fyeahcontroversialcharacters:

Whiny, annoying, narcissistic, spoilt brat, drama queen, shoplifts – I’ve put all these together because they are all interlinked. Marissa had to go through her parents divorcing, her first boyfriend constantly cheating on her including with one of her best friends, a mother who frequently let her down, a father who was a criminal and had her little sister sent away. That’s a lot for a teenager to handle. You could argue Ryan had it worse, but because he was more equipped to handle tough experiences than her. Marissa didn’t always handle everything that happened well, but that doesn’t make her bad

treats Ryan horribly even though he does nothing but look out for her – There were times she let Ryan down, but there was also plenty of times she was loving towards him, stuck up for him when no one else would, not to mention she SAVED HIS LIFE

repeatedly puts her life in danger and expects her friends to save her – Her life was in danger on 4 occasions. The first was when she overdosed. That was a breakdown and its kind of cruel to use a breakdown as a reason to dislike someone. The second was when Oliver kidnapped her. That was her trying to be kind to someone and not realizing they were dangerous. The third is when Trey attacked her and Ryan. How is that her fault? The fourth is when Volchok crashed his car and killed her. She was the victim in that and was not intentionally putting herself in danger.

chases after dangerous men – She doesn’t chase after them so much as have poor judgment at spotting dangerous men which a lot of teenage girls do.

ruins the lives of everyone around her – I can’t think of anybody’s life that was ruined by Marissa (actually I can’t think of anybody’s life that was ruined on the show at all). Marissa let people down sometimes, but she could be very kind like being one of the few people that didn’t judge Ryan, sticking up for Dawn when she got drunk at the party, trying to comfort Johnny after his heart was broken and forgiving her mother and Luke for their betrayals (eventually)

bad friend to Summer, bad older sister to Kaitlin – I can’t think of any examples of her being bad to either of them

One of the things I liked about the OC was that the characters were so flawed. Marissa was just like the rest of them in that respect, but her heart was usually in the right place.