Okay, For The Record, I Hate Love Triangles. It's One Of My Least Favourite Tropes, But That's Obviously

Okay, for the record, I hate love triangles. It's one of my least favourite tropes, but that's obviously where the writers want to take Matt, Frank and Karen so we just have to deal (and inevitable fix the mess with fanfic).

I've seen some posts on here arguing for Karedevil and for Kastle, but I haven't really seen the arguments constructed in terms of what it means narratively for the person Karen doesn't choose, and IMHO that's what the writers of the show should be concentrating on.

If Karen doesn't choose Matt...he'd be fine. Eventually. He'd get over it. He's gotten over losing people before, and he's always bounced back and found someone else. There's been Clair, and Karen, and Elektra and Heather...

The boy gets around. He's charming and handsome and while he's obviously not great boyfriend material in the show, he gets the ladies again and again.

Frank is very, very different. The show has set him up to be a family man without a family. He loves deeply - so deeply that it breaks him - and he's so hesitant about being with someone again that he'd rather live alone and in pain than risk that kind of heartbreak.

But he loves Karen. And she's been set up as his 'After'. The thing that would pull him out of his destructive life as the Punisher, if only he had the courage to accept her and her love.

So what happens to him if Karen chooses Matt? Sure, he's always tried to push her onto Matt, but it's a way to protect himself. To put up a barrier between them. If she actually chose Matt...that would condemn Frank to a life of being nothing more than the Punisher. He will spend the rest of his (inevitably) short life alone and hurt, chewing painkillers in a bunker. And I think that's incredibly sad.

It would probably satisfy the comic fanboys who just want a Punisher that kills and kills and kills...but for the narrative arc of Frank Castle, it would just be so sad.

And such a waste.