Love Meme, Day Ten
Day 10 - The least believable relationship?
Before we proceed, I just want to warn you that we're going to be dealing with some pretty heavy, triggering subjects in some sections, including dating violence and, later on, sexual abuse. If you don't want to read about this, turn back now. I'm serious.
-Han/Leia, as written by Dave Wolverton in The Courtship of Princess Leia. Now, to clarify before I go in, canon!Han/Leia (in the Lucasverse and the TFAverse) is fucking awesome. Legends!Han and Leia, including how Wolverton wrote them...they are not. My God, are they not. Why? Well, there's the basic plotline of The Courtship of Princess Leia -- Leia's entering a political marriage to a man named Isolder and, instead of doing what normal people do and blaring Alanis Morissette and Adele loud enough to annoy Chewie, or going on the GFFA equivalent of social media and complaining, Han decides to kidnap Leia (yes, you heard me right, kidnap her) and give her a week to fall back in love with him when they head off to Dathomir...prior to Legends-verse hijinks ensuing. I mean...there's so many things wrong with that plot (and the overall writing, such as Wolverton lapsing too much into purple prose, the Unfortunate Implications, ranging from Luke trying to force Isolder to forgive the man who killed his brother to the Double Standard Abuse Female On Male that is the Dathomirian culture, but we're here to talk about Wolverton!Han/Leia here) that I feel like I'm going to have to break it down:
* Han wouldn't do that. I mean, I have a feeling that if Leia moved on with someone else, he would be completely accepting. How do I know this? Because when he initially mistook Leia for being in love with Luke (I know, I know, I'm sorry to bring those mental images back into your head, but it's important, I promise), he said that he wouldn't try and get in the way when Luke came back. Before Leia reassured him, that is. Does that sound, at all, like a guy who would kidnap Leia to make her fall back in love with him just because he was angry at her marrying someone else even for political convenience? Of course not.
* Leia, meanwhile, wouldn't put up with that sort of shit, and yet at the end, Wolverton has her succumbing to Han's "charms" and even agreeing to marry him. Which...no. Just no. Leia would never, ever put up with that sort of shit. She wasn't shown as being tolerant of Han's shit when they first began their kinda sorta courtship in A New Hope, or in Empire Strikes Back, or in Return of the Jedi. Or, for that matter, in The Force Awakens. She wouldn't tolerate that sort of shit if she were being written in character in that book.
* Han is generally pretty unlikable in this book (besides the obvious kidnapping thing, there's some other stuff going on that I probably forgot to mention), but one part of it was throwing Chewie under the bus, saying stuff like "well, that's how Wookiees court their women" (um, Han, a Hanharr would like a word with you. As would Mira and HK-47 in the video, but yeah...pretty much all three of these characters' definitions of love make more sense than Han's belief of what Wookiees apparently do) and saying that women basically like to be courted more traditionally, with romantic dinners and such, sort of like this whole mess was Chewie's fault -- completely ignoring the fact that earlier, he basically Stunned Leia with a blaster and locked her in the storage hold of the Falcon. *Sighs* It's really a miracle that after Luke caught up with him, he didn't knock Han on his ass. (And he would. He really would)
And you're probably wondering "hadhafang, why did you do that to yourself?" Well, let's say that somebody left a copy of Courtship of Princess Leia lying around the cabin at the camp I went to and I figured that, because I was stupid enough to only bring some writing books and a Star Trek novelization (of the 2009 film, in case you're wondering), I'd give it a go. So it really was just boredom. And I guess it was a case of "how bad could it be" as well. Needless to say...it was pretty bad. If I had my electronics, I would have definitely done a review of it or something. And then there was how they were portrayed in NJO-LOTF, which didn't really feel believable either, especially not LOTF, where I just didn't buy them as the whole loving-parents-whose-son-tragically-went-to-the-Dark-Side thing (but in TFA, it was believable), especially with stuff like Leia freely agreeing to go along with killing Jacen/Caedus in Inferno, and Han saying he's completely onboard with killing his son in Invincible. (But you don't have to take my word for it. Take gabri_jade's. Her recaps are here)
It really makes me appreciate The Force Awakens even more, because the Han/Leia scenes really do feel like LOTF if the writers had any idea how to write likable characters. (Then again, I think Abrams is pretty good with likable characters. I know that his cast of the Star Trek reboots is pretty awesome) And of course, Han and Leia's relationship is infinitely more believable and more loving than Courtship of Princess Leia...even if that doesn't sound like a high bar to set.
-Scotty/Uhura from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It's a shame because honestly, in the beginning, the two of them had some potential to be really cute -- I mean, you can tell from the way they interact while the Enterprise crew is at Yosemite that they're genuinely at ease in one another's company, they're comfortable around each other, they like each other...it's sweet. Nichelle Nichols and James Doohan really do a great job playing off one another. And then you get to...*sighs* Basically, it's after Scotty bangs his head against a beam and Sulu takes him to sickbay. And Uhura...well, the best way I can put it is that she gets really...grope-y with Scotty, and it's clear from the look on Scotty's face that he wants to tell her "no" and he has to kind of bluff his way away from her. (That's as far as I can recall, of course. It's not as burned into my memory as COPL, so I may be remembering some stuff wrong) I just remember the feeling I got, like "Okay, this is actually really creepy and personal space invade-y and I think the film's trying to play it for laughs instead of focusing, seriously, on the fact that Uhura doesn't seem to be herself and Scotty's terrified." I guess you could argue it's Uhura-acting-on-her-long-suppressed-feelings, but it really just comes off as borderline boundary-invading and considering Uhura's not herself at the time...yeah. Goes into some uncomfortable places.
I think a good way to alter it so it really does come off as the filmmakers likely intended it is this: following from the scene at Yosemite, Scotty and Uhura share a rather...awkward intimate moment together. The UST is obvious (and anyone who says that it's not possible, allow me to present TFA!Han/Leia and Eva and Weasel from the 2004 Salem's Lot to prove you wrong *), only for the moment to get interrupted by the news of the hostages on Nimbus III. And, maybe she, instead of Chekov, could have played acting captain or negotiator? Not that Chekov didn't do a decent job considering the circumstances, but I think Uhura could have been given more to do. I mean, she is the communications officer, isn't she? Meanwhile, while she's playing acting captain, Kirk and company manage to sneak into Nimbus III...well, prior to things going pear-shaped. Sybok and co. take over the ship, and Uhura has to confront, among other things, how she feels about Scotty. Have it play out more like a Revan/Bastila (yeah, I know, this seems to be my recurring good-writing card. Remus/Tonks didn't work out? Write them like Revan/Bastila. Scotty/Uhura didn't work? Write them like Revan/Bastila) or Ben Mears/Susan Norton sort of thing -- the woman trying to lure the man (who's struggling with his feelings himself) over to her way of things, including being able to truly be with her, without any fears, without any self-imposed limitations. No possibly boundary-invading stuff, nothing like that -- definitely more of a psychological back-and-forth. Although Sybok doesn't have the same temperament as Barlow or Malak. I know it sounds weird for me to say, but I think that he's less of that (or Khan, or the Borg Queen, or even V'ger, actually) and more...Mike Nelson Destroyer of Worlds. (Yeah, that scene where Mike Nelson accidentally blows up a planet with a baking soda bomb? That's basically Sybok -- at least in regards to the hostage situation on Nimbus III going pear-shaped) And then take things from there, up until the climax with the God-impersonator.
Or, going with the chase plot that I suggested (for context, see my review of Final Frontier here. I am going to get around to Undiscovered Country, Generations, First Contact, etc. soon enough, never fear), have Uhura play acting captain while Kirk and Spock go to rescue the hostages after they get through the Barrier, only for the ship to get taken over by Sybok and company and Uhura has to confront her own pain -- one of them being Scotty. Then go with the rest, of course, up until the climax with the God-impersonator.
That's my two cents, at least.
-Revan/Carth. It's not as bad as the two examples I listed above, but there was something about their relationship that didn't feel as natural and free-flowing as Revan/Bastila. I kind of thought that some of the dialogue choices were kind of...not my favorites ("hairless Wookiee", for example. I admit that's not really a favorite of mine) and I thought that things occasionally moved too quickly. Plus, with the added baggage of Revan being indirectly responsible for what happened to Telos...yeah.
-Remus/Tonks. I pretty much outlined a lot of my reasons here. In addition, I'd say that there wasn't really much build-up on paper; a lot of their backstory seems to be relegated to Pottermore. And it's a shame, because seeing that ship play out on the page really could have been fun to see. Plus, the others guilt-tripping Remus for not wanting to cause Tonks unnecessary unhappiness (in his view) just really got me squirming first time I saw it. Like, I was probably a wee elementary-schooler or middle-schooler, and I just sensed that something was not right about it. Another thing about being in love with someone is that you have to give them choices, even if it's not the choices that you want. They have to have a right to choose, because they're a person; they're not just an object for your affections. Otherwise, that's really not love; that's obsession.
-Ron/Hermione. I don't know how to put it except their arguments, which were supposed to be UST-filled (and I have nothing against Belligerent Sexual Tension. One of my favorite ships is Han/Leia, for crying out loud), just really got me uncomfortable instead when I was reading the books because of how vicious they got. Plus, Hermione setting the birds on Ron was completely out of line and really had a lot of Unfortunate Implications -- like physical assault is funny when it's female on male. The Half Blood Prince movie actually did it a lot better with altering that scene so it's really more of the birds...kinda sorta blowing up. It's still uncomfortable, but at least no one gets physically hurt there.
-Vestara/Ben (Skywalker). Let's say that after that scene (TL;DR, Ben uses the Force to slap her across the face, then to tie her down with bedsheets while he reads her letters) in Ascension, I really honest-to-God don't understand how they could be a viable pair. It doesn't help that Faux Skywalker (thank you, arkan2) apparently says after the scene (and granted, he probably didn't know about what Ben did, but it still rankles a bit) that Ben's one of the ultimate Jedi, basically. And then in one preview of Apocalypse (I know this sounds a lot like Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch, but it really did rankle me), he chided Vestara for being too "violent" (so it's okay for your son to do it, but not the woman he basically physically assaulted?) and has a moment in Crucible on seeing Vestara where he seethes (as I recall) about what a traitor she is, etc. Never mind that honestly, from what I heard...she has every right to basically turn away from Ben Skywalker after what he did.
It's honestly why I think that Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) is definitely worth twelve of Ben Skywalker. I mean, say what you will about him, but he never would have done what Ben did. Ever, ever, ever. It's clear that unlike him, he actually respects Rey as a person. Stuff like his look of amazement after Rey summons Luke's lightsaber (honestly, I have a feeling that when he shows up again in Episode Eight, he's not even going to be angry at her; he's probably going to go, "Actually, I'm proud of you, Rey, holy shit!" If not in those words), him unmasking after Rey makes a sarcastic comment about him being a "creature in a mask" (the only other person he intentionally did that for was Han, so however you want to interpret it, he does have a soft spot for the scavenger), his "Don't be afraid; I feel it too" during the interrogation (which is a bizarre reaction, I think. Keep in mind that Vader didn't bother comforting his own daughter while he was interrogating her, and Kylo basically went no-holds-barred on Poe Dameron, so his reaction regarding Rey -- say that three times fast -- definitely raises some questions), there's him basically gushing to Snoke about how awesome she is not long after she blocks him from her mind ("She's strong in the Force, relatively untrained, but stronger than she knows!" All while sounding a bit...excited, honestly)...I don't necessarily ship them (though I am getting tempted to), but it's definitely obvious that either way he does have a soft spot for Rey, twisted as it may be.
Sorry I went off on a tangent; I guess I needed to calm down a bit.
And honestly, I know that people are wondering, "But hadhafang, what Vader/Anakin did to Padme on Mustafar was pretty abusive too!" And yeah, it could count as that, but the thing is, Lucas intended it to be a sign that Anakin had gone too far, that he'd fallen so far that he'd forgotten why he'd done it in the first place. And/or that what started off as relatively good intentions had become darker and more possessive and so led to tragedy. There's nothing about Mustafar that suggests any of it was meant for anything other than tragedy. The music, Padme's reactions:
And then there's the fact that it's obvious that Anakin's just gone off the deep end, really, from seemingly logical (though genuinely loving; he's also just kind of lost it) husband to...well, the guy who ultimately Force chokes his own wife:
These two frames are especially striking, with Anakin's brief realization of what he's done before rounding on Obi-Wan and accusing him of turning Padme against him (never mind that Padme had zero idea that Obi-Wan was there). It's definitely a good case of Hayden Christensen displaying that shock and remorse, brief as it is, before proceeding to completely ignore it.
Is it a flawed scene? Yeah. But overall, it does a good job of conveying the matter of violence against a loved one being the end of a relationship, instead of, in the case of Christie Golden's example, the promised beginning of a relationship (as Vestara asks Ben Skywalker if she can be trained as a Jedi not long after Ben physically assaults her and invades her privacy). So yeah...
-This is probably more of Complaining About Shows I Don't Watch, but from what I saw of the das_sporking recaps of Hush Hush and Fifty Shades of Gray, Nora/Patch and Ana/Christian seem to fall into the same pattern as Ben/Vestara and The Courtship of Princess Leia.
-This is something that I just realized pretty recently, but Ben and Tahiri in Invincible. Basically, to sum things up, Tahiri molests Ben during interrogation (keep in mind that Ben's fourteen years old and Tahiri's at least in her thirties, so that's basically child sexual abuse, which, if the LOTF-verse was written believably, would have gotten Tahiri jail-time along with everything else she did). It was something that I guess I just missed when I first read Invincible (some of my experience reading Invincible is kind of sketchy), but thinking back on it...what really makes things worse was I think Troy Denning was trying to turn it into a ship, and the whole disgusting situation just has a lot of victim-blaming bullshit on top of all this towards Ben. (Again, you don't have to take my word for it. Take gabri_jade's word for it) It's...yeah. And then the book includes stuff like basically acting like Ben's "lucky" just because Tahiri basically tried to molest him, which...no. Ben wasn't "lucky" or anything like that. No victim of sexual abuse is "lucky", ever, ever, ever. I mean, if we switched the genders (Ben to...Padme Jr., maybe, and Tahiri to...Tahirus) and had it be a thirty-year-old man molesting a fourteen-year-old girl, Del Rey would never let it through. But somehow they thought this (a thirty-year-old woman and a fourteen-year-old boy) was okay. (Fortunately, the majority of the fandom didn't)
Fuck, that was some pretty heavy stuff. Here's hoping that the next day will be lighter.
* And keep in mind that Eva and Weasel are definitely much older than Scotty and Uhura here, so...yeah. UST knows no age.
Day 11 - Your dream pairing?
Day 12 - Who had the best wedding?
Day 13 - Your favorite television pairing?
Day 14 - What is your favorite book pairing?
Day 15 - What is your favorite real life pairing?
Day 16 - What is the absolute worst pairing?
Day 17 - A pairing you thought would never work out, but did?
Day 18 - What is the cutest pairing?
Day 19 - A pairing you’ve rooted for since the beginning?
Day 20 - The 'can't stand the sexual tension anymore' pairing?
Day 21 - A pairing you like and no one else understands why?
Day 22 - A pairing you hate and no one else understands why?
Day 23 - A crazy love triangle/quadrilateral that worked out great?
Day 24 - A crazy love triangle/quadrilateral that worked out badly?
Day 25 - A pairing that was/would-be adorable, but could never work out?
Day 26 - A pairing that you hated and ended up loving?
Day 27 - A pairing that you loved and ended up hating?
Day 28 - A pairing that you will never understand?
Day 29 - What ship had the best proposal?
Day 30 - Your favorite ship forever and ever and ever!
Before we proceed, I just want to warn you that we're going to be dealing with some pretty heavy, triggering subjects in some sections, including dating violence and, later on, sexual abuse. If you don't want to read about this, turn back now. I'm serious.
-Han/Leia, as written by Dave Wolverton in The Courtship of Princess Leia. Now, to clarify before I go in, canon!Han/Leia (in the Lucasverse and the TFAverse) is fucking awesome. Legends!Han and Leia, including how Wolverton wrote them...they are not. My God, are they not. Why? Well, there's the basic plotline of The Courtship of Princess Leia -- Leia's entering a political marriage to a man named Isolder and, instead of doing what normal people do and blaring Alanis Morissette and Adele loud enough to annoy Chewie, or going on the GFFA equivalent of social media and complaining, Han decides to kidnap Leia (yes, you heard me right, kidnap her) and give her a week to fall back in love with him when they head off to Dathomir...prior to Legends-verse hijinks ensuing. I mean...there's so many things wrong with that plot (and the overall writing, such as Wolverton lapsing too much into purple prose, the Unfortunate Implications, ranging from Luke trying to force Isolder to forgive the man who killed his brother to the Double Standard Abuse Female On Male that is the Dathomirian culture, but we're here to talk about Wolverton!Han/Leia here) that I feel like I'm going to have to break it down:
* Han wouldn't do that. I mean, I have a feeling that if Leia moved on with someone else, he would be completely accepting. How do I know this? Because when he initially mistook Leia for being in love with Luke (I know, I know, I'm sorry to bring those mental images back into your head, but it's important, I promise), he said that he wouldn't try and get in the way when Luke came back. Before Leia reassured him, that is. Does that sound, at all, like a guy who would kidnap Leia to make her fall back in love with him just because he was angry at her marrying someone else even for political convenience? Of course not.
* Leia, meanwhile, wouldn't put up with that sort of shit, and yet at the end, Wolverton has her succumbing to Han's "charms" and even agreeing to marry him. Which...no. Just no. Leia would never, ever put up with that sort of shit. She wasn't shown as being tolerant of Han's shit when they first began their kinda sorta courtship in A New Hope, or in Empire Strikes Back, or in Return of the Jedi. Or, for that matter, in The Force Awakens. She wouldn't tolerate that sort of shit if she were being written in character in that book.
* Han is generally pretty unlikable in this book (besides the obvious kidnapping thing, there's some other stuff going on that I probably forgot to mention), but one part of it was throwing Chewie under the bus, saying stuff like "well, that's how Wookiees court their women" (um, Han, a Hanharr would like a word with you. As would Mira and HK-47 in the video, but yeah...pretty much all three of these characters' definitions of love make more sense than Han's belief of what Wookiees apparently do) and saying that women basically like to be courted more traditionally, with romantic dinners and such, sort of like this whole mess was Chewie's fault -- completely ignoring the fact that earlier, he basically Stunned Leia with a blaster and locked her in the storage hold of the Falcon. *Sighs* It's really a miracle that after Luke caught up with him, he didn't knock Han on his ass. (And he would. He really would)
And you're probably wondering "hadhafang, why did you do that to yourself?" Well, let's say that somebody left a copy of Courtship of Princess Leia lying around the cabin at the camp I went to and I figured that, because I was stupid enough to only bring some writing books and a Star Trek novelization (of the 2009 film, in case you're wondering), I'd give it a go. So it really was just boredom. And I guess it was a case of "how bad could it be" as well. Needless to say...it was pretty bad. If I had my electronics, I would have definitely done a review of it or something. And then there was how they were portrayed in NJO-LOTF, which didn't really feel believable either, especially not LOTF, where I just didn't buy them as the whole loving-parents-whose-son-tragically-went-to-the-Dark-Side thing (but in TFA, it was believable), especially with stuff like Leia freely agreeing to go along with killing Jacen/Caedus in Inferno, and Han saying he's completely onboard with killing his son in Invincible. (But you don't have to take my word for it. Take gabri_jade's. Her recaps are here)
It really makes me appreciate The Force Awakens even more, because the Han/Leia scenes really do feel like LOTF if the writers had any idea how to write likable characters. (Then again, I think Abrams is pretty good with likable characters. I know that his cast of the Star Trek reboots is pretty awesome) And of course, Han and Leia's relationship is infinitely more believable and more loving than Courtship of Princess Leia...even if that doesn't sound like a high bar to set.
-Scotty/Uhura from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It's a shame because honestly, in the beginning, the two of them had some potential to be really cute -- I mean, you can tell from the way they interact while the Enterprise crew is at Yosemite that they're genuinely at ease in one another's company, they're comfortable around each other, they like each other...it's sweet. Nichelle Nichols and James Doohan really do a great job playing off one another. And then you get to...*sighs* Basically, it's after Scotty bangs his head against a beam and Sulu takes him to sickbay. And Uhura...well, the best way I can put it is that she gets really...grope-y with Scotty, and it's clear from the look on Scotty's face that he wants to tell her "no" and he has to kind of bluff his way away from her. (That's as far as I can recall, of course. It's not as burned into my memory as COPL, so I may be remembering some stuff wrong) I just remember the feeling I got, like "Okay, this is actually really creepy and personal space invade-y and I think the film's trying to play it for laughs instead of focusing, seriously, on the fact that Uhura doesn't seem to be herself and Scotty's terrified." I guess you could argue it's Uhura-acting-on-her-long-suppressed-feelings, but it really just comes off as borderline boundary-invading and considering Uhura's not herself at the time...yeah. Goes into some uncomfortable places.
I think a good way to alter it so it really does come off as the filmmakers likely intended it is this: following from the scene at Yosemite, Scotty and Uhura share a rather...awkward intimate moment together. The UST is obvious (and anyone who says that it's not possible, allow me to present TFA!Han/Leia and Eva and Weasel from the 2004 Salem's Lot to prove you wrong *), only for the moment to get interrupted by the news of the hostages on Nimbus III. And, maybe she, instead of Chekov, could have played acting captain or negotiator? Not that Chekov didn't do a decent job considering the circumstances, but I think Uhura could have been given more to do. I mean, she is the communications officer, isn't she? Meanwhile, while she's playing acting captain, Kirk and company manage to sneak into Nimbus III...well, prior to things going pear-shaped. Sybok and co. take over the ship, and Uhura has to confront, among other things, how she feels about Scotty. Have it play out more like a Revan/Bastila (yeah, I know, this seems to be my recurring good-writing card. Remus/Tonks didn't work out? Write them like Revan/Bastila. Scotty/Uhura didn't work? Write them like Revan/Bastila) or Ben Mears/Susan Norton sort of thing -- the woman trying to lure the man (who's struggling with his feelings himself) over to her way of things, including being able to truly be with her, without any fears, without any self-imposed limitations. No possibly boundary-invading stuff, nothing like that -- definitely more of a psychological back-and-forth. Although Sybok doesn't have the same temperament as Barlow or Malak. I know it sounds weird for me to say, but I think that he's less of that (or Khan, or the Borg Queen, or even V'ger, actually) and more...Mike Nelson Destroyer of Worlds. (Yeah, that scene where Mike Nelson accidentally blows up a planet with a baking soda bomb? That's basically Sybok -- at least in regards to the hostage situation on Nimbus III going pear-shaped) And then take things from there, up until the climax with the God-impersonator.
Or, going with the chase plot that I suggested (for context, see my review of Final Frontier here. I am going to get around to Undiscovered Country, Generations, First Contact, etc. soon enough, never fear), have Uhura play acting captain while Kirk and Spock go to rescue the hostages after they get through the Barrier, only for the ship to get taken over by Sybok and company and Uhura has to confront her own pain -- one of them being Scotty. Then go with the rest, of course, up until the climax with the God-impersonator.
That's my two cents, at least.
-Revan/Carth. It's not as bad as the two examples I listed above, but there was something about their relationship that didn't feel as natural and free-flowing as Revan/Bastila. I kind of thought that some of the dialogue choices were kind of...not my favorites ("hairless Wookiee", for example. I admit that's not really a favorite of mine) and I thought that things occasionally moved too quickly. Plus, with the added baggage of Revan being indirectly responsible for what happened to Telos...yeah.
-Remus/Tonks. I pretty much outlined a lot of my reasons here. In addition, I'd say that there wasn't really much build-up on paper; a lot of their backstory seems to be relegated to Pottermore. And it's a shame, because seeing that ship play out on the page really could have been fun to see. Plus, the others guilt-tripping Remus for not wanting to cause Tonks unnecessary unhappiness (in his view) just really got me squirming first time I saw it. Like, I was probably a wee elementary-schooler or middle-schooler, and I just sensed that something was not right about it. Another thing about being in love with someone is that you have to give them choices, even if it's not the choices that you want. They have to have a right to choose, because they're a person; they're not just an object for your affections. Otherwise, that's really not love; that's obsession.
-Ron/Hermione. I don't know how to put it except their arguments, which were supposed to be UST-filled (and I have nothing against Belligerent Sexual Tension. One of my favorite ships is Han/Leia, for crying out loud), just really got me uncomfortable instead when I was reading the books because of how vicious they got. Plus, Hermione setting the birds on Ron was completely out of line and really had a lot of Unfortunate Implications -- like physical assault is funny when it's female on male. The Half Blood Prince movie actually did it a lot better with altering that scene so it's really more of the birds...kinda sorta blowing up. It's still uncomfortable, but at least no one gets physically hurt there.
-Vestara/Ben (Skywalker). Let's say that after that scene (TL;DR, Ben uses the Force to slap her across the face, then to tie her down with bedsheets while he reads her letters) in Ascension, I really honest-to-God don't understand how they could be a viable pair. It doesn't help that Faux Skywalker (thank you, arkan2) apparently says after the scene (and granted, he probably didn't know about what Ben did, but it still rankles a bit) that Ben's one of the ultimate Jedi, basically. And then in one preview of Apocalypse (I know this sounds a lot like Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch, but it really did rankle me), he chided Vestara for being too "violent" (so it's okay for your son to do it, but not the woman he basically physically assaulted?) and has a moment in Crucible on seeing Vestara where he seethes (as I recall) about what a traitor she is, etc. Never mind that honestly, from what I heard...she has every right to basically turn away from Ben Skywalker after what he did.
It's honestly why I think that Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) is definitely worth twelve of Ben Skywalker. I mean, say what you will about him, but he never would have done what Ben did. Ever, ever, ever. It's clear that unlike him, he actually respects Rey as a person. Stuff like his look of amazement after Rey summons Luke's lightsaber (honestly, I have a feeling that when he shows up again in Episode Eight, he's not even going to be angry at her; he's probably going to go, "Actually, I'm proud of you, Rey, holy shit!" If not in those words), him unmasking after Rey makes a sarcastic comment about him being a "creature in a mask" (the only other person he intentionally did that for was Han, so however you want to interpret it, he does have a soft spot for the scavenger), his "Don't be afraid; I feel it too" during the interrogation (which is a bizarre reaction, I think. Keep in mind that Vader didn't bother comforting his own daughter while he was interrogating her, and Kylo basically went no-holds-barred on Poe Dameron, so his reaction regarding Rey -- say that three times fast -- definitely raises some questions), there's him basically gushing to Snoke about how awesome she is not long after she blocks him from her mind ("She's strong in the Force, relatively untrained, but stronger than she knows!" All while sounding a bit...excited, honestly)...I don't necessarily ship them (though I am getting tempted to), but it's definitely obvious that either way he does have a soft spot for Rey, twisted as it may be.
Sorry I went off on a tangent; I guess I needed to calm down a bit.
And honestly, I know that people are wondering, "But hadhafang, what Vader/Anakin did to Padme on Mustafar was pretty abusive too!" And yeah, it could count as that, but the thing is, Lucas intended it to be a sign that Anakin had gone too far, that he'd fallen so far that he'd forgotten why he'd done it in the first place. And/or that what started off as relatively good intentions had become darker and more possessive and so led to tragedy. There's nothing about Mustafar that suggests any of it was meant for anything other than tragedy. The music, Padme's reactions:
And then there's the fact that it's obvious that Anakin's just gone off the deep end, really, from seemingly logical (though genuinely loving; he's also just kind of lost it) husband to...well, the guy who ultimately Force chokes his own wife:
These two frames are especially striking, with Anakin's brief realization of what he's done before rounding on Obi-Wan and accusing him of turning Padme against him (never mind that Padme had zero idea that Obi-Wan was there). It's definitely a good case of Hayden Christensen displaying that shock and remorse, brief as it is, before proceeding to completely ignore it.
Is it a flawed scene? Yeah. But overall, it does a good job of conveying the matter of violence against a loved one being the end of a relationship, instead of, in the case of Christie Golden's example, the promised beginning of a relationship (as Vestara asks Ben Skywalker if she can be trained as a Jedi not long after Ben physically assaults her and invades her privacy). So yeah...
-This is probably more of Complaining About Shows I Don't Watch, but from what I saw of the das_sporking recaps of Hush Hush and Fifty Shades of Gray, Nora/Patch and Ana/Christian seem to fall into the same pattern as Ben/Vestara and The Courtship of Princess Leia.
-This is something that I just realized pretty recently, but Ben and Tahiri in Invincible. Basically, to sum things up, Tahiri molests Ben during interrogation (keep in mind that Ben's fourteen years old and Tahiri's at least in her thirties, so that's basically child sexual abuse, which, if the LOTF-verse was written believably, would have gotten Tahiri jail-time along with everything else she did). It was something that I guess I just missed when I first read Invincible (some of my experience reading Invincible is kind of sketchy), but thinking back on it...what really makes things worse was I think Troy Denning was trying to turn it into a ship, and the whole disgusting situation just has a lot of victim-blaming bullshit on top of all this towards Ben. (Again, you don't have to take my word for it. Take gabri_jade's word for it) It's...yeah. And then the book includes stuff like basically acting like Ben's "lucky" just because Tahiri basically tried to molest him, which...no. Ben wasn't "lucky" or anything like that. No victim of sexual abuse is "lucky", ever, ever, ever. I mean, if we switched the genders (Ben to...Padme Jr., maybe, and Tahiri to...Tahirus) and had it be a thirty-year-old man molesting a fourteen-year-old girl, Del Rey would never let it through. But somehow they thought this (a thirty-year-old woman and a fourteen-year-old boy) was okay. (Fortunately, the majority of the fandom didn't)
Fuck, that was some pretty heavy stuff. Here's hoping that the next day will be lighter.
* And keep in mind that Eva and Weasel are definitely much older than Scotty and Uhura here, so...yeah. UST knows no age.
Day 11 - Your dream pairing?
Day 12 - Who had the best wedding?
Day 13 - Your favorite television pairing?
Day 14 - What is your favorite book pairing?
Day 15 - What is your favorite real life pairing?
Day 16 - What is the absolute worst pairing?
Day 17 - A pairing you thought would never work out, but did?
Day 18 - What is the cutest pairing?
Day 19 - A pairing you’ve rooted for since the beginning?
Day 20 - The 'can't stand the sexual tension anymore' pairing?
Day 21 - A pairing you like and no one else understands why?
Day 22 - A pairing you hate and no one else understands why?
Day 23 - A crazy love triangle/quadrilateral that worked out great?
Day 24 - A crazy love triangle/quadrilateral that worked out badly?
Day 25 - A pairing that was/would-be adorable, but could never work out?
Day 26 - A pairing that you hated and ended up loving?
Day 27 - A pairing that you loved and ended up hating?
Day 28 - A pairing that you will never understand?
Day 29 - What ship had the best proposal?
Day 30 - Your favorite ship forever and ever and ever!