Honestly I like Emily more than Rory or Lorelei, most seasons. Just because somebody is the protagonist doesn’t mean they’re a good person. Emily just tries to do her best given the circumstances she was raised in, and she generally does well adapting to change. Everyone else mostly sucks most of the time.
Eh. I’d agree they’re largely cool. But then they’re practically eugenisists when it comes to Rory and Lorelai’s partners. They intentionally bombed Lorelai’s relationship with Luke, a stable, kind, generous, and successful small business owner because he didn’t come from wealth. They also refuse to believe that Logan or his family was anything but perfect until his father fully admitted it. To their credit, Richard had to step away before he got physical with him and Emily let Logan’s mom have it in the most Emily way possible. But they were prepared to assume that their quality as people was equal to the size of their bank account despite being told by Lorelai exactly how awful they had been to Rory. They were prepared to deem Lorelai a liar and not believe a word of it rather than consider the possibility that the Huntzberger name didn’t mean that they were implicitly great people. They value money and status over everything, even their own family, on a number of occasions. And the irony that Richard’s mother hated Emily and didn’t support their marriage because of Emily’s family is completely lost on her too.
Rory and Lorelei both kinda suck. Rory runs home to Mommy anytime she fails, and Lorelei has basically no real control over Rory because she’s so focused on being Rory’s friend and not her parent. Lorelei is lucky Rory is such a nerdy goody-two-shoes tbh.
It’s weird that Rory and Lorelei’s relationship is commonly held up as the healthy mother-daughter relationship in that show, when it’s really quite dysfunctional - the two are severely codependent best friends, not mother and daughter.
I don’t think you’re wrong, but fairness where it is due, if you had a kid like Rory that was highly responsible, academically excelling, an active member of the community, and on track to go to an Ivy League school to do what she was passionate about… that doesn’t leave a lot of room or need to parent at that point. You won the parent lottery, congrats! And at 16, nearing adulthood, and already more generally mature than many in their 20s (if still a bit naive), it’s pretty normal to be letting otherwise well-behaving children start to become more independent and treating them as a young adult. That doesn’t necessarily mean treating them like a peer/sister, but also in fairness, they enjoy all the same things and each other’s company and they’re closer in age than the average mother and daughter and have only had each other as family for most of Rory’s life. There “friendship” does make it a struggle to actually parent and correct Rory on the odd occasion when she does actually need it, but it’s not all bad as an example.
Honestly I like Emily more than Rory or Lorelei, most seasons. Just because somebody is the protagonist doesn’t mean they’re a good person. Emily just tries to do her best given the circumstances she was raised in, and she generally does well adapting to change. Everyone else mostly sucks most of the time.
Richard was cool until he fucked over Digger.
Eh. I’d agree they’re largely cool. But then they’re practically eugenisists when it comes to Rory and Lorelai’s partners. They intentionally bombed Lorelai’s relationship with Luke, a stable, kind, generous, and successful small business owner because he didn’t come from wealth. They also refuse to believe that Logan or his family was anything but perfect until his father fully admitted it. To their credit, Richard had to step away before he got physical with him and Emily let Logan’s mom have it in the most Emily way possible. But they were prepared to assume that their quality as people was equal to the size of their bank account despite being told by Lorelai exactly how awful they had been to Rory. They were prepared to deem Lorelai a liar and not believe a word of it rather than consider the possibility that the Huntzberger name didn’t mean that they were implicitly great people. They value money and status over everything, even their own family, on a number of occasions. And the irony that Richard’s mother hated Emily and didn’t support their marriage because of Emily’s family is completely lost on her too.
Rory and Lorelei both kinda suck. Rory runs home to Mommy anytime she fails, and Lorelei has basically no real control over Rory because she’s so focused on being Rory’s friend and not her parent. Lorelei is lucky Rory is such a nerdy goody-two-shoes tbh.
It’s weird that Rory and Lorelei’s relationship is commonly held up as the healthy mother-daughter relationship in that show, when it’s really quite dysfunctional - the two are severely codependent best friends, not mother and daughter.
I don’t think you’re wrong, but fairness where it is due, if you had a kid like Rory that was highly responsible, academically excelling, an active member of the community, and on track to go to an Ivy League school to do what she was passionate about… that doesn’t leave a lot of room or need to parent at that point. You won the parent lottery, congrats! And at 16, nearing adulthood, and already more generally mature than many in their 20s (if still a bit naive), it’s pretty normal to be letting otherwise well-behaving children start to become more independent and treating them as a young adult. That doesn’t necessarily mean treating them like a peer/sister, but also in fairness, they enjoy all the same things and each other’s company and they’re closer in age than the average mother and daughter and have only had each other as family for most of Rory’s life. There “friendship” does make it a struggle to actually parent and correct Rory on the odd occasion when she does actually need it, but it’s not all bad as an example.