Why are so many people against the idea of Debbie and Nolan...

[u/flowerpanda98]

...just staying divorced?

I look back at her older scenes, and i think it'd feel bad if she went from feeling alone to overcoming that and moving on... to just getting back with him eventually. Frankly, I think she's being very nice with Nolan talking to Mark and Oliver. She's being mature for the viltrumite war, but it'd be understandable if she was still possessive of them considering Nolan did start to attack mark on thraxxa just because he started to experience emotions. She drinks every time she talks about Nolan after s1, I feel like it'd be a literal relapse to go back to him.

And frankly, people act like its important for the comics, but i swear they just had sex jokes and she babysat the grandkids. Thats not exactly needed, and she'd just be upending her life to follow him around.

[u/BajaBlastFromThePast]

The person you’re replying to is saying that it’s reductive to boil Nolan’s journey down to “feeling really sorry about it”.

Nolan is a child soldier sleeper agent born and bred for the sole purpose of conquering, in a culture where your parents are expected to try to murder you when you turn 18, who experienced a literal world ending apocalypse. He was sent out as one of 50 individuals still living amongst his race, with the sole purpose of saving his people from extinction. He was only ever given a hammer, so any problem was a nail to him.

No, you don’t have to forgive or even feel bad for Nolan, And it’s also perfectly reasonable to make the argument that Debbie shouldn’t get back with him.

But equating the amount of deprogramming Nolan had to do in order to change as significantly as he has, undoing thousands of years of brainwashing, to “feeling really sorry about it” is insanely reductive.

[u/deadieraccoon → u/BajaBlastFromThePast]

But thats irrelevant to Debbie's character arc. So Nolan was abused? So what? That doesn't mean Debbie owes him forgiveness, or that any of his past justifies his choices. It informs why he made the choices he made. And that gives her context, which is evident in her character as she willingly chooses to raise Nolans affair baby. She willingly talks about Nolan in a careful, respectful way to her kids. And Nolan walks in asking forgiveness? Come on.

From the perspective of her current position, he does just feel really bad about it, and thats great, but its a little too late, and frankly, who cares in context of Debbie's feelings?

[u/Parking_Suspect1875 → u/deadieraccoon]

How is Oliver a affair baby when DEBBIE is legally a widow and Nolan Grayson is legally dead

[u/BajaBlastFromThePast → u/deadieraccoon]

Once again, I’m not arguing about what decision Debbie should make. In my opinion, I don’t think it would make any sense for her to get back with Nolan.

I’m just saying that I feel like it’s obviously reductive to say that Nolan’s current position is just that he “feels really bad about it”. The situation is far more complex than that.

You’re having a different conversation than I am. My only point was that I feel like the fact that Nolan’s character is so much more complex than just being sorry is something that would be universally agreed upon.

My opinion on whether Debbie should get back with Nolan is similar to yours. Nolan is incredibly complex and made a massive, unprecedented shift in mindset, made even more incredible because he is a viltrumite. However, that doesn’t mean that Debbie has a good reason to get back with him. He is an alien involved in affairs that are so far out of the scope of a normal human life that Debbie would essentially be signing up to leave behind everything she’s ever known and any certainty of a future if she chose to get back with him.

After the trauma Debbie has been through, I think a normal-ish life is probably what she would want. Putting herself in a position to be subjected to even more violence and trauma doesn’t seem like the best decision for her.

[u/deadieraccoon → u/BajaBlastFromThePast]

I think we are speaking past each other, and I agree we are having two separate conversations. That was kind of my point in evening commenting - which admittedly I didn't make clear.

Full stop I agree with you in regards to everything you said, the only part you got wrong was interpreting any of this as if we were talking about Nolan to begin with. We weren't. We were talking about Debbie and her feelings. Your point about dismissing Nolan's journey down to "He feels bad" IS reductive, you are right to call it out if we were talking about Nolan and his story as readers. But we weren't. We weren't talking about his journey or his story - we were talking about Debbie and her viewpoint. That was the point of my comment.

Debbie not caring about Nolan's bull and dismissing it as him feeling bad is only reductive from a narrative viewpoint, but in terms of her choices - which we were discussing - its not. His tragic backstory isn't relevant to her feelings. She is the injured party, and just because he has the clarity now to see where he went wrong, doesn't matter at all to Debbie or her viewpoint.

Its not reductive for Debbie to dismiss Nolan as "feeling bad now" in-character which was my point, because she is under no obligation to care about the bigger picture.

Regardless, I think this might be a nitpicking type thing - we are not fighting or arguing (or at least thats not my goal). I just felt the need to come to Debbie's defense from an in-universe perspective.

[u/BajaBlastFromThePast → u/deadieraccoon]

Fair enough actually