r/webtoons • u/CheckHopeful4556 • 1d ago

Discussion It's annoying when a female character only gets development when it's related to her love interest

I just read the latest free episode of Down To Earth, and I was bothered by the lack of development for the main character, Zaida.

This story has been annoying me for a while now due to the lack of progress in the main plot, while incredibly uninteresting side characters often take up an entire episode. But anyway, that’s not the focus of this post lol. Zaida is the protagonist; she’s an alien from a planet that—for some reason—is in crisis and needs her.

The webcomic's author will go on and on about even a background extra, yet fails to develop this female lead. Every time we catch a glimpse of her personality, it’s only through her relationship with Kade (whom I also have countless reasons to dislike). Zaida simply doesn't exist, think, or feel outside of her connection to Kade. "Oh, but what about that episode with that one character and his brother?" Honey, it doesn't get more bland and forgettable than that. This character has absolutely no nuance unless it’s about being Kade’s love interest.

The latest issue is that she’s mulling over motherhood because Kade has mentioned wanting kids, and his mom ran into her at the grocery store and said he wants—I don't know—a bunch of children... It feels like the author forgot there’s a much more interesting story to tell and is just stringing readers along. I only started reading again after a hiatus, thinking the story would get interesting again, but I was wrong.

11 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

6

u/oujikara 1d ago

It is annoying but I mean like what do you expect from a story like Down to Earth... 

(also the opposite is often the case for female gaze stories, where the male lead's entire life and development center around romance, which is equally annoying)

2

u/CheckHopeful4556 1d ago

100% agree lol  I used it as an example, but theres a lot of stories like this

2

u/StoriesToonHQ 1d ago

What gets me is when a side character gets a whole backstory episode and the lead still has not had one. It reads like the writer knows everyone except the person we are following.