reenka

rubydebrazier's question about why people are apparently more concerned with a character's love-life than with their overall development (and survival) seems to be a common complaint against shippers. shippers don't see the larger picture. shippers are limited, narrow-scoped, freakishly obsessive. eh. i don't think so. i think the usual shipper behavior is rather normal, actually.

shipping obsession is in conjunction to people's love and romance and relationship obsession in real life. in real life, a lot more people gossip and care about others' love-lives than exactly how we will win some war or something, 'cause mostly people know there's nothing they can contribute or change about said war, but in terms of other people, we all have some sort of power, some sort of affective capability.

it's not a simple easy/hard sort of thing, it's a basic skill level sort of thing. relationships are something almost everyone understands, while plot-arcs and even character-development arcs take a greater amount of insight and intelligence to have coherent opinions on.

as far as why should people be so hung up on love-- well, that's understandable. unlike politics and things, love/sex is one of the basic human drives, along with food and shelter and um... breathing, i guess. it's an instinct. it's quite natural to find it more important than some grander aspect of "plot", which people respond passively to. like, in real life-- a lot of people respond passively to big events-- they -deal- with them, try to minimize damage, but most people don't have the capacity to be pro-active and preventative. it's not that it's -hard-, it's just... well... it would take more effort and thought (as in, -any- effort and thought) than your average reader wants to put into recreational reading~:)

so like, yah, someone's love-life is more -fun- than anything, it's more -entertaining-, and most people read (especially `harry potter', which isn't exactly tolstoy) for entertainment value. while the suspense of "will harry survive" is entertaining, it's not a multiple-combination possibility-- the answer is either yes or no. there's not a lot of room for expansion there, you know? little interactivity. whereas relationship games are multifaceted and interactive, and you could argue and look at them this way and that, and they'd retain some degree of believability.

i myself like the dynamics of love-stories-- and particular relationships-- moreso than the dynamics of your usual suspense storyline. i do watch those on tv, but they don't really get me emotionally involved or passionate, simply because i'd have to seriously identify and understand a character's emotions before i care what happens to them in the long run. a plot-driven story often enough doesn't tend to give me enough emotional fuel to care, by not being very introspective. i think a character in love with another character is an easy hook, something one can easily identify with. you kind of bond with the character as they go through the trials of infatuation, a rather universal experience. you get to understand them that much more easily. for me, to depend on me caring about the defeat of some Evil Villain is much more iffy. i don't necessarily care who lives or dies in your typical plot-driven story, and i freely admit that.

in the case of harry potter, his main arc (to me) isn't whether he defeats voldemort, because obviously he will. it's his maturation and change as an individual-- the question is really who he will become, who he will grow up to be. this is a coming of age story, and at its heart the tension seems to be about making the right choices in spite of upbringing and circumstances, about the true nature of being a hero, or maybe just a good person. caring about one's friends, avoiding prejudice, trusting your better judgement, the hero's journey, etc. well, the journey vs. the destination, anyway. the destination is just a stupid "yeay we did it", isn't it? well, usually (unlike love-stories, where things get a bit more... orgasmic?).

i think this is the point at which i shut up and go to sleep, btw -.-