#i was going to wait to proofread this again after sleeping but its fiiiineee

[no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist]

Juliette, the Girlboss Trope, and Structural Change

From what I’ve observed, stories with “girlboss” protagonists tend to be less likely to critique existing power structures and end up focusing more on slightly tweaking surface level aspects of them to allow the protagonist to prove themselves within the context of the existing system. To me, this is extremely interesting within the context of These Violent Delights because Juliette is arguably initially set up to fulfill this archetype. Because she is a girl, her claim to the status of heir is questioned by those around her more than it would be otherwise. She feels more pressure to be ruthless and to do whatever she can to earn the respect of those around her. Toward the very beginning of These Violent Delights, she threatens to kill Tyler when he attempts to upstage her, saying that she will kill him before she lets him take her heirdom away from her. Without knowing that These Violent Delights is a Romeo and Juliet retelling, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect Juliette to become the leader of the Scarlet Gang and somehow fix things from the inside at the end. She is well set up to be the Strong Female Protagonist ™ who takes what is owed to her and is hardened and kickass and ruthless and doesn’t let interfering men get in her way. 

But importantly, regardless of how much Juliette initially knows it, this is a facade. The image of the hardened ruthless heir may be one that Juliette encourages, but it is a heavily distorted reflection of who she truly is. Because at her very core, though she was raised to be the heir of the Scarlet Gang and therefore should be the literal personification of the continuation of the blood feud, that is not who Juliette is. Throughout the duology, her main motivation is protecting those she loves. At first, she believes that she can do this by working within the existing system. She tries to legitimize herself as heir within the existing power structure of the Scarlet Gang. However, the Scarlet Gang Juliette is set to inherit is one built upon a foundation of fractures that legitimizes its existence through the perpetuation of the blood feud to the extent that to solve the blood feud, or even seek to calm it, would be a violation of its very nature. The Scarlet Gang could never accept a leader that sought to do this, nor could the White Flowers, who equally rely on the blood feud as a source of power, accept the figurehead of their rival gang as an ally. To do so would be a fundamental betrayal of the nature of these two groups. Thus, Juliette must choose between legitimizing her position as heir, bringing more suffering upon the people and city she loves in the process, and giving up her position as heir and forfeiting her power. 

But if Juliette forfeits her power, who does she forfeit her power to? After all, if she merely walks away, the blood feud will still exist. The refusal of one person to fall in line cannot topple an entire system. The answer comes back to Tyler who, unlike Juliette, truly is meant to represent the continuation of the blood feud. He feels the need for vengeance and hatred at his core, and is constantly suspicious of Juliette, recognizing her lack of loyalty though it is incomprehensible to him. Ultimately, there was never room enough for both of them. When Juliette threatened his life in These Violent Delights, she did so out of fear of him usurping her place. Little did she know, he already had. In representing the longevity of the blood feud, Tyler, not Juliette represents the longevity of the Scarlet Gang. While she was the heir in name, he embodied the very lifeforce of the gang. In a way, he almost represents the Juliette that could have been. And that is precisely why Juliette had to kill him.

Though Tyler’s death is foreshadowed by Juliette’s initial threat in the first book, when she shoots him in Our Violent Ends, it is not the callous, unfeeling kill of an heir pushing aside the final obstacle before claiming their rightful place at the top. Instead, it is Juliette’s final severance from the vicious cycle of the blood feud and the illusion of her status as heir. She recognizes that the power she would wield as the future leader, or even the true heir, of the Scarlet Gang stakes its legitimacy in the continuation of the blood feud, and therefore, she would lose legitimacy as a leader if she were to act against the blood feud. This is further demonstrated when Lord Cai tells her that she can choose between dying a White Flower and being heir following his discovery of her relationship with Roma, representing her direct defiance of the blood feud, and her murder of Tyler, representing her sabotage of the longevity of the blood feud and her rejection of her status as heir.

By this point, Juliette has established that she cannot live as a part of the blood feud. She put a bullet through its heart, firing on her own kin to do so. Because the blood feud has no future, she can no longer pretend to occupy the role of heir. But at the same time, in killing Tyler, she has rejected her place within the blood feud. She cannot die a Scarlet, and she cannot die a White Flower because she refuses to be either. In the end, it is not her and Roma’s apparent deaths that aid the end of the blood feud. Instead, it is their rejection of its perpetuation through their rejection of their statuses as heirs. Their continued survival after their apparent death and the birth of their daughter stands in direct defiance to the division brought on by the blood feud. Though, as is further explored in Foul Lady Fortune, this division is still very present, Roma and Juliette’s continued survival both acknowledges that the kind of change required cannot be brought about by the efforts of one titular protagonist, no matter how world ending their sacrifice, and gives hope for a better future. Unlike the girlboss protagonist, Juliette rejects the status quo and achieves her goals by rejecting power. Instead of seeking to be the figurehead of change, which would also be extremely ahistorical, she does her part and steps back, acknowledging that as a singular person, she does not and should not have the power to fix everything. In the end, she watches from the outskirts of Shanghai, and though she is doomed to forfeit her place within her home to protect the people she loves, she is safe enough to live with her husband and raise her daughter and use her remaining connections to do what she can. Because in the end, one person cannot fix everything, no matter how powerful they are. And the spark of hope represented by Juliette and Roma’s continued survival and the birth of their daughter as well as the protection offered by their weapons ring is enough. 

#disclaimer: i am not necessarily saying that that any of this is correct and true i just sort of went into a trance and wrote this #also i didn't even touch on juliette grieving for tyler and the contrast that was drawn between them there #i might revisit this and talk more about how structural change is approached throughout chloe gong's work #and/or maybe how this is continued within foul lady fortune #or maybe the difference between the girlboss trope and the morally gray thing #hopefully this is coherent #if someone wants to add onto this please do i love overanalyzing things #i was going to wait to proofread this again after sleeping but its fiiiineee #chloe gong #secret shanghai #these violent delights #tvd #our violent ends #ove #last violent call #lvc #a foul thing #aft #juliette cai #roma montagov #juliette x roma #romajuliette #mai #katherina montagova #tyler cai