Shakespeare's Couples: When Romeo & Juliet Work, Part I

Despite generations of heart-sick teenagers taking Romeo & Juliet as a blueprint for "success," Shakespeare likely meant it as a cautionary tale--directed more at the parents than the teens.

The Romeo & Juliet trope rests on the premise that two people from opposite sides of the tracks meet and fall in love. Maybe their families are enemies. Maybe one is a liberal and one is a conservative. Maybe one is poor and the other is rich. Maybe one is royalty and the other is an obscure non-royal (Cinderella). Maybe one is a spy or con-artist and the other is the mark.

The tension arises from (1) outside forces stating, "You must not be together." And (2) inner forces stating, "I don't really get you."

Sometimes the tensions are resolved in accordance with the tale's most celebrated example: lots of death. Sometimes it ends with sacrifice and acceptance (Casablanca). Sometimes it ends with an utter lack of realism. And sometimes, if handled correctly, it ends with a sweet, romantic resolution.

The first two are not the focus of this post (despite Casablanca being a great movie). The focus is the last two: what separates the positive romantic unbelievable ending from the positive romantic believable ending.

The difference lies in acknowledgement of the accompanying problems.

In Frasier, Niles meets Daphne's lay-about

brothers and still wants to marry her.

Unrealistic Romeo & Juliet tales focus only on (1) the external forces rather than accepting that (2) internal qualms will have impact.

Internal qualms count because people cannot be magically stripped of their familial/cultural/monetary expectations. There is a reason that most people do, in fact, marry within their "class" (even in America). One reason Austen is so popular even now is that she verbalizes issues that have become taboo in our own culture (every culture has, as Tom Wolfe argued, its own Victorian Gent).

Truth: money and background impact relationships.

Elizabeth can argue fiercely with Lady Catherine de Bourgh that she equates to Darcy since she is a gentleman's daughter. Yet Austen never allows any of her heroines to contemplate marrying a farmhand or a minor clerk in an office. Love conquers all within a specific social milieu.

Austen was not being naive or prejudiced; she was being realistic. Money, where people want to live, how people want to live, their friends, their families, their social settings: all these things are factors in a relationship. To pretend they are not is to leave the door open for worse problems.

Austen perfectly encapsulates these "worse problems" in Sense & Sensibility. At the end of the book, Willoughby--who married for money--regrets that he didn't marry for love. Elinor wisely reflects that if Willoughby had married her sister, he would have ended up resenting their mutual poverty.

So how does a Romeo & Juliet tale end without the couple, in the long run, hating each other's guts because "you estranged me from my family...you buried me in poverty...you forced me to live in a horrible city/country/town...you prevented me from accomplishing what I could have accomplished..."?

Romeo & Juliet Part II

The Snow Queen in Manga

On Votaries, I discuss fairy tale characters that change--or don't change (such as Cinderella). 

One fantastic fairy tale retelling in manga is Allure by Yuri Ebihara, based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen." What makes it especially effective is that main character, Dr. Hizuki, undergoes an internal transformation. 

At first, Dr. Hizuki seems to be the Snow Queen figure who lures away Kay or Kai to Norway. In the original tale, the Snow Queen is a constant, a force. She doesn't change because she isn't meant to change. 

Dr. Hizuki starts out as cold and aloof since he is still suffering from the death of a lover a number of months earlier. After he performs eye surgery on Kai, Kai falls for him. Eventually, Kai follows Hizuki to Norway. A sweet-natured, extroverted, confident young man, Kai is undemanding yet also unapologetic in his motives. He is there to keep Hizuki company!

Kai's ex-fiancée, Miharu, supposedly the Gerda figure, shows up to fetch Kai home. 

Here is where the manga turns the tale on its head. For Miharu may appear to be the Gerda figure but her reasoning is more like the Snow Queen's--she wants an unchanging, seamless (like a blanket of snow) existence. Kai must return to his designated role as her fiancé. If he does, everyone will pretend he didn't behave so oddly, breaking his engagement and running off the way he did. He needs to abide by an unbreakable order. 

Even Hizuki is temporarily convinced by Miharu's argument. In a world where lovers don't die in car accidents and love is impervious and methodical, the boy would marry the girl who nursed him and of whom his family approves. Isn't that the proper, perfect ending? Hizuki should give Kai up to the correct tidy (non-messy) resolution. 

Until Hizuki remembers a passage Kai read from "The Snow Queen" about "an ice-puzzle for the understanding" or a "mirror of reason." In the original story, Kay keeps trying to rearrange the puzzle pieces to create the word "Eternity." He can never arrange the pieces correctly--until Gerda comes and warms him. The pieces of a broken mirror fall from his heart and his eyes and form the word he could not create on his own. 

Hizuki takes the passage as a sign. He runs after Kai and brings him back. He is even willing to make a non-seamless messy "spectacle" of himself to convince Kai he is serious.

In this way, Hizuki becomes the Gerda character--but also the Kay figure who needs to be warmed. 

In Allure, Andersen's thematic resolution is turned on its head while also honored. In the original story, the shards of broken mirror corrupt human's sight. But in the manga, the shards--related to the surgical "cuts" by Dr. Hikuzi--challenge Kai's assumptions. They are not all that different from the irritating "monkey conscience" in Shadow of the Moon. 

That is, when Kai regains his sight, due to Hizuki, he comes to realize how much Miharu and his family have controlled his appearance, his wardrobe and perhaps, even, his thoughts. He doesn't entirely recognize himself until he sees Dr. Hizuki.

The shards consequently could also be the (entirely unintentional) "corruption" of Kai's true self by family and friends when he was blind--in which case, once again, Miharu becomes the Snow Queen, trying to lure Kai back to a time when his sight was damaged, first through social pressure and then through freezing contempt. 

Allure is a emotionally resilient rendering of "The Snow Queen" and also a retelling or re-imagining. Heroines become villains. Heroes take on double roles. 

A product of his time, Andersen may have been alarmed by a couple that echoed his own feelings--or he may have appreciated the sentiment. In any case, "The Snow Queen" clearly crosses borders! 

In connection to the new A-Z list on Votaries, Dr. Hizuki is a fantastic character who transforms (warms) steadily yet surely over time. 

Something Else is Going On: Romance and...a Coming Marriage

The fairy tales of the Goose Girl, Rapunzel, and Bristlelip bring home the possibility that not all historical fairy tales were romantic in nature--"romantic" in the intimacy sense as opposed to a tale about magic and courtly settings and acts of retribution. 

Unlike even with Cinderella, in which recognition pays a role, and Beauty & The Beast (of course) where the relationship itself is on the line, in the listed tales the relationship is the excuse for the action rather than the action feeding the relationship.

It's rather like chick lit. The relationship IS the container for shoe shopping, conversations with friends, family interventions, exiles and slogging travels. 

 

Likewise, the Goose Girl provides us with fights, stolen identities, dead animals, stalking (inappropriate) suitors, and spying before the couple ever gets together. The father in Davenport's film appears to do most of the work! 

 

Rapunzel gets the couple together rather early, but that's simply an excuse for blinding, babies being born in exile and other highly dramatic events. 

Bristlelip comes the closest to providing an actual relationship between husband and wife. As mentioned in the post on Votaries, the Davenport film does a fine job convincing the viewer that these two actually do rather like each other. 

 

However, I can't help but wonder: The "prince" pretends to a peddler and takes the "haughty princess" to live in a hovel, where she has to learn how to "make do." If she really does adjust to life in the hovel, might she just possibly wish herself back there? Once she makes the leap--Here's my new role. Hey, I can do this!--might she prefer to put her newfound skills to the test?

 

Nobody likes to be poor. But if the point is simply to make her suffer, rather than to grow, the tale comes across as somewhat sadistic. And if the point is for her to grow, why would she want to stop?

 

The husband just might wake up one morning and find that she went off with another peddler, took over his business, and set up in the next town.

 

After all, tales about weddings are often...about something else. 

Beauty & the Beast in Manga: The Human as Beast

The Beauty & the Beast trope shows up everywhere!

In manga, however, it often shows up as an everyday gal/guy paired with a monstrous human.

So in Beast & Feast by Akira Norikazu, Hyoudou is often drawn with animal ears and a tail, but he is fully human. The problem? He is yakuza, the possible heir to head of the family. He just happens to be smitten with beautiful, straight-laced, and hard-working police detective, Detective Kazuha.

In Rabbit Man Tiger Man, one of my favorite series that I had to buy directly from Amazon.jp after the first two volumes, the protagonists are continually shown as a rabbit and a tiger, including a very funny image of the rabbit and his family as nesting dolls. The "tiger" once again is yakuza though connected to his boss not by blood but by loyalty--and by his insights into political game-playing within the group.

"Cute Beast," a short by Amayo Tsuge, takes the idea to the nth degree. Onizuka is "6 foot 2. Long hair, stubbly beard, and big glasses. No one has seen his true face but you can see his sharp glare. On top of that, he barely speaks."

It turns out, Onizuka is a sweetheart with an astigmatism. Without his glasses, he keeps running into walls. The narrator, Kisaki, in classic Beauty fashion, forms an attachment. However, when the narrator convinces Onizuka to undergo a makeover and Onizuka turns out to be hot, the narrator wonders if revealing Onizuka's hotness to the world was such a great idea. 

After all, when the Beast becomes a prince, doesn't that mean a whole bunch of people will come to visit for diplomatic missions and balls and political conferences and flirtations and whatnot? Depending on their personalities, Beauty and the Beast might decide, "Hmm, can we go back to the good days when nobody came around?" 

Of course, Onizuka only has eyes for Kisaki.  

Cinderella versus Beauty & the Beast in BL

Tua-Prakan's Garden

It is fascinating to indulge in a new genre and discover...

My tastes remain the same!

Lately, I've been watching live-action BL, which ranges from soap opera to short, cute & sweet to clever & humorous to angsty & profound to everything in-between. It is, across the board, surprisingly PG. 

And I've discovered that in the Cinderella versus Beauty & the Beast battle, I still prefer Beauty & the Beast. 

That is, I still prefer the couple's relationship to grow over the four or eight or twelve or sixteen episodes as they work or compete or tackle problems together. They don't (necessarily) have to kiss and hold hands (though forcing those natural physical outcomes not to happen gets a tad tedious after awhile) but I do want to see a growth in mutual understanding and affection. 

A Cinderella series where the couple either pulls a Ross & Rachel (the members of the couple constantly break up, get together, break up, get together, break up...) or a Sleepless in Seattle (the members never really get together until the end) bores me. It isn't that the tropes can't be done well--it's just that they are so often not done well. 

Beauty & the Beast can be done well or not well. Generally, even with an uneven script, the story line is worth the investment. 

So, regarding Thai dramas specifically:

My School President is one of the most brilliantly gentle satires on record (more Galaxy Quest than Robin Hood: Men in Tights) being unapologetically full of high school tropes (think Hana-Kimi, though less manic)--and it has one of the best couples in BL though they don't kiss until the very end! 

The reason the couple works is the growing friendship as well as the easy affection (see "On-Screen Chemistry Defined"). The scriptwriters and actors do a decent job with Gun's knowing-not-knowing reaction to Tinn's help. It is in keeping with the young man's psychology. In the meantime, he certainly isn't going to give up being around Tinn.

Likewise, Tua and Prakan in Dear Doctor, I'm Coming for Soul, despite considerably more angst than that between Gun and Tinn, keep moving the relationship forward. I'm generally not a big fan of constant flashbacks (hence, my ultimate lack of total engagement with Until We Meet Again) but in this case, I thought the perfectly placed flashbacks grounded the characters. They have a long history and a potentially endless future. We are diving into their life together at a moment in time. That life includes things like medical mysteries and death. It also includes flower gardens, car trips, time at the beach, and lemon pie.

And yes, I confess, I'm a fan of Can and Tin from Love by Chance and Chance to Love, mostly because I find Can's bull-headed approach to life a refreshing change from "we will now spend three episodes on this minor misunderstanding" writing approach--and also because the bull-headed approach puts the protagonists in each other's company: at the car, at the soccer field, at the mall, at the beach, and so on...

Watching the relationship develop is half the fun of romance. Reconciliation has its moments. And triumph against all odds can be satisfying. But if the series ends with a dubious "Are they really going to manage a life together now that the drama is behind them? Eh..." then the story belongs in another genre: dystopia fiction or "the horrors of contemporary life!" modern fiction or whatever.

Romance is a positive genre. Viewers should believe, I watched a potentially fulfilling relationship succeed. 

Beauty & the Beast is more likely to achieve such a reaction.

Animal Brides and Grooms

On Votaries, I reference two African tales that tackle the bridegroom-beast motif. In fairy tales, bridegrooms (and occasionally, brides) show up at bears, snakes, wolves, and other such animals. An entire sub-sub-genre to various romance sub-genres tackles lovers who transform into animals. 

Setting aside the very strange episode on Boston Legal, in which the firm must defend a man who wants to marry a cow (the man is played by Michael McKean: would anyone else willingly play the character?) so Denise, on Shirley's behalf, closes her argument with references to Leda & the Swan and other mythological tropes...

What is the fascination? 

Despite myriad sheep jokes in shows like Vicar of Dibley, I suggest the trope's attraction is something more emotional than mere availability. In Eli Easton's How to Howl at the Moon, in which dogs are able to change into humans, Lance's boyfriend complains, "Why can't I have you like this and have Chance [the dog version] at the same time?"

As Aesop's fables indicate, animals embody specific characteristics, including quite lovable ones. Although humans try to compartmentalize other humans (as well as aliens: all Vulcans are logical), such humans have a nasty habit of breaking out of their proscribed boxes. And, too, traits that are popular with humans one decade become radically unpopular the next. 

Animals are far more trustworthy. 

In Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, Ransom reflects on the various sentient species who reside on the planet Malacandra:

Each of them is to the other both what a man is to us and what an animal is to us. They can talk to each other, they can cooperate, they have the same ethics...But then each finds the other different, funny, attractive as an animal is attractive. Some instinct starved in us, which we try to soothe by treating irrational creatures almost as if they were rational, is really satisfied in Malacandra. They don't need pets. 

Very insightful! 

However, I suggest that Ransom gets close but misses the mark slightly. The attraction of animals is not merely interesting and lovable and definable differences but (1) the idea of loyalty or, at least, consistently--sure, a "pet" lion with gnaw your head off, but the lion is, in the meantime, consistent to its nature; (2) the atavistic attraction within humans to violence or contained violence.

As biological beings, we are animals, and that "id" part of us never loses its awareness of the pack or the chase. The animal becomes human while the human is drawn to the animal. 

The immensely popular Who Would Win? animal-versus-animal books nearly always end with a death: real nature--not cutesy "we can appease the gods" so-called nature. There is Venn diagram overlap here between horror and fairy tales (think, Little Red Riding Hood). We want closeness to animals, including wild animals, and correctly fear that impulse at the same time. 

The animal spouse solves the problem. 

Fairy Tale Tropes: Mean Families in Manga

Despite not caring greatly for the Cinderella fairy tale, I acknowledge that it delivers important and prevalent tropes and themes. 

One trope is the awful family/step-family/foster family from which the Cinderella character needs to escape. (The sisters in McKinley's Beauty are unique since they are actually quite nice.)

Despite the prevalence, I struggled to find examples in manga. 

It isn't that bad families don't exist in manga; rather, the manga that I read rarely present the family as the primary motivation for leaving. (Guess the Japanese forgot to make Freud a constant presence in every story.)

Cinderella needs to escape a seriously bad situation; in Western art, only her historical time period excuses her passivity. Get it together! Move out!

Contrariwise in manga, though family members often represent uncomfortable situations--debt, pressure and expectations, indifference--in only a few instances--Mars and potentially Caste Heaven come to mind--is there actual family abuse. 

I could be reading the wrong manga. 

In the series I do read, the closest "bad home life" I could come up with was Punch Up! in which Kouta prefers not to return to a living situation that became extremely unstable after his parents' deaths. He moves in with Maki, an extroverted beast (with two cats), instead. 

The major difference between Punch Up and Cinderella is something that Cinderella bypasses since the tale typically ends before Cinderella gets bored (excluding Into the Woods in which Cinderella ends up with the Baker) yet Jane Eyre addresses: the horrible family might be horrible but at least it has an obligation to the protagonist. If the Cinderella figure marries "up" to someone with more money and power, hasn't one uncomfortable family situation simply been exchanged for another? 

Kouta wants to make his own way, not live off Maki. He is happier with Maki but still conflicted. Imperfection has not be left for perfection, merely for something somewhat better. 

Left to right: Father, Tin, Can

Mean families are more prevalent in live-action BL (ah, contemporary teens love to be angry at their families!) but the emphasis is still on reconciliation rather than escape--and reality often intrudes (what will you do instead?). Tin in Chance to Love leaves the family home--he also immediately gains, at his request (and by sheer force of personality), an integral position in the family business. He and his father make peace.

Western Cinderellas are often Horatio Algers. Cinderellas in manga and BL are closer to Beauties. Both are fairly respectable tropes: 

Find one's own path. 

Or--

Bring the Beast and the beastly behavior into the fold.

Fairy Tales: The Dead Significant Other Revived

On Votaries, I review one of the most memorable tales collected by Asbjornsen and Moe: "East of the Sun, West of the Moon."

Another tale, "Lord Peter," involves one of the stranger motifs in fairy tales: the potential bridegroom or bride--while in another shape--commands the significant other to perform a violent act on the bridegroom or bride. In "Lord Peter," the cat who helps Peter threatens to "to claw [Peter's] eyes out if he did not...cut its head off."

"The Frog Prince" falls under this description to an extent since the frog transforms once the princess throws it against the wall. 

The frog prince doesn't ask for the violent treatment though he does appear to deliberately provoke it. The oddity of the above tale and others like it is the violence perpetuated on the lover doesn't raise any red flags. 

It should. All the rationales in the world don't overwhelm evidence. A person who uses death as a solution to non-violent circumstances is sending up all kinds of sociopathic signals. Dr. Kevorkian was a serial killer with a social mandate, and any family member who delivered a loved one to his "tender" care was exhibiting a bizarre level of irresponsibility. 

But at least the loved one was, ya know, dead at the end. 

Yet in the aforementioned tales, the loved one is restored to the preferred form. The response is, "Oh, you're still alive. I love you so much despite that terrible thing I did at your request--hey, let's get married!" 

Personally, I think the cat-princess's response should have been, "Thanks. But I'm going to marry someone who can't be pressured into cutting off my head when the going gets tough. I'd never sleep easy beside you."

Modred versus Launcelot

On Votaries, I am examining fairy tales and folklore. So far, I have addressed Aesop, African-American tales, Hans Christian Andersen, Arabian Nights, and, now, King Arthur. 

On Romance & Manga, I have discussed Andersen in manga and Arabian Nights in manga. 

Related fairy tale posts will also tackle archetypes and classic characters. 

Here I discuss the attraction of the villain or anti-hero, Modred (spelled as both "Modred" and "Mordred").

Despite reading the play version of Camelot numerous times, I never cared much about Guinevere and Launcelot. As I mention on Votaries, the possible reality of the Arthurian legend fascinated me. Not the feminist-druid stuff which I think is dreary; I mean, the real Dark Ages stuff with that wacky monk, Gildas proclaiming doom all over the place only nobody is listening, and there're all these Saxons moving in and, really, there probably weren't any major wars, just a few skirmishes, and it's very possible that the skirmishes were the Celts fighting each other, NOT fighting the Saxons. Because the Romans had left by this point, so the Saxons basically had free-loader rights to that "green and scepter'd isle." 

Then, as an undergraduate, I developed a real liking for the other (older) Arthurian legends: Gawain and the Green Knight and Gawain and the Loathly Lady (Wife of Bath stuff).

I developed a distaste for Launcelot early on. It isn't just that he has an affair with Guinevere; it's that he whines about it. The whole Lady of Shalott fiasco is Launcelot feeling sorry for himself all over the place. He forgets who he is and falls in love with this other chick (the Lady) and then remembers who he is and decides to go back to the (married) woman, Guinevere, and then the Lady kills herself and instead of Launcelot saying, "Them's the breaks" or "Boy, I was a jerk," he gets all mopey and goes off to try to redeem himself and really, it is exactly like the Titanic and you, the audience, wishing desperately that Billy Zane would shoot the protagonists just to stop them from angsting so much. 

I much prefer Mordred. And interestingly enough, I'm not alone. A lot of YA books have been written in favor of Mordred or from Mordred's point of view: the Book of Mordred by Vivian Vande Velde; The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein, for example.

I think there are two reasons Mordred fascinates us Mordredites:

(1) Mordred is much more ambiguous than any of the other Camelot/Arthurian legend characters. And he is placed, plot-wise, in the position of being the character who outs the well-liked but corrupt "good" guys.

Basically, Mordred is Spike.

And ambiguity is interesting. I think it is no error of human nature that the most popular Star Trek characters are those characters who are struggling to define themselves: Data, Seven of Nine, the Doctor, Spock. We are more interested in people who haven't figured themselves out completely yet than people who have--after all, most of us fall into category one rather than category two. 

(2) If you root for Mordred, you inevitably don't root (that much) for Launcelot, and Launcelot is such a great guy to hate. Launcelot is the quintessential spoiled kid who goes off to college or prep school or wherever and gets into trouble with some other spoiled kids. He may even be the ringleader, but it will never be clear; he will never own responsibility. And then they all get into trouble, and the other kids may even get expelled, but Launcelot goes and cries and says how SORRY he is and how he never meant it to get out of hand and isn't it too awful and it wouldn't have gone so badly if it hadn't been for that other guy (who told on them). 

Modred cuts through a lot of this bull.

I've written two Mordred stories: "Merciless" and "Seriously." In both, he is not dissimilar to Vivian Vande Velde's portrayal of Mordred as extremely tight-lipped. (My Mordred is less heroic.) If I remember correctly, Wein's Mordred is seriously dysfunctional and kidnaps his half-brother. But he is still the protagonist.

So reason #3 for being a Mordredite must be: he supplies so much great material! 

Beauty & the Beast by Georgette Heyer: Venetia

A Valentine's Day post! 

Venetia is one of Georgette Heyer's most captivating novels with a truly independently-minded heroine. 

Many of Georgette Heyer's heroines are independently-minded--right up until the hero proposes and then they become coy. Venetia does not. 

To start, Venetia is a 25-year-old member of the gentry who lives in the country with her scholarly and sarcastic brother Aubrey. She is a great Beauty. She is also frank and without pretense. She and Aubrey are entirely honest with each other. 

Venetia has suitors but has honestly and without pretense told them that she is not interested. They continue to press their suits, specifically Edward Yardling, who is sententious, condescending, and absolutely sure that Venetia doesn't really mean the things she says. 

The "Beast" arrives in the form of 38-year-old Damerel; a member of the gentry, when he was an older teen, he ran off with a married woman, who obviously seduced him. He is quite similar, in fact, to Rochester, a once idealistic young man who was sorely disillusioned and has adopted the pose of being nonredeemable out of an honest belief in his own (rather mild) rakishness (he isn't exactly a member of the Hellfire Club). 

Damerel and Venetia meet and become friends. 

Heyer is quite good at showing (as opposed to telling) the reader how the hero and heroine of her books get along. She excels with Damerel and Venetia. They share a sense of humor. They talk easily. Venetia is not in anyway shocked by Damerel's experiences. She finally feels that she has found someone that she can speak to her on her wavelength.

Neighbors and family members, however, separate them--first, by convincing Damerel of the inappropriateness of the match and then by literally distancing the couple when they cart Venetia off to London.

Damerel's acquiescence to the separation is rather irritating. Continually throughout the novel Venetia's entirely truthful and objective statements are not taken seriously by the people around her. She says the same things again and again, but no, no, no, she couldn't possibly mean them! "We" have determined that she truly thinks entirely the opposite! She's a "good girl." Venetia obviously finds this continual dismissal of her actual statements less than palatable.

For Damerel to do the same thing seems unlike him since he appears to be one of the few people (Aubrey is the other) who takes Venetia seriously. 

However, Damerel is suffering from what Venetia calls "idiotish nobility." I will allow him to be an idiot, temporarily. 

Venetia rescues the situation when she realizes that her mother, whom she believed to be dead, is actually very much alive, having divorced Venetia and Aubrey's father and married a pompous member of the Prince Regent's set. The mother is, bluntly, not good ton. If Venetia has anything to do with her, she will "fall." 

So Venetia does. 

Like Avenant and Gaston in the classic renderings, Edward--the so-called worthy suitor--then reveals his small-mindedness and inherent spiritual meanness by trying to pull a Darcy ("I struggled against my feelings for you, but failed") without Darcy's growth (Edward determines that he should have never given into his feelings).

Venetia shrugs her shoulders. She told him. Again and again and again. He didn't listen. Sucks to be him. 

Venetia returns to Damerel's country-seat to find him in a kind of stagnating holding pattern: morose and utterly unhappy. She informs him that she has made friends with her fallen mother. Like the princess in Shrek, she is now--reputation-wise--an ogre. 

The outcome is not so extreme. Heyer, like Austen, understood that true social destruction is not entirely wise. Venetia has a powerful and wealthy uncle by marriage as well as good friends in the neighborhood. Damerel is not as irredeemable as he imagines. They will not "fall" as far as they expect. 

However, the text does make one incredibly insightful point. The uncle protests that a man of Damerel's age is set in his ways. He has established patterns that are difficult to break. He won't "reform" overnight. 

My personal feeling is that the uncle worries too much. Damerel has obviously reached a point in his life where change will be more organic and natural than forced. Still, the uncle has a point. 

Venetia once again shrugs. She knows exactly whom she is marrying. She knows exactly what she wants. She has always known, if only people would listen instead of trying to "fix" her. Her brother Aubrey agrees that she and Jasper (Damerel) will suit, and Aubrey knows her better than anyone. 

The Beast will not entirely transform--and since we all, like Venetia, love the Beast more than the prince anyway, that is just as well.

Fairy Tales: Lack of Romance in Aesop's Fables

I discuss Aesop's Fables on my main blog. 

I noted after a brief perusal of the fables that few of the tales have romantic content.

Some of the truths/lessons embedded in the tales crop up more than once; overall, the truths tackle many facets of the human condition--they apply to romance but don't tackle it specifically. 

The one tale that uses romance provides a lesson that applies to the general human condition. 

That one tale is "The Rose & the Butterfly."  The Butterfly falls in love with the Rose. However, then the Butterfly flits off to do its stuff. When the Butterfly returns, the Rose complains. The Butterfly replies:

I had no sooner left you than I saw Zephyr kissing you. You carried on scandalously with Mr. Bumble Bee and you made eyes at every single Bug you could see. You can't expect any constancy from me!

The larger truth is that one cannot expect constancy if one doesn't practice it.

The reality of Aesop is that Aesop used observations of the non-human world to craft the fables. Animals and plants behave in accordance with pre-determined natures. Butterflies don't stay in one place. Sheep are often eaten. Wolves are wholly dangerous. Foxes are sneaky and clever. As for amphibians and reptiles: watch out! 

The one creature that behaves contrary to a pattern is Man, as in the Man & the Satyr, in which the Man blows on his hands to warm them and on his soup to cool it. The attached moral is rather belabored (I think the story is supposed to be a joke, not a lesson). The point is: the man (unlike the animals) behaves unpredictably. 

It is out of unpredictability that romance arises.
 

Why NOT the Prince?

Past Halloweens, I've posted about various costume choices: the witch, the pirate, the wolf. 

This year, it occurred to me to ponder, Why NOT the prince? That is, why are prince costumes less common?

Lots of princesses, from (yes, yes, yes) Elsa to fairy queens and such. I costumed as a fairy queen when I was younger (picture to the left). 

However, unlike with Princess Leia, I don't remember wanting to play the fairy queen. It was an available costume (yes, it is likely the same dress). 

I did want to be Princess Leia, and I suggest that princesses show up for the same reason as Han Solo and Buzz Lightyear: they go on adventures, they build ice castles, they do things.

They wear great clothes, sure! But they wear them while performing, rather like all the female protagonists on television who run around in heels (in the case of Nana Visitor, the heels were likely so she would at least be on the same screen with all her 6-feet co-stars). 

One rarely sees "Prince Charming" costumes, precisely because princes in many tales seem to do little more than mope and step on the stage at the appropriate moment. It would be fun to see a bunch of trick-or-treaters show up wearing "kingly accountant costumes" or "princely diplomatic costumes" but one would have to be in on the joke--as when Niles and Frasier bemoan their costumes as youngsters: first, as the Bay of Pigs and then as Swine Lake. Nobody laughed. (Okay, I would have.)

I suspect that most prince costumes just look like military costumes--and the military version is far more recognizable.

As is the musician's version...

Totally different Prince.

Hansel & Gretel & Damaged Rogues

Dexter and Rita

As mentioned on Votaries, Hansel and Gretel is not a retold tale I encounter often in classic or romantic form. It's hard to see a romance unless Hansel or Gretel grew up to be either seriously traumatized or Dexter. 

Dexter belongs to the "bad rogue who is nevertheless faithful to one person" category. I stopped watching the series at the end of the Lithgow season. The season ended by purporting that Dexter realizes that he can never have a "normal" life because the serial killer Lithgow tried a normal life and failed. 

I've never read the books but I felt that the Lithgow season ending was a betrayal of the character. The entire point of Dexter was that the "code of Harry" made him an outlier--from other members of society and other serial killers. He could mimic normality with the first group and therefore act as judge and jury on the other group. 

I'm not saying I agree that psychopaths and serial killers can operate that way. The writing point here is not plausibility. The point is adherence to a premise.  

A romance that postulates, This person--no matter how bad and faithless in other regards--remains good and faithful to this one person will work...if the premise is presented and maintained. 

Spike and Buffy could have worked--if the writers were willing to remain true to the characters.

Bearskin & Romance

The romance of Bearskin is the romance often associated with fairy tales: kindliness and acceptance win the hero's heart (and an awful lot of money). As mentioned in The Frog King post it is a somewhat less common trope than assumed. But it is there. 

It is not all that interesting. The heroine seems to be rewarded for little more than being in a good mood one day. Hooray for her. But suppose she was tired that day? Or irritated at Bearskin getting dirt all over an entryway she likely cleaned two hours earlier?

Does Bearskin know what he is signing up for? He's marrying a woman who apparently doesn't have the sense God or genetics or freewill gave her to NOT get engaged to total strangers who might be con-men--or serial killers. Wouldn't Bearskin reach a point in the marriage where he yelled, "Stop being so self-sacrificing all the time! Good grief, woman, have you no sense?"

However, as in many Davenport films, the relationship is saved by the actors' portrayals. Bearskin comes across as straightforward and eager while the daughter comes across as sweet-natured, down-to-earth, and a little reserved. So maybe they have a chance.

Romance & The Frog as Lover

The Frog King is an odd tale since it relies on an act of violence. The princess is so irritated by the frog, she throws him against a wall. 

Then, instead of saying, "Hey, what the--no, I don't want to marry you!" the prince/king is relieved and pledges his troth. 

On the one hand, the tale seems to be a lecture about the benefits of keeping one's promise. The princess must stand by her agreement to the frog when she said he could live with her should he rescue her golden ball from the well. But again, the good behavior is undermined when the princess loses her temper, determines not to keep her agreement, and doesn't get punished.

Robin McKinley presents a short story in which the prince-frog-heir is enchanted by his evil brother; the prince and princes together ultimately conquer the evil brother. It is a decent rendering and answers the question, "Uh, why do these people want to have anything to do with each other?"

Another oddity about the tale is the add-on, "Iron John," which suggests to fans of M/M romance that neither the prince nor princess care all that much about each other. The marriage is one of convenience. The prince's true lover? The servant who mourned him so much, he bound iron bands around his chest. It seems only fair that such faithfulness should be rewarded. 

Of course, if fairy tales are any guide, faithfulness = romance, though present in many tales, is far less common than one would imagine.

Manga & The Arabian Nights

One of the more irritating attitudes of "everything offends us" bullies is the insistence that not only should their colleagues and the public genuflect to their opinions on race and sex, members of other countries should as well. The West, they claim, appropriates other cultures, which are entirely pristine and pure (note the condescension).

The video below from Eugene is a good example of how the ideas of American critics may simply not hold that much sway abroad.

My favorite part is the young women who determine that the blond hair & blue eyes combination common in manga is "fascinating"--characters with said combination show up in manga because Japanese people find them unusual and interesting "and blond hair only suits foreigners." 

Not only may Westerners appear "exotic" to people in other countries, characters, stories and tropes that appear "exotic" to Westerners may appear equally "exotic" to others. The world does not revolve around a bunch of offended academics in THE WEST. (Ivory Tower pundits truly give new force to the word "insular.")

In Japanese manga, two excellent series tackle the historical Middle East, specifically the historical Arab Middle East:

Black Sun by Uki Ogasawara: A medieval European knight, Leonard, is taken captive by Jamal, a general who serves the Sultan. They become lovers. When a treacherous, double-dealing commander of Leonard's kills the Sultan, Leonard helps Jamal support the least treacherous of the Sultan's sons in taking over. The series ends with Jamal and Leonard released to more diplomatic duties. 

The politics are less interesting than the relationship between the protagonists. Leonard specifically moves from idealism to disillusionment to balanced confidence in his new lover and his new life. The trappings provide the plot. They don't define the characters. But the complications of the trappings--and the beautiful illustrations--underscore context and conflict.

Gorgeous Carat by You Higuri: Gorgeous Carat is all trappings. It is Rider-Haggard-comes-to-manga, and a whole lot of fun. In turn-of-the-century Paris, Florian is handed off to Ray Balzac Courland, a jewel thief. In the course of the first volume, Florian leaves his poverty-stricken noble home, gets locked up and exposed to BDSM by Ray, and helps a kidnapped boy. Ray runs around in embroidered dressing gowns and has a Arab young woman, who wears a turban, as a companion/side-kick. At one point, Florian, Ray, and the scoobies go to northern Africa, where Florian gets hooked on opium while everybody else is trying to find treasures associated with the Knights Templar. 

In a later book, Ray and Florian et al. tackle a Gothic tale in England. 

You Higuri also created a series about the Borgias.

It always a good idea for Westerners to stop fretting about their supposed influence on others and start wondering if maybe they might be "fodder" for other's art instead.