50 Shades of Grey, Christian Grey and Batman and what this book could have been

To be very honest, I wasn’t going to read this book. Curiosity got the better of me and I read it. It was disappointing, over-hyped by people who really loved it and people who really hated it both.

I’m not going to comment on the things that have already been picked to death—Ana is a poor copy of Bella, the minor characters are cardboard cutouts, the relationship is flawed, the intimacy was dangerous, etc. May the mob slay me for this, but I actually thought Christian Grey was pretty cool. He’s a lot better than Edward Cullen, which isn’t saying much. He is fifty shades of fucked up, pretty creepy, but somehow, people in-universe actually like him.

The thing about this book is that it’s overhyped by everyone. It’s not well-written at all, it portrays a dangerous relationship, it was Twilight fan fiction, etc.  I have to put it out there that Christian Grey, for all his faults, is well-planned. There were points in the story where I thought that E.L. James was going somewhere really significant—in their first meeting, Ana observes that Christian is ‘the ultimate consumer,’ which he confirms, and then spends the rest of the book proving wrong, to a certain extent. He’s selfish beyond belief, but he himself is completely consumed by responsibility, and the ramifications of his decisions. There was plenty that could have been done about Christian the capitalist extraordinaire, but unfortunately, nothing.

One redeeming quality about Christian, other than his supposedly rugged good looks, is his humor, which is stupidly good. I’m being serious here. I spent a lot of the earlier chapters wondering who Christian reminded me of, and it wasn’t until he said something about being a ‘dark knight’ that made me think, “Oh, shit, he’s Batman,” which explains a lot. Bruce Wayne is the ultimate consumer, a womanizer, a young CEO, extravagantly wealthy, etc. Like Grey Enterprises Holdings, Wayne Enterprises is a vast private-sector conglomerate helmed by their protagonists, and like Bruce, Christian donates extravagantly to public institutions.

All of this leads up to the one hilariously funny thing that Christian Grey said, that made me think slightly better of him. He borders on sociopath (like Bruce Wayne, my opinion), has been pulled into being a public figure (like Bruce), so it is completely funny when he cuts open the zip-ties on Ana’s wrists and says, “I declare this Ana open!” That was funny. Seriously, I thought that was funny.