 |
| The hilarious His Favorite uses |
| many of the tropes I list below. |
It comes with problems. It can work--but only if skillfully done.
In sum, the mean lover is insulting, deliberately provocative, and often snobby. On occasion, the mean lover resorts to blackmail and other manipulative techniques to get the pursued's attention.
So, okay, in real life, not behavior that anyone should really tolerate.
But great fiction fodder!
Darcy is a kind of "mean" lover--though not really since he is more thoughtless than deliberately insulting. Actually, Captain Wentworth comes closer to "meanness"--he is still hurt by Anne's past rejection and says quite deliberately unkind things about her. He doesn't address her directly but his decisions are more calculated than Darcy's.
In both cases, Jane Austen succeeds with the couples, a testament to her skill. It is not an easy relationship to sell, though a great deal of fun to watch when it does work.
 |
| I love this line about the family dog! |
| Can is upset that the dog likes Tin. |
Tin is the mean lover with family problems, including a mean brother. In sum, Tin's brother thinks he is a ruthless master-of-the-universe but is actually a mental mess while Tin thinks he is a mental mess but is actually a single-minded hottie. His initial reaction to Can is a combination of snark and Darcy-like confusion.
Season 2, which retells part of the story, tones down Tin's meanness (and Can's tendency to lash out) yet retains both characters' fundamental personalities. The dynamic works with Can-Tin for several reasons:
1. The pursued doesn't wilt.
The same is true of Darcy & Elizabeth since Darcy's acerbic remarks
are more than outmatched by Elizabeth's tart tongue. In fact, like Can,
Elizabeth can outmaneuver her man verbally. His best option is to sit
back and wait for an opening. ("Why is it so hard to get you to talk?" Can says to Tin at one point.)
A couple in which the meanness is met with passivity will grate. Luckily, Can is possibly the less wilting person in the universe. He is rather like a love child between McGee and Tony Dinozzi--with Danny Reagan thrown in for fun: guileless like McGee, a chatterer like Dinozzi, and all that Danny belligerence packed into one compact body. He is the character who says it like it is.
He not only gives as good as he gets, he begins many of the "fights." So the couple are evenly matched.
Stories where the mean couple turn from rabid dislike to love and trust and admiration for no particularly good reason other than, hey, it's time for them to like each other...always fail.
It is better if interest and attraction are apparent from Day 1.
As many literary analysts point out, Darcy and Elizabeth are attracted to each other from Day 1--and of course, Anne and Wentworth have a long prior history to fall back on. Differences, personal flaws, and other people get in the way, not the initial desire to interact.
Likewise, Can and Tin focus on each other from the beginning. Tin reaches the point where he deliberately seeks Can out. In addition, as many of Can's friends recognize in Season 1, Can is rather obsessed with Tin. Everybody else shrugged off Tin's insulting remarks and moved on. Can didn't.
He also thinks Tin is good-looking (and has a great car, which is true). In Season 2, he continually describes Tin to others as "tall, handsome, arrogant." When a friend later says, "There's some good-looking guy waiting outside the sports arena--he won't talk to anyone," Can immediately recognizes that the guy is Tin.
In fact, the earliest scenes of both seasons indicate a willingness by Can to fold Tin into his circle of friends or, at least, take him for granted. He doesn't get upset until Tin levels insults.
3. The "mean" lover is looking for an opportunity to revert to his base personality. Darcy is not rude--he is bored and wants to go home. He comes into his own on his home turf. Wentworth is fundamentally noble and passionate. At the beginning of the novel, he is still suffering hurt over the broken engagement but eventually he behaves better.
Likewise, Tin is a fundamentally magnanimous guy (hence, his sympathetic reaction to his brother's divorce) who has adopted the attitude of Mr. Angry Skeptic (he honestly believes in his own disillusionment--it just isn't true to his underlying nature). His reasons for distrust are based in real pain; he was in fact betrayed. He is looking for someone to trust entirely.
More importantly, as Season 2 indicates, Tin is not only fundamentally loving, he is a responsible guy. Like Can, Tin will fix his past errors.
In a way, Pete's friendship with Tin in Season 1 is an indicator that underneath it all, Tin isn't so bad. If saintly Pete can remain Tin's friend...
At the end of a film/novel, the viewer/reader hopefully believes that the couple can work together: get along for more than a few dates. I've always enjoyed the end of Persuasion with Amanda Root, which shows her on-board her husband's ship. Interestingly enough, Pete and Ae from Love by Chance impress me as similar to Wentworth and Anne in this way: they function well together on the active domestic side. (And Pete has Anne's quiet nature.)
I'm less sure that Pete and Ae have much to talk about--but, hey, relationships come in different forms!
Can and Tin have TONS to talk about: sports, language, food, more food, still more food, snacks, dogs, technology, singing contests, overseas trips, whatever is currently on Can's mind or coming out of his mouth, movies, family...
Moreover, Can supplies (by the truckload) the trust that Tin badly needs. "You believe me?" Tin asks at one point, to which Can answers, "What kind of question is that? Of course. I wouldn't ask otherwise." Later, he states, "I'm going to believe whatever you tell me." The declaration is not that of a pushover but that of a young man who has determined that believing people is better than being skeptical. If they then lie to him, that is on them, not Can. If challenged, Can will also rethink his positions. In Season 1, when he apologizes to Tin in a letter, he does it thoroughly (though he ends with, "And you should apologize too").
Most importantly, once Can is on someone's side, he is on that side forever. And the someone will thrive as a result.
The "mean" lover can work--but the archetype needs to be done right.
