It's why I don't think Punisher would make a ton of sense.
Kastle is a no-no for me too. I mean, okay, when he shielded her from the Blacksmith's bullets in her apartment, I was glad he was protecting her. But other than that I've never really seen them as couple material, even though for some strange reason, you can find more than
700+ works on Archive of our Own with the Karen Page/Frank Castle tag, when there's only about 310 or so works with the Matt Murdock/Karen Page tag. Frank is still grieving his dead family, and as of
The Defenders, Karen is currently mourning Matt, and the scene where Frank kills the Blacksmith in cold blood despite Karen begging him not to do it is enough for me to realize they're not meant to be. A lot of people on Kastle seem to expect/hope that
The Punisher will bring out some kind of relationship between Karen and Frank, and I'm going to be laughing in their faces when it doesn't go the way they want it to go.
Now why is this Kastle ship so popular? Well,there are a few reasons. At least on Tumblr, it seems like a lot of people just like the sort of "bad boy" vibe, "Frank
with the sweet girl who's also troubled but somehow they manage to level each other off". Seriously, a lot of the pictures in the Kastle moodboards and such are guns and coffee and pictures of a blonde with a "bad boy" with some quote saying how they bring each other light or some other ********. The second is, we can all agree that Matt screwed up with Karen big-time in season 2. Karen deserves better than what Matt was giving her. The mistakes he made with Karen are ones that could have been avoided with a few simple conversations. This is why Kastle may have taken off.
Now I've seen a lot of Kastle shippers make different arguments for their ship. But one thing that seems to be recurring in their arguments on Tumblr are points that basically could be summed up as, Frank is right for Karen because he didnt do that stuff that Matt did! which translates for me as "I want Frank to be Karens boyfriend because hes not Matt." And, no. Just no. Franks fitness as a partner should depend solely on Franks qualities, and not negating Matts behavior.
Really, that's one reason I don't like the Kastle ship: that quite a lot of its fandom try to justify shipping Karen with Frank by using Matt's behavior to make Frank look better by comparison. Even in
The Defenders, I've seen a lot of Kastle people refer to the exchange when Matt is grabbing Karen from her office and says Karen deserves better...
Matt Murdock: You deserve better, Karen.
Karen Page: So do you.
...by implying that Frank is what Matt meant or what it should mean, but that makes absolutely no sense to me. When Matt said Karen deserved better he didn't mean a serial killer, he meant "You deserve better than to constantly end up in danger because of my nighttime excursions as Daredevil".
And, there's one more thing about the Kastle ship that bother's me. It's the whole thing where the shippers like to say Frank "never lies to Karen like Matt does". I'm like, that is the most illogical argument ever. Matt's lies to an extent were formed (as he saw it) in the interest of protecting her (and ultimately that backfired). Karen and Frank only had half a season of interactions. Frank barely knows Karen like Matt does, and just because he called her "ma'am" a few times out of respect doesn't mean they're into each other. What Frank did by killing the Blacksmith in front of Karen was already pretty terrible, as was him using her for bait at the diner.
In a way, Kastle has the same flaw that Matt/Elektra has, in the sense that if it DID somehow happen there's no way it would work out long-term and it would ultimately crumble. The difference is that while Matt and Elektra had history due to their dating in college, Kastle has nothing to even go off of because Frank is torn up about his family and might not ever be able to move on, and Karen is projecting onto Frank a lot of her guilt over killing Wesley.
Right. She doesn't want Matt to die because of her feelings for him.
But that's not the only reason. Remember her "so do you" response to Matt's "you deserve better, Karen"? The way Karen said that line felt it was put in to remind the audience that Karen hasn't yet come clean to Matt about killing Wesley. I would also say she is accepting but not happy with Matt going back to Daredevil activities because she expects Matt to be better than a killer like her.