What I do not get about Soulsborne fandom at all is the urge to do the random old men into creepy weirdos for no reason?
Gwyn is an amazing morally grey character who tried to create an arguably better world but did a lot of shit to accomplish it, he is tragic more than despicable, an early draft of Marika but clinging to his failure system until the very end. He has shown being generous as far as he is able even with species he feared and many people loved him, including his children. He doesn't have any dialogue or cutscene but his theme is the sole most heart-rending piece of music in everything From created and says more than words could about devs' intention behind this character. But people will say that he had to fuck Priscilla to give birth to Gwyndolin when Priscilla was banished into the Painted World as a child! So like, did he have sex with a kid, or predatorily waited for a kid to grow up? But no, he must be Gwyn Lord of Grooming when there are at least two way more canon-palatable explanations for who was second parent of Gwyndolin? Why would he need to keep Priscilla as a sex slave anyways? Are you telling me THIS guy lacked sex partners? The GILF Marika guy lacked sex partners to the point he needed a sex slave? Seriously?
Gehrman is the hunter who has done a lot of shit in his life, affiliated with Byrgenwerth and directly involved in Fishing Hamlet, who cherished the student he took down the dark path of the hunt a lot and got completely crashed after her death, immortalising her soft and innocent side that was ruined in a mourning doll of her. He poured so much warmth into simply caring for her former hair ornament that Doll cried tears of joy holding it - emotions he had hoped Doll would have, whom he distanced from seeing she was only Maria lookalike otherwise acting mechanical and lifeless. But people will say he is a creep who drooled all over Maria from the corners and made a sex doll of her that he also offers US to fuck. 🤦♂️ Bonus points for claims of objectification, misogyny and loathing her masculine vibe so much he bastardised her into his tradwife ideal, as if this notion on itself doesn't directly contradict the very fact of training her to be the hunter to begin with. And you'd think clarifying that "Even the Doll, should it please you" and "his curious mania" were invented by English localisation would be enough, yet some people still insist that either Japanese original script is somehow "not the gospel" (???), or that it is somehow valid to replace canon character with our negative experience with them dreaded cis white males and be bitchy towards everyone who wants posts about the canon character as he is (??????).
Godrick is straight up the symptom of how wrong things went in this setting, both in the world and in his big family. He is not seen as his own person but only as a disgrace of his cool strong awesome golden ancestors due to being born weak, he got driven out of his rightful place due to internal political contrivances and ran for his life, he adopted the mindset and expectations imposed on him and does everything he can to make himself what he "should" be. There are reasons to pity him, in good or bad sense, but somehow he gets baseless accusations of being a creep/pervert/rapist thrown at him, especially on Reddit? Also random takes about him being a groomer too because of Grafted Scions, when they are literally just his children? Why??? What do people THINK "grafted scion" means? I suppose people have a strange way to look at grafting as a concept, even though Rykard or Warrior Jars like Alexander also make people they've killed parts of their bodies?
Like, nothing wrong with creepy and uncomfortable characters and dark topics in media, but what's with the insistence of forcing these topics onto characters who don't actually have them? I just feel like there is a concept of "old = creepy" in fandom consciousness
