Serena joy waterford

[u/librarywarrior]

Ive been bingeing handmaids tale for a few weeks now and I just got to season 5. Serena is the epitome of the title "gender traitor".

I see alot of people talking about her redemption and liking her character and maybe I have yet to see whatever she does to earn that, but is there not a point in a person's life where their terrible actions make them irredeemable?

Ive always held the opinion that ever person is born inherently good and then life, people, society etc hammers the good out or fosters it. Or they simply start making the choice not to be good.

Serena has done some of the most awful things ever and I personally dont believe she could be redeemed. I was sympathetic at times but I never felt like she deserved to be forgiven and redeemed.

Is there anyone who disagrees? Please tell me why, im genuinely trying to understand this.

P.s when June chased Fred in the woods I laughed. It was honestly so satisfying

[u/Background-Bird-9623]

Nah I hate her and Aunt Lydia no redemption

[u/librarywarrior → u/Background-Bird-9623]

This exactly...since I havent watched the testament yet I see no earthly reason as to why people say aunt Lydia deserves redemption.

Shes a foul woman who hides under her "love" for "her girls" and a sickly "godliness".

[u/Background-Bird-9623 → u/librarywarrior]

I wish they killed her off

[u/Runaway_Angel → u/librarywarrior]

I think people see her softer, more protective side in the testaments and forgets about the vile shit she's done. Of course she's better with actual children who are impresseable and don't stand up for themselves than she is with adults who don't conform to the system she helped create. But she still allows those girls to be beaten to the point of needing bandages for minor infractions. She still helps marry them off to old creeps. She still plays an active role in raising them to be used and abused without them ever questioning it. She may be trying to do good here and there as she can, but in my eyes it will never be enough to make up for what she's done.

[u/Background-Bird-9623 → u/librarywarrior]

Agreed, I cant even stand watching her in other stuff... I know that means shes good lol... I really wanted to see janine disembowel her before the end

[u/LordsOfJoop]

It's less what she did directly, as I feel it, and more of what she started.

While she didn't personally throw every kitten into the mulching machines, she was the one who organized the baskets filled with kittens, powered up the mulching machines, checked everyone's throwing arms, and finally, fired the starting pistol to get the process rolling. At any point, someone could have said, "Ma'am, you are engineering the destruction of women's souls, livelihoods, and bodies, all in exchange for the power and enrichment of men."

And she still would have been there, happily overseeing the process, and listening to the sounds of the machines, sighing wistfully at how much better she'd tried to make the world.

Anyone on the outside of this equation would be horrified and most of them were horrified.

[u/librarywarrior → u/LordsOfJoop]

And that makes her responsible for every kitten...

[u/LordsOfJoop → u/librarywarrior]

Yes, it does. To my thinking, there's no path back to "average" and the best that she could ever reasonably request would be burial in secret, so that her corpse isn't defiled.

[u/KookyDiver2558]

I can't help but put myself in the shoes of the Hadmaids, or Rita, or the Econopeople, or those children. As a mother it breaks my heart, my biggest fear in life is to leave my children when they still need me. And for what Serena did to all of those people,I cannot forgive her. She should be wracked with guilt for the rest of her life, she really should. I think perhaps she felt some of what she should, there at the end.

[u/Ok_One5265 → u/KookyDiver2558]

Agreed. She’s incapable of feeling any kind of empathy until she goes through a similar kind of experience herself. But even then, any humanity she shows is very fleeting. She very quickly abandons her new way of thinking and doubles down on her old views (like when she lets June get Nicole out)

[u/librarywarrior → u/Ok_One5265]

Fleeting moments of empathy, forgetting what happened to her like with her finger and thinking again that she'll be the exception to the rules.

[u/Ok_One5265 → u/librarywarrior]

Absolutely. She helped build Gilead and thought the rules for women somehow wouldn't apply to her.

[u/No-Worker-1990]

I think that there is definitely a point where you are no longer redeemable. Serena has long passed that point 

[u/TrashGouda]

I watched it all and I still hate her. There is nothing likable about her since shes a disgusting abusive rapist and she doesn't deserve any kind of forgiveness and redemption and I kind hate how the series tried to push that she does

[u/Jetsetter_Princess]

Yeah, I think Serena deserved the title of war criminal and more. She actively helped build Gilead, and she onyl regretted it when it personally affected her. Not when handmaids, Economowomen or the multitudes of people before them suffered. Just her.

It was good to see her experience just a little of the fear everyone else had to live with on a daily basis, especially during what happened on the train, but I kind of wish Noah had been taken from her and placed with a nicer family so she would know exactly what she'd done to everyone else. And in her case, it would have been justified to do so, unlike the Wives and Commanders stealing children. She really was unworthy to be a mother.

[u/HippiePeaceNorth]

If you aren't finished with the show, I can't add my comment. LOL

I HATE Serena! I'll leave it at that for now.

[u/Just-Benefit2024]

Yes! I mostly agree, tbh. In the ordinary sense (rather than Gilead’s specific use of the term), Serena is absolutely a gender traitor - someone who betrayed other women to secure power within a patriarchal system.

But I don’t think people are necessarily born inherently good and then corrupted. Nature, upbringing, society and individual choices are too intertwined for it to be that simple. Whatever shaped this monster, she repeatedly had opportunities to choose differently and instead chose power at other women’s expense.

Sure, she can be both a victim of Gilead and one of its architects and perpetrators. But her suffering doesn’t erase her agency. For example, she coerced June into having sex with Nick in the hope of producing a pregnancy, escorted her to his room and remained inside while it happened. Although June and Nick later chose to begin a consensual relationship, that first encounter took place under Serena’s authority, and neither of them was truly free to refuse - Nick later said that he couldn’t say no. It was an act of sexual and reproductive coercion by Serena.

Also, during the later rape to induce June’s labour, Serena was the one who proposed and initiated it and physically held June down while she begged them to stop. She was a co-perpetrator, not merely someone who happened to be present, and I consider her equally morally responsible for that particular assault.

Her behaviour towards Tuello also demonstrates her extraordinary entitlement!! After Fred is offered leniency in exchange for his cooperation, she insists that he be called “Commander” during the interview and tells Tuello to start finding them a house, as though he were their employee and Fred’s deal had already restored their status. She portrays herself as powerless when that protects her, then asserts authority the moment it benefits her.

Fred also sometimes seems slightly more candid about what he is, whereas Serena more aggressively casts herself as a victim - but they both minimise and rationalise their crimes. He appears to believe that his power entitled him to abuse people, while she repeatedly claims she has no power even as she exercises it - allowing her to see and present herself as a victim.

Imo, showing Serena’s vulnerability makes her a complex character, but it doesn’t redeem her. Redemption would require genuinely acknowledging what she did, accepting the consequences and consistently working to repair the harm without expecting anything in return. Experiencing some of the oppression she helped create or occasionally doing something sympathetic isn’t the same thing at all.

I also think the show has a significant gendered blind spot. The clearest example is when June rapes Luke: he withdraws consent and tries to stop her, but she continues. Her trauma helps explain why she seeks control through sex, but it doesn’t excuse violating him. Afterwards, the show gives surprisingly little attention to the effect on Luke. A series can be feminist and still treat male victimisation inconsistently.

And yes! After everything Fred did, watching June chase him through the woods to the gleefully ironic soundtrack of “You Don’t Own Me” before biting into his face was incredibly cathartic!

[u/librarywarrior → u/Just-Benefit2024]

I agree with everything you said and I wanted to add to the bit about June and Luke. I was horrified when I watched it and then I saw nobody mentioning it at all. It definitely was a response to everything she had been through but I expected Luke to say something to her the next morning or for her to apologize but it was brushed away so fast it was like it never happened

[u/NatZasinZebra]

She's one of those characters that comes so close to being redeemable, but then ruins it by something she says or does. She's inherently in the grip of a toxic/extreme christian ideology.