Thread about how the show treats Eugene vs how it treats Cassandra - an appropriate comparison to make because these two characters are narrative foils and have many similarities so their differences are sharply contrasted - and how it's borderline misogynistic
Some of their similarities: Cassandra and Eugene are both best friends with Rapunzel, both live in Corona castle, both have snarky humor, and both are orphans- Cassandra is even given many of Eugene's lines. But the show treats one of them MUCH better than the other.
Sure, the show needs to make Cassandra go through shit so that she becomes the antagonist for season 3, but in my opinion they go way too far with these, how well Eugene is treated vs how shittily Cassandra is.
1.) Their roles in the castle:
Cassandra is a servant and says that she's worked for everything she has- and what she has isn't even particularly what she wants, since she wants to be a guard but it's denied to her, no matter how hard she works.
1.) (cont.) Eugene has everything fall into his lap- he happens to find this perfect girl who loves him and is royalty so he can enjoy luxury for the rest of his life without having to lift a finger, and it's everything he could ever want, all by pure chance.
2.) Learning their lineage:
Cassandra finds out that her birth mother is a dead abusive madwoman, who considered her a pest and ultimately abandoned her.

Eugene finds out his father is a king, who loves him and tries genuinely to connect to him and be in his life.
3.) Royal Guard:
Cassandra worked her entire life towards just JOINING the royal guard (since the age of six!) and it was denied to her. She needed to prove herself over and over during season 1 in order to get just a few assignments by her father.
3.) (Cont.) Eugene is made the new CAPTAIN of the guard by Cassandra's father when he was never even a part of the guard (only a consultant), and never had any particular interest or drive to be a guard.
4.) End of series:
Cassandra has to leave her home and best friend by the end of the series because there was nothing for her there- to be happy she could not go back to being a servant, nor be a guard working UNDER Eugene, and likely everyone hates her. She couldn't stay.
4.) (cont.) Eugene gets to remain in Corona and, again, enjoy all the privileges that he never worked for and never deserved. He is loved by the people and gets to marry Rapunzel and spend his life with her.
(This one is subtext because she's only gay-coded and it's not stated, but romantic life:

Cassandra's gay and will have an extremely difficult time in her life finding love.

Eugene has the perfect woman just appear in his life and fall in love with him immediately.)
It's excessive. All of these are excessive. Eugene's absurdly blessed life is ridiculous. Making him guard captain was fucking bizarre- he's already a prince and marrying a princess. Making him ROYALTY was bizarre. (I can imagine reasons for these decisions but not good ones.)
Thanks to my sister who pointed the content of this thread out to me, she has a lot of rly good analysis of the show in her liveblog and this is one of the many things we discussed. Unfortunately the liveblog is very long and a lot of analysis is in the form of conversations lol
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