[the power of no]
Apr. 27th, 2006 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI just realized that it's not that I like bastards, really-- that is, people who victimize others in some way or are immature in their interactions or are just casually cruel (though hopefully intelligent)-- but rather that I sympathize most with the character who's being victimized by themselves rather than by others. I find that the clueless, immature bastard who's shooting -himself- in the foot will generally get a 'go to hell' from readers before they get sympathy, whereas readers seem more than ready to justify the more obvious victim in whatever part their own stupidity played in the proceedings.
It's pretty clear in my response to the last issue posted on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yaoi_daily of 'The Tyrant Who Fall in Love' (...it's just one of those titles, I guess). I feel bad for the guy who's out of control emotionally and sexually even though most people seem to blame him almost entirely for his screw-ups, and I'm tired of the guy who's totally repressed and has all the emotional power in the relationship even though he's the one supposedly getting 'abused' (which is actually another sort of way to be in control). Maybe it's just... more the typically female 'part' to empathize with the person who supposedly doesn't want the sex, who's not desperate, even if he makes it a habit to be utterly unreasonable about a million -other- things. Or maybe it's just twisted of me to think that saying 'no' is actually an assertion of power in a relationship, and that there are usually layers of no's & you'd have to get back to the first one to see who has the 'upper hand'.
This was actually the source of my initial fixation & fascination with Draco: that idea that Harry had all this power over Draco's psyche by having first told him 'no', and how he must suffer and obsess over somehow turning it into a 'yes' before he could move on and get over himself. The other thing I really dug with Draco was how much he was always his own fall-guy, his own victim: his plans failing because he was always not -quite- good enough, no matter how much he'd try to blame Harry; the sheer pathos really appeals to me. Of course now, a lot of things are different, especially when Draco doesn't seem to care about Harry's 'yes' in HBP anymore -and- he finally got a taste of real success (as well as real failure, but in a totally different context).
-Harry- is the one longing & out of control, in different ways in OoTP and HBP, and Harry never struck me as... ultimately suited for being love's fool, not like Draco is. Harry is really too good at winning against all odds, somehow. For someone to make a great antihero, someone I really root for, they have to actually be losing even as they seem to win, which is a trademark of 'the Bastard'.
I think my favorite dynamics would probably make it difficult to say which character 'can't say no'; in this manga especially, it really goes back and forth, and I notice people claiming one character (the victimized one) is really the one who 'can't say no' and 'lets people walk all over him' even if the evidence all points in the opposite direction. Really, the story wouldn't be interesting if it was that obvious; possibly, one of the preconditions of a working romantic relationship is that both parties find themselves unable to refuse each other in different ways, perhaps. Certainly, this inability to ignore or refuse (in different contexts) is a trademark of Harry & Draco's relationship, even in canon, and it might be something that drives the fanon, in so far as that goes, too.
It's pretty clear in my response to the last issue posted on
yaoi_daily of 'The Tyrant Who Fall in Love' (...it's just one of those titles, I guess). I feel bad for the guy who's out of control emotionally and sexually even though most people seem to blame him almost entirely for his screw-ups, and I'm tired of the guy who's totally repressed and has all the emotional power in the relationship even though he's the one supposedly getting 'abused' (which is actually another sort of way to be in control). Maybe it's just... more the typically female 'part' to empathize with the person who supposedly doesn't want the sex, who's not desperate, even if he makes it a habit to be utterly unreasonable about a million -other- things. Or maybe it's just twisted of me to think that saying 'no' is actually an assertion of power in a relationship, and that there are usually layers of no's & you'd have to get back to the first one to see who has the 'upper hand'.This was actually the source of my initial fixation & fascination with Draco: that idea that Harry had all this power over Draco's psyche by having first told him 'no', and how he must suffer and obsess over somehow turning it into a 'yes' before he could move on and get over himself. The other thing I really dug with Draco was how much he was always his own fall-guy, his own victim: his plans failing because he was always not -quite- good enough, no matter how much he'd try to blame Harry; the sheer pathos really appeals to me. Of course now, a lot of things are different, especially when Draco doesn't seem to care about Harry's 'yes' in HBP anymore -and- he finally got a taste of real success (as well as real failure, but in a totally different context).
-Harry- is the one longing & out of control, in different ways in OoTP and HBP, and Harry never struck me as... ultimately suited for being love's fool, not like Draco is. Harry is really too good at winning against all odds, somehow. For someone to make a great antihero, someone I really root for, they have to actually be losing even as they seem to win, which is a trademark of 'the Bastard'.
I think my favorite dynamics would probably make it difficult to say which character 'can't say no'; in this manga especially, it really goes back and forth, and I notice people claiming one character (the victimized one) is really the one who 'can't say no' and 'lets people walk all over him' even if the evidence all points in the opposite direction. Really, the story wouldn't be interesting if it was that obvious; possibly, one of the preconditions of a working romantic relationship is that both parties find themselves unable to refuse each other in different ways, perhaps. Certainly, this inability to ignore or refuse (in different contexts) is a trademark of Harry & Draco's relationship, even in canon, and it might be something that drives the fanon, in so far as that goes, too.
