kal can't possibly be a toxic and harmful man as KT's mouthpieces. So.
The unapologetic and extremely prevalent sexism and racism in the series don't exactly improve KT's credentials, either.So I mostly assume KT either didn't intend Kal to be taken as emotionally abusive (which is alarming, considering how textbook of a portrayal he is), or realized she'd written him that way only belatedly and that's why most of the series is her backpedaling and hitting us all over the head with the 'Kal is GOOD and GREAT' mallet from the other POV characters, similar to the way she decided she liked Vau and immediately went about sweeping his shit under the rug. But there's that 'but what if' little part of me that persists.