I Get Why Ppl Say That Babel Was Too 'telling Not Showing' With The Cohorts' Friendship; Robin's Internal

i get why ppl say that babel was too 'telling not showing' with the cohorts' friendship; robin's internal monologue says his cohort were all in love with each other, but we mostly get dialogue of them fighting *cough* and letty being racist *cough*. i just think that that was kind of the point!

robin is a great flawed protagonist and most importantly an unreliable narrator, and the disparity between what he tells you and the dialogue scenes we actually get feels intentional to me, because you can feel the disconnect between what robin wanted and his reality. when he was still in love with babel, he wanted their cohort to be a perfect romantic ideal, wanted to think their fights were overcomeable, that ramy and victoire felt the same that he did. but the cracks were there from the beginning; their relationships were always fucked up. the effects of colonialism/imperialism robin wanted so badly to ignore had doomed them from the beginning. babel in ramy or victoire's perspective would be wildly wildly different because it's clear they did not have robin's privilege

i just love that robin is like truly such a damn liberal for half the book, never truly committing to hermes, holding onto his whiteness and desire to belong, and that this flaw is what dooms his relationship with ramy. people celebrate babel for its scathing critique of white feminism, and they should, but it's also so damning of liberal activism too imo. robin as a protagonist exemplifies the way fellow poc will often uphold racist structures for their own benefit and to avoid complicating themselves--and that this will always be a futile selfish endeavour. robin must, like all of us, come to the conclusion that he will never belong while this system remains intact, that his privilege isn't worth the suffering of those alike him, and that resisting it however he can is the only moral and just thing to do. wow i got sidetracked but robin swift wasian character of all time fr