Thoughts on Pretty Little Liars and Ezria

I'm not an Ezria Shipper, I watch PLL for the Slash ships.

But I have been someone who was, (before the Ezra as -A mislead) never offended by the relationship.

First of all it annoys me to no end when the word "Pedophile" gets misused.  Pedophile refers to attraction to prepubescent children. It's not a synonym for Statutory Rape.

Statutory Rape laws are needed, but they are perhaps too simplistically written, situations need to be considered on a case by case basis.  For most of human history a relationship between a woman in her late teens and an older man was perfectly normal.  That so many people think it should be condemned now without exception is just ridiculous to me.

I keep hearing "A teacher is a position of authority" and that just reminds me how I hate the modern Pubic School system, because for most of history it was not.  A Teacher used to be an employee, and if the student demonstrated a failure to learn by getting a bad grade, he failed at his job.  There was no authority in the job at all.

Aria did always have the agency in the relationship, and at times she did seem more mature then Ezra.

While they were misleading us to Ezra being -A, the show was kind of at it's best, because Ian Harding made a very entertaining villain.  And the tension with Spencer and Aria was great.  And the Noir Episode was awesomeness.

But I also knew full well that they were gonna back out of it, and when they did they would be stuck in an inescapable corner.  Because I also knew they would certainly try to redeem Ezra.

So many people hate the show trying to Redeem him now.  "Getting shot doesn't take away what he did".  Well to people who invested in that romance for 3.5 years this retcon (that is incompatible with many facts from early on) doesn't take away all of that.

And what Ezra is guilty of is exaggerated, if they'd paid attention they'd know he was not aware of -A the whole time.  The full on surveillance was only going on during season 4.

The book reveal makes no sense with the extremeness of how we saw Ezra behaving, but that's fine, the show is contrived melodrama and that's what I love about it.

I just wish they'd done one thing differently.  Keep Ezra having the past relationship with Ali, and knowing about the other liars from her, and coming to Rosewood for the intent for investigating and writing the Book.  But still have him not know that was Aria at the Bar, still allow that one moment to be just a coincidence.  It would still make him very shady from what happens latter on, but allow enough of the sort of innocence of how their romance started to remain.

Thing I like about the reveal in the season 4 finale of how he and Ali met, which I don't think many others noticed.  Is it parallels the original scene of Ezra and Aria meeting.  Ali does kind of the exact same thing Aria did.

People overlook that Aria didn't know that would be her teacher but certainly did know that was an older guy, and deliberately withheld information that might have discouraged an older man from making out with her in the bathroom.

What I've always liked about Aria is how she is in a strange way the most exactly like Alison of the Liars.  Hanna has her looks, Emily has her Heart (which she usually hides) Spencer has her Brain, but Aria has the same Soul.   Aria is Vivian Darkbloom.