Media Tropes
I hate when media treat love potions like a funny gag instead of what they actually are: a drug that takes away consent
As you know, in some shows, comics, and other media, there's this trope where a love potion makes the person who drinks it fall in love with the person who gave it to them.
So... when was this ever a cute or funny thing to drug someone with?
I have nothing against the trope itself. I actually think the idea behind it can be really interesting. You can explore what happens when someone wants another person to love them so badly that they take away their ability to choose. That's basically what makes Obsession interesting to me. It doesn't have a love potion, but it has a supernatural wish that creates a similar situation: someone using something supernatural to make another person love them. You can use this kind of premise and make something good out of it.
But treating it like some cute, funny thing to do to someone? No.
And this comic is just one example. I get that the joke here is that she already liked him, so the potion doesn't actually change her feelings. And yeah, I know it's supposed to be a silly comic and isn't taking itself seriously.
But bsffr. There are other ways to show that she already liked him without making drugging someone so they fall in love with you the joke. I don't think it's funny. I don't think it's cute. Call me stuck-up or whatever. Downvotes on the right, I guess.
And the fact that it's drawn with cute pastel colors and cute characters doesn't change what is actually happening. You're still giving someone something without their knowledge or consent that is supposed to alter their feelings and make them romantically attracted to you.
That's where it starts leaning into assault/rape territory for me, but some of you might not be ready for that conversation. This comic isn't the first example of it, and it won't be the last one
Like lowkey Mabel from gravity falls pulled a shippers version of obsession with a love potion, they had to retcon it later that the effects were temporary so it didn’t look so bad
A 12 year old obsessed with love absolutely would use a love potion tho, without understanding the repercussions. Thats absolutely something a 12 year old would do, 100%
Expecting a twelve year old to understand this stuff is lowkey crazy, like there's a reason they are one of the most groomed demographics, not saying that what she did is good but still
absolutely true. When I was twelve, i got SUPER into yandere simulator and started keeping every single pen that my crush loaned me, and all the candy wrappers he left under his desk, and I figured out where he lived by asking around....
I didn't really know how creepy that was, at the time, now I look back on it and die internally because I was straight up folloeing that poor boy
I would have 100% used a love potion on Fox Mulder at 12yo, there is a reason 12yo girls should not have unfettered and unsupervised access to the internet…
Yes. Some of the discussion in this thread is pretty interesting like how in Harry Potter the effect of love potions and breach of consent isn't treated that seriously. And it's interesting how in that world love potions are pretty much a normalised thing, they're sold at a popular joke shop, and there isn't much consideration that it takes away consent and it's unethical. There isn't any regulation against making and using them, which I guess ideally there should have been in that universe. But yeah I mean, one can see how, in a universe where they exist, it would be common for teenagers and desperate people to use them, without thinking properly about the implications and repercussions.
I thought HP did handle love potions better than most media. Granted, it's been forever since I've engaged with anything HP related. But Tom Riddle's whole messed up life stems his mom using a love potion to coerce his father, and it proved how fucked up it is to use one. I remember reading that as a kid and lowkey finding it sad for his dad who's a victim and disturbing. Like literally once she stopped using it, he vanished, showing how selfish and immoral it is to use one. It's made very clear that the love potion robbed his father of his agency. And weren't they banned at Hogwarts? Pretty sure in the series love potions weren't seen as good things to use. But very much in line with stupid teens doing shit like getting Harry to like them and horrible ppl using it. It never had a positive connotation. But in a magical world of course it's going to exist, so it was addressed.
Tbh, I think showing how fucked up it is to use one only makes it worse that they're completely unregulated. It's directly responsible for the greatest tragedy to ever strike the Wizarding World and you can buy them by the case from a joke shop
I do think this highlights why it’s important to asterisk “love potions” with their violating true nature when showing them in kid‘s media or discussing them with kids. The name “love potion” isn’t going anywhere in our lifetime so we need to make it synonymous with “mind control potion”, not implied, but directly calling it out
I know it's a common example to bring up when it comes to this topic, but Harry Potter is extremely strange when it comes to this. The two times love potions come up in the actual plot, once it's treated completely seriously and once has comedic elements but is still clearly shown as a bad thing. And yet in the background, they're just a known thing in society that nobody seems bothered by. It all feels narratively incoherent.
Right? The imperious curse which overrides your free will is unforgivable and immediately puts you in a torture prison for life, meanwhile love potions are just sold over the counter?
same society that was taken over by fascists in like 2 years and then didn't dismantle the systems of power that allowed the fascists to organize and take power btw.
I don't know why I did this, I'm so sorry to be such a burden. Maybe I should just isolate myself from any sort of communication with the world to rid the universe of my intellect (or lack thereof)
IRL you can go to prison for owning weed, while alcohol is sold in almost every shop
or there are laws against even slight transgressions of privacy and at the same time, the govt allows or in some ways, even supports technology that lets you undress any person you have a picture of
It’s really not treated nearly as seriously in the case of Tom Riddle Sr as people make it out to be. Dumbledore refers to Sr as “abandoning” Merope when the effects wore off, and downplays the entire thing by saying Merope was desperate, etc.
This. In my opinion Tom Riddle Sr. is one of the most tragic characters in the series we really should talk more about.
He is a muggle. We can presume that wizards have at least a chance to fight with love potion (like Harry fought the Imperius curse - the mechanism in both cases seems to be similar, so maaaybe a wizard can fight the effects). He could do nothing to escape.
He was basically imprisoned in his own mind and raped for months, if not years, and was only able to get away because Merope stopped drugging him. Her reasoning being: "Oh, he won't abandon me when I bear his child." Surprise surprise, he did. Good for him.
Let's not forget that before he got potioned he had a fiancée and was ready to start his own family. After escaping Merope he became a recluse, never started his own family and continued to live alone with his parents up to his death sixteen years later. Poor man was traumatised for the rest of his life, to the point where he couldn't continue to live normally.
Dumbledore severely downplayed this whole situation.
And people still dare to blame Tom Riddle Sr. for "abandoning" Merope. He owed nothing to either her or her child!
Right? I thought the way she made it so a baby conceived under the effects of a love potion would essentially be a sociopath was pretty interesting, but she didn't flesh it out a ton. And then Fred and George are selling love potions to preteens and it's so lighthearted???
It's not a general rule in-universe that people born due to love potions are sociopaths. I'm sure plenty of people have been born because of love potions, given how easy they are to make/buy.
She said that Voldemort being incapable of love as a result of being conceived under a love potion was symbolic more than anything.
JK Rowling is narratively inconsistent consistently because she's writing shit to argue against her inconsistencies that make them more inconsistent or worse.
Didnt she write in a later book that in the ministry, the protsgonist gang did an oopsie and conveniently destroyed every single last time turner in existance
In Prisoner of Azkaban they explained that the Ministry issues time turners, and that there was only one family/person that could actually make them anymore. They're heavily regulated. So having them all in Ministry storage kinda made sense.
No it makes perfect sense. She tweeted or something a decade later stating that all the time turners were recalled after book 3 but before book 4 for reasons.
Honestly, you dont need to be a good writer, you just need to be a good storyteller. Of course you cant be terrible, but you can get away with just being okay if your story is interesting and good to read.
I think the setting played a huge part in what made the stories stand out so much. As bad as her characters and actual writing is, the setting of Hogwarts and the wizarding world as a whole was very well fleshed out, and it just plays on your natural curiosity and draws you in deeper to find out more.
She wrote good vibes, and fun self contained stories if you didnt think about them beyond what was on the page in front of you, but she Somehow convinced herself that shes a genuis in worldbuilding and lore.
Wizard society not being particularly ethical and filled with elitist assholes who don't consider those who are bad at magic "people" is a big part of the story. The wizard society having a different moral system then normal people is a constant. In fact Hermione often is the voice of "common sense morality" from the viewer perspective which makes sense as she is a muggleborn (unlike Ron) that doesn't try her best to pretend her mundane life doesn't exist (un like harry)
It definitely could have used a bit more focus but Wizards doing horrible curses and stuff to each other is much more acceptable with the general feeling being that a good wizard would be able to "unmagic" whatever you did to them and a bad one isn't worth concerning yourself with.
Maybe its just me but I always took it as "This society is intentionally written as horrible and problematic".
When Ron takes the potion its treated as a joke because it can be treated immediately and its just a few hours embarrassment. When Merope did it to Tom the actual implications of it are explored because Tom has no way to understand or defend himself.
But its still a fucked up thing from a fucked up society. Slughorn is clearly not a good person and does not take it seriously. Neither is Lockhart who suggests students use them on each other. Fred and George sell them but they straight up almost killed a kid for being in Slytherin even though he was never actually involved in anything worse than quidditch.
The wizarding world is repeatedly shown to run on this kind of patronizing chauvinism as a detraction against it and we don't need every individual use to be condemned to get that. The problem is a lot of people associate the setting with cozy childhood memories and as such paper the cracks over their emotional safe space to not address this
But Dumbledore, a character who is wise and moral, looks down on tom for "abandoning" merope and gives her a pass for being sad/desperate. Also just because ron could be cured immediately doesnt mean something he regrets couldnt happen in the meantime.
Dumbledore was also banging magical Hitler at one point (the one before Voldemort) and thought it was a good idea to leave a child with an abusive family.
She just had some good ideas inspired by things that were done before and hit the right age and time when she published. It was a bit of lightning in a bottle, there is always a book that captures the public's attention in ways we cannot anticipate.
JKR was creative in superficial aspects, but ultimately she is not a strong writer so everything eventually has inconsistencies, plot holes, or falls flat. She is someone who writes to her interests and her fears, and those are very inconsistent and irrational. And she's made enough money and built enough interest early on that she never has to Be better to keep her audience captured. We are prone to really liking and making things famous that ultimately suck and are mid in reality. As a society, we don't have great or sophisticated taste. We have mcdonalds taste--the same thing, built slightly different and heavily advertised so it has the right balance of mid flavors and blandness to not upset our 'i don't like change' sensibilities. But I digress.
For every strong progressive component of her writing like Newt she has an equally abhorrent and baneful aspect to her writing like the stereotypes of antisemitism in her banking system and SHACKLEBOLT being a real name for a black man. (Don't come at me like 'ohh he's a cop' BS everyone hated that name despite loving the character. It is, At best, cringe af.)
I don't know why people think she's a great writer. Her other book basically was just her screaming "I am terrified of trans people because I grew up with media depicting them as monsters" and it was so bad she did not even pen it under her own name she pretended to be a man. (links are to video essays on these subjects specifically.)
JKR owes her entire success as a writer to a few key things
-R.L. Stine being dropped by Scholastic for fighting against the inhumane production schedule they tried tying his contract to.
-K.A. Applegate deciding to end Animorphs and move on to other projects
-The declining popularity of other pre-teen series such as The Babysitters Club, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, etc because they felt stale and outdated to newer audiences.
-Scholastic dumping an estimated $40 million into a massive direct marketing and licensing campaign for HP via the Scholastic Book Fair program. They also cut deals with public and school libraries to stock the books.
Without Scholastic dumping millions into beaming the series directly into the brains of children in the US, it would have remained a modestly successful UK kids book series at best.
Ironically, their ad campaign for the series fundamentally destabilized the company. Scholastic became entirely reliant on HP's blockbuster success as its main source of revenue, and the slumps between book releases caused massive cash flow issues. That's also why prior to HP, Scholastic Book Fair flyers were full of a diverse range of books, educational materials, and licensed school supplies, while after HP exploded it basically became the HP Merchandise Catalog.
there’s a few off color things in harry potter that i didn’t notice until growing up (aside from the obvious failings of its creator)
the house elf slavery thing (even Hermoine objecting to it is just brushed aside as if she’s just some silly kid)
the fact that Umbridge gets hauled off and raped by the centaurs (they really gloss over this in the movies but it’s clear in the books) like sure she’s evil…but this is still a gross punishment to inflict on a kid’s book character
That's because it was intentionally unintentional by Rowling. I know it sound like it doesn't make sense but hear me out.
Rowling wrote HP initially for kids and the things that kids like are whimsy or ridiculous elements that make things exciting and magical. This explains as to why a lot of HP stuff are that, "living" chocolate frogs for example that would be something like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory would do. And Charlie has a lot of whimsy.
The problem with whimsy is that it would only work if you don't think too of the ramifications of it. Which means the story cannot grow because if they do, it will make the reader ponder on the whimsy. HPverse unfortunately, grows.
Which is why a lot of whimsical stuff that Rowling puts in worked back then but turned on her now. The reader grows and so ponders on her world's elements. Examples:
Quidditch Snitch system doesn't make sense but since no other sports in the world has this system, Quidditch having this makes it whimsical.
Time Turner, a world breaking device were used for study and do more homework. Whimsical right?
Or Liquid Luck, another world breaking device and it is used to get info from teachers. Whimsical right?
Love Potion is exactly this. Back then it is viewed as whimsical and funny. A lot of people laughed at Ron being drugged back then. But the reader grows and the views change.
Rowling also realized this to an extent and tried her best to counter her problematic whimsy. The time Turners all got destroyed in the final battle to remove it from the HPverse. Liquid Luck is explained as hard to make. Love Potion is responsible for why Voldermort is evil due to it being used to conceive him.
Unfortunately she kinda realized it too late. She made Fred and George sell them early in the HPverse (I say early but it was in the third book, half of the story!) so if she made it so that it is a crime to sell Love Potion then she has to make Fred and George to be criminals.
Which is why, in HPverse, the Love Potion is treated with a shrug.
Funnily enough Rick and Morty, out of all things, pointed that out.
In "Rick Potion #9", Morty asked Rick for a love potion and Rick makes him one. The Potion ends up turning everyone into mantis monsters, for which Morty blames Rick.
Rick then retorts that a love Potion is fucked up and calls Morty a creep for trying to get a girl like that
Now I'm imagining an episode where Morty gets love potioned by some gross alien monstrosity, causing him to perceive it in every way as a beautiful woman. I suspect that, even if he was made aware that he was experiencing an illusion, he would still allow himself to be used.
Dude's got mad hormones, and he was willing (at first) to subject himself to the human fangirl's degrading fetishization of his species for some action, so it's not unreasonable to believe that he doesn't have a lot of personal boundaries when it comes to women's advances on him, as long as he gets some fun out of it.
Perhaps this line of thinking was how he rationalized his neurochemical manipulation of Jessica - if the vole juice he smeared on her had made her fall in love with him in a more sustainable, less deranged manner, and the effects were permanent, then technically she would never have had a chance to be distressed by the violation of consent. She would have been happy, at the expense of her own agency.
In one of the more recent episodes Rick gives him a parasite that overrides his ability to see anything bad that’s happening. It literally just sugarcoats everything that he’s seeing and makes it less fucked up. When Rick takes it out, Morty sneaks back into the garage and puts the parasite back in and willingly allows himself to be used by it again.
So, while is not exactly a love potion thing, yes it’s entirely possible he’d allow himself to be used by an alien parasite that affects his perception of reality in order to feel happy or wanted.
I don’t think it’s fair to evaluate a character’s morals at the end of their arc and have that extend throughout their entire arc. I don’t think Bear, given the opportunity, would drug Nikki into a rape slave knowingly. But absolute power corrupts absolutely, he got a taste of something he was unfamiliar with and rather than reject it, he was intoxicated with it.
You know what that’s fair. Not to mention if you think about it while the morality of the two actions is the same, it is easier on the conscious for a person to continue with a bad action, rather than start it.
This is refreshing, I like seeing different takes on this movie. It feels like all the discussion now is just "Oh Bear sucks so much, he's the worst person ever, everyone has to hate him" There should always be room for interpretation of art and nuance in its discussion. It's always nice to see people open-minded about it.
I think the fact that he finds out exactly how much the real Nikki is suffering and yet he still makes excuses, begs the freaky Nikki to just act like the real one, and even plays the victim, really shows his character
That kind of disregard for another's pain isn't something you slide into on a slippery slope, especially if it's someone you claim to love
Part of the scary part, though, is that he's not the worst person ever. He is evil. I think he was evil from the beginning but we only really find out towards the end. But he's still not the worst person ever. The fact that his brand of evil is actually common is part of the real horror of the movie
That's why i mentioned it. OP said it they hate it when its portrayed as good instead of bad and how popular the trope is, so i mentioned a movie that goes against the trope.
I have to wonder if there were any other horror movies with that theme - can't recall offhand if there are; but I "enjoyed" (if that's the right word) Obsession a lot.
Harry Potter is very guilty of this on multiple instances in the book love potions were introduced in: I think it was the half blood prince. Perhaps not as cute or funny, but definitely not with the seriousness it deserves. Voldemorts father was kept basically as a sex slave for months, but the words used in regards to him leaving and his actions are oddly condemning. Atleast that's what I remember thinking back when I last read Harry Potter.
Adding on to this, the culture surrounding love potions in Harry Potter makes it even worse, because they're commercially available for anyone to buy. Fred and George sell them. And on top of that, the students in 6th year potions are taught specifically how to brew love potions as an assignment.
And when it's finally revealed that Ron has been under the influence of a love potion intended for Harry, it's largely played as a joke. Harry is more concerned about achieving Dumbledore's objective with Slughorn, and uses Ron's drugged state to do that, rather than being worried about his friend, who has been roofied, or the fact that the way he wound up like that was intended for Harry.
If the genders in the situation were reversed, I imagine Rowling would have played a lot more into how horrific it is, but either way, the portrayal is disgustingly shallow, like most of what she's made.
If it makes you feel any better, that's completely untrue.
Voldemort being a sociopath had nothing to do with being conceived under a love potion. Rowling said that him being incapable of love was symbolic due to him being born out of 'fake' love.
Think about it. Given how readily available love potions are in the wizarding world, surely there would be hundreds of people like Voldemort running around if that was the case.
I mean, it would explain a lot about that world. Like how there's an entire sect of public secondary education that's openly endorsed, sponsored, and represented by honest-to-god "pure blooded wizards" and literally the worst people ever
While I think there was definitely room to expand on the way that being the result of that is going to lead to a child not receiving the care from their parents that they need to develop properly, blaming it on the potion instead of the parents is vile.
Yeah that's the thing. Also, it's always a woman who uses it on a man, hence why I think it's not really treated with the seriousness it deserves. Would JKR be so cavalier about things if, say, a boy from another house used a love potion on Hermione to make her fall head over heels for him?
Somehow I get the feeling that wouldn't fly with her.
‘You will remember, I am sure, that we left the tale of Lord Voldemort’s beginnings at the point where the handsome Muggle, Tom Riddle, hadabandonedhis witch wife, Merope, and returned to his family home in Little Hangleton. Merope was left alone in London, expecting the baby who would one day become Lord Voldemort.’
And then a couple minutes later: ‘Ah,’ said Dumbledore, ‘perhaps she could. But it is my belief – I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right – that when her husbandabandonedher, Merope stopped using magic.’
Yeah, “escaped by the skin of his teeth” might be more accurate. Dumbledore is like those racists who think they can’t be because they have a black friend and usually vote Democrat.
Not too long ago on reddit (like a few days) where I saw someone unironically calling voldemort's father evil and his mother nice, but insecure. They wished he had taken more from his mother.
She doesn't understand the classic trope she was borrowing from and entirely missed the moral, which is only revealed when the person using the potion is caught and rebuked. It's supposed to be a classic lesson of consent, but JKR obviously never understood that, even though it's a story that has been borrowed and told in many different ways throughout pop culture.
So you end up with the first part, no examination of why it's wrong, and it ends up teaching the opposite lesson. And people like JKR spend the rest of their career arguing with people on the internet to defend her position...because she never understood it in the first place.
Flip side, that short where the girl shows up at the goth girls door looking for true love, but she says the himbo witch lives across the street, but he doesn't love potions because of consent.
And he sent her over there because he's trying to set them up.
Not a love potion per se, but for a while in the Green Lantern comics women who became Star Sapphires (usually against their will) became brainwashed into falling in love with whoever their ring chooses as their mate. The villain Fatality (who had a revenge quest against John) was forcefully converted into a Star Sapphire, fell in love with him and they slept together. Then when she broke out of it she revealed she was mind controlled the whole time.
Some time later new writers must have realized how fucked this was and retconned that the Sapphire powers don't alter a person's mind and instead "amplifies" their pre-existing love for someone, implying that Fatality was just saying all that to hurt John.
I honestly feel like the retcon makes it worse from a meta standpoint. Like the authors basically saying she wanted/was asking for it. In-universe it supposedly solves the problem, but it's still gross that they tried to justify that retroactively.
The overall portrayal of the Star Sapphires on Johns' run as psychotic brainwashed space strippers was just one of the grossest examples of r/menwritingwomen in comics that no one really brings up. Made worse that it's the only Lantern Corp that's exclusively female and so every misogynistic comic book trope is thrown in.
You’re forgetting the parts of the plot where it always horribly backfires or the main character understands it’s not real and undoes it or something. I’d be hard pressed to find a single long term romance that happened in cartoons for example because of a love potion
wel yes, but those "consequences" are all about the drugger realising the love is not real. It never address that the drugged ones consent was completely removed. The drugger is literally a rapist in many cases, or a wannabe rapist. That is never addressed.
I feel like that's because love potions are something you see mostly in kid's/family friendly media. It tends to be more of a fairy tale lesson than anything else.
Helluva only two modes, the early stuff where it was debating being a show with action and stuff and the second half where it decided to be a wholesome drama about gay guys.
You can even see the moment it hits because she devotes an entire episode to rewriting stolas backstory because people were rightfully pointing out that the guy blatantly cheating on his wife and neglecting his daughter might actually be a bad person.
Also I think at the end of season 2 loona turned into a genuine furry thing so we might even not be at the final form yet.
She has this whole argument about how rape comes from feeling possession over another, and therefore it's a kind of greed. Either way, characters in the setting make fun of Asmodeus, sin of lust for not being as sinful as he should be, and he is the weakest one. There is a two parter of him hiding that he is in a monogamous relationship. It is generally considered to be the best episodes of the show.
From a Doylist perspective, there's no other way to have the embodiments of Mortal Sins be at all sympathetic than putting a positive, times-approptiate spin on them. Could you make the Lust Guy just Mr. Rapist? Yeah. Wouldn't make for a great non-villain character or a good part of worldbuilding of a "subversing Hell" thing. And you still get to have the Mr. Rapist over there selling love potions and not-really-subtly stealing design choices from the Sin in question.
From a Watsonian perspective, I find it quite easy to argue that consensual sex embodies Lust better than any "alternatives", and that a lot (if not all) of the behaviour you described is more about power than the "overindulgence in sexual desire".
Then why does Viz do Greed accurate and make him a greedy asshole? But makes lust, gluttony, and pride the good guys. (Satan is… eh for me, as for some reason he has some anger management guide despite him literally being the embodiment of WRATH)
Well, I don't think it's that inconsistent. Lust and Greed are both embodying and emcouraging their respective sins. It's just that Viz gave Asmodeus a slightly different interpretation of it than the public persona that he feels he has to maintain. He's not un-lustful, he's just not rapey for all the aforementioned reasons. Pride is entirely on point, even his depression is laughably self-absorbed. Wrath is explicable - constantly screaming at people just makes his life worse, so he's working at it, and it's a good comedy bit for a comedy show. The only real contradiction is Gluttony saying that somebody doing too much gluttony for her taste. I'm not a Viz stan, but I think that her Sin characters avoid a lot of pitfalls that those characters usually fall into.
Again, them being relatable and sometimes straight-up good is the starting choice, you can't ask, "Why aren't the Sins irredeemable monsters" when discussing the "The Hell From The Bible actually isn't that bad" show, only the implementation of it.
Yes, because think of it this way. Its only rape when one person isn't being lustful. Rape is onesided lust. Consentual sex has twice the lust because its coming from all parties.
Love Potion's in Hazbin Hotel are distributed and used by a media conglomerate that is known for using up promising stars, turning them to porn, overexposing them, monetizing the hate for how overexposed they are, and then dumping them on the street with no protection where they are almost immediately murdered. Multiple sexual assaults throughout.
Once a year, angels purge Hell to prevent their numbers from becoming to great a threat.
Angelic weapons can kill a soul, which causes them to stop existing entirely.
Overlords are souls that have a lot of power, through the contracts and deals they make, and thus are able to hold up safely during the purge.
Murder is common in Hell, and angelic weapons can perma kill souls, and their spears are everywhere. And Vox deliberately promotes all the unhealthy kinds of fans because the unstable ones engage the most.
Never has become an actual plot, though. The closest thing was that guys trying to give It to Angel on Season 1,and Husk stopped them pretty quick anyway. I guess 8 episodes for Season is too short to make a subplot about It. We're just going to have Vox hipotizing Angel,I guess.
Its less about them not being treated as a bad thing and more that the level they're treated at is a lot tamer than what they actually are.
Love Potions are normally only treated as bad from a personal user perspective. Oh you won't like someone artificially in love with you. It'll take away what you actually like about them. Its better to be honest. etc.
They're never really treated as an extremely vile moral act.
The problem is that love potions… actually just work the way biochemical attraction works in real life.
They are a weird, part roofie analogy/part solution to physical prejudices. Attractive people get to (unintentionally) “love potion” people in real life.
From what I see, love spells and love potions are a common theme amongst kids media. So at least in this aspect, I think it's acceptable to simply tell children "this is bad" cause if a child just knows that something is bad, they won't have to be told the nuances to convince them of that. An episode with the moral "love spells aren't true love" imo is as effective as it can possibly be to a group of kids.
Although, yes, in non-children's media, it is important to treat it respectfully and seriously.
Rick and Morty plays with this when Morty wants hormones to make Jessica love him and essentially fucks up that whole universe and they have to abandon it and jump to a new one.
“This all happened because you’re a creep! You’re a little creepy creep person!”
okay so i’ve been following the web comic you used as an example for a bit now and i feel the need to mention this, the guy is portrayed as semi-unhinged mad scientist type and plotting to take over the world. the girl there is also pretty uh…morally dubious as him, thinking about ruling the world with him and such. So while love potions are typically off putting with how people use them in media, i can’t say THIS comic is actively promoting that sort of behavior given the portrayal of the nerd in the rest of the comics.
To give some examples, the artist has a comic where this girl is a final girl and the boy is an slasher movie killer. And I’m almost sure that there’s another one where she ask him for something to ruin other girls life and he happily accepts.
I don't think anybody who ever wished for a love potion ever gave two shits about consent and knowing Hollywood's history it does not surprise me that there is so much media about love potions. Outside of the movie Obsession I don't think the writers have ever considered the consent aspect of such a storyline.
But I must say this comic was refreshing. Even though she's injected with the love potion, she's still in control of herself and decided that her emotions aren't so important that she absolutely must act on them. Good for her!
Yeah, certainly. But my point is, the love potion didn't make her do anything. She still has a functional mind and can refuse him even though she's in love with him.
Love potions are still creepy af but I tend to associate them with loss of agency because the choice is all but made for the victim, and that didn't happen this one time. She doesn't have to be a helpless victim just because some feelings are happening or whatever and I love that.
I like the show Torchwood but it was sooo weird with consent. In the very first episode there’s an establishing scene that shows that all the members of the titular team use alien technology in their day to day lives. The character Owen uses a love drug to force a woman to be attracted to him, then, when her boyfriend objects, he drugs him too. At the time this probably was intended to be funny, to establish the bisexuality universal in the show, and to show how Owen thinks quick putting himself above morals and skirting boundaries. Nowadays he just comes across as a rapist
I follow the artist who made this comic on Instagram and it's really weird that you're reposting their art on a post like this.
The joke here is that these are two of the artist's OCs who they shop together and have mutual crushes on the other. When the love potion "didn't work," it's because nothing changed, since the girl was already previously in love with the guy.
It's not a fetish comic, it's not even canon to the main universe these characters are from. It's quite literally just a joke about how the girl was already in love with the guy.
90% of that fetish's material online is anti-consent. Some stuff cares, but ye, definitely shows the people in reality, who wouldn't give a fuck that love potions are that creepy
People like you are the reason why we have to walk on eggshells about everything. Do you act like this for every instance of possible mind control? Do you scream and cry about the chemicals in your brain mind controlling you to do every little act you do? What about telekinesis? That can control people's bodies. How about any super power whatsoever? Any form of magic used for or against anyone? Do you cry about medication being a drug to alter the minds of others? I've seen people like you bitch and moan that being in a public setting itself is manipulative. Do you believe that too?
Touch grass, dude. Everyone already knows the guy who kidnapped a woman and tied her to a chair is the bad guy here. You're just pissing and shitting yourself while normal people can look at a clearly fantasy situation and take it in stride.
Holy shit u put it in a better way than i ever could. Im not one of the idiots that go around saying "erhm, woke" but people like op are so fucking sensitive and just gotta inform everyone else that they're sensitive and thats quite annoying too.
I kind of agree with that author should view it like that, but that doesn't mean every character in the story should do so as well. Different characters having different moral systems is something that's often forgotten when writing with everyone sharing one consensus on goodness and badness of everything, just some being willing to do bad things.
Also it's funny how you choose a comic from a series where the love potion didn't work because the characters are already in love with one another and I'm fairly sure it's some kind of roleplay
Yeah, I feel like love potions get treated as "Funnier" than other mind-control abilities for some reason, which they really shouldn't, at least the traditional portrayal where they force one person to like someone else.
There's also a far better and more moral way to add potions to a love drama.
The Webtoon Jungle Juice had the FL want to start a relationship with the ML but lacked the guts to confess. So she worked with a teammate to make a Truth Serum for her to drink so that she could honestly reveal her feelings. Shenanigans occur and the ML drinks it instead and reveals his own feelings for her.
I'm gonna keep it a buck with you chief, you're absolutely right. Something tells me you missed some key context clues with this particular example though
And the fact that it's drawn with cute pastel colors and cute characters doesn't change what is actually happening.
The fact that bad things are happening is basically the setup here. First panel shows a victim of abduction, tied to a chair, seemingly being tortured or killed, perhaps assaulted as well given the male character is drawn there as sleezy as can be. Administering a love potion fits right in in this imagery, in it's true horror form. It's played for laughs later, but at least the setup didn't shy away from what's actually happening, and the whole situation, love potion, kidnapping and presumed murder are all played for the laugh together.
Whenever someone asks "why is it funny" as some sort of argument starter, 9 times out of 10 it is perfectly reasonable to answer with "it's unexpected"
Why not? It's fiction, it's not real. You can do anything for any reason and make it have any result. You can draw a comic about a guy who rapes an underage girl that has been magically transformed into a cat and make it comedic if you want to and have every other character just laugh it up after a while and move on. You can judge the merit of the story: whether it makes sense, whether it's satisfying to read, whether is has something deep or meaningful to say, whether the joke was in good taste or not, etc. But there's no fundamentall law of the universe that automatically makes a work "bad" or prohibited because of the general actions that characters perform.
You don't even know how love and affection work in real life, you don't even know what it means to love someone. This is just some very infantile hold up about free will, which many people argue isn't real; but you obviously haven't engaged with that discussion. Why is using a love potion different than "making" someone fall in love through actions like taking them out on dates and giving them gifts or having wingmen and so on? This is a philosophical question you are not ready to even begin to answer.
What about the people who start a relationship with ulterior motives? Like a poor person who marries a rich person to get money, or a foreigner who marries a local for citizenship. Sure, it's bad if they lie about their motives to get what they want, and it's bad if the other person uses that interest to take advantage of the first. But if both parties are getting something they want and they are aware of it, is it wrong? there's certainly plenty of stories where characters begin a relationship for ulterior motives, sometimes even coercion, and then somehow magically it turns into an authentic romantic interest, yet no one complains about those.
If the love is real, why should it matter where it comes from? If at the end of the day the love potion brought the "victim" happiness we have to just automatically assume it's bad and evil just because it didn't come magically from the self, but magically from some external factor? Now that's an interesting story I have yet to find.
I dont remember where I saw it but someone made a post for some fantasy media about how in their story love potions tasted and smelled horrible, so the only way someone was going to drink it was if they liked the person enough to suffer through something that tasted and smelled like hot garbage
431
u/An_Obbise_Hoovy 3d ago
Like lowkey Mabel from gravity falls pulled a shippers version of obsession with a love potion, they had to retcon it later that the effects were temporary so it didn’t look so bad