Originally Posted by
Majesty
It's really amazing how the "Mary Jane is Peter's SOULMATE" crowd want to diminish the time Peter also spent time away for about a 3 year span and was going to marry someone else. Funny that.
The ones also screaming the loudest about "choice being taken away" from Mary Jane don't want to mention how Sara WOULD have married Peter had her memories not been altered/erased. You want to talk about choice being taken away? Talk about that. Because that's an actual example of it.
Mary Jane didn't choose to be trapped in an alternate world. Just as Sara didn't choose to be lost in time. But Mary Jane chose to be with Paul when she could have kept everything platonic.
Sara and Peter chose to be with one another, Peter chose to marry her. Sara didn't choose to have her memories taken away. Peter didn't choose to have them taken away from her.
So if you want to talk about Spider-Man romances that involved marriage where someone's choice was actively taken away, there you have it.
People keep on trying to theorycraft SOME WAY that Paul is lying or SOME WAY that Mary Jane's memory has been altered to convince themselves why she'd pick Paul over Peter or how she could fall in love with someone other than Peter. And they get up on their high horses about misogyny and things of that variety and how 'offensive' it is.
But I mention Sara Bailey and she's treated like she doesn't matter when she actually had choice and memories taken away from her against her will. And had those choices not been taken away against her will, she and Peter would have married. And the problematic nature of Peter being able to keep his memories but she gets hers taken away in order to avoid getting married, is glossed over and barely mentioned at best. But Mary Jane actively makes her own choice and suddenly "What misogynism behind such a decision!!!" Seems it only matters when it's certain characters but not all.
But go off I guess.
The reality is this. Despite the "soulmate" crowd. Intervention needed to happen to prevent Peter from marrying someone else he'd fallen in love with. Active choice was taken away from her so she could 'conveniently' forget him in order to prevent them from being married. To top it all off he was allowed to keep his memories, whereas she wasn't. She wasn't given the choice. She wasn't given the option. It was just taken from her. If you really wanted to go off about choice being taken away, that'd be your actual version of it.
Replace Sara with Mary Jane in the same situation and I guarantee you all heck would be breaking loose on this forum. If Mary Jane and Peter got trapped in time, fell back in love full-time, and Peter was about to propose to her. And then they were transported back to modern time with Mary Jane having no memory of their time together or no memory of her loving Peter(against her will, mind you), whereas Peter had to keep his memories. I could only imagine the hellstorm that it would create.
But it happens with Sara and it's "Well it was a first time writer.." and "eh.. not really that meaningful.."
I see.