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reenkaThinking further about the love semantics thread that won't die, a basic question just struck me: is it even -possible- to call yourself an idealist/romantic if what you idealize is partly the imperfection or flawed nature of something [love]? I mean, is the disagreement because people "fully" idealize love by giving it only its very best possible qualities and I idealize it by just really valuing it in all its messed-up painful glory? On some 'ideal' level that can encompass psycho murderers killing their lovers, I basically think all things that pass for love in any individual are 'Good' & 'Right'; the [often messed-up/crazy/violent] consequences are of course another story. I sometimes get messed up like this 'cause I want to see these things (Love, Imagination, Truth, Reason) as basically positive, but they only are in their application. Even knowing they can be seriously fucked with in practice, I still idealize/super-admire them. Which. Makes me an idealist, non?
It occurs to me that maybe the idea is that as an idealist, you're supposed to seek perfection in whatever concept/philosophical construct you fancy, and if you don't find it, you find things [reality] lacking and on some level, false. I mean, you'd have to be really mired in semantics to say this, but I suppose this way one can actually argue that I'm not a romantic or an idealist o_0 Which is... REALLY not true. Uh. o_0 But fact remains someone can (and did) disagree with me -because- they're 'a romantic'. *_____*
...Though I used to be more -naive- than I am now, certainly, as well as more depressed & frustrated 'cause I always realized the world pretty much sucked and there was no obvious way to just... y'know, FIX IT (...while remaining basically lazy and avoidant, but shush) :P But then I learned to relax and love the fuck ups. Most of the time. In any case, it's weird to think that 'real' idealism = beating your head against a brick wall because it's not, in fact, a wooden wall-- and THEREFORE IT'S NOT A *REAL* WALL, you see. I hope not. I mean, I already do enough of that anyway (witness my posts on H/D -.-)
At the same time, perhaps one could explain this by saying that I idealize some 'component parts' of love which can be seen as in conflict with each other (ie, both selfishness & selflessness, both passion and self-sacrificing stoicism, um, both yin & yang, Love the Redeemer & Love the Destroyer)-- um. Except they do coexit within most people's hearts & often enough the story of that [eternal] conflict is the point. Whereas other people pick sides, I guess. I constantly have arguments with people where I 'defend' the characters' negative emotions like hatred, anger, lust, fear-- wanting them to be explored rather than 'fixed', but the thing is, it's not like I -prefer- them to the more 'exalted' ones. It's not like I actually prefer paranoia to trust, conflict to balanced harmony-- it's more like I want to see every emotional possibility explored & plumbed to its greatest depth.
(In retrospect, it's even more hilarious that I've become some sort of poster-girl for Love the Destroyer in debates about H/D where I started out as being all about redemption, at least for Draco-- and still am, for both of them, in different ways. It really is that I take the whole Devil's Advocate approach 'cause I think people focus too much on the things that they -want- to see.... And I really think you can be an idealist & say that-- just because I also idealize Truth doesn't make me less of an idealist.)
I think a lot of this is because I do want people (or um, characters I care about, anyway) to be 'healthy' but I also want a dramatic story & I don't want things swept under the rug or even realistically repressed (like Draco 'getting over' his hatred/issues w/Harry 'cause he has bigger & better things to worry about). It's just the way I view the world, too-- I don't think we ever escape our demons, ever 'really get over it' all the way-- even if we think we do, the darkness only settles to wait for its next opportunity. To me, that's romantic-- that sense of continuity even as the emphemeral nature of existence & passionate emotion has its own romanticism. In the end, I think All Things Pass but at the same time we (as individuals) bear the scars, the marks of their passing. That's why I look at people who ship something like Brian/Michael (in QaF) specifically because they're so permanent and B/J just because/in spite of the passionate intensity as missing the big picture. Life is composed of emotions and events that constantly intertwine within the people involved, finding echoes in each other-- so that your love for one person reflects and complements your love for another, and you never really 'get over' your first love so much as find them again and again in little pieces.
People are so tragic and complicated and contradictory-- how could any straight-and-narrow super-defined idealism do them justice?
Basically, whatever 'it' is, that messy fuzzy-edged emotion, I just want it to be intense. So... does that make me not-an-idealist? Some kind of crossbreed between an idealist romantic & what-- a sensualist? But that's just one form of romanticism (like hey, Oscar Wilde! shout-out!!); a somewhat later form, true, but even the Goths started out as the 'New Romantics'. The Dark Side of life/love/emotion is a long-running thread in romanticism and always has been, hasn't it?? How can you be romantic without being in love with all things fleeting, ephemeral and hidden in twilight? This form is -not- uncommon though (in fact, I'd say it's the most common amongst emo teenagers, anyway), so why do I keep running into these definitional debates?? -.-
I think, though, that at least in fandom, the other type of romanticism predominates-- 'cause shippers especially generally want their couple together & happy (or least well-fucked) willy nilly, and choose their reading accordingly. Not that I don't want my OTPs together in the end (and well-fucked), obviously, but-- the more struggle with their demons there is, the more meaningful it seems. Sometimes I want fluff & snark & banter and day-in-the-life cuteness, but that's the yin-yang thing-- I want this balanced sort of existence. I dunno. :/
It occurs to me that maybe the idea is that as an idealist, you're supposed to seek perfection in whatever concept/philosophical construct you fancy, and if you don't find it, you find things [reality] lacking and on some level, false. I mean, you'd have to be really mired in semantics to say this, but I suppose this way one can actually argue that I'm not a romantic or an idealist o_0 Which is... REALLY not true. Uh. o_0 But fact remains someone can (and did) disagree with me -because- they're 'a romantic'. *_____*
...Though I used to be more -naive- than I am now, certainly, as well as more depressed & frustrated 'cause I always realized the world pretty much sucked and there was no obvious way to just... y'know, FIX IT (...while remaining basically lazy and avoidant, but shush) :P But then I learned to relax and love the fuck ups. Most of the time. In any case, it's weird to think that 'real' idealism = beating your head against a brick wall because it's not, in fact, a wooden wall-- and THEREFORE IT'S NOT A *REAL* WALL, you see. I hope not. I mean, I already do enough of that anyway (witness my posts on H/D -.-)
At the same time, perhaps one could explain this by saying that I idealize some 'component parts' of love which can be seen as in conflict with each other (ie, both selfishness & selflessness, both passion and self-sacrificing stoicism, um, both yin & yang, Love the Redeemer & Love the Destroyer)-- um. Except they do coexit within most people's hearts & often enough the story of that [eternal] conflict is the point. Whereas other people pick sides, I guess. I constantly have arguments with people where I 'defend' the characters' negative emotions like hatred, anger, lust, fear-- wanting them to be explored rather than 'fixed', but the thing is, it's not like I -prefer- them to the more 'exalted' ones. It's not like I actually prefer paranoia to trust, conflict to balanced harmony-- it's more like I want to see every emotional possibility explored & plumbed to its greatest depth.
(In retrospect, it's even more hilarious that I've become some sort of poster-girl for Love the Destroyer in debates about H/D where I started out as being all about redemption, at least for Draco-- and still am, for both of them, in different ways. It really is that I take the whole Devil's Advocate approach 'cause I think people focus too much on the things that they -want- to see.... And I really think you can be an idealist & say that-- just because I also idealize Truth doesn't make me less of an idealist.)
I think a lot of this is because I do want people (or um, characters I care about, anyway) to be 'healthy' but I also want a dramatic story & I don't want things swept under the rug or even realistically repressed (like Draco 'getting over' his hatred/issues w/Harry 'cause he has bigger & better things to worry about). It's just the way I view the world, too-- I don't think we ever escape our demons, ever 'really get over it' all the way-- even if we think we do, the darkness only settles to wait for its next opportunity. To me, that's romantic-- that sense of continuity even as the emphemeral nature of existence & passionate emotion has its own romanticism. In the end, I think All Things Pass but at the same time we (as individuals) bear the scars, the marks of their passing. That's why I look at people who ship something like Brian/Michael (in QaF) specifically because they're so permanent and B/J just because/in spite of the passionate intensity as missing the big picture. Life is composed of emotions and events that constantly intertwine within the people involved, finding echoes in each other-- so that your love for one person reflects and complements your love for another, and you never really 'get over' your first love so much as find them again and again in little pieces.
People are so tragic and complicated and contradictory-- how could any straight-and-narrow super-defined idealism do them justice?
Basically, whatever 'it' is, that messy fuzzy-edged emotion, I just want it to be intense. So... does that make me not-an-idealist? Some kind of crossbreed between an idealist romantic & what-- a sensualist? But that's just one form of romanticism (like hey, Oscar Wilde! shout-out!!); a somewhat later form, true, but even the Goths started out as the 'New Romantics'. The Dark Side of life/love/emotion is a long-running thread in romanticism and always has been, hasn't it?? How can you be romantic without being in love with all things fleeting, ephemeral and hidden in twilight? This form is -not- uncommon though (in fact, I'd say it's the most common amongst emo teenagers, anyway), so why do I keep running into these definitional debates?? -.-
I think, though, that at least in fandom, the other type of romanticism predominates-- 'cause shippers especially generally want their couple together & happy (or least well-fucked) willy nilly, and choose their reading accordingly. Not that I don't want my OTPs together in the end (and well-fucked), obviously, but-- the more struggle with their demons there is, the more meaningful it seems. Sometimes I want fluff & snark & banter and day-in-the-life cuteness, but that's the yin-yang thing-- I want this balanced sort of existence. I dunno. :/
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Date: 2006-12-10 02:34 am (UTC)That said, I'm not sure what you mean about an event that makes everything in the past have a different shape from then on - do you mean it colors past events, or that it severs things that were previous possible, or what?
Yep-- it's that bit with 'coloring past events' combined with severing possibilities (man, do I hate -that-). The only time I accept severed possibilities is when I believe these characters have truly found (or will always believe they've found) the One Thing They Want in life. This happens convincingly v. rarely, but I'm happy when it does-- you have to work hard, but it's possible for me to find that some people are just-- simple, and simply meant to work together 4EVA AND EVA. I'm particularly liable to think this if you have a real partnership rather than a romantic one-- one that is -also- but not primarily romantic -or- 'just friendship'. In terms of working partnerships, I find I can believe that they can say 'this is my life-- this is it' and I'll be like 'siiiiiiigh' :D
But the other reason I'd probably have trouble with S5 is just like you said-- 'people' had trouble 'letting go' of 'ultimately inaccurate assumptions'; fact is, as long as I don't actually -watch- it, I can know what happened without it really hitting me in any visceral sense and making me seriously process it emotionally. In my case, the spirit is willing (to reprocess) but the heart has troubles and rebels; since you don't have to deal with it so much, just take my word for it-- it's not fun. :P Even so, I too have trouble feeling like '...okay, this doesn't work' and would usually go with authorial intent IF I feel that's the one elegant explanation that makes it all hang together. That's why my arguments about The Administration are kind of "...." because like, I'm NOT against listening to the author about certain things and am actually positive about communication with the author, etc, it's just that sometimes I feel things are best left ambiguous-- it may not be more elegant, but it still allows me to both enjoy emotionally and be rational without too much conflict. I dunno if that makes sense, but. *coughs*
Your saying that about how Brian's relationship with Michael had 'selfish aspects' is EXACTLY what I meant about bleed-through and shadow-aspects and the big picture!! :D :D I think it's a lot easier to find examples of selfishness in people/behaviors (not just in Brian) than selflessness, though. It's not that I think Brian was 'selfless' with Justin so much as there were other threads besides just attraction, obviously, and if you stop before making Brian into a woobie, they're still important. That's what rounds things out and makes them more like realistic whole relationships and not just manifestations of ideal (like 'the selfish/sexual one' & 'the selfless/pure-friendship/love one', y'know). I don't want to overly emphasize these traces or whatever, but at the same time I like the sense of balance it gives me (...probably a little too much...)
The thing is, it's not like I -project- any philosophy onto a given text; I just sort of react & see reflections of things that relate to my overall ideals/feelings in what happens in a story (which I think is natural). It's not like I would then expect the story to reflect the story in my head (...though that's definitely a danger, true)-- but ideally that wouldn't have to happen, I guess. I really love meta :D Like, when I read a story especially (rather rarer in things I watch), I love it when it makes me think about larger issues and my own attitudes towards those issues evolves. I tend to like the stories that 'fit' me philosophically moreso than I do those that don't, too-- I think that's natural in that even you like Brian because you admire him or feel he stands for something you respect, non? Something like that, anyway ^^; heh