User blog:Corbierr/Two things that bugs me about fictional romances

 Hi, insert typical blog introduction here. It feels like it's been a while since I sat down and wrote an analysis rant, although maybe it's not, I don't know, I think the last one I wrote was a month ago. I need to fix this, because how dare I waste my time on things that are cheerful and optimistic. Hatred is what gets readers, damn it!

Anyways, romance.

Romance, romance, romance.

Nothing else can inspire more emotions out of simple fiction than a well written (or otherwise) romance. Everyone is a sucker for it, even when they aren't that well written. People just get caught up in the heat of the moment. I do it. Everyone does it. But even the best ones have flaws. Some of these flaws repeat. A lot. Yet, people tend to get so caught up in them, so passionate about the actual emotions, that they willfully ignore some things that really should be fixed or at least pointed out more often.

This isn't about HOA romances in specific, though if you know my blogs you know that I'll be pointing out HOA examples whenever I can because we're the Anubis wiki, damn it, I'll shoehorn HOA in whenever I want to ''so deal with it. ''  Instead, this is just about certain romance...tropes, if I may use that word around people who don't use TvTropes. Certain romance tropes and cliches that just bother me. There are two in specific I'll be looking at. I'll be explaining what bothers me and how I, personally, would change it or make it less...annoying.

 In the comments you are free to give your own opinions and disagree if you wish, but right now my opinion is the only one that matters because It's my blog and if Light reads this I need to get the joke in before he can even though I'm just proving his point and blah blah you guys don't care about this you just want to hear me rant, yeah? (Yes, that was all one sentence, because I'm a strong independant woman who doesn't need no grammar.) So let's get on with the rant!



First off, There is always a protector.
====  This is a holdover from when a lot of stories were about men saving women from dragons or serial killers or barrel-throwing gorillas who are not at all donkeys despite what their names may imply. It's a fantasy thing. Girls wanted to dream of a hero who will swoop in and rescue them from whatever danger they are currently facing. Boys wanted to  be  the hero. This sort of thing not only implys girls can't and might not even want to save themselves, but also that boys need to do drastic things in order to be worthy of the perfect girl. But everyone knows this sort of situation. There's been a big push against it lately from people who want to see the female characters be more active. Issue is, by doing this, they make it the male who is now the one who needs saving. ==== ==== Now, I want to make one thing clear. There is nothing wrong with individual cases where one partner protects the other, regardless of gender. Again, it's a fantasy and sometimes we all need a little saving. But there are a lot of problems with the whole pattern and the cliche in general. For one thing, it should not be treated as the ideal romance. There needs to be a deeper core. Quick, passionate and shallow flings are one thing. Long term relationships are another. If the romance starts out with the rescue, then there damn well better be some good writing, because just because someone saves you from some street thugs doesn't mean they're your one true love. It's okay to have stories where a person saves their love interest. With context, anything can work. But it shouldn't be the center of the relationship and it shouldn't be the focus of the story unless you can do it in a really creative way. Have it be part of a larger story, and try not to have one partner be far more competent than the other because not only will it be more interesting to read, it'll also make the other partner come off as a far better character, even if their version of the rescue isn't literal- they can save them by finding some really rare and expensive medicine, for example. ====  But the real thing that bothers me is when the other partner should reasonably be able to save themselves. Like, you know all those female love interests who come off as independant and competent until the end when they get reduced to a damsel for the hero to save? The Nostalgia Critic calls it "dumbass in distress syndrome", TvTropes calls it holding the "Distress Ball," I just call it lazy ass writing. If you absolutely need someone to save the other character, that's fine. But don't do it in a way that undermines the pre-established competence of your other character! Instead of having them just get captured by the villian and conviently forget their fighting skills, let them fight and work to save themselves. Hell, maybe even have them sabotage things from the inside to make it easier on the hero for later. Something like that! And this is something I see a ''lot. ''I see it in books, I see it on TV...

 For example, Peeta was described as being physically strong and great at wrestling. But he rarely got to show these skills. Sure, he had his skills shown to the reader during training or that time he tried to choke Katniss. But he never used them in the arena, or at least he did rarely. No, instead they just had Katniss save him. And save him some more. And then Finnick saved him...and then Gale...and Katniss did it a few more times...and you get the picture. Despite having actual ability to save himself, he never could. And yeah, okay, sometimes it's okay, but then it gets ridiculous when he never actually does anything to help Katniss. Rue did more for Katniss. The Morphlings did more for Katniss. Peeta gave her hope and warmth, and I suppose he made her popular in the game, but none of that saved her life, if anything it saved his own life when she was kissing him on screen for medicine. Peeta is not a bad character and Everlark is a great pairing...but come on, Peeta was capable of saving himself.

 On the other hand, as far as I've read of the Legend series, this is averted with June and Day. They both save each other using their different skills; she's calculating and a skilled soldier, he's fast and he's famous to the people. Neither are stuck in the role as the designated damsel, because different circumstances cause different results and one of them will save the other, but it's never set in stone who will save who.

 Then...Anubis, as usual, manages to play this straight and subvert it at the same time. Well, it plays it straight far more often. Fabian always needs to save Nina even though, as the shy geek, it'd make more sense if he was the one who gets rescued. Though to be fair, everyone has saved Nina's ass at least once. Even Joy and Victor got in on the fun. Eddie seems to percieve himself as the hero in Peddie, but Patricia actually saved him a lot more often while he couldn't even save her from being Sinnified even when he had a goddamn vision about it because everyone in the third season is a dumbass except for the bad guys. Of course, by TOR this isn't quite the case, but it's more of Eddie saving everyone and Patricia just not doing anything rather than him saving her exclusively. Even there, she saved him from the crypt. So it's a strange role reversal where nobody actually acknowledges that Patricia keeps having to save him, even in just minor ways. (Then again, nobody ever acknowledges when Patricia ever does anything heroic, so meh, topic for another time.) In a way, Mara sort of saved Jerome, but it was more figurative. She saved him by helping him change and deal with his past. Alfie tended to save Amber more often but Fabian saved her just as often, anyways, and she'd always make the effort to save him anyways when she can or at least tries to help him afterwards. So in a way, they're almost equal, or at least do a better job of seeming like they are. Jeroy instead got to take turns inflicting pain on each other rather than helping each other, which is at least unique.

 All this really boils down to is that I really want to see more romances where both partners can save each other or at least help each other. If one can't be physically capable of fighting off enemies for their love, that's fine, but let them contribute ''something. And what's wrong with couples who can kick ass together and don't ''need to save each other? Maybe they can get captured together and have to work together to escape. Or maybe they can both get saved by someone who isn't a love interest. All I'm saying is that times are changing. Instead of just switching the gender of who saves who, why not just make both characters competent and get rid of the problem entirely?

 Only thing is, this would typically require them staying together, and...

They can never be happy until the end.
Break ups are a part of life. It's almost impossible for someone to stay happy with one person forever, and even then there's going to be some drama every once in a while. Until you truly find the right person, these romances just aren't meant to last, especially not when you're a teenager, because teenagers are too young and stupid to truly understand love or how to make it work. I understand all this.

But if you're going to have your characters break up, for Anubis' sake, at least have an actual reason for it. Drama to pad the show is not a good reason. Miscommunication is a slightly better reason, but don't overdo it and don't make the characters become painfully stupid in order to make it happen. People in real life break up for all sorts of reasons. Fictional relationships should, too. In fact, fictional relationships need even more reason, because we tend to want fiction to make more sense than real life. They don't need to be good reasons in-universe, but at least let them make sense to the audience.

HOA seems to like making their romances go through drama, but the show doesn't seem all that interested in what actually causes said drama. For one thing, Fabina's drama didn't even come from being split up, it came from Joy, who probably would have made her moves if Fabina were together or not, she might have just waited a little longer in the latter case. Peddie makes even less sense because the reason was never elaborated on. In season 2, their break ups were for really dumb reasons but it actually worked because it highlighted just how new this was to the both of them and how neither of them were really ready to start dating. It also showed the consequences having a love hate romance where you continue the love hate after romance has truly begun. But season 3 doesn't work because the audience didn't see the break up. They might as well have never gotten together at the end of season 2- at least if that happened it'd have made much more sense than what we got. Jara...ehh...okay, give them credit for having good reasons to stop dating. Amfie as well, especially the first time when it turned out that Alfie loved the idea of dating Amber more than actually dating her. Jeroy...alright, as needlessly complicated as it made things, at least the break up was legitimately dramatic and was built up from the start. Then there is Mickra's on and off romance that did better to explain why they shouldn't be together than why they should. They broke up constantly because they weren't compatible and tried too hard to make things work.

<p style="text-align:center;">Okay, HOA has a better track record than I thought, but there's a lot of patterns. Either they aren't ready to date, or they have miscommunication. With some exceptions, that's always why they break up. Some diversity would be nice. Maybe they both love each other but they both disagree on something important. Not like movies or music or where to go on a date, but something like their future, or their friends, or their families, or even their dynamic as a pairing. This drives a wedge in between them as they realize that they can't force themselves to change for the other person. Maybe they were drawn together by intense attraction but after the infatuation stage they decide it's not worth pursuing anymore. Maybe they are just teenagers who foolishly believed they'd be able to take it far but it just doesn't work out. Or maybe they just naturally grow apart and can't pretend like they have feelings for each other no matter how hard they try to claim that they do. I don't know, I'd just love to see these sort of things happen more often.

<p style="text-align:center;">In all honesty, though, just because break ups happen in real life doesn't mean that every pairing has to break up in every story. Maybe once or twice. But what seems to happen is that life just conspires against them until the end, which isn't how it always goes. After all, it's not like all the problems they had will just vanish at the end of the story. For example, If they fought a lot, wouldn't they keep fighting? The end of the story doesn't mean that everything will be wrapped up neatly or that the pairings who were happy at the end will always be happy. Since the characters don't know when the end is, why couldn't they get back together way before it ends and spend the rest of the story as a strong, healthy, badass couple? And even though relationships break up extremely often in real life, that doesn't mean the relationship can't stay strong for the duration of the story. Let's say it lasts a year and half of that time is spent getting the couple together. Who says that they can't spend the rest of the six months being perfectly fine and healthy?

<p style="text-align:center;">I know what you're thinking. "Healthy, happy couples are boring!" No, not necessarily. Just because a couple is together for the entire time doesn't mean they can't bicker or run into trouble. And just because they are happy doesn't mean the story is going to be boring. There are other ways to cause drama than through romance. There can be conflicts related to the relationship that doesn't necessarily mean the relationship itself has to end. Maybe the parents disapprove so they need to keep their romance a secret the whole time. Maybe they spend the entire story apart (literally) and need to get back to each other. Maybe their friends don't want them to date. And hey, unless romance is the main plot, none of this is necessary. Go ahead and make your couple have a smooth relationship, as long as there is a bigger plot to focus on as well as non-romantic subplots to keep the story interesting.

<p style="text-align:center;">Drama is needed in every story, but that doesn't mean it has to be in control. Let the drama come naturally from the situation and the characters involved. If they break up, they break up. But if not, the story doesn't need to be completely boring.

<p style="text-align:center;">

<p style="text-align:center;">'''But you know what? Go ahead and use these things in your stories. Anything can be written well, even cliches. Just be creative with it and do what's best for the story itself. If you really want to, you can definitely pull it off.'''

<p style="text-align:center;">There, got my inspirational message in for the day. I'm done, so tell me what you think. Unless you disagree, then you're wrong and I'll be sure to tell you why. (I'm joking. Maybe. We'll see ;))

<p style="text-align:center;">