#she's not some *javert* she's a scrappy feral gremlin who's

[bestworstcase]

I find your thoughts on how the Captain raised Cassandra interesting. I don’t think he’s a bad parent, but he did pass on some traits to Cassandra that are unhealthy. One particular trait being her low opinion on criminals “It’s hard to make decisions when your only friends are convicts and losers.” This black and white mindset is definitely from Cap. Yet Rapunzel isn’t guiltless. She lacks the mindset to truly understand criminals. As shown by her failures to empathize with Varian and Eugene.

oh tbh i don't agree that cass has any particular aversion to crime or people who commit crimes, as a matter of principle, like, the only instances we get of her being disparaging about crime are:

1) dunking on eugene at the beginning of fitzherbert pi, wherein she does call him a "two-bit hood" but taken in context what she's implying is—well the whole exchange goes like this:

CASS: Listen, Raps, if you're trying to find your defining activity, don't listen to this dud, whose whole work history is being a two-bit hood— EUGENE: Oho! 'Two-bit hood?!' Hold the pastry—I'll have you know, Cassandra, Flynn Rider was a legend. CASS: Heh. Key word being 'was.' And... what is it you do now?

the actual sting here is "and what is it you do now?"—i.e. this is cassandra mocking eugene for being lazy, and in constructing THAT insult she actually compares eugene unfavorably to his flynn rider persona. cass obv isn't impressed by the flynn rider legacy, but she's even less impressed by eugene's current laziness and lack of direction. that's what really makes him a "dud" in her eyes.

[see also: cassandra vs eugene, wherein even when cass is fuming at him she rants about his present behavior—his selfishness, arrogance, inconsiderate nature, and laziness—and doesn't so much as mention his criminal past.]

2) suspecting that lance has ulterior motives in return of strongbow, but... lance is:

a) an unrepentant, boastful thief, who b) just got out of prison and c) blatantly tries to pocket valuables right in front of cass, after d) showing up out of the blue to "reconnect" with his old partner-in-crime.

so yeah, cass doesn't trust lance as far as she can throw him, under those circumstances. neither does eugene. &—similar to how cass focuses on eugene's present attitude rather than his past reputation—her suspicion of lance is grounded in her observations of how lance is acting right now.

but once lance decides to turn over a new leaf and stick around? there's zero tension between him and cass. she doesn't continue holding onto these suspicions after lance changes how he acts.

and

3) the "It's hard making decisions when the only friends and advisors you have left are ex-convicts and losers" line which... i think does need to be taken into context as something cass says in the same episode where she kidnaps varian and calls him a loser because he failed to murder her two years prior? cassandra in CR is deeply entrenched in a mindset that rapunzel and corona both suck and varian is a pathetic coward for reconciling with her and anyone willing to align themselves with coronan law is her enemy—so her sneering about ex-convicts mere hours before she starts attacking and kidnapping and drugging and attempting to murder people really seems like it's the EX part that she's disgusted by, in her current frame of mind.

& on the flip side, well, consider the following:

1. cassandra herself is a criminal. like, she commits treason. in before ever after. sneaking rapunzel outside the city in the middle of the night and almost getting the princess killed, when the king gave specific orders that rapunzel was to stay within the walls? treason. that's why cass is so terrified of the secret getting out!!

2. cass never once expresses reservations about the pub thugs, who according to the film are specifically violent criminals. nor does she have any issue consorting with the, at the very least morally somewhat grimy types the challenge of the brave attracts.

3. speaking of the pub thugs, cass takes it for granted that attila is guilty of the crimes he's been accused of but readily supports rapunzel's quest to clear his name regardless. also just... look at how gleeful she is about the damage done to monty's shop:

"yeah! our friend sure did wreck this place! :D" jkghsdkf

3. the one time we see her do investigative work on her own, she does head for the snuggly duckling to ask questions—which is logical, bc the pub thugs are literal bandits with whom she has some personal rapport, and in a weird missing people situation with zero real leads, talking to friendly acquaintances who are basically decent but have spotty legal histories and bad reputations is a good first step; criminals gossip too, and one of them might well have heard rumors about kidnappings—but the instant she hears that one of their own is also missing she immediately includes the missing bandit as one of the victims she's trying to find.

what she doesn't do is shrug of ulf's disappearance as unimportant (bc he's just some criminal who cares) or probably irrelevant (bc banditry gets people killed all the time) or anything similarly dismissive the way someone who had a genuine bias in this regard might. like, just compare the way cass interacts with the pub thugs in PB to the way cap interacts with them in ruthless ruth, how at ease she is around them vs how uncomfortable and disparaging he is.

4. she's horrified when she learns that her dad has been acting as frederic's secret police, demands that he answer rapunzel's questions, and later tells him that he disappointed her—which is absolutely not indicative of the kind of law-above-all mindset you need to believe that criminals are intrinsically bad people or worth less than law-abiding folk.

5. in goodbye and goodwill, cass incites a street brawl for fun and then boasts to the sheriff that she injured twenty-three people. her idea of a good time includes things like a piranha dunk tank and a human piñata!

gkjhsl all of which is to say that—despite cassandra's aspirations of joining the guard—she's not particularly lawful, nor does she seem to harbor any serious prejudices against people who break the law; she herself enjoys violence, revels in destruction, and glibly flouts direct orders from the king when she thinks she can get away with it; and that's all BEFORE her villain arc. and, sure, she nominally cares about upholding the law—while people are watching, when her dad in particular is watching, or when she's actively performing duties for the royal guard—but... that's not the same as being prejudiced against people with criminal pasts or even just people she perceives as criminals. and like it bears repeating that cassandra's establishing character moment involves her committing treason, lmao.

[rapunzel is interesting in this regard bc she is far more trusting than cassandra—in that she uncritically trusts anyone who seems vaguely nice—but i think she also has a far more black and white perspective on morality than cassandra does. she's invested in Redeeming Criminals because they're Doing Wrong and Helping Them Is The Right Thing To Do but then we also see with like, lady caine and the separatists and even the baron that she isn't particularly interested in really engaging with the factors that cause people to break the law and her approach to redemption amounts mostly to 'offer second chance, then lock them up if they seem unrepentant or unwilling to immediately and completely reform'; even with her much more determined effort to get through to cass the most rapunzel ever did was say 'stop doing these bad things' until it finally worked.]

#cassandra said 'be gay do crimes' in the frickin' pilot episode #she's not some *javert* she's a scrappy feral gremlin who's #barely restrained by the fact that her dad is a cop