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| I don't care what you are doing, so much as the idiotic way that you are doing it. - Vincent Valentine, Final Fantasy VII |
| I don’t mind people who just dislike Allen. They’re entitled to their opinion just as I’m entitled to mine. But there are an awful lot of Allen haters out there and a common theme amongst them is a total failure to comprehend him. Countless fan fics and message board posts abound with characterizations of a jealous, skirt-chasing, poofy-sleeved, sexist fool, leaving me to wonder what the hell these idiots are talking about. So now, preachings for the choir or a stab at enlightenment for those who just don’t get it. Oh, and if you can’t understand why this shrine is called Beautiful ****ed Up Man, you really need to pay more attention. |
| MINI-RANT Before we begin, I want to get my biggest pet peeve out of the way - Allen bashers who call him gay as if they’re dealing him the insult of all insults. I’ll tolerate you hating Allen, but please keep your homophobia to yourself. Think before you speak or write. Besides, there are plenty of yaoi writers and readers who like that notion just fine… |
| JEALOUSY If I come across one more fan fic that features Allen whining about "his Hitomi" and how unfair it is that Van got her, someone is going to get smacked. If you want the jealous type, look no further than Van ["You’re just worried about Allen"] Fanel, because Allen doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body. Want proof? Let’s look at how he’s handled the other relationships his love interests have had. |
| Van & Hitomi By the end of the series, Allen could not be more supportive of this relationship unless he rented the happy couple a hotel room and left a box of condoms on the pillow. In his final conversation with Hitomi, not only does he make a little joke over her refusal of his proposal, he reassures her of Van’s feelings towards her. ["Van’s love for you brought you back to Gaea. And you returned it."] Then he goes an extra step further and allays her fears about Van returning. ["Because the most important person in the world to him is here. You."] Bastard. You can just feel the envy pouring out of him, can’t you? But wait, there’s more. After his fight with Van, young Fanel is content with staring at Allen and Celena when Allen reminds him to go to Hitomi. ["I heard Hitomi’s voice. She’s waiting."] At which point, Van snaps out of it and promptly flies off to be with his beloved. Who knows how long Van would have continued to gawk without Allen’s assist? |
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| Dryden & Millerna You’d think after their snippy interplay in Episode 16 over Leon and the fact that Allen’s looking at violet-eyed blonde princess #2 slipping out of his grasp, that Allen would have every reason to hate Dryden. He doesn’t. Take his first scene with Eries at Encia’s grave. (Yes, they have more than one scene together in a cemetery. Fun people, really.) As he tells Eries, ["If it were just a play for the throne, then I would have killed him,"] which roughly translates as "Dryden actually cares about her so it’s okay." Eries tells him that Millerna can be happy with Dryden, which Allen accepts. And his assessment of Dryden? ["He’s a good man."] Now unless I’m missing some secret episode in which Allen urges Millerna to call off the wedding, it sounds to me as if he let Millerna go because he thinks Dryden is good for her. That’s not the action of a jealous man. Duke Freid & Marlene He married his woman and is raising his son. A little resentment might be in order here. But what does Allen do? He agrees to fight by his side and then freaks out when Mahad gets killed in battle. No jealously here either. |
| INTELLIGENCE Bashers loooove to portray him as an idiot. Never mind that he’s the commander of a military base (and that he’s younger than the men under his command). That he successfully planned Van’s rescue against a larger enemy force. That Dryden (who you just know could be a member of MENSA if he didn’t find the organization too self-important) thinks enough of him to include him in Asturia’s council, etc. He’s a ditz because of that time he…uh, what did he do exactly? Maybe it’s because he’s a blond and stereotypes must be obeyed. Whatever. This is another one whose origin remains a mystery to me. |
| PIG (SEXIST, THAT IS) Okay, this one has some validity. Because of his adherence to chivalry, Allen can come off as condescending towards women (especially towards Hitomi at the beginning). Do I hear something about a birdcage? Then there’s his comment to Millerna about wearing pants that only adds fuel to fire. But I think we need to take Allen’s intent into consideration. He doesn’t tell Hitomi it’s ["a job for us knights"] because he thinks she’s a wussy little girl who can’t possibly help. He’s just trying to protect her. He doesn’t dismiss her visions because he thinks she’s a hysterical female. He dismisses them because they’re freaky ass visions that nobody else on Gaea has. Why do you think Merle ragged on Hitomi so much? It should be pointed out that once Hitomi proves she knows what she’s doing by giving him an accurate tarot card reading, Allen never dismisses the visions again and uses the information from them. Not just to find Van either (Episode 5). In Episode 10, he asks Hitomi to do a reading on the captive Dragonslayer. When the three of them are escaping Zaibach, Allen lets Hitomi guide them to the roof using her pendant (Episode 18). A true sexist never would have given Hitomi a chance to prove herself period, let alone rely on her for advice and directions. The birdcage stuff is taken in the wrong context. It’s not said out of a belief that women should be stuck on a pedestal up in an ivory tower on the corner of a castle in the clouds. He says it because he’s afraid of losing Hitomi like he’s lost everybody else. Watch the scene on the bridge in Episode 21. Hitomi’s been kidnapped by Naria and Allen’s on the verge of a public crying jag lamenting [“Why? Why does everyone important to me have to...”] I think it’s safe to fill in the words “leave me” or a variation thereof. As for Millerna’s pants…Maybe it’s just princesses he’s all fussy about (or maybe he doesn’t like seeing Millerna wearing something that contradicts his image of Marlene, who looked like the dainty princess type) because he doesn’t act that way towards anyone else. He doesn’t say anything about Hitomi’s outfit being improper and that skirt of hers is shorter than anything in Asturia. He doesn’t yell at Merle for letting her butt hang out. And then there’s Celena. When she pops back in the first time, she’s barefoot, wearing rolled up pants and a tank-top. Yet, the next day when Allen shows her to Eries, Celena’s dressed in a spare outfit of Allen’s. Celena’s still pretty out of it at this point; I don’t think she dressed herself. That leaves Allen as the one who picked out her clothes - clothes she would wear for meeting a princess, no less. If Allen really cared all that much, he could have had whoever got word to Eries to come also pick up a suitable outfit while in Palas. Granted, this all was more than likely done to avoid the ludicrous image of Dilandau in a frilly dress during a scene which is supposed to be dramatic and shocking, but Allen wouldn’t be aware of that so his choice must be taken at face value. |
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| PIG (PLAYBOY SCUM, THAT IS) Okay, I can’t dodge this one. He’s quite popular with the ladies and I don’t think it’s just innocent flirting either. He specifically calls Hitomi his lover in episode 3 and Dilandau’s response is [“I see you live up to your reputation.”] I’m not sure what kind of intelligence reports Zaibach likes to gather, but if they know the commander of a piddly, remote outpost in Asturia likes to sleep around, he must *really* sleep around. Again though, we have to look at intent. His feelings for Hitomi weren’t trivial. He asked her to marry him. It’s not clear how much, or even if, the Fate Alteration affected his decision, but an unrepentant player does not make proposals. (Speaking of the Fate Alteration, it amuses me when people whine about the kiss on the bridge. It’s always Allen’s fault. Not Folken’s for coming up with the F.A. Not Dornkirk’s for ordering Folken to do it. And sure as hell not Hitomi’s for kissing back, despite her psychic visions telling her otherwise. It’s all Allen. Bad, bad Allen.) Then there’s the whole thing with Millerna. According to Eries, he sees Millerna as a Marlene placebo. She looks like the real thing, acts like the real thing, and hell, her name even sounds sort of like the real thing, so he thinks she is a real thing. Hmm, Allen transferring his feelings from one person to another because the first person is absent from his life…Why does that sound so familiar? Hmm… See, Allen’s not leading Millerna on out of some skanky ego thing. He’s just being his usual self-delusional mess. With Marlene, he was obviously in love. Six years after the fact, he’s still brooding over her and making melodramatic vows to [“never love again”.] Yes, it was very, very naughty of him to sleep with her but to be fair to Allen, no fifteen year old male is going to go boy scout on a gorgeous older princess trying to get down his pants. People also accuse Allen of chasing after Hitomi and Millerna at the same time. Honestly, I don’t see it. Hell, I don’t really see Allen chasing after Millerna at all. She’s the clear aggressor in whatever kind of relationship it is that they have. She’s always telling Allen and anybody who will listen that she’s in love with him (a sentiment that Allen never, not even once, says he shares). She’s the one who ditches her country to follow him to Freid after he tells her not to. In fact, that’s the only time Allen initiates anything between the two. He kisses her just to distract her long enough so that he can leave without her (Episode 8). He is guilty of not telling her to knock the crush crap off, but it’s the aforementioned Marlene issues that prevent him from doing that. Yes, Allen’s ‘gallant swordsman’ routine when he first greets Hitomi after she wakes up in Episode 3 can be considered flirting, but I really think that’s just how he acts around women and not necessarily an indication of romantic interest. We’ve all met people who are naturally flirtatious. They don’t mean anything by it, that’s just how they are. His protectiveness towards her also happens to be the protectiveness a knight would show any damsel in distress. The reason why I don’t think he had any romantic intentions towards Hitomi in the early episode comes from Episode 15. In her plea to him to give Van a pep talk, Hitomi admits she likes Allen and scurries off embarrassed. Allen acts surprised by the revelation [“You like me?] even though it’s obvious to everyone else that she’s been drooling over him pretty much from day one. If he had been actively pursuing her before that point, it’s unlikely he would have overlooked that. Afterwards, his relationship with Hitomi progresses the standard way -- through an open dialogue, including several meaningful exchanges about his troubled past. And that Fate Alteration thing. But every relationship has its weird moments. Now that age thing. As in his seeming preference for sweet young things. First of all, fifteen is obviously an age of consent in Asturia. King Aston would not have let Millerna get married at that age otherwise. So the jailbait thing doesn’t actually apply. It’s a cultural thing -- their culture is different and therefore, we can’t judge it by our standards. You know, the standards that have Britney Spears and her ilk in a vicious battle to see who can look like the cheapest whore. Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that a thirteen year old girl was eligible to walk down the aisle. Just ask an Edgar Allen Poe fan about his wifey-poo. In other words, don’t judge Allen for fiddling with cultural taboos that don’t exist in the culture he lives in. Fifteen year olds are fair game in Asturia. Why he likes ’em young is another matter. Allen has his Celena theory and I think it’s pretty close to the mark. No, the Celena theory DOES NOT mean he wants his sister. It means he wants someone to protect and take care of. An older woman would be less likely to let him do that. Or maybe Marlene taught him to appreciate fresh meat. ^_~ |
| THE PUFFY SHIRT Actually, it’s the puffy sleeves, but I can’t pass up an obvious Seinfeld reference. This is possibly the easy thing to refute. Look at the picture. Notice a trend? Like all of these men are wearing the same damn thing? Allen’s a Knight Caeli. He must wear a Knight Caeli uniform. Asturians, for reasons that I can only assume are clear to them, find puffy sleeves to be the height of fashion. Their uniforms reflect this. It could be worse. They could apply the puffiness to their trousers and become a nation clothed in M.C. Hammer pants. Oh, and a special note on Allen's hair. While it is the longest, all of the Caeli (er... except the bald one) have long hair. Hell, the one on the far left has his up in a little bun thingy. So shut up already. Long hair on males is yet another Asturian trend. So there. |
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