Wings of Love: Ship Opinions

Smunny

"I have a... friend? Former jailor?"

⤜⤏

Since people were making comments about how I never rate anything below 5, have something gross.

Once, I used to ship this.

Once, I didn't know what an age gap was.

I'm not going to majorly hate you if you ship this. I'm just going to... really disapprove. Smolder and Sunny get on surprisingly well, and they'd benefit as close friends, but they are definitely not a romantic ship.

Let's look at age. Smolder was an adult before the War of SandWing Succession started... which was 20 years ago. This makes him older than 20. Sunny, on the other hand, is 7 - barely an adult in Pyrrhian terms. He's old enough to be her father. Pedophilia, even if it isn't outright abusive, is never okay. Even if he's perfectly healthy and respectful to her, he's still an adult in a relationship with a minor. They're on different maturity levels and may desire different things from each other. It would be far too easy for him to take advantage of her and manipulate her, and far harder for her to realise it.

Now, including pedophilia in a story isn't necessarily bad. It can be an excellent way of teaching young readers why it's dangerous. It's when it's not treated like a bad thing - when people take it and make it fluffy, as if it's completely normal for an adult to date someone young enough to be their child - that it becomes a bad thing.

Picture this: a child sees Smolder and Sunny, and doesn't see anything wrong with it because they don't understand why adults and children/adolescents should not date.

Also picture this: a child dates an adult, because they don't understand why adults and children/adolescents should not date.

One thing can very quickly need to another. That's why it's important to understand ships like Smunny are not something we should be encouraging in the fandom. Wings of Fire has a lot of younger readers who may be very susceptible to impressions. If they see older people supporting it, they may think it's okay, or even cool. This could have drastic consequences - it's unlikely, but it's possible.

Also, I really couldn't see this working. I'd much prefer the idea of Smolder marrying Thorn and becoming Sunny's stepfather. There's plenty of room for them to get close and bond that way.

1/10.