@sinistralsatria:

Thank you for the clarification, I feel closer to understanding where you're coming from. The angle that he defaulted to violence because it was the only thing he really new is fairly compelling. Hiveswap gives us a look into what kind of life paths are expected for all the castes, but with our only new seadweller being Trizza it seems the only role for our fishy friends is... Comedically evil rich people lol.

(Not sure why Goosey's post got deleted, but I glanced over it and I nodded at much of what I saw.)

Ultimately I can respect any take that recognizes that Eridan is selfish. It's true that he's lonely and has suffered at the hands of his society but... well that's true of all the trolls and of all incels. Society sucks and everyone suffers for it at least a little. Eridan is one who has suffered somewhat less so.

Killing Feferi was an unacceptable reaction to the circumstances, and his general entitlement towards her is really grody. I'm sure it did come from a place of genuine loneliness - incels don't just wake up and arbitrarily decide to be mean to women after all. A story just doesn't have room to have every kid get an overall sympathetic tilt or a redemption just because they're teenagers. They're ALL teenagers, and they're all on equal footing, and some hypothetical perfect-world version of him is probably capable of turning his act around. But that's not what happened.

The reality is that he kept hitting on all his friends, because friendship was never enough for him. Despite the others being vocally uncomfortable with his advances, he felt that he deserved his quadrants filled above all else. And people with that kind of fixation on romance have always annoyed me, in fiction and in real. When he didn't get what he thought he deserved, he turned to lethal violence - including on the Matriorb which never did shit to him even if we take his entitlement at face value. Because it is an egg.

ALL THAT BEING SAID....

I will probably take my leave from this thread. Unless they add pings and someone pings me with a reply that is really epic and insightful or something. I have already said my favorite parts about Eridan's character and I'm not super interested in finding a deeper enjoyment of him. I'm even less interested on shitting on the picnic of people who already do like him. I'll admit I have a contrarian streak and things like shipping and woobification really get under my skin even in cases where it's harmless. I'm glad fandom in general has accepted into their hearts that they can like a guy that sucks, maybe even BECAUSE he sucks, and that just because they like him doesn't mean he's any less sucks. (After all I clap and cheer when Jack Noir is on my screen)

Have a drawing for the road folks :]