the long game of love in entertainment media.
i've been neglecting this place again for which i apologize. i blame the fact that i've been super busy with independent projects and i've been rereading the Vlad series for fun. I have a few tabs open of LJ entries from the past week or so that i wanted to do more than skim that i hope to get to tonight or later this week.
i may write a real life update soon, but i wanted to write about the subject title because of the episode of Green Lantern: The Animated Series that aired yesterday. I know that most people don't watch it so won't care about spoilers, but if you don't want to know what happens in the episode or what predictably happens in most entertainment media, don't click the cut.
It seems to me that one of the most fundamental trends in entertainment media is this idea that love is an Arrival point that marks the end of anything interesting to say. I don't deny the truth of that, but it creates an incredible problem of predictability in storytelling.
A few examples off of the top of my head: Samantha Carter and Jack O'Neill from the Stargate series was always something touched upon but never fulfilled. Patrick Jane and Theresa Lisbon have this underlying developing thingy as main protags of The Mentalist that the creators and actors themselves have acknowledged would not become interesting if they actually became a couple, and they're saving such a moment for the series Finale. It took about four out of the five years of Leverage for the main cast to find happiness in being lasting couples, and the season finale saw Nate and Sophie get engaged as an exit to their involvement in the series even if hadn't been cancelled. Fry and Leela from Futuarama. John and Aeryn from Farscape. Malcolm and Inara from Firefly. Those main two characters in Bones. etcetera etcetera.
The most recent Green Lantern episode had a simple episode title: "Loss". Halfway through the episode, two of the characters, Razer (a reformed Red Lantern) and Aya (an artifical intelligent robot with developing human emotions that reminds me very much of Data from Star Trek TNG) finally profess their feelings for each other and almost kiss before getting interrupted. It was a moment that had been building for the entire season - but the season isn't over yet, and there's no way that the producers would halt the evolution of that relationship development and make the two characters happily in love for the rest of the series.
So as soon as the kiss almost happened and i recalled the episode title, i said out loud while watching, "huh. one of them is going to die at the end of this episode." And sure enough, Aya, in an effort to save Razer from impending death, suffers injuries that (for all we know) kill her permanently.
Maybe this is just reflective of me watching too much telly more than anything else that the predictability of this trope is becoming tiresome. Just once, it would be nice for a happy couple in a series to be a happy couple in a series. Not to dwell on it and be all unrealistic roses and rainbows, but just treat it as something that, i don't know, should be made out to be a big deal. Either that, or have the main two protags have no sexual or romantic tension. At all.
One of the things that i'll give credit to Rusty for doing in series four of Doctor Who was establishing that right from the start as it related to the Doctor and Donna. Even though there were other sorts of annoying predictable tropes in the series that i touched on when that series ended, the romantic aspect of the two as primary protags was squashed from the very beginning by both of them when they essentially said, "yeah... no." Moffat in series five of Doctor Who established this in a different way, by squelching the at-first potential romantic tension between the Doctor and Amy by strengthening the role of Rory as Amy's finacé and then husband. A happy couple that were parading around with a Time Lord in a TARDIS, and everyone became best mates - Amy and Rory were more or less stable, the Doctor was more their sibiling than anything else who helped promote and add to the strength of the stability of their relationship and augmented it with his own.
Don't mind me, i'm just babbling out loud from lack of sleep, but i guess it would have been, i don't know, refreshing for Razer and Aya's story to not be so damned formulaic. And given the nature of it being a children's show and all, i have no doubt that despite the seeming finality of Aya's fate, they'll find a way to bring her back before two or so episodes.
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okay, done with that rambling. Time to take care of some emails, compile some music, write some music, and do some playtesting. Maybe read a little bit more before going to bed since i'm still tired from a long and unfortunate poker session yesterday.