been thinking about this for a while but i think one opportunity that sadly goes to such waste in fiction w stan and kyle’s relationship dynamic is the fact that they’re an interfaith couple. neither of them gets written often as being particularly religious or spiritual as they get older, which i understand, but it also tends to ignore the effect of having grown up religious as a part of their character histories and how it may shape certain aspects of their personalities or worldview as adults. i’ve never read a fic where kyle was consistently practicing and despite thinking him growing up to be relatively secular makes sense i think you could just as easily make the case that he’d have a healthy devotion to his being jewish both in terms of a belief system and as a culture; the basic tenets of judaism are obviously something important to his outlook and within their household. he’s certainly more overtly religious than stan, anyway – who i usually feel similarly to in regards to being secular but i think he would fall squarely in the “i don’t go to church and don’t follow organized religion but i believe in god” or “i don’t believe in god but i believe in something” mentality. but i think it adds a unique layer to their relationship and has a lot of potential for bonding or conflict. when they get married who solemnizes the ceremony? would stan convert to judiasm? if and when they have children how will they be raised? which practices/ holidays/ beliefs of their respective religions are they willing to be flexible w and which are they not?
really religion in general as a motif is severely underutilized which is sad considering it’s such a recurring topic within the show and against the cultural backdrop of south park as a rural american small town which demographically skew towards devoutly christian but i do find it a little disappointing how rarely i’ve come across anything dealing w religion in a meaningful way beyond “my religious parents are homophobic.” anyway i have no other reason to bring this up other than that’s it’s been on my mind for months and that it’s something i have a lot of half-started ideas and plans to explore if i could ever finish anything i start
Something like two weeks MONTHS ago @ericbroflovski asked me how I personally interpreted Kyle’s ~Moral Character~, and I wrote so many words that I figured it was a waste not to clean them up and organize it into a formal meta post. Full credits to gina/sweeticing, whose input helped refine these thoughts, & who I definitely quote at least once down here.
*rolls up my fucking sleeves, cracks open the whiskey and eats some grapes* Okay, who’s ready to get Extremely Pretentious and take South Park WAY too seriously™.Â
1. PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM AND STRUCTURE
So, Kyle is often referred to as an “idealist” in the sense that he believes, ultimately, that humanity is capable of rising above the ugly aspects of its nature and is drawn back to this belief again and again despite being continuously disappointed. But I’d go further than the commonly understood definition and argue that Kyle is a Idealist character in the (boring) Philosophical (jargon) sense of the word as well, which is to say that his default view of the world is actually a lot more on the “spiritual” end of metaphysics than you might expect from a character who often gets pinned as “the logical one”.
🔥 There is beauty in destruction🔥 