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swiftlythebest · 4 years

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In Defense of Lake Meriwether

All right, strap in folks, we’re discussing an unpopular opinion! Lake Meriwether is not a bad character and she goes through some realistic growth. Additionally, she and Felix are shown good development and I ship it. Yikes, lots of unpopular opinions in so few sentences.

Sidenote before I delve into everything: there is certainly a danger in media made for children and young adults being looked at through the lens of someone not in that target audience. I am 26, meaning the way I’m going to consume media differs from that of a teenager, especially considering that we’re apparently in different generations (which is weird, but that’s a whole other story). All of that is to say that I am an adult talking about a piece of media made for teenagers by older adults. It’s complicated, and I am in no way claiming that what I have to say is universally correct.

This whole whatever it is ended up being really long, so I’ll put it under a cut. Also, I know a lot of people probably won’t want to read it.

Sense of Identity

First of all, let’s keep in mind that Lake is 15/16. I have no idea how old people reading this post are, but if you’re older than 16, and out of high school, try to remember how you were at that age. Your brain hasn’t fully developed and much of your sense of self comes from interactions with your family and peers, not so much the world at large. That’s certainly altered by the widespread reach of social media, but someone that age is still navigating identity and their place in the world with limited experience. We can’t expect a girl who has grown up in a privileged bubble to be a bastion of morality. We can’t hold her to the same standard we would a full-fledged adult. She acts like a typical 15/16 year old who is insecure and trying to hide it while living in the shadow of her best friend.

And hey, it’s true, Lake is primarily known as Mia’s best friend. Mia is described by Felix as the hottest girl in their grade and loved by everyone. Mia has the affection of the cute new boy, as well as the popular jock that Lake initially likes. I’m glad they don’t fall into the trap of making that friendship toxic and unbalanced, which is so often the case. I think within their friendship, they are very much equals who love and value each other. But to the public, Mia is more liked than Lake, and she is definitely at least somewhat aware of that. Lake is not Summer Roberts or Lydia Martin in the sense that she is not viewed as a highly desired person in the same way those other two characters are; she is viewed that way by the nerdy love interest, but not the student population as a whole. There are definitely parallels to be made with Summer and Lydia (Summer especially when you consider the intense similarities between Lake’s speech about public couples being scrutinized and Summer’s incredibly similar speech to Seth in Season 1), but that’s not one of them.

Lake’s mom sucks. It’s clear that Lake has grown up in a household where her every move was judged and she was made to see more flaws in herself than she had. Think about how that must have affected her psyche and pressured her into believing that who she was to the public was what truly mattered. That’s ingrained in her. We see that almost immediately with her being obsessed with Creek Secrets and trying to make herself more appealing to Andrew at the party. I’m not sure she knows who she actually is, just who she’s been molded to be. She wants approval and in the beginning, it’s clear she really only gets that from Mia and Felix, albeit, the latter is from afar.

Importance of Friendship

Once she and Mia begin to hang out with Victor and Felix, she begins to shift. We do see it even before when she confronts Andrew at the Battle of the Bands, showing us that she at least in some way knows her worth, but I’m not sure how much at that point. Victor and Felix add a new dynamic to her friendship with Mia and give her more people to genuinely think she’s great and make that known to her. While she’s still clearly insecure, we can see that start to chip away. When she impresses them with her excuses, something she’s likely only done to Mia so far, you can see how their approval makes her light up. And Felix’s compliment is quite possibly the first step towards her developing feelings for him.

DJ F Bomb on the Track

So we’ve now arrived to the Felix of it all. I want to say that I absolutely love Felix. I think he’s funny and sweet and a great friend; he was my favorite right off the bat and that opinion was only reinforced as the series progressed. Our first introduction to Felix is outside of whatever image he has at school and with his peers. We are told about his status as an outcast by him a few scenes after we’ve gotten to know him, so we already have formed our opinion of him beyond his public image. We know he’s quirky and anxious, but it comes across as endearing; the audience doesn’t know that his unique personality is not the main thing working against him. To Lake, and a vast majority of his peers, he’s Lonestone, an awkward and weird boy who doesn’t fit in and has a truly unfortunate nickname and reputation. We don’t have five years of taunting to affect how we view him. The audience view of Felix versus his peers’ view is important to distinguish when talking about why Lake is so hesitant.

Felix initially comes on too strong. He recognizes that in Episode 7 and, with the help of Pilar, he learns to back off a bit. The angler fish speech is sweet, but was I the only one a little put off by how obsessive it sounded? He’s saying someone should sacrifice everything for the one they love, which is a lovely sentiment in a fairytale, but a bit much when you’re 16. His growth isn’t as explicit as hers, but he still does have to soften his approach in order to really make it work. And I want to be clear that while Felix is definitely a better person than Lake, I’d caution to say he’s a better character, in the sense of complexity and growth. I like him more, as I think pretty much everyone does, but Lake is a layered character with logical development, which shouldn’t be overlooked because you may not like her as a person.

It’s supposed to be Felix for her. We as an audience, as well as Felix, know it when she says the same thing he said about DJs in episode 3. She catches on a couple of episodes later after they steal the cake, but she’s clearly in denial. Lake likes Felix. And she seems to like him more and more as the season progresses. But he doesn’t fit into that perfect image she has spent so long cultivating and trying to maintain, so she’s having to come to terms with that throughout their relationship. When she shoots him down for the dance after seeing his apartment, you know she doesn’t want to. It’s clearly killing her to say it, but she’s not there yet. And Felix knows his worth so he ends it, which also clearly kills her.

She told him upfront that no one could know, and she repeats it a lot. He can walk away if he’s not comfortable with that, and we do see him almost do that in episode 8, until she tells Mia. He’s right to want to revisit that part of their relationship around the dance, and especially after baring his soul to her at his apartment. He’s right to break it off when, after such an emotional afternoon for them, she still won’t be seen with him. He’s right to accept an invitation from another girl. His reaction is completely valid.

She doesn’t expect to be jealous at the dance because she thinks it’s the natural progression of things. Kieran is the kind of boy she always saw herself with: a popular jock. And then he’s boring. He talks about working out and fantasy football and it’s boring. She can’t be herself with him. Then there’s Felix, at the dance with another girl who seems to make much more sense paired with him. He’s wearing a goofy ruffled shirt and joking about the smell of his hair and telling Lake he just wants her to be happy. I think she needed to see that what she thought she wanted she actually didn’t, and also that the boy she liked genuinely cared about her as a person, not just an object of desire. He makes her happy, something I’m not sure she had fully admitted to herself until that moment. And yeah, the big public declaration of love is a huge cliche and overdone and all that, but it works so very well in visual media.

Conclusion?

Look, all of this mess is to say that Lake is not a bad person, nor is she a bad character. We all latched onto Felix pretty quickly, so naturally, our standards for him were going to be sky-high. But in a show of tropes, this relationship was obvious from the start. Lake felt authentic, like a scared teenage girl navigating her self-esteem, public image, overbearing mother, and falling for someone unexpected all at the same time. She grows and develops, learning to go for what truly makes her happy, not what she thinks should make her happy.

TL;DR: Lake is a complex, realistic portrayal of an insecure teenage girl with an overbearing mother, who spends a lot of time in her best friend’s shadow. She’s in denial of her true feelings for Felix for a while, going so far as to sabotage something she knows is good and right in order to continue to feel secure. By the last episode, she has grown and learned enough to understand her own autonomy when it comes to her happiness. We should all cut her a little bit of slack and let the immature 16-year-old be immature and 16, while learning how to be just a bit more mature.

#love victor #lake love victor #lake meriwether #felix/lake #felix weston #felix westen #long post #i have opinions and you're all welcome to ignore them #love victor spoilers

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