The Legitimacy of "Love Interests" In Plot

[saeva]

Over here ataniell93 talks about love interests, canon, and female characters. The post has spoilers for potential plot developments in Supernatural, to warn anyone who might want to click, but you really don't need to read the post to understand what I'm objecting to. About one third in ataniell93 says this and this about says it all: "New female character? Awesome.

Comments

[agnes_bean]

For the most part it's okay for male characters to be love interests on "female" shows whereas the reverse isn't true. Female love interests on "male" shows get destroyed, nitpicked, and dismissed as "nothing more than love interests."

Word. I was totally thinking of Gilmore Girls during ataniell93's post, as it, too, is a show where there are male characters who exist basically souly as love interests for the girls. And while Dean/Jess/Logan certainly got bashed a lot, I still never saw anyone complaining that they were "nothing but a love interest." If anything, the complaint was they weren't the right love interest (that would come from someone who shipped a different boy with Rory) or weren't good enough to be the love interest (Dean is too over controlling, Jess will bring her down, Logan is too much of a thoughtless rich-boy, etc.)

So, if that's true -- and I find it difficult to argue it's not -- then why would love interests in fictional, but still human-based, canons not be interested in finding love interests and why wouldn't

[saeva]

"If anything, the complaint was they weren't the right love interest (that would come from someone who shipped a different boy with Rory) or weren't good enough to be the love interest (Dean is too over controlling, Jess will bring her down, Logan is too much of a thoughtless rich-boy, etc.)"And even then I hesitate to call that an example -- not that you were calling it an example of this, but some people have -- of the male characters being judged more critically than the female ones. Because, yes, there was a lot of debate as to who was worthy of Rory but when Rory chose the "wrong" one in a viewer or group's eyes she was the one that was insulted, torn apart, and demonized. You see this a lot with the Literati (Rory/Jess) people when she actively chose Logan over Jess

[agnes_bean]

Good point about Gilmore Girls (I tend to forget how much the girls were torn apart later, actually, since by the time Logan showed up I was driffting towords the Alias fandom).

To be quite honest, the people who tend to say that female characters -- especially established female characters -- who become "love interests" are bad characters are the sort of people looking for an excuse to dislike female characters in the first place. Or, at the very least, looking for an excuse to dislike a character that gets in the way of their OTP. See here for a textbook example of this. Oh yeah, I agree. And the thing is, in many (not all, but many) cases, if the complaint is that the famale character is being worped by the romance (esp. in the established-characters-get-together plot), that normally means that either a)the watcher/reader is being oversensive or b)the writer(s) really aren't that good. Either way, that often means BOTH characters really should be critisized (if someone thinks Hermione suddenly becomes all about romance in HBP,

[agnes_bean]

Often *only* the female, that is...

[countess_baltar]

The second thing is show theme (and possibly faith in the ability of the writers to write more than one plot at a time). Whedon was a master at this. The romance bits didn't overpower the rest of the show to the exclusion of other plots and characters. Battlestar Galactica does the same thing. Humans have romance and relationships and they are always there, but not to the exclusion of other things happening.

The new Battlestar Galactica Season 3 plots were so overpowered with "romance and relationships" that even the actors were referring to it as "a soap opera in space". And it was worse in that the writing was horrendous to the point that fans were referring to the main relationship issues as "The Quadrangle of Doom

[agnes_bean]

While that's true, since in ataniell93's post she fits both the catagories of "was orginally there as a romantic partner" and "was a major character who ended up with a different major character as well," which is how love interest is being talked about, I think she does qualify. Or more to the point, in the parts of the series where she does qualify as a "love interest" (in the terms they are being discussed), she remains a good character, which ataniell93 discusses as if it is barely possible.

I think the point I was making with her is that a character can both be in romantic realtionships AND be a good character...bad writers will make one of the characters into just the "love interest" but that doesn't mean that a character will necissarily be that way (which is why it's silly to hate characters before they even show up!)

[saeva]

Unlike agnes_brown, I disagree with it being true. Brenda is designed to be an offset, a balance, a catalyst for Nate and what Nate needs to become. It's her function. The fact that she's briefly, relatively, detached from him doesn't negate that fact.

But agnes_brown really hit my point in that regardless of whether Brenda is "always" a love interest, when she clearly fills that role she's still interesting and well-written.

- Andrea.

[saeva]

*agnes_bean. *headdesk*