[UET all the way, baby]
Nov. 30th, 2005 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaPeople say that writers have a driving 'theme' that influences all their work, something far-reaching and constantly being reshaped and revisited. I think my theme is probably 'longing'; it's what I'm most invested in writing about, what keeps me at the edge of my seat, what ultimately seems most satisfying when well-portrayed. And of course it's all the better if it's hopeless, desperate longing, something that tears you apart and fills your every waking moment-- but then, it's not really longing any other way, right? And I don't mean just romantic longing-- there's many types, like nostalgia for instance, which is longing for the past, or loneliness which is longing for contact.
Mostly, I'm thinking about this because of a comment on this recent post on slash (a subject which I seem to never tire of seeing redefined), where![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
koimistress says, there's a long dramatic tradition wherein the audience sympathizes with the One Who Longs. And I was like, ding! Well, mostly because anything that makes me feel more normal is yaye, and also because I -have- always sympathized most heavily with characters who longed, were driven by the many shades of desire. And of course Draco is one such character-- and Harry in a way, though what he longs for is in no way centrally Draco to my mind but rather a family.
I guess, also, I've been frustrated with the seeming necessity of making Harry the One Who Longs post-HBP because he doesn't seem very suited for dwelling in it-- he's more driven to action and/or manfully suppressing it if it interrupts his life like with Sirius.
Possibly, you could make a case that desire-- a central drive-- is related to longing, and is the bedrock on which dramatic fiction is built. So of course we as readers are drawn to the characters with both the most conflict and need unfulfilled. If you started working with a character who basically had what they wanted in life, where would you go with that story?
Also, perhaps you could make a case that slash & stories about m/m attraction would be more wholly and explicitly about this Desire because of the sheer difficulty and the obstacles in pursuing it even currently in the Western world. Slash sort of-- purifies this theme, or maybe just strengthens it. Gives it that dramatic push that you would need outside circumstances for in m/f romance and even in f/f stories because of the implicit greater ease of communication in those.
All of this is related to seeing slash as "emotionally transgressive", what with men showing obvious un-repressed emotion, which seems much more on the money than that whole thing with it being -sexually- transgressive. I must admit I've always loved this smarm-centric argument because I think I've always gotten this emotional kick from slash-- or rather, close m/m relationships, friend or foe-- way before I knew what slash was. The 'sexual glow' is what gives it that overt UST and it's definitely yummy, but what really grabs me is the UET-- Unresolved Emotional Tension :D
With Harry/Draco, the reason I keep harping on it is because I think the pairing ultimately packs the transgressive punch on several different levels-- the standard m/m, interpersonal conflict and societal conflict as well. It's not like it's conflict personified or anything-- it's just that there's such a huge emotional transgressiveness involved, sort of like Romeo & Juliet except with like, (more) fists and cocks. (I mean, I just love how -wrong- yet right it would be for Harry to touch Draco's cheek tenderly. You just can't beat that sort of cognitive dissonance, man.) Yeah, I mean, I blame Shakespeare for everything :>
Mostly, I'm thinking about this because of a comment on this recent post on slash (a subject which I seem to never tire of seeing redefined), where
koimistress says, there's a long dramatic tradition wherein the audience sympathizes with the One Who Longs. And I was like, ding! Well, mostly because anything that makes me feel more normal is yaye, and also because I -have- always sympathized most heavily with characters who longed, were driven by the many shades of desire. And of course Draco is one such character-- and Harry in a way, though what he longs for is in no way centrally Draco to my mind but rather a family. I guess, also, I've been frustrated with the seeming necessity of making Harry the One Who Longs post-HBP because he doesn't seem very suited for dwelling in it-- he's more driven to action and/or manfully suppressing it if it interrupts his life like with Sirius.
Possibly, you could make a case that desire-- a central drive-- is related to longing, and is the bedrock on which dramatic fiction is built. So of course we as readers are drawn to the characters with both the most conflict and need unfulfilled. If you started working with a character who basically had what they wanted in life, where would you go with that story?
Also, perhaps you could make a case that slash & stories about m/m attraction would be more wholly and explicitly about this Desire because of the sheer difficulty and the obstacles in pursuing it even currently in the Western world. Slash sort of-- purifies this theme, or maybe just strengthens it. Gives it that dramatic push that you would need outside circumstances for in m/f romance and even in f/f stories because of the implicit greater ease of communication in those.
All of this is related to seeing slash as "emotionally transgressive", what with men showing obvious un-repressed emotion, which seems much more on the money than that whole thing with it being -sexually- transgressive. I must admit I've always loved this smarm-centric argument because I think I've always gotten this emotional kick from slash-- or rather, close m/m relationships, friend or foe-- way before I knew what slash was. The 'sexual glow' is what gives it that overt UST and it's definitely yummy, but what really grabs me is the UET-- Unresolved Emotional Tension :D
With Harry/Draco, the reason I keep harping on it is because I think the pairing ultimately packs the transgressive punch on several different levels-- the standard m/m, interpersonal conflict and societal conflict as well. It's not like it's conflict personified or anything-- it's just that there's such a huge emotional transgressiveness involved, sort of like Romeo & Juliet except with like, (more) fists and cocks. (I mean, I just love how -wrong- yet right it would be for Harry to touch Draco's cheek tenderly. You just can't beat that sort of cognitive dissonance, man.) Yeah, I mean, I blame Shakespeare for everything :>
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 08:23 am (UTC)Well, see, that's really what I'm talking about when I say I hate it when people say H/D is 'canon'-- I assume that's what they're saying (and I think sometimes they are! I don't know!!) and that drives me up the wall. I really want to bite something with how stupid I find any such suggestion. However, I don't have any violent impulses towards to notion that he has repressed interest which is a -factor- in his hostility rather than the overall -explanation-. This is why all those fics set in HBP where he basically stalks Draco -because- he wants him make me so pissed; it's blatantly ridiculous and makes me want to smack all H/D shippers who buy it and squeal 'omg so canon!!1' upside the head. But then, I'm not much better than Snape when it comes to what I see as stupidity & I tend to overreact... so I'm never as hardcore in any opinion as I appear.
I think Harry definitely gets 'pinged' by Draco in terms of bodily awareness, like a -charge- of sorts. This isn't something I entirely trust to be canon, since 'my' Harry is so interested in Draco, therefore I may give myself a larger margin of subjective error than necessary; I'm always v. concerned with deluding myself, y'know?
Basically, the reason I'm this sensitive is because -all- the fics I've -ever- read don't deal with this the way you describe-- in a realistic fashion. So I've become very bitter and resentful of even coming close to seeing slash in canon. Basically, even the most IC H/D longfics I can think of-- say, Amalin's Transformation & Eclipse, both have Harry 'interested' in Draco from the start in an unrealistic fashion, even if they think it's subtle. It's really never subtle -enough-. It's never slow-developing-of-awareness/painful/halting -enough-.
With Transformation, Harry suddenly gets hot and bothered the summer after 5th year while watching Draco dance with Pansy in a club, and pretends Tonks (who he's dancing with) is Draco, or something like that. That just really despirited me from reading further in a 'canon-extrapolative' fic. A few days later he has a wet dream about Draco (that he remembers). In Eclipse, it's much slower, but even there at first meeting, Harry's hands tingle like there's 'an electric jolt' when he touches Draco's hand while being tricked with a portkey. Immediately I was like 'this isn't happening'. Not because I refuse to believe in H/D but because it's so easy & immediate, not an undercurrent but a very real current, easily meeting the 'test' where it didn't before (and this is like, a month after canon). So I balk and become a canon-nazi :> Such is my lonely fate, ahahahah.