So...what was the point of bringing in Abhinav? - Page 2

Originally posted by: yellomellow

There was never a point to his character other than separating the leads. There was nothing special about his character either. Characters and ships don't bring TRPs the story does. He brought no conflict or drama to the shown with the exception to his constant crying. He was a placeholder at best because the makers didn't know what to do with the show.

The narrative he was better for her never made any to me sense because their entire relationship was built on lies and her running from the truth. He wanted to fill his empty photo frames and she needed an excuse NOT to raise her own son. He knew nothing about her for six years and nor did she care about him or his feelings for six years. Their relationship was manipulative and completely devoid of any honesty. She constantly lied to him and he never questioned her for it because he would be alone again. Honestly, there were times I thought Abhinav deserved better, but then he would emotionally gaslight her to get what he wanted so my pity vanished.

ITV separations and leaps are the simplest tracks to write, but the fact the makers destroyed the entire show and every single character to force Abhinav into the story never made any sense to me. ITV leaps centers around the female lead and her bond with her child. Separations are for the female leads to become independent, but makers used Akshara  to uplift his character. Better clothes, better environment, and better mothers. TRPs always increase with leaps because the female leads get to shine. She was given none of that instead they showed an educated woman that comes from wealth in 2023 needing to marry a stranger she met on the bus to raise her son and to function in society. It was extremely regressive where the leap failed. The same character was a running a business in a foreign country and taking care of her older brother going through a mental breakdown. His addition to the show didn't gain the TRPs they wanted or expected so he was removed. The problem is the maker built the entire show around his one-dimensional character for eight months for no reason other than separating the leads. 

Personally, I think there was some internal issues going on with the team.  His character didn't provide anything to the story or the show. In fact, makers waited until a month before his death to develop his so-called love story was telling. Her love for him was to add more impact to his death, but TRP was still 2.1 even with his death track. I was expecting at least 2.4 for his death track. Death tracks especially on this show always garner TRPs. His introduction was a miscalculated and emotional move that cost them the show. 

There are two ways to look at this. One from the narrative point of view and one from the design of the narrative pov. 

From the narrative pov I don't agree with you about Abhinav gaslighting Akshara. Let's not forget that just because he didn't know her history didn't mean he didn't know her. They'd lived together in perfect harmony for almost 7 years. Thats 6 and a half more than Abhira managed each time in their two tries at marriage. Abhinav was emotionally intuitive about Akshara's needs and moods most of the time and even when they were friends he mostly understood when she was upset and did his best to help her. Plus living together and raising a child for 6-7 years is not a joke. I don't agree that he gaslighted Akshara. I think their relationship built quite organically and gaslighting's a pretty over-abused word. He was her husband, her partner. If he wouldn't share his insecurities and deepest fears with her then who will he share them with? He gave Akshara a lot of space but he also knew how to assert himself when it mattered. I would say Abhimanyu was wronged as a father by Akshara more than he was indirectly slighted by Abhinav. Abhinav's need for a family and quick acceptance of Akshara and Abhir was probably not the right thing out and out. He should've been uncomfortable with being Abhir's dad without an out and out fight with Akshara about the father's whereabouts and whether he wants the child or if him knowing would harm Akshara/the child. And in that respect their relationship did start with an unhealthy foundation. But over the years I think that foundation was far healthier than anything. Objectively, a relationship is about the people within it, and nobody can argue that within it, their understanding, friendship, love for one another wasn't a solid 5/5. Plus when they came together as a couple, it wasn't for abhir or because of anything else, it was because they wanted to genuinely give it a try for themselves. Akshara genuinely did fall for him. 

From the narrative design point of view I agree: Because when you pick up the entire thing Abhinav's role in Abhira's relationship makes zero sense to me. They actually made him the lead for these past 7-8 months and Abhimanyu was demoted to a bg/reactionary character at best. Now this character you built for 7-8 months is gone. And a relationship that was completely dismantled and dead for these same months is back at the forefront and you as an audience are supposed to connect to it? None of it makes any sense. 

Abhimanyu was a reactionary character in the last 7-8 months? Really? 😆

The biggest focus of this leap was Abhir and the fact that he was being hidden from Abhimanyu.....they spent half the leap hiding that truth from Abhimanyu and he's a "reactionary" character? 😆

I have to totally disagree with your analysis on every level. As far as I've watched this leap, Abhimanyu's pain was front and center for most of it as the father who was denied the son that was rightfully his. 

Nav's purpose in this whole leap was simply to deny Abhimanyu what was rightfully his. They used Nav to increase the episode count and further create roadblocks. 

I found Navra's relationship very superficial and one-dimensional with no long-term scope for the story....that is why they have removed his character. The baggage of his death continues to give them scope to run the story cuz their focus is more on how they can keep Abhira apart and people rooting for them to find their way back together as a family. 

If anyone actually wanted to watch this show for Navra, makers wouldn't have really killed him off. He was so one-dimensional, there wasn't anything to explore with him. While with Abhira, there are many layers of emotions still left to explore since they have gone through the most challenges as characters. 

So had they really given up on Abhira before the leap itself? I'd say the leap felt abhira-centric at the beginning and abhirohi/akshnav felt like tension props more than actual couples -- like it happens typically in itv shows. Somewhere around Abhimanyu's out of the blue confession/accident and the mandir confrontation they decided to pivot because from that point on it felt much more like an Abhinav/Akshnav centric story and Abhimanyu was completely relegated to the background. I'm sure RS must've given HC some sort of guarantee or something about staying in the show and Abhira's story. It's kind of hard to believe they weren't going to end Abhinav at some point because what else could have they done with his character then without doing something ala kartik and introducing an entire new family as his family and making gen 3 about them? There's no way you could've dragged a triangle for that long. It wasn't even a triangle in the first place after a while. It's all soo messed up now. Rishta really messed it up.

I agree Abhinav didn't dismantle them the white day did. But whatever was left was gone with him because people remember things in comparative degrees. And there is no way anyone can objectively put the two couples side by side and pick abhira over akshnav -- all stats combined. They kind of ruined their own ML to establish another character as better than him and then killed him. Like what's the point😆 A second chance story is good. A second chance over a second chance with the first person is weird and probably lame.

Maybe they removed Abhinav from the show as the actor playing Abhimanyu wanted to leave? Since I keep hearing news about Harshad leaving YRKKH 😂

like makers can’t keep two male lead equally!? One has to go, but now making Abhira together and killing Abhinav doesn’t make sense 

Nope don't agree with you at all here.😆 You are mixing plot with proactive/reactive characters. The plot was built upon Abhir being HIDDEN FROM ABHIMANYU. Abhimanyu wasn't doing the hiding. In fact Abhimanyu was hardly driving any of these plots proactively because most of the focus was on Abhinav. Far more than Abhimanyu. When Abhinav found out Abhir was sick they had scenes after scenes and fbs after fbs. Abhimanyu got a very small breakdown in comparison. In fact Abhinav's insecurities were highlighted far more than Abhimanyu's. There have been episodes after episodes where Abhimanyu has hardly gotten any screen time at all.

(If you only look at the track where Abhimanyu finds out abhir is his and everything that follows -- character staging and emotional development are pretty big things. The emotional high of that entire birthday track was Abhir running to abhinav over Abhimanyu. In fact the show is full of these moments.)

In fact Manjiri drove more of this drama than Abhimanyu did. The entire custody track the emotional focus of the scenes was on abhinav/abhir/akshara more than it was on abhira/abhimanyu/akshara. In fact abhira hardly had ANY development or a thread connecting them in the past 7-8 months. What was their arc? What was abhinav's contribution to it? Did they focus on abhimanyu/abhir more? at times. Even then the focus was always shifted back to abhir/abhinav. The entire track where abhir wants to find out who his real dad is and why he left them ends abruptly only for abhir to profess to abhinav that he never wants abhinav to leave them. When you look at it from that pov, abhir/abhinav, akshara/abhir/abhinav had far more fluid tracks and arcs compared to them force-fitting Abhimanyu in a narrative that was driven by him being the conflict in that very narrative. 

I don't know if their relationship had any long term scope but I wouldn't say it was one-dimensional at all. I would say I don't know how they would've stood on their own. 

Them killing abhinav to build abhira by using that death's not the problem. It's the disjointedness, the disunity of it all that's pretty haphazard and bad writing/planning to me. 

Anyway, I don't think I was doing an analysis as such. I was merely questioning how does abhinav fit into the abhira narrative because now that he's gone I don't see the purpose except the number of episodes. 

Who knows? We can at best speculate. But Zama for sure didn't know what he was doing or he miscalculated it😆 

I feel that the show has become very boring after Abhinav has gone, the storyline is totally haywire and don’t even feel like watching it.Sooner or later they will close it down or get the next generation 

Reminds me how many times I've compared Abhimanyu to Manik in this same forum and not in the best of lights.😆 Not going to ask what gave you the impression that I'm an abhinav/akshnav fan.

You make some interesting points, but I disagree.  

Any relationship should based on mutual respect and trust. When you spend the entire six years lying to each other and accepting the lies so there is no conflict then there is no relationship lol. The foundation for their relationship was a lie and mutual benefits. It's even more disturbing when you add an innocent child into the equation. 

@ bold When he found out the truth he wanted to let Abhi know, but she refused. His reaction was not understand her or her insecurities he complained he was her husband only in name. That's gaslighting. After she didn't want to move forward with their relationship and wanted things to remain the same between he threatened to leave her. Also gaslighting. She didn't want the whole fake world she created for Abhir to crumble so she accepted his offer to move on. There was no genuine intent on her part to consider him an option until she was either gaslight by him or gaslight by her family. Her family claimed she "owed" him for the past six years and she need to give him his "haq". That's textbook gaslighting where her feelings and discomfort was ignored by everyone. There was no "harmony" because neither of them were truly happy. Abhinav was helplessly in love with her and she could care less. Akshara was angry and aggressive because she was preparing herself to fight against Abhi in case he ever found about about Abhir lol. His priority was to not be alone again and her priority was not to get caught for her lies. She didn't respect him or his contribution to helping her raise her son by telling him the bare minimum about herself. The idea of living with someone and eating dinner at the same table for six years, but still not knowing anything about them is scary. Being fine with the equation because you don't want to be alone is even creepier.  

Abhinav's guilty conscious was situational like his poverty. When it benefited him he felt guilt towards Abhi when it didn't he was fine taking another man's son without his knowledge or consent. The scene where he tricked Abhi into performing the pooja for Abhir because his real father had to do it was disturbing. The nice guy act was unconvincing and over-the-top. When you want something in return for your "kindness" then it's not selfless act of kindness. It's a calculated move to get what you want. Makers having all the characters put in on the pedestal didn't help either. Abhinav fixed a fan...let's all cheer. His glorification became a running joke on the show. 

Originally posted by: FleetingWishes.

There are two ways to look at this. One from the narrative point of view and one from the design of the narrative pov. 

From the narrative pov I don't agree with you about Abhinav gaslighting Akshara. Let's not forget that just because he didn't know her history didn't mean he didn't know her. They'd lived together in perfect harmony for almost 7 years. Thats 6 and a half more than Abhira managed each time in their two tries at marriage. Abhinav was emotionally intuitive about Akshara's needs and moods most of the time and even when they were friends he mostly understood when she was upset and did his best to help her. Plus living together and raising a child for 6-7 years is not a joke. I don't agree that he gaslighted Akshara. I think their relationship built quite organically and gaslighting's a pretty over-abused word. He was her husband, her partner. If he wouldn't share his insecurities and deepest fears with her then who will he share them with? He gave Akshara a lot of space but he also knew how to assert himself when it mattered. I would say Abhimanyu was wronged as a father by Akshara more than he was indirectly slighted by Abhinav. Abhinav's need for a family and quick acceptance of Akshara and Abhir was probably not the right thing out and out. He should've been uncomfortable with being Abhir's dad without an out and out fight with Akshara about the father's whereabouts and whether he wants the child or if him knowing would harm Akshara/the child. And in that respect their relationship did start with an unhealthy foundation. But over the years I think that foundation was far healthier than anything. Objectively, a relationship is about the people within it, and nobody can argue that within it, their understanding, friendship, love for one another wasn't a solid 5/5. Plus when they came together as a couple, it wasn't for abhir or because of anything else, it was because they wanted to genuinely give it a try for themselves. Akshara genuinely did fall for him. 

From the narrative design point of view I agree: Because when you pick up the entire thing Abhinav's role in Abhira's relationship makes zero sense to me. They actually made him the lead for these past 7-8 months and Abhimanyu was demoted to a bg/reactionary character at best. Now this character you built for 7-8 months is gone. And a relationship that was completely dismantled and dead for these same months is back at the forefront and you as an audience are supposed to connect to it? None of it makes any sense. 

I don't get why navra is always mentioned as calm quiet this that couple. As if abhira were the one shouting yelling screaming every other minute 🤪

What two people will speak in a silent house where they married first for a kid - still trying to understand the logic there when ak had all the family yet decided this stranger was more reliable for her, disregarding her own safety, her kids safety, societal ideation about the situation - where the husband don't care where his wife came from or what she will do - countless example where nav is shocked seeing her family status xyz - where the wife is happy hiding from the world , hiding her son's identity, hiding from her ex? These two people will always be silent cause they have nothing to speak. They are happy in their shares silence of secrets and lying, manipulation. Of course they will be silent in their own marriage, when someone else suffers, when someone accuse you. 

The only point of nav was increasing epi count. Abhi...ra is destroyed anyway. They can go ahead and establish navra as endgame as well no issues, who wants a fl with ml anyway? Criminal, liar, abuser, using people left right centre then leaving at convenience. At times I felt bad for nav cause he didn't know true face of ak. He really didn't deserve the mess she created or the drama her life has been.