[meta rec!]

[reenka]

I know this is sort of silly, reccing meta, but worldserpent's recent series of posts on desire vs. self-realization in pairing preferences (here, here and here) are totally fascinating & enlightening on the topic I always keep harping on about (ie, the nature of romantic love in fiction, duh! hahah)

I don't really have time to go on about it myself right now (must write! write! write!), but I think it's so cute that apparently there aren't many people who write meta that defend the viewpoint that even though two people are bad for each other or whatever, what really matters is how much they want each other, because essay-writers tend to be more rational than that. I like being a rare and precious flower of irrationality, man.

Though honestly, I don't think it's that rare for romanticist poet-types to write meta-- or at least it didn't used to be (there used to be a much greater link between philosophy/psychology & poetry/romanticism, in other words). It didn't used to be so embarrassing to defend the beauty of transient love, the glory of a sunset, the majesty of god or Nature or the human body, totally seriously and at great length-- for a largely secular writer in say, the 18th century, I believe. So I think in large part, it's the current culture that so rigorously separates the 'creative' and the 'rational'. The whole concept of gleefully embracing the madness of the poet for a 'normal' thinking person is rather rare if not unheard of these days, right? And we're all the poorer for it.

So maybe in a larger sense, this isn't about people not writing much meta about shoujo manga (except me, clearly), as much as about the 20th & 21st centuries changing the dominant approach to what Truth is. It's funny, isn't it-- even the theists are using the rationalist language to draw people in these days, trying to sound like lawyers or faux scientists, trying to appeal to common sense & reason. Actually, my favorite quote in recent days is probably here, from a response to a rant on how Vulcans can't be homosexual: Homosexuality is logical.
    Tongue-in-cheek as it was, I think it's representative of a general philosophical trend in lit-crit at large.

I think it's especially ironic for me because I grew up worshipping logic-- I mean, my first serious crush was Sherlock Holmes when I was around 9 or 10. So perhaps it makes a sort of karmic sense that eventually, I would end up defending all things illogical, irrational, twisted and divine.

That said, happy New Year! Hopefully I'll be writing angsty, semi-doomed H/D when the clock strikes home.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ooh, see now that's so cool and ties my head in knots because of course you have to add that third desirer--the reader. Like, I was thinking about The Dark is Rising, and how I hate Bran/Jane. I hate it because I picture Bran making Jane just look like an ordinary nagging girl, and the only reason Bran seems to be with Jane at all is that she's the only girl in the series, and jeez, since the boy's never had a friend can't he go out and meet someone more on his level?

But then, as WS says, plenty of other people can just say, "But they're really into each other," even if I don't think they are. They can see it, I can't. And when it comes down to it what I'm describe is why I don't like reading about them, not why they would or would not make a good couple. Lots of people are perfectly happy as couples where a reader might find them boring.

I think I feel like that in a lot of couples. Like, sometimes when you've got a potential couple you just automatically "see" the way they'll interact with each other. I "see" certain futures for the OBHWF couples that don't particularly appeal to me, but at the same time for at least one of them I can picture the people involved being quite pleased with the whole thing. They're just not going into the relationship thinking which person brings out the best in them. In fact, what they consider "bringing out the best" may not be that at all.

With a lot of couples I like I get both because I tend to like couples that fit well together. So I see how they help each other as friends and make a good pair, and then also they're totally into each other. My one pairing where that's not the case is H/D, and there I just don't have a set idea for how they would interact as a couple, I guess because they've yet to ever be able to really interact at all, you know? So pretty much anything is possible. It's just more interesting when people bring the weirdness into it. And I like it when they are obviously a couple where I can see why they work but you know everyone else in their world just thinks it's nuts and are waiting for them to break up because they always look on teh verge of a breakup when they're really as strong as ever.

That can sometimes be the exciting thing about a relationship, actually, that you don't get it unless you're in it, and if it's your OTP you're kind of in it. I guess that's another thing about Bran/Jane that I dislike is that it's basically based on Jane being the only girl in canon and Bran being the only boy who is a)human and b)not her brother. There's just nothing personal in it and all the "evidence" for it strikes me as still pretty cliche. Which again does not mean that they couldn't possibly like each other if they were people or that there aren't other people who love the things about the pairing that I hate. Readers are just like lovers that way. I don't see anything in your guy or your pairing.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

To me, it's not just being 'into each other' that makes something romantic rather than just a romance (that is, even the most boring, mundane, uninspiring couple had to have been 'into each other' to some degree to produce children or to have sex or what have you). I think with romance or stories that truly focus on it (and in The Dark is Rising, it seems like an add-on from what you say), the point is to have the passion be out of the ordinary somehow-- intense, gripping, highly emotional. It couldn't be because Jane was 'the only one there' and the boy liked her well enough-- it has to be that madness of love, that invoking of the 'monster in the chest', y'know? I mean, of course the reader reaction is still very important, but you're much more likely to get it if there's all that tension and need and emotion involved.

Like, with R/Hr and H/G, these are two rather different relationship models, the way they played out. I mean, what happened was a lot like this (http://www.livejournal.com/users/story645/50959.html) post, like in the psychology textbooks where you have proximity, attractiveness and similarity, though you could've had it played better than that. But 'as is', that sort of relationship is nothing to write home about-- it's common as dirt, and quite annoying if you happen not to like the way the two people reinforce each other. With R/Hr, a totally different thing is going on, what with the 'opposites attract' cliche & everything-- but it's still not a romance yet, only a set-up where we can see the text is sort of... -signifying- romance without actually having it, if that makes sense. So you can 'skip over' the actual emotional stuff if you want and go for the practicalities of whatever future you want to imagine. Whereas in a traditional romance story, the future really isn't the point, I think.

I like it most when the couple fits well together too, of course-- it's rare to nonexistent that I'd ship a pairing without thinking they 'fit best' on the personality-matching level, though I wouldn't necessarily say I would need to make sure they don't have so many external 'issues' blocking them that it's never likely to work out. Like, sometimes the characters seem 'made for each other' to me & yet I don't think it's that easy to get them together 'cause their lives have made them have no relationship skills or they mistrust each other or one of them is a psycho (even if the other person is just what they need to get better quicker or whatever). The attraction, often enough, is really seeing how they overcome the obstacles before them, to me.

Heh, and yeah-- with H/D especially I feel like most people wouldn't get it unless they're emotionally suited to that dynamic themselves on some level. I think there's a level on where a true shipper is supposed to be attracted (emotionally) to both characters, and can basically understand where they're coming from on a gut level. Otherwise they'd just sit there and bat their eyelashes & look vaguely bored, I guess :>