I Found the Worst Stardew Spouse Tier List 

the way the author calls the bachelorettes' trauma baggage and it's a negative, but the bachelor's baggage makes them interesting literally feels like the "when youre so misogynistic youre just gay" 😭😭😭

Remember kids: if the girl has issues that’s bad, but if the guy has issues that’s good

The two steps to falling in love 1. Be employed 2. Have no BAGGAGE

I feel like this list was like When women have trauma 🤬 When men have trauma 🧍 When women don't have trauma and submit to being your housewife no questions asked 😍

The author decided to make their misogyny everybody's problem 🙄 Can't stand when people hate Pam for being an alcoholic then fawn over Shane.

"Stop with the baggage, you sound like a TSA employee" made me laugh more than it probably should've

God forbid a woman in an abusive relationship escapes said abusive relationship!!!!!

dude shane has the most baggage in my opinion- alcohol problems, self harm, depression. and YET hes a "great spouse" BECAUSE OF HIS BAGGAGE after they just explained Leah is trash because of her baggage. TF? (edit: lol i know ppl dont like this but MOM IM FAMOUS)

My only problem with Maru is her hair sucks compared to the earlier versions of her. Like imagine how cute her nurse outfit would look with that natural hair. Otherwise S tier.

This guy's rankings have a sort of... should i say misogynistic vibe? Like the guys that have bagage hes ok with unless its Harvey in which case he says its because he isn't brave enough. And all of the girls that have baggaged he complained about. Especially since his number one is Emily and his main reasoning being "she has no baggage and will do what you want to" which is so weird. So according to him its only ok to have baggage if you're a dude who is a "wimp".

i can smell the misogyny off the writer of this article. if women have problems that's BAGGAGE, but if men have (worse) problems, that's an opportunity to grow and bond uwu

I've said it once and I'll say it again, this article was so bad it made me want to marry Leah out of spite despite me being gay

This guy's fav character is Clint, I guarantee it.

i think the main reason on why emily's story line and hearth event dont have an ounce of romance in it is purely because she wasnt even supposed to be a romancable character which is funny

IMAGINE thinking Leah has the most baggage when there is A LITERAL ALCOHOLIC for grabs. Also Kel definitely wrote this article lol or at least someone who has a problem with their ex cause they were actually abussive to their ex lol

No bc why does everyone hate Elliot, he's so sweet and caring especially when you get to know him. Plus he's one of the few spouses who actually keep following their dreams and carrers so I dont feel guilty about marrying him

Honestly a minute and a half in and I'm already laughing at the article. "Leah has the most baggage of all the marriage candidates" can't wait to hear what they have to say about shane, a character who has heart events about how he's an alcoholic and one of the heart events is literally the player walking up to him drunk wondering if there's any reason to not un-alive himself off a cliff, yeah Leah's the one with the baggage issues.

4:28 Its a thing in medical ethics you're not supposed to date your patients due to the potiental abuse of the power imbalance. You're not a regular patient of his though outside of emergency care and as the only doctor in town he doesn't really have the option to have someone else take over care to avoid the issue, so it's a very grey area imo.

as an elliott lover... the fact you instantly named him as a bad bachelor. sigh. It's okay Elliott you are very beautiful to me.

literally seems like his criteria is “how good of an option is this person for an arranged marriage with my kid” - it only matters how inoffensive and financially stable they are 😂

Emily does have baggage. Clint is her literally stalker. The cloth therapy is just the tip of the iceberg. It gets worse when you have any friendship with clint.

I've personally never really understood how Elliott comes off as pretentious, I've always thought he was pretty chill. I definitely disagree with the part about you just feeling like an object to him

The take is basically: If you're male, having baggage and trauma makes you interesting and your woman is supposed to work around it and help you overcome your issues. But if you're female, you should not have any drama or baggage because that's just a burden on your man and you should be there to support him, not the other way around.

Seeing Seanie support Maru, despite the rest of the fandom either ignoring or hating on her, makes me so happy because she was my first choice and i loved her story. Litterally my only critisim to her entire character is that I wish they kept her original hair style.

Personally, Elliott is my favorite. He's so incredibly sweet and honestly as someone going through and having saves dedicated to every characters route to objectively say who's my favorite, he's at the top. He's the one character who after marriage made me feel loved. There's just something missing with the others.

I love Alex's story and development. He's also one of the characters that has more dialogue when dating the same gender, and that dialogue really adds to his character which I love.

the way my jaw dropped when i saw where harvey was..i dont get why people are so "eww" about him he literally is respectfully average when you first meet him and when you get to a higher level with hearts but he has so much depth to him as well and hes so. sad i love him 😭😭 dawg did my boy so dirty..

Leah: My ex-partner was abusive and didn't want me pursuing my dreams so I ran away and im doing a lot better Penny: My father walked out because of my mom.She's an alcoholic and we have little to no income. The town also seems to look down on us because of it. I want to get out of here and pursue my dreams, settle down and have a nice, big family Tier author: UGGGHHHHH YOU HAVE SO MUCH BAGGAGE. HAVE YOU TRIED SMILING?! Shane, (Is an alcoholic who took in his best friend's daughter after they died, has thoughts of unaliving, one of his heart events is you stopping him from doing so) Sebastian (Comes from a neglectful family, is subjected to a windowless basement, has no relationship with his step father and resents his half sister for being the golden child, dreams of running away) Alex (Father was abusive and stepped out, mother passed away (illness or unaliving herself, never specified) and has been raised by his grandparents ever since) Tier author: OMG SO QUIRKY!! But the fact that Emily is number one (and her sister being 2) makes me think Clint ghost-wrote this article

Elliott is just supposed to be my trophy husband. His job is just to sit a be pretty

"Leah has the most baggage of any marriage candidate" SHANE IS A SUICIDAL ALCOHOLIC?

I ABSOLUTELY ADORE Emily, and she's number one for me, but the reasons this guy picked are so weird I love her because she's optimistic, fun, caring, and expresses her emotions through her art! She's super loving and I just absolutely adore her

Those are some dumb takes. Especially the one about Leah. That person got lots wrong even on characters they liked. Sam is my favorite, and while they got his kindness and love for family right they also got tons wrong. Many folks think Sam's boring at first glance, but he's got lots of interesting characterization in subtext and in family dialogues. People who really think Sam doesn't have any baggage haven't been paying attention to him. He lives in a household where his parents try to hide all their problems, and Sam hides plenty behind his smile too. First off, when you get to know Sam he's the only person in his family who senses that his mother isn't happy with her life and that she's hiding it. He tells you at 8 hearts. So once you know that you can start to see why Sam gets so nervous about conflicts with her. It's really obvious in how she overreacted to even a dropped egg in the kitchen, because it's not really about the egg. It's about her trying to shoulder all the responsibility of the household alone, fearing for her husband in the war, hiding a worrying letter from Kent in her nightstand drawer, and smothering her sons in her attempt to be the perfect mother. When Sam makes a small mistake trying to make a basic snack, it's treated like a catastrophe. It makes perfect sense why Sam doesn't want to further stress out a woman he knows is walking on eggshells. Jodi is pressuring herself to be the perfect mom, while Sam is pressuring himself to be the perfect son to avoid upsetting her. You get to see the toll it's taking on them in that scene. That's why Sam has friendship points for how you answer there, yet it doesn't matter to him at all whether you take his side against Lewis in the 6 heart event. Sam spends the first year in the game following all the news from the war, and the radio in his house is turned to the broadcasts about it. He spends summer afternoons at the beach with Vincent and tries to be there for Vince to keep him from feeling scared and lonely with their dad away fighting. His 3 heart event is the only point where Sam really opens up about his fears, and the only person he ever opens up to is the player. It's quite sad to realize that the only scene where Sam talks about his fears is the only missable heart event in the game. He can't talk to Jodi or Vincent because he doesn't want to worry them. He clearly can't talk to Seb either, as Seb spends his two heart event complaining about his friends wanting to hang out with him and wishing that people were less needy and more like computers. So Sam pours everything into his music, practicing 4 hours a day most days. In one of his after marriage dialogues he even admits he played mostly when he felt lonely. Once Kent returns, Sam quickly spots that he's changed. Later on, Sam even tells you about Kent pacing the halls during the night but refusing to tell Sam and Jodi what's wrong. You further learn that Kent missed out on an important part of Sam's life, and Kent suggests you know Sam better than he does now. The game makes a point that Kent enjoys fishing, but Sam will tell you that he doesn't know how to fish. Apparently, Kent never took him or taught him. The only father and son trip we do know about was to the desert when Sam was young, which could explain Sam's love for cactus fruit. Sam loves his dad, but their relationship has grown distant from the time missed and the problems that the war brought into their lives. That isn't even going into Sam's huge number of ADHD symptoms in his dialogue or his implied rebellious phase with things like the anchovy incident. It's not that Sam is a person with no baggage. Sam is a person who was raised to not complain and who tries to make everything better. One of his lines in his 14 heart event sums it up nicely. "Ah well... that's okay. I'll make the best of it, like I always do."

hearing you say Leah is one of the most popular reminds me of when my mom played the first time and realized she didnt have to follow heteronormativity and immediately said oh im gonna marry leah

this tierlist was made by clint and Leahs ex helped him too

I actually like Emily the most too! I just think she’s fun, and doesn’t feel like a child compared to some of the other characters. I don’t think that the reasoning is good for this list tho, i just enjoy the character bonding while also not feeling like the mc is changing her forever by romancing her.

My problem with emily is that her heart events are so unpersonal. The first heart event where the two of you jave a proper moment is her 10 heart scene so after you're dating. She just doesn't have a connection to the farmer so it makes it bland. Also i'm stuck between being happy for haley being high or disgusted by leah and harvey being so low but i think i'm the latter.

I cannot believe that my top 3 spouses, Leah, Harvey, and Maru were at the very bottom. This truly is terrible

LOOK I am a massive Emily apologist, she's my favorite bachorette and second favorite spouse after Elliot, so if anyone were to agree with her ranking it would be me. But like Emily's appeal isn't that she's employed or is baggage free or whatever, it's that she's weird, kind of funny, and just genuninly fun to interact with. She has some of the most insane heart events in the game and I love her for it. Bro really misunderstood literally every marriage candidate in the game with no shame whatsoever.

He probably had a ex that had a lot of baggage and not a stable job so he’s taking out his anger on Stardew marriage candidates.

Oohhhh my goddd the misogyny in this article actually has me flabbergasted. Whoever wrote this isn't "going through something", he's clearly just a piece of crap. I'm actually a big fan of Emily -- I relate strongly to her weird girl vibes and wild imagination. But the reasons why this guy put her at #1 is making my skin crawl something horrible.

Im honestly so surprised haley is that high up, normally people just say "shes mean" and moves on

How did the author say that Leah has the most baggage?? When Alex's whole family is pretty much dead, Shane is an alcoholic and his best friends are both dead, and Harvey may have accidentally killed someone 😭😭

Tbh Elliott is S tier for me. Like. He's emotionally mature, can articulate his emotions, doesn't give up his career for his spouse, and is all around quite considerate. He's light hearted, intelligent, makes jokes, is aware of his vanity (we love vain folks bc you should love yourself :)), and the only "pretentious" thing about him is his use of big, fancy words. Which...makes sense as he's a writer. Also as someone autistic and a writer, I have gotten some flack for being seen as pretentious for using big words. It just is the way I talk especially with my love of languages and my ease of understanding vocabulary. I have had to dumb down my speech just to feel like I can fit in. My intention is never to make anyone feel bad, it's just how I speak. So I guess it's a bit personal why I feel upset when Elliott is considered pretentious cause being autistic and having a particular way of speaking due to my love of languages and understanding of grammar, yeah, I've had to deal with that too. Honestly I like all the bachelors. I think Penny is personally my most disliked as I have had friends who are like her that have been toxic. That meek, people pleasing attitude. I get it, I've been like her too, but especially with not a lot of growth or help for her like Shane gets with his therapy (minus the fact his liked items don't reflect it with the beer), it just leaves a sour taste. She wants to be good cause her mom treats her horribly so she tries to always be nice, but you can't really say anything to her cause otherwise you come off like a jerk since she's sensitive. A great friend, but I could not have a relationship like that. That's just my preference as I have had people like that and it has been very toxic on both of our ends and I would like to NEVER have to go back to that. But aside from her, I enjoy all the love interests tbh. Shane is a favorite for me, mostly cause I get it. I have bad trauma and personality disorders, I ain't exactly perfect or easy to love. But I'd be content being his friend. Maru is fantastic and a sweetheart. Alex is probably another least fave just cause in the female farmer ten heart event, he just orders you a salad. And like. I really don't appreciate that. It's such a small thing, but I've had an ED and even that small, tiny thing is triggering to me. Harvey is def becoming one of my favorites. He's so cute and sweet and I also have a fear of heights :D Emily fluctuates between my favorite girl and not. I mostly love her cause she reminds me of my best friend and myself :) I adore Haley cause I love the "mean girl" trope and she comes off as very autistic to me (special interests, doesn't really understand others/lower empathy, trouble with tone) and I like that :) Sam and Sebastian are both cool. The only reason I can't see myself choosing Sebastian anymore is cause, like, my friend adores him like I adore Elliott so I can't see me picking him even in a solo playthrough lol. Leah is probably one of the least baggage love interests too. She has an ex girlfriend who is still clingy. Like. That's not HER fault. She's pretty chill, emotionally mature, loves nature, and is creative and kind. Abigail is pretty cool too. I really do love all the love interests tbh. Penny is really the only one I don't really romantically love anymore cause of the previous mentioned reasons. I would still fight for her and be her friend any day and I love many things about her so don't think my criticism and personal trauma projection is me saying she's bad. She's great, just not for me due to past experiences. I dunno how you could hate any of them aside from personal tastes. Like, I think Shane is the big one I see it's more okay to not want to date since uh alcoholism, mental health, and literally a suicide attempt. I can handle it cause um, I'm not much different and I am disabled and traumatized so I know I'm a lot for people to deal with too, but like, many people wouldn't, especially in real life so like, it's fine. I dunno how anyone can say Shane doesn't have the most baggage or would dare say Leah is undatable cause of her baggage, but Shane isn't??? If anything, it should be Shane is the only real undatable one cause of his baggage, but we all pretty much love him anyway. Anyway, that is my autistic rambles on stuff that really doesn't matter :) :p

WAIT so Leah having trauma and pursuing an unrealistic career and all is bad, but Alex having trauma and not pursuing an actual job, like, AT ALL, is fine??? I personally dislike the "I have a large, small chance of success ambition that I'm not taking very active steps in until convinced by player," but to put Alex in top 5 for the same reasons that Leah is last is so bizarre. And parental issues put Penny low, but Alex high. Wat

It's gonna be hard to be worse than the youtube video I saw that ranked Emily last for "breaking Clint's heart" by rejecting him 💀

"Leah has the most baggage" but we forgetting that Shane literally wanted to OFF HIMSELF WITH ALCOHOL AND OR THROW HIMSELF OFF A CLIFF?

this just in: doctors aren't allowed to get married anymore

He forgot about Clint's obsession with Emily! That's an active drama situation!

7:47 it's because Shane is a guy I think instead of a woman the person who wrote the article might be basis

The fact Elliott is is LOWER than Shane baffles me. I don’t think Elliott see’s you as just his muse for his writing, he writes about you out of love

someone in the stream chat said "Kel and Clint collabed on this" LMFAOOOOO

Wait Seanie's significant other looks like Haley? Thats so adorable!!! Those pictures were so cute!!!

I’m not a big Haley fan but saying that her only hobby is shopping??? Girl has a whole dark room for developing photos and eventually stops caring so much about shopping, this guy just hates it when girls have a life

this is truly the tierlist of all time

Ok hearing seanie saying maru is in his top 3 makes me like him even more than I already did

He accuses Leah of running as soon as things get hard, but I get the feeling he would be the one to run. He wants a spouse with no problems, who needs no support. What will he do if his partner's family dies? What if his partner becomes seriously sick or disabled? Or is fired from their job?

This guy is unironically the person who does the jojo route on completing the game instead of community center

I am a penny lover and will forever be a penny lover. She’s so sweet and kind and you get unique furniture from her 14 heart event.

"So at worst place you'd expect to see someone like Elliot" Me: So you have chosen death

Abigail was there for me when I was the dweeb guy at high school, now she is here for me while I am a dweeb girl at college

Harvey is an incredible spouse!!! I will die on this hill. He says the sweetest things and he's just so doting

This list feels like it was generated by an ai. Elliott and maru top tier

Emily is my favourite because how genuinely nice and caring she is, she wants the best for everyone and will help anyone in need if they want it, while also not letting the bad things slow her stride. As a person who is chronically Ill I need a person who is already secure caring and understanding, and almost every marriage candidate has a lot of current issues that won’t benefit in being in a romantic relationship with me since they have so much to deal with already and should work out independently.

Why they think that having problems is wrong? Problems are building our personalities irl, in gamedev - making characters more realistic and relatiable, adding depth into them. Why is it possibly a bad thing? Also Harvey, my poor baby with his dreams shattered into pieces 😢 you don't deserve this

Personally i love Emily and idk why but her and shane were my first 2 marriages. Then i said "f*** that, krobus is better" so i think im healing

Penny and Harvey are my two favorite marriage candidates. Penny was my first ever Stardew Spouse, and Harvey is my go-to marriage candidate. I love seeing both of them grow as characters. Shane is a character I've only married once. His mental health issues hit so close to home for me that it's hard for me to go through with his storyline- especially when my own mental health is in the toilet. The points about Elliott make me upset, honestly. I like to write in my free time, and seeing Elliott being passionate about something I'm also passionate about makes me happy. 0/10 tier list.

It’s literally written by a guy named Kyle, what was anyone expecting 💀

one could argue emily’s stalker clint would be some pretty heavy baggage lmao

THANK YOU for defending Maru, she was my first stardew love and my favorite! I had no clue anyone disliked her until I began getting into the online community. I think she’s so cute and nice and I totally agree that her heart events are really romantic

I think bro forgot this is a video game where you make MILLIONS every day.

the author really thinks female characters should be accessories with no emotional depth of their own huh

i like emily because she felt like she secretly knew magic and possibly has some secrets

My blood started boiling when you said Elliott was the worst, but when I saw “LEAVE ELLIOTT ALONE” in the back I was calmed 😭

Honestly ever since Sal said that Shane and Emily weren't meant to be bachelors originally I've been thinking about much it makes sense. I like Shane and Emily as people and would love to hang out with them, but it feels like a train wreck to get involved with Shane when it seems like everything about his character feels like friend material (hear me out) and Emily feels like the kind of person who's either forever single or already taken and it's not a part of her life that's a big deal either way. And with Shane, things like sharing a beer by the lake at night feels very intimate, but not romantic. It feels like something that happens in real life a lot, one of those first times you start to see what kind of person this new acquaintance is and one of those nights you can have another 100 times that goes the same way. He's not like Abigail, Sam and Seb where he has a dedicated friend group, it feels like his social connections are lacking, and it feels like his place in the story is with his family. Idk, I think it would be really cool if marrying people like Shane forced you to use the farm in a more dedicated way. If you have Shane, there's a deluxe coop with all blue hens on your farm. If you marry Abigail, there's a slime hutch and fencing for outdoor slime ranching, that sort of thing. He talks about passing on the skills to Jas with the expectation that he won't be around, but to me it feels more like...well like what someone who tried to end their life would think while still recovering-- the old pattern of expecting to not be alive that far into the future. I think his character could live with a partner nearby his family, but that there's too big of a gap between what we see and when it happens. Although i guess thats another nitpick i have, that the 10 heart scenes in general tend to develop a blooming romance when its actually the required scene after having already been dating in order to progress to marriage. We all notice it being odd, I don't take real issue with the game or concerned ape over it, but I don't like the feel of that

I've only seen the first thing and LEAH BECAUSE OF BAGGAGE???? That's NO reason to write someone off! The heck!?

My brothers favorite love interest is Emily, she’s the only person he’ll ever romance and likes to speedrun marrying her. I think it’s that he enjoys her energy the most

Kel and Clint definitely did a collab for this one

it’s like he’s ranking them based on how good of a potential partner they’d be in real life and not a video game character where the point is that you get to know them and help them the closer you get

I was an Emily girl… her heart supports aren’t the best but, I love her sm… after she gave me clothes that she made, I never took them off despite how… interesting they are. She’s great ;-;

Sebastian is #1 boy, best most sweet guy ever and I will absolutely die on this hill 100% of the time. He's an introvert and his heart events as an introvert myself absolutely warmed my heart and was far sweeter than anything else this game has. It struck a different cord with me and I can't stop loving him.

finally someone who appreciates Maru as she deserves! at first i was just going to marry her because i learned she would gift bombs, but i genuinely enjoyed all her heart events i think shes pretty sweet

My fav is Alex. I like dumbish jocks with heart of gold, and i love how he visit his grandparents every monday (if i remember correctly). Even tho I'm sad that he gave up his dream I still find his whole story charming and cute

Emily - honestly she is perfect to me. She is sweet, creative, and passionate. She is also a fantastic mother to your children, quoting as all she wants for them is happiness. For me she is miles ahead as #1

Every time someone says "Leah's ex-boyfriend," I suddenly remember that there are people who play as a boy in this game for some reason

Has the writer endured a single thing in their entire life? I’m kinda jealous at how detached from reality they are 😭

Emily was actually the last marriage cantidate added. She was added in after a poll where the other options were Sandy and Pam.

rather late, but I love how the worst candidate in this list left town because she hated it there (specially her abusive ex) and wanted to focus on her art, while the best makes it clear she's only helping Gus to make ends meet, and even Gus says that she won't be working there for long

Emily's default portrait looks like she wants to murder me in my sleep ngl This on top of her directionless heart events that are just about her being a generally nice person and that's it makes her the worst imo (although I've only done one playthrough so I haven't seen a lot of the heart events myself)

I'm very new to Stardew, and totally intended to marry Penny or Sebastian, just because I like the quiet, shy, quirky vibe, but then I got into Emily, and to be honest? I like her. A lot. I like the quirkiness. I like that she isn't high maintenance. I like that she has silly heart events. Maybe unpopular, but I really don't care.

I actually really like Emily. Not as a spouse but as a good friend. It‘s nice to have somebody around you that seems full of joy and genuinely enjoys life. She‘s just vibing with her many projects and doesn‘t care if somebody find‘s it weird. Yeah maybe not the most interesting or complex, but people like her can be very comforting the be around ❤

I found who wrote the article and here is his biography on the site: Kyle Grammatica is a Features Writer for Collider. When he's not writing, you can find him drawing, fishing, or at a baseball game.

i caught the tail end of this stream, glad to be able to watch the highlights reel because this list was truly *wild*

I'm not surprised that the person who wrote this article let's men be 3 dimensional characters, while women have to be submissive, bland and have no experience in dating otherwise they have baggage. Also I like how this misogyny extends on Harvey, who commits the sin of not being the mold of masculinity. This shows how misogyny affects men who don't conform too.

The guy who wrote this list seems like the type who would think the whole game premise is stupid because “Why would you leave a stable 9-5 job to work on a farm.”

Was this tierlist made by Clint?

7.8/10 not enough baggage.

how tf is Leah last cuz she has "the most baggage" when Shane, Seb and Alex exist 😭😭

Ok imma out myself. My top 3 are Sebastian Emily and Elliot in that order. My first play through I married Elliot so he has a soft spot in my heart. My second play through I married Sebastian first then Emily strictly because of her first heart event feeling like an acid trip but I grew to love her the more I saw of her. I hated how she only worked on Fridays after marriage though. It seemed like she really liked that job but only works once a week now.

“Leah has the most baggage” have you MET Shane?????

2:23 Thanks for that author of the article, I really needed to hear what I am always telling myself at my worst from you