YMMV / Fifty Shades of Grey

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Many people view Christian as being an abusive stalker who doesn't truly care about Ana, using her feelings for him and naivety to manipulate or coerce her into doing whatever he wants.
  • Some people think Ana's supposed love for Christian is actually just infatuation which she mistakes for love due to her naivety and poor self-esteem (look up articles comparing infatuation and love, and see how many infatuation checkboxes Ana ticks off). Despite her repeated assertions that she's in love with Christian, she admits she knows very little about him personally. She often talks about how physically attractive she finds him and how much she likes having sex with him, but this, combined with the fact Ana is very inexperienced when it comes to relationships (Christian is her first serious boyfriend) and that she hasn't known him that long, doesn't seem to add to "true love". Ana also strongly implies or even states outright on several occasions that she doesn't actually like most of the kinky stuff Christian is into; she only puts up with it because she hopes for a more emotionally intimate relationship from him and doesn't want to lose him.
  • Due to her often rather glowing and detailed descriptions of attractive women, including (but certainly not limited to) Christian's sister Mia, Dr Flynn's wife Rhian and especially her roommate Kate, a few readers believe Ana is actually Ambiguously Bi.
  • Did Jack Hyde hire Ana on at SIP because he genuinely thought she was the best candidate (even though she's fresh out of university with no experience), or was it because he found her attractive and thought she'd make an easy target?
  • Christian blames the trauma of his early childhood as being the cause of most of his psychological issues, but many readers think that the much more recent trauma of being 'seduced' by a trusted family friend when he was a vulnerable and unstable teenager arguably did far more damage to his psyche. Christian admits to barely remembering his early childhood, while his 'relationship' with Elena started when he was just 15 and ended when he was 21, around six to seven years before the beginning of the trilogy. He learnt his questionable methods of domming and unhealthy relationship values from Elena, later claiming he never thought anything they did together was wrong and that Elena 'saved' him. He's still in regular contact with Elena, even regarding her as his only true friend, so she is still continuing to have a great deal of influence over his life.
• Angst Dissonance: Christian's angst for some readers, partly because he can come across as Unintentionally Unsympathetic and partly because some of the stuff he angsts about comes across as Wangst. For example, he tells Ana his teenage years were "living hell" because...well, his parents "didn't get [him]", he was girl-crazy but didn’t know how to approach them or deal with his hormones, and he had no friends. The first two seem like problems every teenager ever has experienced, while the latter could potentially be chalked up to the fact teenage Christian was known to be violent and anti-social, which aren't exactly endearing traits. This is also ignoring the fact he lived in luxury with very wealthy and loving parents, who were able to get him into a new school despite his track record, paid for therapy and kickboxing so he had an outlet, repeatedly tried to get through to him, and so forth. Yeah, that sounds terrible.
• Angst? What Angst?: Christian displays very little angst over being 'seduced' and introduced to BDSM at the age of just fifteen by a much older trusted family friend ^note  this counts as statutory rape; the age of consent in Washington State is 16 and there are certain circumstances where having sexual relations with anyone under 18 is also illegal , who led him to believe he "needed" to have highly-controlling and emotionally-detached intimate relationships. However, Christian attributes most of his emotional problems to his early childhood rather than what Elena did to him, remains friends with her and thinks she saved him from self-destruction. At first, this understandably comes off as him being brainwashed/in denial and he does eventually acknowledge that she warped his view of relationships, but he tends to treat Elena more like an ex-girlfriend he fell out with than a person who groomed and abused him. Even Ana is disturbed by his nonchalance over it.
• Arc Fatigue: It's not as bad as some examples due to only taking up one book, but the plotline involving Leila stalking Ana in Fifty Shades Darker starts to show signs of this. It lasts nearly the entire book (which is over 500 pages long) and yet nothing truly significant happens with it until the last third, when Leila unexpectedly shows up at Ana's apartment with a gun. It doesn't help that it has pretty much no impact on the story in the next book and that the situation could've been resolved early on if Ana and Christian had just called the police, instead of trying and miserably failing to deal with the problem themselves.
• Ass Pull: Elena's ex-husband being the one who paid Jack Hyde's bail near the end of the third book, thus allowing him to kidnap Mia and ransom her to Ana. Beyond a vague mention in the second book, he'd barely been featured as a character and his grudge against Christian wasn't well established, and so the Plot Twist came virtually out-of-nowhere.
• Base-Breaking Character: Christian Grey, especially following the release of Grey (the first book retelling the series from his POV). A lot of fans were willing to defend some of his more troubling behavior – previously seen and interpreted only from Ana's perspective – as him being emotionally damaged and misunderstood. However, when Grey came out, it turned out that Ana was often rather off-the-mark about Christian's thoughts and motives, and a lot of his inner thoughts come across as rather mean-spirited, selfish or downright disturbing. Readers are now divided over whether Christian is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who changes for the better, or if he's just a creepy Jerkass who needs serious psychological help.
• Cliché Storm: Taking away the BDSM, the main plot of Ana and Christian's relationship is a very common and stereotypical romance plot – naive, virginal everygirl who doesn't realize how pretty she is meets a moody, hot rich guy, who is charmed by her purity and innocence. He provides her with a sexual awakening while she heals him with the Power of Magic Vagina...er, I mean, Love. Oh and he's got an evil ex who is far more sexually experienced and aggressive than the heroine and tries to break them up. The ending even features Ana and Christian being married, wealthy and having a son and daughter, which is practically the ultimate romance cliche.
• Critic-Proof: Despite being generally negatively regarded by critics, the books had sold 125 million copies worldwide by the middle of 2015 and the first book is one of the fastest selling paperbacks in the UK ever; likewise, the first film made $571 million at the box office (against a budget of $40 million) and is the fourth-highest grossing romance film of all time.
• Designated Hero: Christian is viewed as such by several readers. To give it context, some people feel that the only major difference between Christian and Jack Hyde (a manipulative sexual predator and stalker) is that the plot presents Christian as being the 'good guy'.
• Designated Villain: Gia the architect in Fifty Shades Freed. She's supposed to be more of a Hate Sink than a villain, but either way Ana views her as being a "slutty" bitch who is out to steal Christian from her, or Elliot from her friend Kate. In the book itself, however, the worst thing Gia does is lightly touch Christian's arm (which he makes no comment on) and hug Elliot (whom she's established to be good friends with), and she otherwise doesn't do anything wrong; in fact, Ana seems to be the only character who has a problem with her (thus having the effect of making Ana look painfully insecure, jealous and paranoid).
• Diagnosed by the Audience: A large chunk of readers speculate that Christian has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as he displays many of its symptoms, including but not limited to: being arrogant, aloof, and entitled, disregarding the feelings and wants of others, manipulating people to get what he wants, and a having deep-seated desire for attention and admiration from those around him.
• Escapist Character: Ana Steele. Rather like Bella Swan, of whom she's an Expy, she's not a very complex character and can easily become an Audience Surrogate to help readers imagine they're living out the fantasy of having kinky sex with a handsome billionaire and being spoiled by him.
• Esoteric Happy Ending:
  • For readers/viewers who consider Christian to be an abusive partner, the fact he and Ana get married and have children by the end comes across as this.
  • The first book actually has a potential inversion; it ends with Ana deciding she and Christian are incompatible and leaving him, which the book treats as a Downer Ending, but many readers see this as a good thing because the relationship is unhealthy and disproportionately skewed in Christian's favor.
• Fan Work Only Fans: Technically, everyone who made Fifty Shades of Grey a success is an example of this, as it started out as a Hotter and Sexier Twilight fanfiction but is only loosely connected to the franchise in terms of plot and character, including removing all the supernatural/fantasy elements. It attracted many readers who weren't at all familiar with Twilight and some newer readers were surprised to learn the trilogy started out as a fanfiction of young adult vampire romance novels. The book in its original form, Master of the Universe, was more closely linked to Twilight, though due its sexually explicit content it tended to attract the Periphery Demographic of adult women who were into Twilight but wished it had more sex.
• Fetish Retardant:
  • All the BDSM acts come off as this to people who are actually involved in the subculture, mostly because it's a wildly inaccurate portrayal, and in fact feeds into some of the community's most hated misconceptions. (Mainly, that a dom/sub relationship completely negates the sub's right to say "no," or that being into BDSM is the same as being an abusive partner.)
  • Some readers were really turned off when Christian reveals in Fifty Shades Darker that he thinks he likes beating, dominating and having rough sex with women who physically resemble his biological mother, whom he resents for neglecting him and dying of an overdose; intentionally or not, it adds very disturbing, incestuous undertones to Ana and Christian's entire relationship and seems more like something out of a psychological thriller than an erotic romance.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: It was always debatable if Christian's tastes are as "singular" as he claims, considering that even before the Internet BDSM was one of the most common kinks around. Now, when the Fifty Shades books have sold millions and millions of copies and have legions of fans eager to try the stuff in the book, Christian might as well have the Dark Secret that he likes watching porn movies.
• Ho Yay: Quite a bit between Ana and Kate. Ana often makes rather detailed, gushing descriptions of her beauty and physical appearance with similar terms she uses for Christian (and Kate isn't the only woman she does this to), they start out living together and consider each other the most important person in their lives, if either of them are upset or in trouble their first instinct is to go to each other, they rather casually talk about their sex lives with each other (Ana is in fact disappointed she can't share more with Kate due to the NDA) and Kate goes into full Tsundere mode if she thinks Ana has been hurt or endangered in some way.
• Hype Backlash: At the time of its publication, the trilogy was hyped up as being a boundary-pushing and risque erotic romance, heavily involving BDSM, which was rarely featured in mainstream romance. While it did make BDSM more visible in the mainstream, some readers felt the trilogy's content was actually pretty tame and inaccurately depicted BDSM...to say nothing of the controversy surrounding the way Ana and Christian's relationship can come off and the iffy writing.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • If Christian lived in a trailer, this would be an episode of Criminal Minds ^Explanation  Critics of the series have been known to state that Christian's stalking and highly controlling behavior are only perceived as sexy because he's wealthy and attractive, and that if he were a more 'normal' seeming guy, he'd come off as a serial killer. His Freudian Excuse is also very similar to the Freudian Excuses of various Unsubs featured on Criminal Minds (just substitute 'beating and shagging women who remind me of my neglectful birth mother' for 'maiming and killing women who remind me of my neglectful birth mother' etc).
  • Still a better love story than...oh, wait. ^Explanation  A popular Twilight meme is that Crack Pairings or romances perceived as badly written are still "better love stories than Twilight". However, Fifty Shades of Grey is actually directly based upon Twilight; some people also consider Ana and Christian's relationship to be worse in every way than Bella and Edward's.
  • My desires are...unconventional ^Explanation  Christian says this to Ana before revealing he's into BDSM; people like to have his 'unconventional desires' be revealed as something else, such as being obsessed with My Little Pony, or hobbits. In turn, this has led to meme-makers applying the line and Ana's response of "Show me" to other fictional characters or occasionally even real people.
  • Fifty Shades of X ^Explanation  Applying the title Fifty of Shades of [insert name] to other pairings, often crack pairings, especially if torture and/or imprisonment in involved. A popular one crossing over with Game of Thrones is Fifty Shades of Greyjoy, due to Theon Greyjoy spending most of Season 3 imprisoned in Ramsay Snow's dungeon and becoming his slave.
• Nightmare Fuel: It's horrifying how many times Ana is struck, raped and/or abused without her consent...and yet this is presented as not only romantic but a relationship to aspire to.
• Padding:
  • In the first book, the email conversations between Christian and Ana take up a lot of space without adding much content. The submissive rules and contract he sends her are printed in the book twice, also taking up an unnecessary amount of space.
  • If the author cut out all of the descriptions of Christian being amazingly beautiful and needless recaps to things that happened only a chapter ago, all the books would probably have been a lot shorter.
  • In the third book, there's an entire subplot where Ana, Christian, Kate, Elliot, Ethan and Mia go on vacation to Aspen, where all that happens is the girls go shopping, they all go clubbing, Elliot proposes to Kate and Christian gets into a fight with a guy who gropes Ana. Almost none of this has any significance to the main plot; notably, in the film adaptation the club fight is cut in the theatrical release (though it's re-added in the Extended Edition, along with extra sex scenes).
  • Many of the sex scenes could have been cut, as a lot of them are near-identically written and barely make a difference to the flow of events or characters.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Ana and Kate are just supposed to be good friends, with Kate saying she loves her like a sister, but a lot of their interactions can come off as Les Yay, especially from Ana's end considering how often she points out Kate's physical attractiveness with similar terms she uses for Christian. It doesn't help that Kate cares a lot more about Ana's happiness and well-being than Christian seems to.
• Protection from Editors: It makes sense that the original story, Master of the Universe, would have some spelling and grammatical errors, as well as several research errors, as fanfictions usually aren't looked at by a formal editor. However, once they had the Serial Numbers Filed Off and properly published the books, many of these errors were actually left in. It almost makes one wonder if the books had an editor at all...and according to James's acknowledgements, they did. And this is actually case where it was the author's first published novel seemingly getting this treatment. The same can definitely be said of the film adaptations after the books proved to be bestsellers, with James being given a surprising amount of creative control and vetoing several proposed changes (which actually led to the director of the first film quitting after it was finished).
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Ana and Christian's romance is the main plot in the first book, but beginning with the second book, important things like Jack sexually harassing Ana and carrying out an elaborate revenge scheme against her and the Greys, Christian's ex Leila stalking him and Ana and so on, are barely given any attention at all or occur mostly off-page, so we can focus on Ana and Christian's relationship drama and sexy times. It doesn't help that the romance is arguably rather unconvincing at best, abusive and dysfunctional at worst.
• Sequelitis: While the series never was a critical favorite, the book Grey—a retelling of the first book from Christian's point of view—has been poorly received even by readers and critics who liked the original trilogy. The two main complaints are as follows:
  • Too much of the text is copied and pasted from the original book
  • Christian's thoughts are banal and way too stalker-like. While Christian certainly acted like a stalker sometimes, it's unpleasant to see that he actually feels and thinks like a stalker.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: Fifty Shades of Grey started life as The Twilight Saga fanfiction, but later became an original work. Readers of both note many remaining similarities between the two works, especially the characterization.
• Strangled by the Red String: Ana and Christian's romance is often criticized for this. They are repeatedly stated to be in love with each other, but the text doesn't always appear to support this.
  • They don't seem to have much in common and their relationship is built almost entirely around sex. Neither of them want the same thing from a relationship – Ana wants a more typical romantic relationship with hearts and flowers where she's treated as an equal, while Christian just wants another submissive and no-strings-attached sex. Christian rarely considers what Ana wants from the relationship and tends to pressure or coerce her into doing things she's uncomfortable or hesitant about, such as forcing expensive gifts on her and trying to renegotiate her expressed hard limits (which is really only scratching the surface of his problematic behavior). Ana also isn't into most of Christian's more extreme kinks and seems to think of it a 'problem to be solved' more than anything.
  • Their relationship occurs over a very short timespan; after only a few weeks of dating, Ana is proclaiming her love for Christian. By the end of Fifty Shades Darker, which takes places only a few weeks after the previous book, they're engaged to be married. In all, they only know each other for about two and half months before getting hitched. They also start immediately having relationship problems around things like Ana changing her surname, her job, where they'll live and having children, none of which they discussed before marriage. In Fifty Shades Freed, even they think their relationship is moving too fast; Christian says they've only "known each other five fucking minutes" and Ana wonders if she married him too quickly. Furthermore, Christian spontaneously proposes to Ana when she indicates she cannot cope with his emotional baggage, which makes it seem he proposes to her not because he genuinely wants to marry her but because he doesn’t want her to leave him. Ana outright accuses him of this in the book itself.
  • Several other characters also express reservations about the relationship. Kate (who arguably knows Ana better than anyone) finds Christian to be a controlling creep and finds it troubling that Ana is reluctant to talk about the relationship; most damningly, she says Ana looks upset and asks her if she's having second thoughts at Ana and Christian's wedding reception. Both Ana's parents think she's rushing into the relationship and Carla assumes Ana is only marrying Christian because she got pregnant. Christian's father also seems to have little faith in the longevity of their relationship, as he strongly suggests they sign a pre-nup. These characters are generally presented as 'misunderstanding' Ana and Christian's relationship, but a lot of people think they make very good points.
  • Some viewers feel this trope is present in the film adaptation too, with a common criticism being that the leads don't appear to have much chemistry together on top of all the other issues, although others would argue they improve on this in the sequels.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • Ana sees Kate as being in the wrong and straight up tells her she should mind her own business when she confronts her and Christian about the submissive contract. However, considering the content of the contract, the secretive nature of their relationship and the fact Kate is clearly just looking out for her friend, she's not exactly wrong to be concerned.
  • In the second book, when Ana tells her mother she's just gotten engaged to Christian, Carla expresses concern over the fact Ana is still so young, has seen little of the world and hasn't actually been with Christian very long. Ana gets upset and asks why she "can't just be happy for [her]"...only everything Carla said is arguably true – Ana is very young and naive, Christian is the first and only boyfriend she's ever had and they've only known each for about a month before deciding to get married. Ana is also 'disappoint[ed]" and "saddened" when her mother's first assumption is that she's marrying Christian because he knocked her up. However, considering the above circumstances, the fact that Ana and Christian have a lot of sex and the fact that in the next book Ana does accidentally get pregnant, it doesn't seem to be an entirely unreasonable assumption.
  • Ana and Christian are both deeply offended when Carrick strongly suggests they sign a pre-nup. But, considering they've only known each other a little over a month before getting engaged and Carrick's only actually spoken to Ana a handful of times, he comes across as being quite reasonable in being concerned about their marriage. Although we know Ana isn't a Golddigger, Carrick really knows nothing about the poor college student who wants to marry his insanely rich son; considering how much drama Christian and Ana have in their relationship, it also wouldn't be that surprising if the marriage didn't work out.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • Every song in the sequels will have to live up to "Love Me Like You Do", as evidence by the significantly less successful sales of "I Don't Want To Live Forever".
  • E.L. James's first non-Fifty Shades novel, The Mister, hasn't been nearly the success that her earlier books were. Not only were the critical reviews mostly poor, but sales-wise The Mister dropped off the New York Times bestseller list much quicker than any of her other novels.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: The subplot in Fifty Shades Freed where Jose, his dad and Ray are involved in a car accident. All three of them ultimately make full recoveries and it has no impact on the rest of the plot.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Ella, Christian's biological mother (yep, she actually has a proper name, not that Christian ever really uses it). Christian constantly refers to her as "the crack whore", blames her for the emotional trauma of his early years, admits he likes beating women who remind him of her and generally has a disdainful attitude towards her. Ana never seems to refute this (save for one moment in the epilogue of Fifty Shades Freed), even stating at one point she doesn't think Ella loved Christian and that she was a "shitty mother". However, some readers point out that Ella actually did seem to love Christian and tried her best to care for him despite struggling with drug addiction and an abusive pimp, such as baking him a birthday cake, stroking his hair and letting him braid her hair, teaching him to read and buying him a toy car. Christian himself admits Ella never directly abused him – it was her pimp who harmed him, but he never really expresses the same hatred of or attributes blame to the pimp, instead focusing solely on his mother. It also doesn't help that Christian admits to barely remembering his mother at all, so he's hardly the most reliable source about what she was like. The people behind the film adaptation of Fifty Shades Freed must have felt the same way seeing as it actually adds a scene where Christian and Ana track down and visit Ella's grave, with Christian laying flowers there with the implication he forgives her for not being able to care for him properly and thus presenting Ella in a far more sympathetic light. This is in stark contrast to the books, where Christian continues to resent her, to the point where he rather viciously shuts down Ana's suggestion they name their unborn daughter after her.
  • Gia Matteo, Elliot's ex-fling-turned-friend and architect for the Greys, who Ana views as a man-stealing bitch. However, as mentioned under Designated Villain, the actual evidence for this is at best very flimsy and Gia comes across instead as a put-upon architect who agrees to design a nice house for Ana and Christian as a favor to her friend, doing her best to finish the job and remain professional in spite of being insulted and unfairly accused by her employer of trying to seduce her husband.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Christian for some readers. He tends to blame all his emotional problems on his "crack whore" birth mother, even though he claims to barely remember her, it's indicated she did actually love him and made an effort to care for him despite her drug addiction, and it's stated repeatedly that it was in fact her pimp who was abusive to Christian (and to her too). Although Christian's early years were hard, several readers also point out that from the age of four onwards, he lived with a wealthy and loving adoptive family who gave him everything he needed and more (except decent therapy apparently). At the start of the series, Christian is 27 and yet still fixates on the first four years of his life – which by his own admission he only vaguely recalls – and uses it to excuse his Jerkass tendencies and emotional immaturity, while ignoring the 23 years of his life where he had a pretty cushy-sounding deal. His highly controlling treatment of Ana is also excused by him wanting to protect her or being a by-product of his early childhood, but at times it just makes him come across as extremely insecure, selfish and downright abusive. It doesn't help that Christian rarely displays any positive qualities or redeeming traits, generally being surly, rude, short-tempered and aggressive. Although his backstory is sad, some readers do not believe it in any ways justifies or excuses his current behavior.
• Wangst: Early in Fifty Shades of Grey, Ana's reaction to believing Christian isn't interested in her is very melodramatic, especially considering they barely know each other (and there's another 300 or so pages to go). She ends up huddled in a fetal position in an underground carpark, crying and "Mourning something that never was – my dashed hopes, dashed dreams, and my soured expectations".
• Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: Ana breaks up with Christian at the end of Fifty Shades of Grey, because she realizes they're sexually incompatible after he hits her with a belt; she isn't turned on by it at all and is disturbed that Christian gets off on her pain and humiliation. Then there's Christian stalking Ana and trying to control all aspects of her life, which she finds irritating at best. However, at the start of the next book, Christian tells Ana he's changed and wants her back to have a 'vanilla' relationship. Even though it's been a mere five days and Ana has no proof of Christian's claims, she takes him back almost instantly.

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