Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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The art of the breakup.

I am a media consumer; I consume media. I watch more hours of television a month than is probably strictly healthy (especially given how much of it is "reality" television). I go to the movies an average of once every three weeks. And as for reading, well...let's just say that there's a reason the city I live in considers my house to be a library, rather than a residence. (The cats appreciate my reading habit, as it causes me to build many interesting stacks of books for them to knock over. The housemates do not, as it causes me to build many interesting stacks of books for the cats to knock over. There's no pleasing everyone.) My interests are broad and easily modified to suit the type and quality of the work at hand. If you're looking for someone to consume your media, I'm probably your girl.

All this media consumption, however, comes with a price, and that price is a tendency to notice—and sometimes be bothered by—trends. Most recently, it's been an unexpected consequence of that old fairy tale saw, the happily ever after. You know the one I mean. Where they meet and kiss and marry and run off to live forever and ever in unchanging bliss. At least until the sequel, where she dies and he remarries and the new wife is horrible but luckily their daughter is beautiful and smart and looking for a husband, and...

Yeah.

This seems to have created the belief that once a couple hooks up, that's it, it's over, no more fun, no more fantastic adventures, no more anything but a rapid excuse to break them up. They can get together for good at the end of your story, but dude, once they're together? The happy ever after kicks in, and your options are "breakup" or "death." And it's not limited to the shows and stories aimed at a female audience, since we're supposedly the ones who are only in it for the smootchies; most of the relationships in male-targeted media meet the same end, which seems weird to me. After all, once you're together, you have access to regular sex, and you don't have to do all that sentimental "building a relationship" stuff. Maintaining, yes, but building, no. And yet only the sitcom couples who were married before the show started (or got married in the premiere) seem to stay together.

As Dave Davenport once said: "Where do I want to be in five years? Sleeping with a homicidal maniac, or sleeping with a homicidal maniac who occasionally cleans my toilet?"

I find this trend deeply upsetting. I mean, maybe this is my romantic streak showing through, but I like to believe that once I have invested in the relationships of fictional people—fictional people who were, in many cases, willing to spend years flirting and falling and feinting toward finally hooking up—that maybe I'll get some of the payoff. Not three episodes or one volume of the writers realizing they never figured out how this would work beyond "sweaty kitchen sex and SCENE" and breaking them up in a prefunctory, often utterly silly way. You sold me this relationship! It was for sale, and I wanted it, and now that I have it, I don't want a factory recall! By the time most fictional couples hook up, I am sick and fucking tired of the longing looks, the swooning sighs, the silly banter, all of it. I want them to get it out of their systems, settle down, and get on to telling whatever larger story they used to lure me in in the first place. What I don't want is another five seasons of sighing and swooning. What I don't want is the sort of breakup that could be resolved with thirty seconds of conversation and maybe a flowchart.

Romantic tension is awesome. But seriously, people! So is having a lasting romantic relationship! Where can I find the Nick and Nora Charles of today? No, really, where?

It doesn't help that, again thanks to the fairy tale structure, things get rushed like whoa as they try to give the media consumers "what they want." And yeah, we're a filthy-minded lot; we want Character A and Character B naked and sweaty five minutes after they walk in. But we're willing to wait if you'll promise to give us something that lasts for more than fifteen minutes. Promise me four seasons of Veronica and Logan making out after every successful case, and you will have my full attention for the four seasons it takes to get me there.

This is why I take my time. This is why I let my characters figure out what they want. Because I refuse to take it away from them just because I never bothered to consider the long-term consequences. And no, I don't believe that romance only belongs in the happy ever after.

I want my Nick and Nora.
Tags: contemplation, literary critique
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WORD. Nothing makes me happier in fiction than a fun, loving, stable and romantic relationship I can get behind, but they're practically nowhere to be found.

You might really like Lily and Marshall in How I Met Your Mother. When the sitcom begins they have just gotten engaged after a nine or ten year relationship or something. And they're really really great together! They have a very entertaining rapport, shared quirks, etc. Also they don't buy into the "No Sex After Marriage" rule of sitcom couples.
I was thinking about Lily and Marshall. They are my favorite adorable tv couple.

erinwrites

7 years ago

I like the two generations of married Vorkosigans: Aral and Cordelia, and Miles and Ekaterin. And, ummm...I can't think of another example.



Heh. I was actually thinking of the exchange in A Civil Campaign where Kareen basically says what Seanan is here:

"I don't want to stop. ["Is that how you see marriage? As the end and abolition of yourself?"] It is for some people. Why else do all the stories end when the Count's daughter gets married? Hasn't that ever struck you as a bit sinister? I mean, have you ever read a folk tale where the Princess's mother gets to do anything but die young? I've never been able to figure out if that's supposed to be a warning or an instruction."


As to why a lot of media is reluctant to keep its couples together...well, I think too many recall that Moonlighting tanked after the leads hooked up, mostly because the writers had no idea how to write the couple. A combination of the writers not getting better at it, and people not realizing that the writing was the problem and blaming it on the relationship, has a lot of media creation refusing to take the plunge. (The only reason I know this is that I'm on TV Tropes, and I specifically did not link to it here.)

hasufin

7 years ago

paradisacorbasi

7 years ago

djonn

7 years ago

beccastareyes

7 years ago

erinlin

7 years ago

beccastareyes

7 years ago

God yes. I love you.

This has always felt to me as partly an in-your-face and quite cynical rejection of romantic love, as well as a lack of authorial ingenuity. They can't think of anything else to do. It also often reveals a lack of trust in the consumers' sophistication -- the people responsible assume that the public WANTS melodramatic crap and wouldn't be happy with something that explored the complexity of established relationships.

There are a number of tracks one sees in media that operate unimaginatively: the only things to usually happen to the main character's girlfriend are getting killed, getting pregnant, cheating on him, or marrying him and THEN cheating on him, getting killed, getting pregnant, etc. The script that says that there is no happily ever after is one of these, and I find it infuriating. It gets worse the longer the characters are together in consumer time (tv series vs. movie, book vs comic book series).

I don't mind relationships that are under pressure, I find that entertaining. I even like love triangles or pyramids or whatever, I like anguish and emotional suffering and so forth. But it can be taken way too far. Smallville, I am looking at you; also, perhaps the most egregious offender I've ever seen: Dark Angel; when your characters finally overcome all the odds to have just ONE NIGHT where they can touch each other, and that is interrupted by a GOO-SPITTING PENIS MONSTER, you have jumped the shark. I am still angry about that episode, and the only reason I kept watching the series was because I am stubborn and I have a massive crush on Michael Weatherly.

When you almost never see characters together for the long haul, it's just so disappointing. With successful characterization, you hit a point where you have a whole lot invested in the characters, and if the writers won't quit fucking with them when it's very obviously being done only for the sake of fucking with them, then it's often easier to just disconnect and quit watching/reading/caring.

One of the enduringly wonderful things about J D Robb/Nora Roberts' Eve Dallas series (yes, I read them and love them, and offer no apologies) is the rock solid relationship between the two leads. She puts them through a lot, but there just isn't any question that it won't work, or isn't working. It's lovely.

And contrary to the justification I have seen most often used to excuse pointless relationship meddling, I'm 20+ books in and I AM NOT BORED OF THIS COUPLE.

IT CAN BE DONE.

And, as a final word, I would like to say that Mr. and Mrs. Smith gives me such joy every time I see it. From first viewing, it felt to me like a middle finger raised against exactly this kind of crap.
Um. Right there with you. Crush on Michael Weatherly and all.
And J. D. Robb was my recommendation as well. It's a series I buy in hardcover.

naamah_darling

7 years ago

marsdejahthoris

7 years ago

naamah_darling

7 years ago

marsdejahthoris

7 years ago

naamah_darling

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

I have hopes for the series that begins with Soulless. It does seem, from the teaser for the second book, like the Primary Couple will still be together and not get killed off... I hope!

Another vote for Bujold for Married Couples (at least, in her SF) Who Stay That Way And Still Do Stuff.

*beth makes a note for her own as-yet-unpublished characters*
Good note to make. I approve.
I want my Nick and Nora.

I think I am fortunate that I was in high school with Hart to Hart, aka, the 80s Nick & Nora ;)
Eeeheehee yes! I used to watch that all the time.

hsifyppah

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

"I don't want is the sort of breakup that could be resolved with thirty seconds of conversation and maybe a flowchart."

Yes, Yes, YES!!! Thank you! And even an 'AMEN!' for good measure.
Precisely.
Amen! My life is so much better and more filled with adventure as a married man in love with his wife than it ever was even when we were dating. Though "adventure" usually means filk concerts, Pegasus nominations, ranting at the TV on Thursday nights, and the occasional fire.

In the right hands - Mark Waid's - we have Reed and Sue. There are few happy couples in the DC Universe, but we never expect that to last these days. And Bill Willingham seems to believe in telling a story after "happily ever after" with Snow and Bigby and with Beauty and the Beast, among others.

And I am probably alone in this, but I would watch a Mickey and Martha Dr Who spinoff, since it seemed like their adventure was just beginning, too.
And as I've said before: as part of a happily married couple, I resent all these shows' implications that I don't exist.

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

batyatoon

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

I married my Best Friend after he went through a series of Failed Relationships that 1) drove us apart as friends, 2) got us back together as friends, 3) put us into a bit of a "When Harry Met Sally" situation where we talked on the phone every night and one night he asked me if I would like to be Mrs. C.

Now he is letting me play and write in a world he created in his early teens.

Yep. I got the best of both, so will my characters. No one may ever read them, but they will have trials, tribulations and togetherness. Pretty interesting if I can pull it off for people who live about 5000 earth years.

Deleted comment

ladyqkat

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

I love you in a 'let me bake you cookies and tell you how nifty you are' sort of way.

Because REALLY nifty.

I'm in a relationship that has lasted nearly 25 years. We are not super-heroic sorts and in that time we have survived-

Long-distance relationship, several cross city moves, three cross-country moves, serious injury (his), serious injury (mine), months of PT (both at different times), planning and staging several 50+ guest weekend house parties, planning and staging our own wedding, unemployment, underemployment, various deaths in our family and circle of friends from old age, illness and (in one tragic instance) murder. He got held up at work once. There was the near-miss with the tornado. We had friends move in for a year during her treatment for cancer.

Along with the everyday stuff of who forgot to walk the puppy and where the hell did the screwdruiver get put and why won't this damned printer print?

I know it can be done. I don't know why it is so rarely done by fictional people.
Because lots of folks like their fiction light and fluffy, and writing about the kinds of adventures you've had would be very HARD?

saoba

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

Absolutely. While I love the banter and frustrations of the chase, I find the quirky everyday interaction within a couple just as interesting. People get weird in relationships. And then there is that something deeper, that knowing that you can trust this person because you know them through and through and they know you, and that (along with the hot sex) intermixed with all the day to day frustrations is delightful.
I just really like not needing to have all the focus on who's going to eventually shack up with who.
Ont he front of having realistic depictions of relationships... wouldn't it be nice to see more depictions of the real breakups of "slowly falling out, neither one really doing anything wrong, worrying about hurting the other, eventually breaking up, etc." along with the awkwardness of dealing with the ex - especially the ex who is still in your social circle (i.e., without the ceremonial Portioning Out of the Friends) in a fashion which admits that nobody was really evil in spite of the emotional damage?

Or maybe I'm dreaming and it never works like that in real life either...
It does. Sometimes.
Part of the difficulty with this on current series TV -- especially in drama as opposed to sitcom -- is that it's hard to write any relationship arc when you're not sure how long your show is actually going to be on the air. Shows get canceled so quickly nowadays that the writers often don't get to play out the arcs they may have planned to develop.

I have some hope that Castle will get the chance to put the lie to the so-called Moonlighting curse (although in point of fact, if memory serves, both Remington Steele and Scarecrow & Mrs. King got their happily-ever-afters in one form or another). The Castle writers have done so much else right that I think there's room for optimism there. (Although they're not infallible; I seem to be among the few who thought that the script involving Beckett's mother's assassin was a nearly unmitigated disaster.)
It's not the arcs that cut off in the middle that I object to. It's the on-again off-again for three seasons that chars my toast.

I share your hopes as regards Castle.
Aside from the Vorkosigans, already mentioned, there's Sam and Sybil Vimes in Terry Pratchett's Discworld stories. Not quite as sultry as Nick and Nora, but a pretty good example of a sustaining relationship.

Other than that, I think you've pointed out a huge gaping hole in the fictionverse that some author can take advantage of.
Well, Hambly's pretty good about it: her vamp books had a lovely human married couple, there's Rudy and Alde and Gil and Ingold in the Darwath-verse; Antryg and Joanna in her Windrose Chronicles...she has taken at least one lovely relationship I know of and made it go boom, but on the balance her track record on this subject is pretty good.

Of course, she hasn't been publishing fantasy/SF lately much at all...

archangelbeth

7 years ago

coffeedaiv

7 years ago

wcg

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

Amen. Moonlighting went off the air twenty-one years ago. It’s well past time that writers got over it.
Quite agreed.
Seriously. All too often I feel like I'm at the end of a book and saying 'Finally!' and I turn it over and that's it. The End. And I find myself shaking the thing to figure out where the 'after the happily ever after' went.

If anything ever ACTUALLY falls out when I do that, I'll let you know.
Please do!
Whenever I spot trends, I look for ways to subvert the dominant paradigm. I've noticed, for one, that AIs in fiction tend to be either malevolent or super-friendly and helpful - either rebels or house-slave. So I subvert the dominant paradigm with very balanced AI characters: like humans, they have good aspects and bad aspects, good intentions can go to shit, or bad intentions can have unintentional good effects. They can even be stupid, incompetent, or bumbling. And I've been that way with AI characters since I was a kid. Even as a kid, I didn't like the "good OR evil" AI trend. One of my first major scifi ideas had two characters, both androids; one was like Martin Luthor King Junior, the other was more radical. But the radical one had morals, too, and refused to let his troops attack civilians... military/police targets only was his thing. Well, that and computer hacking to shut down things like power to certain districts. It wasn't a standard "machines conquer humans" story, it was an "androids fight for their civil rights" story. And this was back when I wasn't even a teen yet. Also, both characters had very personal reasons for fighting as they did; the militant character's wife had been murdered by her human owner. And the MLK-like character got along really well with his former owners but realized his privileged position and fought nonviolently for freedom for the other androids. And his own, too, I guess, since he didn't legally have any rights despite his owners freeing him.
There's a fantastic AI in Shaenon Garrity's Narbonic. Lovelace is just awesome from one end to the other. My only semi-AI is April, in A Local Habitation, and she's a very special case.
This is why I love the movie Julie & Julia. Because the Julia parts show the post-happily-ever-after, when Julia and Paul had been married for years and enjoy each other's oddities and are marvelous together and still in love. There's a scene where Julia's trying to explain what beurre blanc tastes like to her sister, and Paul comes up with the word 'tangy' and Julia just looks at Paul with such love, then at her sister with pride that /this/ is the man she chose, and then back at Paul, and I melt, every time. It's not a series, but it's marvelous.
This! Yes, every single interaction that Julia and Paul had was so loving, but interesting and fun and I adored every second.

The Julie part...well, there's a reason why I generally report that half of it was a really good movie.

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

Agreed, and thank you for saying it. Now, I'm willing to accept the premise that relationships don't always last. That's just true. Some lasting relationships hit rough patches, even to the point of what history remembers as being a temporary seperation. Certainly, this happens all the time. The lovely thing about fiction, though, is that a writer can say, "This might fail 9 times out of 10, but a million to one shot is always a sure thing!" If it makes for a good story, damn the odds, bet on love!
Exactly!
What I don't want is another five seasons of sighing and swooning. What I don't want is the sort of breakup that could be resolved with thirty seconds of conversation and maybe a flowchart.

Romantic tension is awesome. But seriously, people! So is having a lasting romantic relationship! Where can I find the Nick and Nora Charles of today? No, really, where?


Love you for this section about the flowchart especially. This same trend has been driving _me_ bananas (and its corollary, that developing relationships are put on hold forever, esp. in TV shows, to keep from hitting this particular wall). Honestly, I've hit the point where "story with functional relationship" is _more_ interesting than "story with developing relationship" to me, just because of this issue.

Functional does not have to mean "devoid of issues." But make them _interesting_ issues, at least, and solvable ones.
Precisely. I want the issues to matter, not just be an excuse to move on to a fresh relationship.
I was thinking about various shows that fall into this trap (answer: all of them). And then I came up with several tv shows that have done things to relationships lately. Yikes. I used to not notice, but lately I've been curious about the "what next".

Like two of my favorite "I can watch these movies over and over" Grease and Dirty Dancing. Because none of those characters from opposite sides of the track will have any troubles along the way, nope.

I have no idea what the hell happened in last week's Bones episode, I think it was so weird I have blocked my brain from understanding it.

Most tv/movie/etc relationships are so dissatisfying.
Agreed.
It seems to be an axiom of story writing that the creator must continually torture the protagonists to have an interesting story. Either people who belong together must be kept apart and frustrated, or if they are together and happy, something terrible has to happen. I hate this. Once I've decided to like a character, I want that character to be happy. When the hero and heroine have just spent the whole book deciding, in between the frantic bits of trying to stay alive, that they belong together, and the book ends, I'm left wanting to actually share their happily ever after.
I don't mind torturing them. I mind always assuming the torture must take the form of losing the one you love.

Deleted comment

The BBC counts. Very good points.

virtualvirtue

7 years ago

I agree with you wholeheartedly, Seanen. This is a large part of the reason why, as a writer, I find infidelity in and of itself truly quite boring. It's not because all the emotions and implications of betrayal don't have any dramatic weight or value, but because everything surrounding infidelity, all the circumstances that tend to make it such a commonplace reality, never seem to make the cut. Cheating ends up being shorthand for "Shit. This entire dynamic was based on them getting together. But we don't really know what to do now. By the same token, we don't really know these people well enough to know what would break them up. Fuck. Ooh! Cheating! Cheating always works! That way, we can put them through a break-up storyline, and when that's over, they'll be free to painfully, slowly build up to another short-lived relationship with someone else! Perfect!"

This is precisely why one of my projects has a simple mission statement: infidelity is not a factor. Let's see how these relationships work without that crutch.
Very nice!
You need to read The Sharing Knife, by Lois McMaster Bujold, RIGHT NOW. It's a fantasy about saving the world with interracial marriage. It's funny and smart and romantic and I love it to itty bitty bits!
Noted.
I haven't read Rawn's books in a while, but it strikes me that Sioned and Rohan did pretty well. Yes, there was an end to that relationship in a sense, but it was also the end to their story and the beginning of their son's.
Excellent. Thanks for the recommendation.
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