The Archetype of Scaring the Significant Other

Granted, it's a cute scene.

It's Halloween! So I am going to address the archetype of fear as a courtship tool. The idea of fear drawing people together--the frightened girl or boy clutching their beloved--is quite common, across the board. (One could argue that Midsummer's Night Dream is one long spoof of the idea.) 

I don't really get it. It's not quite on par with using April Fool's Day as some kind of social bonding exercise (rather than the reality, an opportunity to bully). But it's close. 

In His Favorite, for instance, Sato likes it when Yoshida--who hates all things supernatural--gets scared but then Sato is somewhat sadistic (it's part of the character's personality). When a "nice" significant-other relies on fear to pursue someone, I start having doubts about the relationship. 

In sum, I generally roll my eyes over "spooky kids" or "spooky high school" or "amusement park haunted house" story lines and move on to something else.

However, there is one particular story line in His Favorite that amuses me. 

A few of the female students decide to get back at Yoshida for monopolizing Sato. They ask Yoshida to help them with club supplies, then pretend not to see a "ghost" (one of them dressed up as a petrifying predator poltergeist). Yoshida sees her, of course, and is totally freaked out!!

The "teach Yoshida a lesson" performance backfires, however, when Yoshida faints and Sato comes to his rescue.  

Sato is pleased!  

The Trope of the Oops, No, I'm Waiting for Someone Else

This manga is a decent

version of the trope--still,

someone does feel rejected!  

The most common "royals" who appear in disguise in manga are animal gods or spirits who are temporarily behaving like mortals. 

Within that genre, there is a romance sub-genre in which an animal god or spirit met someone years earlier but ends up in a relationship with that someone's grandchild.

I have mixed feelings about this plot. I feel the same way as one of my brothers who remarked about Frozen: "What if Hans kissed Anna and was disappointed because he DID believe their relationship was one of true love?"

How are we the readers--and for that matter the characters--supposed to know that the fox spirit isn't still pining for the someone from years before? 

Usually, the solution is to suggest that the fox spirit was drawn to the family's genetics. The fox spirit was waiting for the descendant to come along.  

It still presupposes that the ancestor didn't get disappointed or feel rejected. That is, it presupposes fate. 

And I have mixed feelings about fate. In some ways, I think the solution is a decent one. Eros and Psyche. Belle and the Beast. It isn't about "mate selection." It's about people finding each other. 

On the other, these stories often want the characters to be SURPRISED, as in it's fate but nobody knows it is fate. In which case, what's the point of fate? 

I far prefer The (Weird) Director Who Buys Me Dinner, in which the one character knows the relationship is fate. He not only has to wait for the other character to catch up. He is ANNOYED that he has to wait for the other character to catch up. 

Now that is amusing.  

A-Z Romances: P is for Probabilities

Reading Mary Jo Putney's novella One Wicked Winter Night, I was reminded of one of the many Jane Eyres I have reviewed. In it, Jane Eyre and Helen behave like modern teens snidely telling off the ridiculous headmaster, snarky swaggering that in that time period would have gotten them sent away from the school--or worse. 

With historical writing, there is always the problem of trying to stay faithful to the time period while capturing behavior that we modern readers recognize in ourselves. T.H. White pulls this off in The Sword in the Stone, despite the anachronisms (anachronisms to fourteenth century medieval England) because (1) he is obvious about what he is doing--the anachronisms are part of his style; (2) he captures the essence of human behavior across time. 

I suggest line between "okay, they didn't talk that way but that dialogue does capture the time and place" and "I can't take this seriously" gets crossed when human behavior becomes itself improbable. Jane and Helen behaving like quick-witted teens who have lawyer fathers at home is not believable--the anachronistic behavior stands out more. 

Putney's novella, unfortunately, has both anachronisms and unlikely human behavior. At one point, the couple discuss the hero's evil (dead) father. Apparently, he had an affair and fathered an illegitimate daughter. Although he sent an allowance, his unwillingness to do more for the daughter is discussed with hot indignation--in a Regency novel--by the main characters. 

In fact, by Regency standards, the fact that the evil father took responsibility and sent the equivalent of child support is impressive. He is no longer evil. A reader who understands the time period begins to suspect that he had a softer side (except the author doesn't want me to believe that). Moreover, illegitimate children--while they might be supported and even adored by parents--were rarely openly discussed using those terms. Mr. B's illegitimate daughter in Pamela is cared for and supported by Pamela, but she is also carefully shielded against any suggestion of an inappropriate background so she can eventually marry well. 

Those conditions may be unfair. They are reality. The righteous condemners are virtue-signaling like crazy but in reality, they would be causing more problems for the people they label "illegitimate." 

More unlikely human behavior comes earlier in the novel when a young woman writes, "Once more I give thanks to my wonderful visit with you in India because that led to me being captured by corsairs on the way home." 

 What? What?! 

That's the kind of off-hand remark that is either a huge joke or demands that the character stop and reflect: Ah, yes, she mentioned being captured by corsairs in her last letter. 

Yet the text keeps going without pause. 

There were aspects of the novella that I enjoyed. The hero is a duke; his responsibilities are honestly spelled out (his dukedom isn't just an opportunity for him to collect ghastly statues as in the 2005 Pride & Prejudice). The heroine has invested in trading, which is entirely probable. She also makes a point that traveling is not romantic: it takes a great deal of "commonsense." Moreover, the BIG secret is big enough to explain the heroine's reaction, and it is quite believable for the time period. 

And there are lots of pet cats! 

Nevertheless, it is a pity when a not-too-terrible-plot with not-too-terrible-protagonists is ruined by everybody having to think properly...by modern standards. And it doesn't help when even by modern standards, they seem a little too coy and accepting.  

 

The Power and Protection of Roles: Yugi Yamada's Open the Door to Your Heart

On Votaries, I discuss Yugi Yamada as the creator of societies. Her main characters don't fall in love in a vacuum. They fall in love surrounded by family and friends and co-workers. They have pasts and jobs and connections and roles.

Below is a post from 2021 that discusses two Yamada characters and roles.

***

In the Yugi Yamada manga Open the Door to Your Heart, two brothers fall in love. Don't worry--unlike in some manga, they are not related by blood. The older "brother" was adopted by the parents when his parents were killed in a car accident. 

He is reluctant to form a relationship with his younger "brother." The reason is not moral disgust or religious uncertainty. Rather, he is reluctant to abandon the role of older-brother in favor of the massive confusion and lack of reckoning found within an intimate relationship. 

It is an insight into psychology that Western literature sometimes seems to miss, obsessed as it is with the idea that any reluctance to enter into intimacy is the result of repression. Thank goodness for semi-Edwardian introverted societies who can state, "Oh, no, there's more reasons than that"!

Roles are powerful. Roles are often desired due to the security they bring. A major failing of modern analysts is the pretense that fine feelings lie at the back of Twitter name-calling ("My role versus your role!"). Fear and flailing-about can create cliques as easily as personal insight.

I'm not one to argue that X culture is so much better than Y culture. The ability for Japanese literature to recognize the power of roles in shoring up people's sense of self probably has some negative pay-off somewhere. But it is a pleasure to see it honestly addressed. 

I discuss more about how and why people may cling to roles in my review of Caste Heaven. Here, I will state that Shoichi and Shunji's ability to transcend roles and adopt new ones makes Open the Door to Your Heart one of my favorites.

Mr. and Mrs. MacBeth

In a post on Votaries, I discuss the dysfunction of MacBeth and his lady. In sum, I suggest that Lady MacBeth helps put in motion a series of events that culminate in a man she cannot control. 

Here, I will discuss the relationship itself. 

Nearly every version of MacBeth portrays the two as a loving couple with compatible goals. I find Shakespeare's achievement here quite remarkable. With Taming of the Shrew, he directly suggests that Kate and Petruchio are equals, no matter what concessions she makes to social mores. 

With MacBeth, however, he doesn't have to suggest. He simply presents the couple as equally ambitious, equally intelligent, equally cunning. 

Lady MacBeth's name has become synonymous with a clever woman who pushes her spouse to extremes or, at least, can't be trusted not to kill off her house guests. But unlike, say, the Whore of Babylon, she isn't alone in her bad behavior. MacBeth is as large a character as she is, so the play offers powerful roles to both the man and the woman. 

I've mentioned elsewhere that Shakespeare appears to believe--even in his comedies--that every relationship is different, so even the token happy endings/marriages are between THAT woman and THAT man. With Taming of the Shrew he took a well-used trope and made it unique, distinct. It isn't just any shrewish woman and domineering man. It's THIS woman and THIS man. 

He does the same with the ultimate ambitious couple. Although MacBeth-types are used over and over again in numerous murder mystery shows, those episodes usually stand out because the couple are memorable. And they are memorable because Shakespeare didn't simply throw "conniving" and "ambitious" into a bag and shake it up. The MacBeths have thought through their crimes. They are human enough to balk after the fact--to see ghosts. They are self-protective enough to keep going. And although they eventually fall apart, they could never had gone so far if they weren't--however evilly--compatible. 

Their murders are, in sum, character and relationship-driven.  

 

Bromance: Sherock and Bell

One of the greatest friendships of all television is Sherlock and Bell from Elementary. 

There is not, in fact, any suggestion of a romance (as the term "bromance" suggests), mostly because Bell considers Sherlock completely unappealing as a roommate, and Sherlock would agree with him. 

But the relationship is impressively close, more than "hale fellow well-met." Ultimately, Sherlock will do anything for Bell, including get his "nemesis" a job so the nemesis will stop harassing Bell (he also threatens the same man: he handles the situation in a very Sherlock way). 

In addition, he gives him relationship advice, stops him from ruining his career, gets him an "in" with the Marshal's Service, and persuades him to remain a detective (not necessarily in that order). Sherlock tends to refer to all detectives as "not Bell." In response, Marcus takes Sherlock's side ("It might be easier to fire him if we actually paid him") and offers direct personal help to Sherlock and Joan on multiple occasions.  

What is so pleasing--and grown-up--about the relationship is that it is grows. At first, Bell is somewhat skeptical of Sherlock. When Sherlock accidentally gets Bell shot (in the hand), the relationship hits a very rocky patch. In apology, Sherlock discloses personal information to Bell. Disclosure for someone like Sherlock--as with Darcy--indicates a willingness to be vulnerable. In the end, the relationship is stronger. 

However, what truly makes the relationship a success is how much the two men don't change. Sherlock doesn't become maudlin around Bell (except when he, gasp, actually calls Bell "Marcus") and Bell remains acerbic and bemused by Sherlock. Like Joan and Sherlock, Bell and Sherlock is a friendship that will last a lifetime. 

The Couples in Brat Farrar

One of my mother's favorite books is Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, a non-Detective Grant book. It has to do with a double identity. Brat pretends to be a young man who disappeared over a decade earlier. He comes to realize that the young pre-teen was likely murdered. 

The BBC television movie, which I've only been able to find online, is a decent version. The story involves twins, and Mark Greenstreet plays Brat and his supposed twin, Simon. 

*Spoilers* 

The one place the movie falters is at the end. In the movie, Brat ends up with the supposed sister who is really his distant cousin. Movie Brat also comes across as far more aggressive and confident than his book self. 

In the book, Brat is far more like the dead boy, Patrick. After a lifetime surviving alone, he is self-contained and wary. He is also fundamentally moral and sensitive and pursues the mystery to a dangerous end. He also, like everyone else in the family, adores horses. He finds his strident, overly confident cousin (who originally thought she was his sister) attractive--but not ultimately what he wants. 

At the end, Aunt Bee offers to have him come and work for her: 

His eyes came away from the ceiling, and watched her. She saw his fingers being to play with the sheet, unhappily. 

"Are you going away to Ulster, then?" he asked. 

"Only if you will come with me, and run the stable for me."

 The easy tears of the newly-convalescent rose in his eyes and ran down his cheek. 

"Oh, Bee!" he said. 

"I take it means that my offer is accepted," she said. 

Tey does not indicate whether the relationship is a romance, friendship, partnership, or all the foregoing. Aunt Bee is the age she is portrayed in the movie where she is played perfectly by Angela Browne. Older than Brat by about a decade, they fall well within the range for a possible match. And easy comradeship is plausible, no matter what the relationship's label. It's a wonderful ending, and the ending I would have rooted for with the movie.