Ryan Hawley himself has said that the rape storyline was done to get Robron back together in an interview.

Emmerdale's Twitter and Facebook feed was absolutely ridiculous last night. Hardly anything about the trial or what this whole storyline is meant to be about. It was all about Robron which just goes to show the whole abuse has just been to put these two characters together which is revolting.

They blatantly promote Danny Miller over any other cast member. No other storyline gets the attention that this one has. You'd forget John and Dominic were nominated for Best Actor too since they get next to no attention.

Sorry - I just don't get it. Robron fans swear it's not about the whole idea of a "fanfiction fantasy" of two boys getting it on but all the comments I have mostly read have been about them hugging/kissing NOTHING about the actual trial itself with! Even Emmerdale were promoting the "#THATkiss" on Twitter last night.

I'm sick fed up of these two and all the limelight they get.

Surely Miller is due an extended break, if only to recover from "his hardest storyline EVER" and all the sobbing?

"Double YASS #Robron #emmerdale"

"WAIT...did #Robron just reunite? *scary face *loveheart*#emmerdale"

And not forgetting the MOST IMPORTANT thing:

"Vote for @DannyBMiller at the @SoapAwards now #Emmerdale"

One can only hope the show can move on now the trial is over. And the Press Team is replaced by grown ups.

Although used as a serious storyline, the abuse of Aaron has the flip side of allowing the writer's to respond ( rightly or wrongly) to the fanbase that robron have. I didnt realise until some other posters were talking about it, how big on the internet that this is, and looked for myself.
As a soap, naturally itv will boost audience figures or appreciation by plugging it for all its worth.
I don't have a problem with Robron other than they seem to have changed Roberts dark psychotic character once again ( and I was enjoying dark robert) to suit luvved-up gay coupling. Im a gay man myself, and im just like all you straight guys out thete with the same likes and dislikes etc.. the only difference is im not interested in what you get up to bed, as you are not interested in what i do either!

It would be nice in a soap if you just saw a normal gay couple, without being a thug, psychotic, murdering etc...but itll never happen!
Scriptwriters know they can get a lot of mileage out of gay characters, and the younger audiences love them,both lads and girls.

I've got an assassin on speeddial can "disappear" them for a couple of hundred nicker.

Note to people who take things very seriously: this is a JOKE.


Gordon Bennett. I never follow the official account. Now I know why. They sound like demented 7 year olds.


Why not though? I'd love that! Depending on the characters, obviously.

They probably actually are 7

Who's asking for normal

Characterisation and narratives written within the boundaries of "reasonable" human existence would be acceptable.

If this storyline had been written with a heterosexual couple - where a guy had an affair with another woman whilst married, manipulated her into covering up a murder*, hired a professional killer to have her own mother killed, tried to have her "father figure" suffocated in a grain pit, then tied her to a radiator and threatened to shoot her - NOT A SINGLE VIEWER would be saying - oh poor man, it's because he loves her so much he's done all that - if the show had then introduced this childhood abuse story and made her a victim of abuse by her own father and had said male character be her "rock" whereby the conclusion to the rape story was them hugging & kissing.

There would not be a worldwide fandom squeeing about them hugging & kissing.
There would not be a worldwide fandom squeeing about "chemistry"


Its the hypocrisy of using gay characters in THIS way - knowing full well that there is a cult worldwide m/m shipping audience who will eagerly write off all the murder, abuse, deceit and manipulation and applaud the show for doing so because they get their "fix" of homoerotic action and love story.

I don't ask for "normal" behaviour - but I do ask that this OTT fanfiction is NOT shown as being "normalised" behaviour for gay characters.

I very occasionally look at the Appreciation Thread on here and tbh I was seriously shocked to see that quite a few of them actually have small children of their own.

Don't reply, kwynne - it can only get us in trouble.

???? Really is that necessary. Why comment about the fans. Stick to the fictional characters maybe.

BiBs : All true, but playing devil's advocate a bit here, surely that says more about that minority of fanw*nk viewers than anything else? ED's and ITV's only, repeat only, interest is in attracting publicity and hence advertisers. Can they really be blamed for cynically supplying what appears to be a clear demand from that noisy minority?

Simply pointing out the unlikelihood of said fans being 7 years old.

I've just posted a message on Twitter, using #Emmerdale, saying exactly what I think. I'm now expecting to get loads of abuse from the Robron fans which I shall have a laugh at

What about Sean and Billy on Corrie? I know people on here despise Sean for some unknown reason but him and Billy are pretty normal and don't have all the RobRon or SteDan type drama. Personally I prefer the couples with all the drama nice couples are boring.

I also agree with what others are saying, the child abuse story seems to have be done to reunite RobRon and IMHO the abuse just didn't fit with Aaron's history. If they wanted to reunite them they could have done it in another way. Also I almost died when Robert claimed he was a different man now a week after his Kim Tate imitation I hope they don't make Aaron continue to be Robert's victim, Aaron can be pretty devious in his own right and I'd like to see him gain back his strength and not put up with any more BS from Robert.

BIB: Emmerdale did it with Ruby and Ally but look what happened there!

My Ruby!!!

I really liked her.

Bleddy helicopter. It ruined everything.

Unless the 7 year olds have hacked into their parents accounts


In the tradition of such things that was a joke.

Yes it didn't fall on either Aaron or Dross.

Or Moanie Joanie.

I agree on both points, I thought Ruby was great and wasn't happy when she got killed. I thought she, Ally, Sean and Amelia made a lovely family unit, one of the more 'normal' ones! Which of course is why it all broke apart. ED doesn't like 'normal' families.

I think you will be getting your wish about Joanie pretty soon

Andybear, I think thee and me are two of the only members of the Spencer Family Fan Club. I actually still miss Sean.


What, that she be horribly mashed by a passing helicopter blade?

Don't get my hopes up.

Putting spoilers together that I've seen and others have posted on here it looks like

From memory, I think I often share differing viewpoints from you Sheepie, but have to say you've well and truly hit the nail on the head for me with these two posts. In particular, the trial scenes haven't generated any exciting writing and have been mainly uninteresting and predictable considering what a big storyline this had the potential to be.


You do remember that Robert rejoined the cast a couple of months after Aaron returned right? Right after they'd cleared up the pesky nonsense of sending him away to France. Robert then returned and was inexplicably thrown into the relationship with him that led to Katie's death before the end of the year. I'm pretty certain that that would have been planned before the actors started filming their return scenes and is likely the entire reason they brought Robert back to begin with. I think it's perfectly reasonable that the rape story was always their intention to reunite and redeem the pair knowing that the Katie story would leave them both (particularly Robert) on shaky ground. And if it wasn't, they've not done a very good job of showing otherwise.

As an addition to that, have we still had any inclination as to what happened with Robert considering he showed no sexual interest in males in the past? Have we had any acknowledgement of his own realisation and experiences? I would have thought Chrissie would have pushed for some more answers in all honesty.


Yikes. Seems they're still trying to prove Emmerdale isn't an old person's soap by going a little bit too far the other way then.

Just an additional 2p on the story as well - but I really think this story is (rightly or wrongly - hard to tell with the material he's been given) showing Danny Miller up to be a one-note actor as well. Every scene he's either miserable, angry, teary-eyed or exhaling and nodding/shaking his head. They really need to give him something else to do afterwards that can prove his versatility.