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The author doesn't justify how Heiner treats Annette, but a heavy focus of Annette's story is how she was willfully naive about how she benefitted from the torment and destruction of the people around her. There were hints in her life that things were bad, but because of her privilege and comfort she choose not to think too deeply and just accept what she was told by her father.
Just because she didn't inflict pain on people doesn't mean she is incapable of being criticized for her past and she accepts that as a fact. It's one of the strongest moments in the comic when she sits down in front of the woman whose brother got executed and acknowledges this fact.
All of her family's wealth came at a grave cost. The rebellion happened because of the mistreatment of the common folk. Her being naive of this doesn't mean she is innocent of any injustice because she still was fine with getting things and keeping her peace.
We can accept that what she has gone through is horrible and cruel, unjustified. But the criticism both the author has of her naivety and her own acceptance of her faults needs to be acknowledged by us. Its not a black and white conversation and it's aggrevating to see people boil it down to one.
I agree!! Annette isn’t the saint or angel ppl are making her out to be, and Heiner isn’t evil. They’re both complicated characters carved from their environment. Annette grew up comfortable so she had the luxury of ignorance until it took everything from her.
Exactly. I really enjoy how complex the author writes the characters. Allowing everyone to be flawed in someway. It makes them feel more human.
Heiner is one of the best examples of an imperfect victim I've seen someone write and his side of the story as someone raised in much more impoverished circumstances forced to claw his way through the same system Annette benefitted from is so important to explain both how he ended up how he is as well as give us sympathetic central view of the non wealthy. We can criticize what he did to Annette while acknowledging how crucial his history is to figuring out how things are the way they are.
She said sighing and I just knew he got dumped. I'm thinking either:
1. Haz wasn't serious about dating him and after meeting someone who was passionate about their feelings thought it was better to end things and give him the opportunity to find someone who could properly love him. Likely the reaction to "steal him from me" was her push to do so.
2. She figured he'd eventually fall for someone else closer to his age/demographic and preemptively ended things to avoid the pain of being right.
I'm curious to see what the answer will end up being! I'm not willing to say Haz is a horrible person but I do think she seems to take actions that hurt other people while pretending not to care. Kind of hope we see more of her!