[hero/shadow = still #1 OTP. le sigh]

[reenka]

I've just finished 'Wolfskin' by Juliet Marillier, and while it's interesting and I like the main characters (one of which is the Plucky and Strong Yet Fragile and Feminine Heroine), I can't help it... the most intriguing part of the book is the bond between the straightforward, kind yet quick-to-anger warrior boy and the snarky, cunning, needy, lonely yet ruthless sociopathic boy whom he shared a blood-oath of friendship with during their childhood. Mmmm. The warrior-boy's denseness and simplicity and loyalty set against the other's insecurity and need to prove himself and sheer single-minded desire to get what he -wants-... oh, it's like music to my ears.... And yes, I admit, in its basest elements it's really proto!H/D to me.
    And much as I understand these two are 'straight' both by author intent and common sense in context of their times and history, I can't help it-- I can't help but feel -this- is the more striking love-story, no matter how honestly heterosexual the warrior boy may be. This is the archetypal relationship between Hero and Shadow, and to me, nothing could really equal it in meaning or intensity, since it represents the basic union of Light and Dark of everyone's nature.

It occurred to me that the reason I'm so very fascinated strikes to the very heart of the reason of why I slash, why close male friendship means so much to me-- and the emotional stuntedness and closed-in inability of the latter boy to communicate his real self sort of underlines the 'normal' situation. It's almost like-- almost like -all- boys are a little sociopathic compared to ourselves (the girls, I mean); it's like they're often this closed in and verbally eloquent about everything but what lies in their hearts, so scared and insecure and ruthless in their defensiveness.

It also reminded me of the exchange I recently had with fictualities about being able to see the surviving 'half' of a pairing happy after the 'end'-- in a situation like with Frodo and Sam, where Frodo had little left to give before he'd finally departed and Sam had his wife and children. In my natural inclination, I'd say 'settling' is bad, even if the person is unaware they're settling for something 'lesser' or not as intense and deeply vital. I'd rather a character be miserable with the one they can't bear to love or lose than content with the one who merely makes them uncomplicatedly happy. But then, I'm rather perverse. -.-

I was thinking (with some chagrin), of how friends normally tend to make you uncomplicatedly happy, especially female friends (in my experience). If a friend isn't monumentally messed up, your relationship isn't likely to be fraught or angsty in terms of betrayals and secrets and overall tragedy, though clearly misunderstandings and resentments are normal. Uh, this is all 'in my experience'. And so, perhaps this is only the life of a relatively tame, easy-going female like myself-- men are much more likely to hold things back, to be eaten up by ambition and divided loyalties and duties, to be rotted from the inside with feelings they simply -can't- express, to be-- emotional basketcases, basically. And of course... of course, that's why I love them.
    More to the point, that's why I love to slash them, leaving aside the hot boysex for a sec.

I can't really imagine a healthy relationship here, and can't guarantee this rift in the boy's soul can be mended with the love and faith another clueless boy can offer, but oh-- oh-- the very idea. The possibility. It is like the dream of somehow bridging the gulf between Self and Other; more desperate and dark than any mere love-story, but also more painfully close to the heart, perhaps.

Comments

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

So, first, a total YES to your last two paragraphs, and I don't feel so much deflated as that you have punched airholes in my mask, and I have to concede that breathing is a good thing! Since we're talking about life masks and not death masks. And I think that the balance there is just right -- you do have to adapt a mask that somehow fits the inner roiling mass. But I think this is maybe an unconscious, or a barely-conscious process of trial and error. What I think is un-boy-like, to an extent, is staring at the mass to see if you can figure out what it's like and how it works. It just isn't a place that feels like home, or a worthwhile place to spend too much time. And still, I can see how this would seem like "denial" to someone who took a different approach to it.

And yes, yes, yes, to your Id with a pitchfork, and your desperately overmatched Ego, and to the need to look in the mirror and be a little scared sometimes: "This is not my beautiful House!"

Yay for tangents! But I do want your sociopathic boy to be more than somebody's moon -- I want him to get better!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahah, 'doesn't feel like home'. This makes me and my roiling chaoticness feel like an invading alien (and isn't that how some men feel about women?? AHAHAHAHAHA). I in specific tend to want to see that part of people 'cause I'm a bit of a hedgewitch at heart, and read 'fortunes' in 'entrails', if you know what I mean-- gimme a mass of roiling chaos and I'll see ten zillion patterns in it any day. Whaaaat, y'mean everyone doesn't do that?? Ahahahah. *coughs* But yeah, I think I sort of get it, with the 'trial-and-error' thing. I mean, even if you look at the 'roiling entrails' (gotta love those yummy metaphors), you're not going to necessarily know the fastest way through, so it's still trial-and-error-- to me, there's nothing -but- trial-and-error to be had when it comes to the chaos of one's Id. So basically what it comes down to, I'm reeeeally way too comfy with either a) trial-and-error or b) process vs. end result-oriented thinking (that is, valuing process moreso than result, as a good INFP should! heh).

I think it's only gonna feel like 'denial' to me if the person *refuses* to have that mask lifted up, privately or with another person they trust. If they *always* hide, they're just like a lost little boy in the forest of their own mind, holding on to their mask under the big scary shadowy trees and shivering. So of course I feel sorry for them and want to whisper about how everything will be okay, just follow me, and want to slowly lift up the mask because it's become rotted and useless, and have them find another one, a better one, a *cleaner* one, without all those worms and dead leaves on it :D HEEEEE CAN YOU TELL I ENJOYED THAT?? :D

Um. I love random-yet-fitting 80s song quotes, btw >:D

But yes-- I think the whole idea that becoming sun-like would equal 'getting better' is what hounds the lonely!sociopathic!boy in the first place, and I think that's a fallacy, actually. They feel they have to be 'like them' and they *know* they can never be like them, so they get *really* bitter and they hide themselves deeper and darker in, and they get more and more lost & angry 'cause they hate not being like the sun, but. See, it's okay, I think-- some people are suns and some are moons, and that's just a balance, I think, it's natural. If they accepted their moonness and just let the sun love them, they would be happy, or at least close to it. I hope. So the story goes, and so on and so forth :>