I looked around I didn’t find a similar topic, my apologies if I missed it.
Here are some of the stuff my opinion has changed about over the years.
When I was little, I didn’t really think much about Dal. He was just there, never in the spotlight, never a hero and never the bad guy. Now when I’m older, I’m pretty sure he is one of the most useful Mallrats. He could fix and build things, he knew stuff about medicine, and he wanted to live on a farm and grow his own food. Like, especially the latter, wouldn’t it be the most useful and desired quality in a person? (i still don’t understand why the Mallrats didn’t try growing their own food on the roof. Anything fresh would be so beneficial for them, even herbs. They could turn their beans into sooo many different dishes).
Moreover, he is one of, if not the most rational and grounded Mallrats, never overly emotional, smart, ambitious, kind, and loyal. Who wouldn’t want a friend like that, apocalypse or not?
I used to dislike Danni and her bill of rights but now I kind of feel sorry for her. She feels responsible for what has happened to the world, although obviously it wasn’t her fault, and wants to help rebuild the society, what with her bill of rights. I used to find her going on and on about the bill soo annoying. Now I recognize why the city would need it… Eventually. At that point, I think it was just useless, as crass as it sounds. As (potential) leaders of the city, the Mallrats should focus on figuring out how to get food and clean water for the city, clean the streets, make the city safer… Like, if people don’t know what they will have for dinner, would they really care about a bill of rights? Also, if there had been elections at that point in time and the Mallrats used the bill as their program, I think Danni’s fixation on the bill would be dangerous as the Mallrats could easily lose. Surely another, less well-meaning candidate would recognize what the city really needed at the time? I don’t know why no one pointed this out.
And, of course, Danni’s relationships with Bray. I was a huge Bramber fan, so I pretty much saw Danni as a replacement for Amber and haaaated it. Now I totally get why she liked him: handsome, strong, he listened to her and shared her ideas, encouraged her to pursue them. He made her feel like she mattered. Like she so wasn’t his replacement for Amber. The thing is, though… I don’t think (anymore) that Bray replaced Amber. I feel like Danni was his coping mechanism so that he didn’t need to deal with losing Amber. Plus, he always needed someone to encourage him to lead/to make him feel like a good guy, and Danni provided that for him. I doubt he actually cared that much about her as a person and it makes me sad for her. She deserved better than Bray. I so wish the writers kept her around after s2 and made her realize she didn’t need Bray to achieve her goals.
Finally, Lex. I thought he was just a mean bully who wanted to be in charge all the time. I still think that, but I also believe that his opinion is too often dismissed because of his reputation when he is actually in the right. Like the whole deal with the tribal gathering. He was convinced that it would be a waste of time and dangerous… Which it turned out to be.
I think that his background actually gave him an often overlooked advantage in the postapocalypse: He was street (and people) smart and experienced the ugly side of the world and people before the virus. Someone like Amber or Bray, who likely grew up in safe neighborhoods and in close families, in my opinion were too idealistic and overestimated the other tribes’ willingness to compromise and establish peace in the city; they thought that everyone’s end goal was to get along. Lex, I think, understood that people were still hungry for power and any peace talks were doomed to fail because no one would be willing to relinquish power.