#to be clear. i love both markhelly and markgemma. I'm here for all of it

[cloudprincesslady]

running off into the sunset but you're rats trapped in a maze and it's worth it anyway for ten more seconds holding her hand...

[kestrel-of-herran]

I get what you’re saying in response to the markgemma anon, but I can’t help but wonder if the reason these people exist in spades isn’t because other people are stupid/lack media literacy, but because of a flaw in the show’s writing. My question here is this: if Markhelly is endgame, and Helly is the main character alongside Mark, why didn’t Helly/Helena get more screentime or arc(s) of her/their own? You are clearly a very thoughtful Severance fan and good at understanding the characters, so this question is a sincere one that I feel like most Markhelly diehards avoid responding to or addressing. And I’m not asking this from a perspective of shipping anything else, to be clear. My issue is that Helly/Helena’s whole arc in S2 was about Mark, and Helena got almost no screentime beyond when she was pretending to be Helly. The writers claim that Mark and Helly are the main characters, but Helly isn’t being given the interiority Mark is. Gemma isn’t either, obviously, but I think it’s overly generous to the writers to say that Helly is a main character just because they claim she is. She certainly hasn’t been given the interiority OR screentime that a true co-lead would have. Kim Wexler she is not, even though I wish she was :/

I ask this because I felt underwhelmed with Helly’s presence in S2, and as sweet and romantic as Markhelly’s S2 arc was, I am really going to need more of her in S3. And I worry that this desire isn’t shared among other Helly/Helana fans who, because of their love for Markhelly, are already content with her role in the story, and have no concerns about whether she was given the requisite screentime or individual attention she deserves and that she NEEDS in order to truly be a co-lead.

first off, i'm sorry you felt underwhelmed by hellyna's story this season, this totally wasn't the case for me. i'll try to break down your questions because there's a lot to address.

if Markhelly is endgame, and Helly is the main character alongside Mark, why didn’t Helly/Helena get more screentime or arc(s) of her/their own?

starting from season one, helly has an overwhelming presence in the story. we can split the season in two arcs based off her and mark, because they move simultaneously, which is also the point. first half: helly tries to escape the severed floor while mark fights the idea of rebellion. second half: helly channels her desire for escape into devising a plan while mark gets radicalized by the you you are and his growing admiration for her. she's the one who leads the mdr team once they're all ready to defy lumon. it's her inability to withstand life on the severed floor that infects everyone into revolting, though they are helped along the way by catalysts of their own (i.e., irving losing burt).

throughout this time, mark scout drinks himself senseless, stalls engaging with petey's warnings about lumon, and fucks up his romance with alexa. mark s is the one heavy-lifting the character development here.

My issue is that Helly/Helena’s whole arc in S2 was about Mark, and Helena got almost no screentime beyond when she was pretending to be Helly.

in season two, we get helena, because we haven't had helena up to now, and we need to begin to develop her. the keyword here is begin: she was withheld as a character in s1 for a reason, her backstory is withheld in s2 for a reason (and so, hopefully, is gemma's, as we need to know more about her too). hellyna's arc here is twofold, as is mark's. hellyna has an emotional arc regarding her feelings towards mark, and a plot arc regarding her feelings towards herself as both of her learn more about each other and she begins to emulate behaviors from her other personality (helena acting as helly in zufu, helly channeling helena in her face-off with milchick). at the start of the season, her selves seem diametrically opposed, but by the end helly is able to say she is helena, based both on her responses to helena's trauma and most characters failing to differentiate between helena and helly. that's not an arc that's exclusively tied to mark, although he's an instrumental part of it, same as how helly's rebellion made him wake up to his own personhood in season one. again, their arcs are entwined purposefully. there are a lot of things to notice about helena as well, particularly the way her trauma with her father manifests in her strained relationship with irving. a lot about helena is subtle and needs to be read into rather than simply seen, especially how little control over her life she has, how terrified she is most of the time, and that her grasp for connection with mark is part of her arc towards achieving autonomy, because love in this show as a whole is a tool for self-determination (irving with burt, dylan with gretchen, everyone becomes more their own person once they have a romantic goal to pursue).

now let's take a look at mark's two arcs in season two: an emotional arc where he's caught between hellyna's fight for autonomy, and a plot arc that is a growing fight between his and mark scout's conflicting interests. mark s again undergoes significantly more development, from someone who thinks of himself as an extension to his outie to someone willing to fight for his own autonomy through making his own decisions (exemplified by choosing to stay with helly regardless of who she is on the outside, because their arcs always reinforce and propel each other), than mark scout, who spent the entire season trying to establish contact with mark s, and the moment he did, fumbled the ball so quickly mark s left that conversation threatening scout will never see his wife again. mark s was the one who took a beating and almost died while mark scout mostly yelled at a nurse. talk about narrative uselessness. this guy needs so much character development, compared to helena he hasn't moved a single step from the start of the season, while she went from "innies aren't people" to falling for an innie.

She certainly hasn’t been given the interiority OR screentime that a true co-lead would have.

i couldn't disagree more with this. hellyna never feels like she gets less screentime than mark, or less interiority than mark. i'm just so baffled with how she doesn't seem like a main lead to you given the amount of pov-focus she's had as both of her iterations this season. the marks hardly get more depth than she does. her arc is also way more complex than mark's, because she has the legacy of her cult family to reckon with, and he has, like, that he thought his wife was dead. not terribly complex or dystopian stuff to deal with. if anyone's arc revolves solely around a romance, it's mark scout's preoccupation with his grief and guilt over gemma. he's in dire need of other goals next season now that we've established she's alive.

one thing we can agree on is that we need more hellyna in season three. let's shake on that!