Degrassi: Parents & Children and Shaping Romances

Miles Hollingsworth III is physically and emotionally abused by his parents. His father actively does it, his mother stands aside and allows it. Ignores it, and deprioritizes it based on her wants. This is, all in all, shit. And it pretty much shapes how terrible Miles’s romantic choices are.

(Hunter and Frankie are slightly better, but also really bad? They won’t be at the forefront but Hunter treats all women as worthless until they prove themselves his equal like Arlene and Yael. Frankie’s most stable romance was Esme and Zig and yes I just said that. But the abuse they suffered is different from Miles. So they react differently.)

Each Miles ship, in canon, has some glaring feature as to how it is destined to fail, either due to his partner’s attitudes or his partner’s station. I won’t be going into the second attempt at Zoe (Don’t Turn Back) as that isn’t really romantic in nature. They are friends, who bone, because it’s summer and their parents suck.

Zoe Rivas (Season 13 A)

...This is his most healthy ship of the whole show. Not because it was healthy but the moment Zoe started acting like a crazy possessive stalker he dumped her on the spot. There isn’t much to say here? She’s pretty, Miles is easy, they made out a bunch. Zoe poured a drink on Maya for zero reason (to Miles), and he dumped her on the spot.

Now, Zoe is just as damaged as Miles and this is sorta a key feature to all of this. We knew Zoe was abusive (not to Miles, to others), and controlling (to Miles and others) and generally had to be in control of everything. Because if she lost control she’d realize she’s gay and her mom is evil. And Miles was chill with it so long as it didn’t seem harmful. Making Maya beg like a dog was fine.

Pouring wine on her was too much.

Maya Matlin (Season 13 B-D)

So while Maya isn’t directly abusive either, she is a bit more demanding than Miles could handle at the time. Maya is, at her core, a goodie goodie. Miles isn’t, that’s the bit. Miles tries, Maya’s standards are higher than that, Miles expects to fail any standard, Miles expects this to fail.

Maya’s insane desire to rescue everyone from everything at all times, also, was more than Miles could handle. He tried, so hard, but all of this was him expecting to fail. This is why Zig could just kinda blow up Matlingsworth with a few choice words to Miles. And acting like a sweet innocent horny puppy to Maya. Maya is also dumb and couldn’t do basic math that season on all this.

Maya expected a lot, and Miles pretty much decided, each time ‘that’s too much for me better get drunk, blow things up, and make out with a very naked Zoe Rivas.’

But Maya’s insane desire to rescue everyone from everything is also why Miles got fixated on her in S14 after all this, she’s kinda... you know, the mom he wishes he had.

The short of it is, Maya’s basically Mrs. Hollingsworth. Neglectful and harmful by accident. Wanting Miles to be better but going about it all the wrong ways.

Tristan Milligan (Season 14 A, Next Class 2)

Tristan is abusive, it’s not physical, hell it isn’t even conscious really. Tristan’s own crap about being abandoned, his own crap about his parents constantly fighting, mean that he just cannot accept that any of Miles’s past romances count. Miles is gay, he has to be gay, he can’t be anything else. Because if he’s bi he’s straight and he’ll ride into the sunset with Maya fucking Matlin like every other straight boy ever.

So Tristan lashes out at Miles, and honestly everyone around Miles, to keep Miles to himself. And Miles lets him, like, flat out Miles lets Tristan walk all over him for those scraps of approval he can get. Which is more than Miles gets from his dad, so... grading on a curve.

This is why Tristan forgiving him means more than Tristan actually respecting him. Miles doesn’t feel he deserves respect, and he definitely doesn’t fight for it. Honestly if Tris were to be biphobic directly in Miles’s face he’d probably ignore it too.

If Maya was Mrs. Hollingsworth, Tris is very much Mr. Hollingsworth. Lashing out to cause harm to make himself feel less terrible. Dismissing things and demeaning them because they don’t mesh into his master plan for things.

Esme Song (Next Class 1)

Haha, oh man, Esme. Esme wants to be loved as she is, she wants to be as she is. Because people trying to change her always feels like people trying to control her. And Miles, for his part, did that dance before. Maya held him to her standard, Zoe controlled who was around him, and Tris rejected him if he moved even a step away.

Miles, finally, wanted to be better. This is one of those things I harp on. Miles didn’t get better for Tris, or Zoe, or Maya. At best you could say he got better for Hunter, and Frankie. But really he finally decided to be better for Miles. For himself. And Esme wasn’t there. Esme was still very much where Miles was in S14 desperately wanting anyone to hug him and tell him he matters.

There’s also a weird disconnect between early NC1 Hollingsong and late NC1? Where it shifts from ‘a few pills evens you out’ to ‘you stole some alcohol from the bar and I lost track of you, I thought you were dead, let’s get nachos.’ Where Esme and Miles were a lot closer to codependent and then suddenly it was like a slow motion suicide pact. Still, Esme was abusive because Esme suddenly became okay with them both dying horribly on a bender. Because she wasn’t ready to change.

To round out the previous two, Esme is Miles. A version of him before he was ready to change. One who just wanted to feel better and would chase that into oncoming traffic.

Lola Pacini (Next Class 3)

Everyone else was very much a ‘you look at these two and this is a trainwreck in motion.’ Mola wasn’t that. It was just every other factor around them was ready to blow this up.

Cause secretly dating your sister’s best friend while your boyfriend is in a coma behind the backs of both her friends and your friends is innately stupid.

Miles needed someone to listen to him, Lola needed someone to put her first. It just sorta happened, but they could only get so comfortable because the both of them knew for a fact from the start this would blow up and neither gets to be happy. Because Lola’s damage is that ‘everyone abandons her’ and Miles’s damage is ‘he doesn’t deserve it.’ So of course they make a perfect terrible machine.

They weren’t ready to hurt each other, but oh man were they ready to hurt themselves. Just... through the actions of getting together. 

Lola and Zoe weren’t anyone in Miles’s life, not to the same degree as the other three, just... really bad ideas.

Something Worth Noting...

Every one of these people? Nearly as messed up as Miles. Esme and Maya probably a bit MORE messed up if I’m honest. Each with someone in their past who damaged them to the point they can’t see what they’re doing anymore. Zoe’s mom, Maya’s Cam issues, Tris’s insecurity and Yates, Esme’s mom, and Lola’s mom all helped shape them into someone who both would be drawn to a similarly broken person, and not be equipped to help them either.

maya-matlin replied to your post: I really hate promicide. Its just a dumb episode.... I don’t blame you for hating Promicide. It’s one of my least favorite, too, from the early seasons. What I really hate is how writers will have their characters go through a rough time and then there’s a way they can realistically write them flipping out but instead it feels forced and like an exaggerated version of their worst selves. That’s how Pacey was at the end of season 4 for me. Same with Zig in NC season 2, but that’s another thing. PJ being endgame was justice.

Exactly, but with Pacey, I genuinely feel like the writers were more focused on just breaking pjo up by that episode than actually addressing Pacey’s own issues because they essentially had him blame Joey for the way he felt about himself BUT Pacey has felt that way about himself since season 1. And its never been Joey’s fault, it has always been addressed that his father and brother put him down a lot so I just don’t see Pacey, who respects Joey to the highest of levels blaming her for the way he feels about himself. A part of me gets it because anyone would feel insecure if their significant other was going to an ivy league school and you were doing so poorly they won’t even sell you tickets to the prom but again knowing Pacey’s character I just don’t get how that landed on Joey in the end. But again I chalk it up to them also wanting to end pjo at that point which adds up to in s5 them acting like they didn’t have this intense relationship just a few months ago. lol yeah Zig is another mess of writing. But I also think some degrassi character are sorta just stereotypes of high schoolers rather then fleshed out and layered the way Dawson’s Creek characters are. The writing is night and day between the two shows, minus a few characters like Zoe, Miles and Maya who were really well written for the most part. But I feel like Zig was just suppose to be the “bad boy hottie/bully” because they never did more with him and they could have they just didn’t bother, so he was left as a stereotype of a character who we never dove into his real issues and fixed them. As apposed to Zoe who was arguably also a bully at times in her degrassi ark but we learned about her she developed over time into this really great character and also grew out of bad habits, where characters like Zig and so many others are sorta left being the same every season almost.