She is not like those other girls. She is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, A Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and you are absolutely in love with her.

You've heard it before: Quirky Girl With Weird Habits and a Made Up Name meets Sad Lonely Boy With No Hobbies and Just Wants To Get Laid. Quirky Girl takes Sad Lonely Boy on an adventure of a lifetime, Sad Lonely Boy falls in love with Quirky Girl and suddenly "finds himself," and at the end she leaves without a trace. But this time, Sad Lonely Boy has now turned into Confident Man and finds his "purpose" in life.

Thankfully, this poorly written and highly sexist "story" (if you could call it a story) has been criticized by authors and readers alike. However, the criticism has been directed entirely and exclusively at the girl.

What criticizers of this trope fail to realize is that putting these characters’ down is just as fundamentally sexist as the character’s creation itself, and that continuing to criticize the character instead of the romanticization of the character will only further the existence of “girl-hate.” People are telling girls that "you can be yourself, sure, just... not like that," and that is just as bad as using girls as a plot device.

Additionally, we seem quick to criticize the classic Manic Pixie, but we never seem to see anything wrong with the other troupe presented in these stories: The Sad, Brooding Teen Male Hero. By not criticizing these characters, a world has been created in which this Male Hero is the victim. There are now boys that think it is okay to tell girls that their tragic backstories and mental illnesses make them “quirky” and “not like other girls.” There is now an audience of impressionable youth that think that it is okay to treat a girl like a plot device to their own real life story. In addition, girls now think that being “like other girls” is a bad thing, and that it is okay to set aside their own happiness for someone else.

Now, obviously, there are two sides to every story. You can argue that Manic Pixie's aren't the problem, or you can claim that they're the manifestation of the anti-christ. Either way, we need to stop making these fun, interesting characters the sole source of happiness for the Brooding YA Hero, and we need to realize that these girls really do not need to be relying on them to be a part of the story.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope does not have to end. In fact, we should want more. We should want to see these characters full-bodied and developed and protagonists to their own story. Calling for an end to the trope is not going to help, but calling for an end to the use of female characters as a plot device is.