Talk:Fresh Meat/@comment-173.76.143.159-20150110044340/@comment-25337712-20150110063009

Okay, here goes. Just remember, you asked for it. (Based solely off TV series Alison)

Alison. She, closely followed by Emily, has been my favourite PLL character since the beginning of the series. She was always so mysterious so I was intrigued to know more about her. I never bought the whole "She is a cold-hearted Queen bitch who was murdered because she was a horrible person" idea that set up at the beginning of the series. I also had always felt that she wasn't actually dead, which then turned out to be true.

I know that she was a bully, a bitch and very manipulative. But I also know that there is alway a reason for why someone is like that. I do not codone her bullying behaviour at all, with Hanna's weight, Emily's sexuality, Aria's father's affair etc. but I dont feel that that should still be the way that Alison is seen in the series today.

Alison has been through a lot of really horrible stuff. She had a very toxic relationship with her mother which ultimately came to a head with her mother burying her after she thought Alison was dead. She never had a stable relationship with her father or brother either. That would have had an immense impact on how she would relate with others because she had to stable relationships around her to use as examples.

I was never Team Emison from the beginning of the series. I started to like the idea of Emison around Season 3/Season 4 because I thought I would an interesting relationship to unfold because we had never seen Alison in a relationship with someone and she always had a special connection with Emily, so Emison.

In Season 3, we knew Alison was alive with the hands coming out of the grave and her saving Hanna in 3x24. This carried on through Season 4 and then Alison was reunited with the Liars. Through 4B we saw that Alison was not the same as she used to be, she was scared, vulnerable and mature.

Then Season 5. Alison was back. In Rosewood. When she came back, I sort of wiped my slate with her clean because I knew I couldn't judge her on what she was like when she was fifteen. Season 5 has explained a lot about Alison. She has a very strong survival instinct that had developed over her two years on the run and that is why she feel the need to lie e.g. Kidnapping, Cyrus. It also showed more about her family relationships. Her brother couldn't care less that she was alive and her dad resumed his business trip as soon as possible after she came back. You also saw how heartbroken she was when her mother's body was found, the mother that buried her alive. Season 5 also shed light on Alison's time on the run with Cyrus. She was homeless and was betrayed by the one person that she trusted during this time, a person that physically attacked her. Now everyone has turned their backs on her. Even the Liars who know that she has saved their lives and risked her own to come back and check on them. Alison loves the Liars but doesn't seem to know how to show that to them.

I love Alison not because I agree with everything she has done but because I understand why she has done what she done. You don't have to like Alison, that's fine, but at least appreciate her as a character. Alison is damaged, much more so that the Liars. Don't take her at face value because there is so much more to her than that.