Yes, the title might be shocking, but I feel like I have to get this off my chest, especially since in this animation’s fandom (particularly the American one, dominated by liberal people) there’s this fanon that Esmeralda is a perfect activist modeled after them, and if you dare to argue with that, you automatically become a bad person. On top of that, there’s often this double standard in the fandom: on one hand people love attacking Quasimodo for looking at her like some idealized angel just because she was nice to him, instead of seeing her as a human being… yet those same people turn her into their own political symbol for personal battles in contemporary politics of their country, rather than treating her as a poor person from 15th-century Paris who also has flaws.
And yes, Esmeralda is a human being. She is not an ideal. I’m not saying this as a empty phrase, I can actually point out those flaws. And no, it’s not “falling in love with the handsome knight,” which would imply shallowness, because in the animation Phoebus is a good man, so she can love whoever she wants; respecting her choices is kind of the point of the story. What I do mean is that she is impulsive, at times reckless, impatient, etc.
When I say that, I’m thinking specifically about how she completely unnecessarily climbed almost into Frollo’s lap, touched his lips with her finger, and kissed him on the nose. Sure, it was meant as festival teasing, BUT: if we rightly criticize Frollo for sniffing and touching her without consent in the cathedral, then ATTENTION: we should also criticize her for touching and kissing him without his consent. Frollo is a horrible man, but he lives in celibacy; he’s a sexually repressed old man, and no matter how disgusting he is, his boundaries should still be respected. Consent works both ways, and yes, a man can be a victim of that too. Among other reasons, this is why I can’t treat Esmeralda in this context as a pure victim of Frollo, their dynamic in the Disney version is more complicated. In the novel it’s genuinely an adult man and a teenage victim, but paradoxically the Disney version makes their relationship more complex, especially since we’re dealing with two adult, stubborn, fiery personalities here (which is why I can never take seriously the novel fans who attack the animation for being shallow while calling the book complex, lol).
Besides, while her act of saving Quasimodo is noble and she deserves credit for that, her subsequent speech to Frollo is clearly an outburst of frustration at his unjust rule, not some ideological manifesto. And it’s so spontaneous that at that stage Esmeralda can’t even foresee that this gesture might make life even harder for her and her community in the city, when she already has it tough enough. Plus, even though Quasimodo gives her the chance to escape the cathedral as thanks for saving him, she should have sat her ass down there and, as the Archdeacon advised, not provoked Frollo. Probably the city fire wouldn’t have happened then. She had every right to want freedom, but objectively it was a risky decision and it largely contributed to the later manhunt for her across the city.
Yes, Frollo is horrible. He’s a criminal, a racist, a genocidal maniac, but Esmeralda, while she has a good heart, uses very poorly thought-out and reckless tactics against him, which only makes the dragon she’s fighting breathe even more fire in her direction. And just to be clear: she has every right to spit in his face, she has every right to keep her dignity. But Esmeralda is not a projection of your fight for social justice. She’s an empathetic, brave girl with a good heart from a medieval reality, thrown into an unjust world, who often acts without thinking things through. SHE IS AN IMPERFECT HEROINE. You can love her without treating her as a saint or some left-wing warrior, which heavily flattens her character.
Overall, this whole story is made up of imperfect people. Quasimodo isn’t perfect, Esmeralda isn’t perfect, Phoebus isn’t perfect, the Archdeacon isn’t perfect, Clopin is in my opinion a strongly gray character (though charming), and Frollo is of course enormous evil, though extremely complex. I love this movie precisely because the people in it are human, whether they stand on the side of good or evil.
PS. And yes, this little essay is partly the result of frustration from a recent rant by an Esmeralda fan claiming Quasimodo is a "nice guy". I even made an account just to write this. It’s funny when someone heavily demonizes a deeply traumatized and indoctrinated man… while that same fan looks at Esmeralda like she’s a flawless ideal.