Glee's Manipulation Manifestations (Dark Theories)

Hello, Fanaticals! Today we are going to go into Glee moments that held a lot of manipulation. While Glee is a family-friendly show, there were still a lot of darker and adult theme throughout.

However, I have seen arguments online that have theories about some moments of manipulation being justifiable. One of those I absolutely disagree with, and we are going to go into that later.

TRIGGER WARNINGS for today: we will be discussing Teri’s fake pregnancy. This is a MAJOR WARNING as that whole situation can be very understandably triggery to people who struggle with pregnancy and fertility. It will be the last thing disucussed, so feel free to read the rest if you wish. Other triggery things will come in the form of relationship talk in relation to potential Domestic Violence situations. Please be aware for your own mental health.

Blaine's Co-Dependancy

I won’t lie, I was a bit shocked to read this but after thinking about it I can see where the theory comes from that Blaine was co-dependant on Kurt; and I can understand where it manifested from.

There is a lot of agreement that Seasons 2 and 3 “Klaine” was actually very healthy and the type of relationship you would just sit and happily watch. While some might want to say they are in the “honeymoon stage” I have personally always felt that no matter what difficulties you face, the entire relationship should always be in that “stage” in some sort of way. I’ve spoken to couples who have been together 50 years or so and they are very much “in the honeymoon stage”. Kurt and Blaine were very good together at first, little to no issues and when there was they had very good communication, always happy with each other and just the love was clearly there.

However, there are small tale signs along the way where you see little blips of his personality coming out but you don’t really see it much until Season 4, and some people will connect the dots back to the “oh, I should have seen this coming moment”. One of those things, is his insecurity.

Back when Kurt transfers over to Dalton and becomes a Warbler, he “helps” Blaine try to woo the guy that he thinks he’s in love with only to have the guy dress him down for getting him fired as they did a little flash mob in his work while he was on clock. Now, I can’t disagree and say that he has no right to be mad. He was on clock, Blaine clearly knew it, and the consequence of Blaine doing that was the guy got fired. You can’t be mad at a guy for that honestly.

But as the seasons go on, we see his insecurity come out and it comes out rather quickly. Despite the two of them breaking up, and getting back together, Kurt ignored Blaine’s calls a lot. Grant it we may not know exactly how often they were going ignored, and we do also have to admit that he was trying to start a new life at the time. This is where people come with a lot of issues of Blaine cheating on Kurt. Personally, I think there were issues both ways.

By this point, we have the feel of Kurt gaslighting Blaine as much as we feel Blaine’s insecurity and the feel of him being a bit clingy. The relationship just was not healthy anymore. However, Kurt also chose not to actually let Blaine go completely, he continued to keep him hanging on and that caused him to become codependent on Kurt which was a bit of a manipulation in and of itself.

I don’t think any of this manipulation can be justified, but some of the reactions from it CAN be justified.

Quinn's Tears

Now this is a much more common manipulation in life, unfortunately. Normally you will see it in what most people will call “spoiled brats” which happens a lot in younger children (but CAN continue into teenage years) by parents who spoil them a lot. You will see it written VERY WELL in a lot of “Wrong Boy Who Lived” fanfictions where Harry has a twin who is spoiled. I know wrong fandom currently, but it is a really, REALLY good example. However with Quinn, it may have actually been due to opposite reasons.

From what we get about her father, he is very cold and unfeeling which makes us feel like Quinn would have had to use the tears as a way to get his attention, more than getting what she wants. However, eventually turned into getting what she wants when seeking attention was involved. How many times did she turn her tears onto Finn in order to get him to shun Rachael? Which, why would she do that other than the fact that she was jealous of her which is an undertone that we see a lot.

It’s truly not often that we see her cry when people are not around, and there are times when she does that people are around that if something happens she immediately shuts it off. You only see her cry in frount of people when she’s trying to get sympathy or someone says she’s unfeeling, but the one time she loses it in her car when you feel like the tears are actually REAL, the second Terri gets in the car she turns it right off.

Another example is when she told Finn she was pregnant she was sobbing, but when she was talking to Puck about it she didn’t shed a single tear because she wasn’t looking for sympathy or pity from him.

This could possibly come due to having to do this with her father who was clearly a cold and unfeeling man towards her so she learned to cry on demand with him, and it just sort of followed her through her daily life when she realized that it could help her get what she wanted.

Is her manipulations justified? To an extent. If she had left it strictly to her father when she needed his attention, yes I could see it being MILDLY justifiable as he seems to not have a lot of feelings of love towards her but will clearly pay attention and talk to her if she’s crying. In general? It’s absolutely not justifiable at all because it shows that she KNOWS she can get people to pay her attention and do what she wants and it’s quite possible that this is the reason we never see her in a solid relationship.

Nazi Hunting

She’s parents are best known for being completely absent except for all of two times because they are supposedly famous Nazi Hunters. The reasoning they were absent is because they chose to leave to chase them. However, she also tells Sue in one episode that they left due to all of her acting out that she did and they got sick of it.

What we aren’t fully aware of at the time of this conversation is that when Sue and her her sister Jeanne were younger their parents wanted to have Jeanne committed. Why? Because back then it wasn’t uncommon to have a child committed when they had Down Syndrome, as they didn’t really have a name for it back then.

Sue fought her parents to keep her sister at home where she belonged. And while she won the fight, it then caused for them to keep her home at all times. Sue began to act out in what was probably a hope to get her parents to leave them permanently which they did, and she then raised her sister.

The acting out she does as an adult is probably left over from the ingrain reaction to do it at every little thing. Because we take notice when she doesn’t yell at Becky for doing it; Becky who reminds her of her sister.

So while her acting out as a child was semi-justifiable as a way to protect her sister, I honestly believe that some good therapy

Fake Pregnancy

I want to give one last trigger warning before I get into this, as I know infertility and fake pregnancy can be a huge trigger for some people.

So, this is a hot button issue in general but some of the threads I saw online regarding it is why I am jumping on it today with this post. Obviously, I am a firm believer that everyone has their right to their own opinions but certain issues I feel there is very much a right and wrong and some of the defense over Teri in this situation are very, very wrong to me.

Faking a pregnancy, especially in lieu of finding out you are having a hysterical one just so you can adopt someone else’s baby is wrong. Prior to this, Teri had already been showing signs of red flags with her gaslighting and lovebombing that she does to Will. No matter how you look at it, this was a very toxic marriage.

I have seen online some people defending Teri in this saying that she did it because she knew she was losing Will and was trying to save her marriage. Still unacceptable in my eyes regardless. This was a form of baby trapping which is HIGHLY manipulative. The way she went about it, my heart broke for any woman who struggles with pregnancy and sat through that whole storyline as it unfolded.

As I said, even prior to this we see how manipulative Teri was in general. And while she didn’t improve MUCH, she did admit that she had been seeing a therapist and I truly hope that they helped her see how wrong her actions in that whole situation were.

Justifiable? Not even close. There is nothing I could ever justify and that people claim it’s okay because she was trying to keep her marriage honestly would be someone I would worry about. However, that’s just me.

What do you think? Are any of these justifiable to you? Were they maybe justifiable at one point but that point went too far? Come join our community and tell us what you think. Until tomorrow, Fanaticals, keep on theorizing!