The Omniscient Lover: Bad Writing However Desirable

On Votaries, I comment on the problems caused by omniscient detectives.

Omniscient lovers cause equal problems. The best romances, though they may involve rescues, provide lovers who improve. Darcy learns to communicate outside of his man-cave. Elizabeth learns that she may--despite her quickness of thought--misjudge situations. They come to an understanding.

The omniscient lover overrides all that. This lover may sometimes express doubt, may--after knowing exactly what the significant other wants and needs, borderline stalking the significant other, and subsequently arranging the significant other's life--say, "But if you don't want to--"

But such waffling doesn't exactly betoken a personality in need of transformation or adaptation. Such lovers are rather dull.

However, I do understand the omniscient lover better than the omniscient detective--why it is such an attractive proposition. I believe that at the back of original sin or the natural man--the stuff that leads people to behave stupidly and meanly--is a desire for ease, for guarantees.

Life is just so hard! Sometimes, people wish it would be simple for a change. Label the bad guys. Force the perfect utopia on people. Go with the latest peer pressure/trend.

Dorothy Sayers called this behavior "snatch." And it's understandable--even if wrong (and explains the number of people who have convinced themselves that Chat GPT "borrowing" other people's work for their benefit isn't lazy, short-sighted, and unethical: what will humans do when the work becomes a mass of circular reasoning?)

In romance, searching and dating and breaking up and searching and dating and trying to make a relationship work is hard. It's exhausting. It's understandable that people sometimes fall back on a trope where the desired partner simply makes it happen.

Of course, few people truly want that simple solution when it does appear.

Shakespeare Couples: Richard II and His Subjects

Richard II doesn't really have a romance. It is one of Shakespeare's (extremely well-written and terrifyingly human) political plays. It's rather astonishing that he wasn't, at the time the plays were put on, accused more often of treason. But the plays can be interpreted in multiple ways, which may be what protected him.

Richard II is about what a king, however divine he perceives himself, should not do--not if he wants to prevent the War of the Roses. I watched The Hollow Crown version, which starts that series with a profoundly gifted set of actors!

The Hollow Crown presents Richard as believing fully in his mantle (unlike some of Shakespeare's other kings). He is nevertheless profoundly out of his depth regarding human behavior. What he assumes will be an object lesson (stopping the tournament) is perceived quite differently by the combatants. He appears waffling rather than decisive and understanding.

One of the most memorable scenes is when he attempts to face down the returning Bolingbroke. He is terrified, yet he once again attempts to respond through elaborate playacting. Bolingbroke--a far more pragmatic and down-to-earth guy (he becomes Henry IV)--is confused by this king whom he wants to follow but who seems mired in performances rather than actual statecraft. 

One of the most popular videos online is the scene where Richard gives up his crown to Bolingbroke and prophecies, in sum, that it is a burden that will destroy him.They want to understand each other yet cannot.

The most important relationship is not between Richard and a wife but between Richard and his subjects, which is, in many ways, appropriate to the time period and genre. An example on the plus side (despite an equally fraught relationship) is Aragorn and Boromir at the end of Boromir's life. 

 

X is for Xie Lian's Series: Couples Who Solve Supernatural Problems

X authors are not the easiest to find, even if one goes beyond American & English authors. 

Mo Xiang Tong Xiu is a great exception! 

So far I have read Heaven's Official Blessing, Vol. 1 and started Vol. 2. The reading is slow--the novels belong to "world fantasy," which, like "world romance," involves EVERYTHING that is going on around the characters. But the denouements are always quite gripping.

The series belongs to a romance/sci-fi/fantasy sub-genre: a couple investigate supernatural happenings. Basically, X-Files. Priest's Guardian series falls into the same category as does the Onmoyoji & Tengu Eyes series. 

I quite like these series overall though they can cross a line into nihilism. I always considered Death Note to be about 1000 times more interesting while Light was still alive than after Light died. That is, part of the draw of these books--whether romantic or non-romantic--is the push & pull, the banter, the constant readjustments between the two main characters. Working together to solve a problem IS the underlying structure.  

Heaven's Official Blessing is a decent addition since the personalities are complementary. In addition, though San Lang seems confident and powerful, a dominant partner, he has his own uncertainties and weaknesses. The characters balance each other. 

 

Detectives and Love: Some Transform, Some Don't

My version of Harriet and Wimsey

Mystery-Romance is one of my favorite sub-genres. It not only provides a mystery, it gives a couple something to do (or, it not only provides a romance, it gives a couple something to solve). 

On Votaries, I am examining characters who transform--or don't. A great many detectives are entirely static characters, such as Nero Wolfe. They don't transform, and that's okay! 

They also, often, don't fall in love. Falling in love suggests change. 

It doesn't, however, suggest transformation. Ngaio Marsh has Alleyn fall in love, but it doesn't transform him. He simply becomes more Alleyn-ish, which is likely true of relationships in general. In many of her mysteries, she supplies the token young-couple-in-love, but they are usually rather throw-away characters (the one delightful exception is Peregrine and Emily, a director and actress). 

The most remarkable detective who transforms through love, of course, is Sayers' Wimsey. Harriet realizes that over time, Wimsey has shed many of his self-protective layers and mannerisms. She came into his life--specifically, her case came into his life--at a point when he was either going to continue his self-transformation or retreat back into a self-protective position and role. 

She had the power to force him outside his defenses. Perhaps, seeing her struggling in a trap of circumstances, he had walked out deliberately to her assistance. Or perhaps the sight of of her struggles had warned him what might happen to him, if he remained in a trap of his own making. --Sayers, Gaudy Night 

Orlando from Charlie Cochrane's Cambridge Fellows Series falls into a similar category: he chooses to dive into a relationship with Jonty despite the outside-one's-comfort-zone requirement. 

The transformations are good for the romance AND good for the mysteries! 

 

Bromance: Murdoch and Pendrick

Murdoch has several close male associates. The Murdoch-Pendrick relationship is especially enchanting, in part because they share interests but also because their relationship comes with loads of plot! 

Murdoch suspects James Pendrick of crimes on a regular basis, while still applauding his inventions. In one of the best season openers, they fly a plane together. 

When Pendrick moves on to producing movies, he bases the first picture-with-a-story on Murdoch (the very first motion pictures were, as Murdoch Mysteries correctly shows, series of moving images: trains, carriages, shoot-outs).  

I wouldn't be surprised if, like Kirk and Spock, Murdoch-Pendrick were "shipped"--Pendoch? Murdrick? In a later episode, Pendrick--who is continually betrayed by his assistants--wonders if he could "change his nature" to get together with the one male assistant who defended him. 

He sadly decides, "No." And he is standing next to Murdoch when he comes to that decision.  

Jessica Fletcher: Rational Good Sense & A Great Role Model

I mention earlier that one of the dumber tropes is, Everything the good guys want is automatically good/right.

Along the same lines, I really appreciate when a character doesn't automatically know who is good/right (as mentioned earlier, Gibbs does but at least Bellisario established this "gift" as an established part of Gibbs' personality early on).  

I have always appreciated that Jessica Fletcher doesn't automatically like the good guys and detest the bad guys. When she defends the student, David Tolliver--creepily well-played by Andrew Stevens--she doesn't do it because she has fallen for him. In fact, she is quite stern with him and makes clear at the end that they are not close. 

With the far more charismatic Dennis Stanton, the moment she finds out about the theft and murder in a hotel, she tells the police about his cat-burglar ways. She doesn't wring her hands over a self-inflicted emotional dilemma: "Oh, he showed up so suddenly and romantically! I know in my heart he is a good guy! How can I give up such a handsome man? He TOLD me that he was innocent!"

She behaves rationally. And Dennis Stanton (unlike David) proves that he is a real gentleman because he doesn't hold her immediate non-waffling level-headed decisions against her. Of course not! 

Jessica is not silly.   

  

Monsters with Lovers--Okay, Vampires Too

On Votaries, I discuss the time-honored tradition of providing the Monster's point of view, a tradition that goes back to the beginning of literature. 

In terms of romance, Monsters sometimes have romantic partners or, rather, romantic interests. In Dracula Tape, Saberhagen uses original Dracula's obsessive interest in Mina to create a real relationship of mutual interest; they worked together in more than one book. Jekyll in Stevenson's book expresses little interest in a romantic partner but just about every adaptation, including movies, gives him that interest. And Grendel's mom--even in the original text--cares for him! (The parent-child relationship with monsters, including Frankenstein's monster, also has a strong tradition.) 

Vampires, of course, have more romantic partners than...veins in a body (seriously: veins are to an extent uncountable). 

I generally find vampire literature, even vampire manga, rather dull. Years ago, when I was still submitting short stories to magazines, I read a "what we are looking for" blurb that stated, "Please don't send us vampire stories!" 

And that was nearly 20 years ago! 

I partly dislike vampire literature because unlike Dracula and Nosferatu, current vampires always seem to belong to cliques/gangs/extended families, and the ensuing politics bore me. The one-on-one stuff is better, but even there, how many angst-y passages about lack of sunlight can one read, sit through? 

That is, I feel about vampire literature the same way I feel about dystopia fiction: I read one or two; isn't that enough? (With dystopia fiction, I read Lord of the Flies; seriously, isn't that enough?) 

However, Demon Under the Waxing Moon by Fumi Tsuyuhisa is worth mentioning because although the demon drinks blood (and sex becomes the substitute, as it does in much vampire erotica), the manga actually has a plot! In addition, the main human character, Minoru, has a distinct personality--and he is generally unafraid of his demon lover. The demon lover also has a rather delightful desire to please his human.  

I will still go for (yet another) office romance first.