This might be my favorite ask ever, as it’s basically an invitation to gab on at length about my love for well-written characters. Gosh, where do I even begin?

The short answer? I love nuance and complexity in characters, and the more characters exist in shades of gray, the better I think they are.

The longer answer…

Varian’s antagonistic, sure, and he’s dabbling in some villainous ways, but evil? Evil, he’s not. You said it yourself, he’s a child. There are adults that can’t go through what he’s experiencing without it going badly, and you’re gonna hold it against a child? I don’t care how intelligent Varian is, he’s still young and developing. He can’t control his emotions yet, and it’s Varian’s emotions - not his logic - that are currently in control. A lot of people seem to be missing that key factor to his motivations.

There’s also the question of intention. Varian is making a lot of bad decisions - none of which I’m excusing - but ultimately he’s doing it to save his father. He claims some of it is for revenge, but that need for revenge comes from his deflected guilt over causing and then failing to prevent his father’s current state. His need for revenge is coming from the pain of being abandoned by literally everyone around him but his raccoon in his greatest time of need. Pain is not evil. Pain is just pain, and it has to be worked through or else it becomes a rot, which is what we’re seeing.

You reference how Varian keeps trying to paint himself as the victim. Yes, because the alternative is him admitting that what happened to his father is potentially all his fault, that through his passion for science he might have murdered his own father, and he just cannot grapple with that emotionally right now because he’s too young to know how. He can’t do it on his own, so he’s deflecting it. That kid needs a blanket and a hug in the most major way, and there’s nobody around to give him that.

Plus, he’s not solely at fault for this chain of events. It doesn’t matter if they’re “the good guys”, Rapunzel and King Frederic share some of the blame. It’s not Rapunzel’s fault that she had to break her promise to Varian when he came looking to her for aid, but she is at fault for never once following up with him. Imagine how differently things might have turned out if, instead of taking a painting class for example, she’d taken a trip out to Old Corona to check up on someone she apparently felt guilt about breaking her promise to. She could’ve given Varian comfort, learned about his father and offered her help, etc. Then there’s the King. By his own admission, he knew the black rocks were destroying the kingdom and he chose to do nothing. Varian messing with the rocks was a direct result of that inaction, him hoping to help people by figuring out a solution. Imagine if the King had addressed the issue instead, and how that might have kept Varian’s experimenting at bay. Then there’s the issue of someone spreading it around that Varian had attacked Rapunzel, a lie that apparently cut him off from the rest of the kingdom so he couldn’t ask for aid from anyone. He couldn’t then just walk up to the castle asking to speak to Rapunzel. His options for action dwindled rapidly, and he got desperate.

So you have a 14-year old boy isolated from the world in the middle of the grieving process. People go to bad places when cut off from others during crisis, and even the best people can wind up making bad decisions. Does any of this mean I agree with Varian? Of course not. I’m not excusing anything he’s done. He made his choices. I simply understand where he’s coming from in making them.

But you also asked about redemption, and why I want him to have it. Varian’s a good person at his core, we’ve seen that, and he deserves a chance to come back from his mistakes. Did Elsa not deserve redemption because in a moment of panic she froze her whole kingdom? If you think about it, she and Varian share similar paths. She lost control over a power she didn’t understand, it endangered and injured loved ones, people treated her like a villain, she refused to “see reason” when Anna tried to get her to return, but inevitably she came back from it and got a happy ending. Varian deserves that same chance, doesn’t he? Plus, basically everyone else is getting their happily ever afters even after making bad choices: Eugene, Cassandra, the Pub Thugs, Rapunzel, King Frederic… The question I put back to you: why do you feel Varian is the only one who doesn’t deserve that same redemption?

I still love Varian because I’m empathetic enough to understand his choices, and a glutton for great characters even if they’re bad guys. Frankly, I’m not sure how anyone can see stuff like this:

…and still refuse to acknowledge that Varian isn’t evil, he’s just in a really dark place. You don’t understand how I can stand by him? Well, I don’t understand how people can be so quick to just write him off. People seem almost eager to hate him, and I don’t get that attitude. Fans took Lance in even as he was actively getting Eugene back into trouble for no good reason. Why is Varian the one getting the brunt of people’s hate for bad choices? Answer me that.

And failing all else, some of Varian’s choices were less an issue of malice and more just him being incredibly smart about maneuvering what few resources he had at his disposal. He didn’t kidnap the Queen to be terrible; he did it because he knew it was exactly the right catalyst he needed to get people moving how he wanted. For me, that kind of craftiness is worth respect, even if I don’t personally agree with it. I’m always here for a master class in strategic genius.

I did not mean for this post to go on this long, but I have many feels about our little alchemist and his current situation, so here we are.