Marriage
Why do so many fanfictions presuppose marriage as the end goal? A relationship with kiddies?
Really? You're taking someone else's multi-dimensional characters with buckets of potential, you can push them in any direction you wantl... and the most fulfilling thing you can think of is to have the characters marry? Really? What about, I don't know, world hunger?
I could proffer an explanation - e.g. the demographics of the people writing - but it always strikes me as odd.
To be clear, I'm not complaining about Romance, which is also endemic but also does not stifle other opportunities. You can have a romance in a dystopian fic, or an adventure, or anything really. Romance can add flavor, and people seem to like it. Marriage, plus kiddies, on the other hand limits you to a certain type of ending - one which really precludes some of the more interesting outcomes.
(e.g. in the Harry Potter world: what happens in 2020 when Muggles develop the ability to detect and measure magic? etc).
Throwaway comment: Another pet peeve is elevating the past to mythical proportions. e.g. "The Founders were like Gods." That's nice, but is assumes that civilization is degenerative, and thus undesirable; that you gain peace, but sacrifice power. Contrast that with Science; people millenia ago are looked upon as poor ignorance savages, not as Gods. But for some reason, Fantasy as a genre likes to present historical greatness - e.g. in the history books - as evidence of Godlike ability.
Really? You're taking someone else's multi-dimensional characters with buckets of potential, you can push them in any direction you wantl... and the most fulfilling thing you can think of is to have the characters marry? Really? What about, I don't know, world hunger?
I could proffer an explanation - e.g. the demographics of the people writing - but it always strikes me as odd.
To be clear, I'm not complaining about Romance, which is also endemic but also does not stifle other opportunities. You can have a romance in a dystopian fic, or an adventure, or anything really. Romance can add flavor, and people seem to like it. Marriage, plus kiddies, on the other hand limits you to a certain type of ending - one which really precludes some of the more interesting outcomes.
(e.g. in the Harry Potter world: what happens in 2020 when Muggles develop the ability to detect and measure magic? etc).
Throwaway comment: Another pet peeve is elevating the past to mythical proportions. e.g. "The Founders were like Gods." That's nice, but is assumes that civilization is degenerative, and thus undesirable; that you gain peace, but sacrifice power. Contrast that with Science; people millenia ago are looked upon as poor ignorance savages, not as Gods. But for some reason, Fantasy as a genre likes to present historical greatness - e.g. in the history books - as evidence of Godlike ability.