Tropes that became problematic

[u/KalzK]

The Persistent Suitor: A guy who is after the girl and just wont take no for an answer. Nowadays we just call stalking and harassment, but it used to be romantic. Example: The Notebook (2004), Noah asks Allie out while she's on a date with another man. She refuses, but he threatens to let go and fall unless she agrees to go out with him.

Comedic Woman On Man Violence: Mostly seen in anime, recently it has decreased a lot but years back every show had a woman hitting a guy and showed it as funny. Example: Toradora!, where the quintessential tsundere, Taiga, beats up the MC regularly.

Kid Bags Adult Baddie: I remember a few of these, sometimes it was to show how cool and awesome a kid was because an adult woman fell for him, now it's just seen as problematic shit. Example: Blank Check, the woman likes the kid and kisses him telling him to look for her in 10 years.

[u/M-Shadowtoad]

Love Potions:

[u/Impressive-Card9484 → u/M-Shadowtoad]

I really like how TAWOG point out how problematic love potions are.

Carrie: "Why do you need a bow and arrow for that?"

Gumball: "Well I think it would be more appropriate than putting it on their drinks while they are not looking..."

[u/Theyul1us → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, suddenly when you put it like that it aint so funny huh

[u/Beckphillips → u/[deleted]]

My brother once showed me a slide he made for an English class project, that read: "Love Potions: Are they violating consent? (Yes)" in big text.

[u/Nlolsalot → u/Beckphillips]

Your brother is iconic.

[u/Licher-enjoyer → u/[deleted]]

I'd recommend reading Tristan and Isolde. Love potion is also used there, the maid transported the potion to make Isolde fall in love with her future husband (king of the land she was traveling to) and by mistake Tristan and Isolde drunk the potion unknowingly while still in the travel.

What i like in that story is that even tho they lived eachother due to the potion, both Isolde and Tristan tried to stay faithful to the King for a time, untill they couldn't take it anymore and run away together, they slept in the same bed with a sword between them to not betray the king further and lived peacefully for a time untill they were found. Isolde was sent back to the King and Teistan was banished.

Tristan married another Woman (also Isolde). When he was dying he sent a letter to the King that he'd want to see his belived one last time. She was supossed to come by ship. The ship was supossed to have white sails if Isolde is on board and black sail if she is not. The ship had white sail but his wife, the other Isolde told him the sails were black, and Tristan died beliving his Isolde did not came to him.

After the Isolde died they were buried next to eachother and a vine grew between their graves.

It's my favourite "love potion" story. We read that and talked about it in school

[u/MrBones-Necromancer → u/[deleted]]

Show me a piece of media where it -isnt- meant to creepy or wrong though? Love Potion #9 is from like, the 40's and was going on about "the only real love is consensual, this is a curse".

[u/Korventenn17 → u/MrBones-Necromancer]

In the song at least he drinks the potion himself, but the consequences are certainly problematic, although funny.

I didn't know if it was day or night
I started kissin' everything in sight
But when I kissed a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
He broke my little bottle of Love Potion Number Nine

[u/LadderEffective3458 → u/Korventenn17]

Yeah, it's more like a super aphrodisiac in the song, not something that forces someone specifically to fall in love with you.

[u/Round-Dragonfly6136 → u/MrBones-Necromancer]

Wait. Was the one from the 80s with Sandra Bullock a remake? I had no idea.

[u/Round-Dragonfly6136 → u/[deleted]]

I do remember that song. Now, I'm disappointed.

[u/Thebaldsasquatch → u/Round-Dragonfly6136]

At least that one quasi-required consent. The bad guy’s required a re-up every 4 hours and the good guy’s overruled that one but only worked if she actually loved the guy who used it, otherwise she’d hate him forever.

[u/Prasiatko → u/MrBones-Necromancer]

Fallout 3. The good karma ending to one quest is to give ant queen pheromones to the lady giving you the quest so she can use them to seduce the acolyte she fancies. You get no such reward for talking to the acolyte and saying you respect his choices. 

Noteably the same game has a quest on the other side of the map where the bad karma choice is giving a man some collectibles that the woman he fancies is into so that he can give them as a present to try to (unsuccessfully) seduce her.  

[u/Lemerney2 → u/MrBones-Necromancer]

Harry Potter

[u/MrBones-Necromancer → u/Lemerney2]

They are explicitly and repeatedly shown to be problematic and wrong. Voldamort is the way he is because of them. It's hardly an endorsement. And thats coming from a franchise that says "some slavery is good actually".

[u/Einkar_E → u/MrBones-Necromancer]

yet at the same time Weasly twins are selling them in thier joke shop

[u/OffbeatChaos → u/Lemerney2]

Weren't they outlawed in the Wizarding World though?

[u/ChronosNotashi → u/OffbeatChaos]

I don't recall them being outlawed, no. However, at least in the 6th book/movie, the Potions teacher warned the students about the dangers of such potions. Though one or two of the females students didn't care, as one of them gave a love potion to Ron without his knowledge or consent.

Thankfully, not only was it reversed (shortly before he consumed a poisoned drink due to a completely separate plot), the girl that drugged him got rejected in the most satisfying way (Ron didn't speak her name, but rather Hermionie's, when he was sleep talking while recovering from the aforementioned poisoning).

[u/LonerGuy17 → u/ChronosNotashi]

I know Harry Potter is a bit of a controversial series in modern discourse, but there's just some parts of them, either writing or character-wise, that were just so satisfying to see play out. Ron so unquestionably rejecting the girl who love-drugged him by just saying one name without(at least how I remember the scene in the movie) even being fully conscious was just such a great moment. And the funny thing is Half-Blood Prince is by far my least favorite film in the series :P

[u/duosx → u/MrBones-Necromancer]

That’s actually a bad example cause that song is about a guy drinking the potion himself knowingly.

[u/MrBones-Necromancer → u/duosx]

Ya know what, you're right. Let's go with the other example of the Arthurian Legend of Tristan and Isolde, from the 12th century, which also says "love potion bad. No drink. No use." Or the Russian epic Ruslan and Ludmila from the 17th century, which says the same.

[u/BigProduce6727 → u/[deleted]]

It was kinda a vaugue fantasy trope I didn't think that much of, until that period were all media was a Harry Potter flood.

Drugging each other is just some basic normal shit in the wizarding world, huh?

[u/Somethingoodtodie4 → u/[deleted]]

As a bot*

[u/AnimatorAny7096 → u/[deleted]]

Ai