My definitive (at this point) Neal/Sara post
For the shipping meme, over on LJ sapphire2309 asked me about Neal/Sara. And I responded. Boy did I respond. I responded enough that I decided to give it its own post, slightly edited.
Everyone knows I love Neal/Sara a lot. They are this complex, adult relationship, and they are not flawless, and the relationship is not flawless, but when it works, it works.
Neal/Sara feels like a very real relationship to me. I have a lot of ships that are melodramatic and over the top, so that is something I enjoy, but I love Neal/Sara so much because they aren't like that. They don't need each other to live. They don't even need each other to be happy. If Neal and Sara never get back together, then I have no doubt they will build happy, meaningful lives apart. (I mean, I hate the idea of a world in which Neal and Sara don't get back together. I believe they do! But if they didn't, it wouldn't destroy either of them.)
And they deal with their problems like adults. I will never be over how they addressed the fallout from Neal's Cape Verde misadventure. Sara makes it clear that she realizes that Neal fleeing the country wasn't about her, but that it still hurt her, largely because it triggered wounds that Neal is not responsible for. And Neal for his part validates and even encourages Sara's right to be angry at him. He fully acknowledges her inner emotional life. (Oh, if fandom could only do the same. But more on that.)
Even their breakups are mature. The first time, Sara doesn't scream, she doesn’t make ultimatums, she doesn't try to change Neal. She simply makes it clear that he's gone somewhere she can't follow, and she sadly, gently breaks it off. And Neal accepts her decision, and never tries to turn the blame back on her. And the second time is honestly even better, in that it's two adults making hard choices that they know are for the best. Sara can't give up her dream job to stay with Neal. That's not fair to her. And Neal wants her to be happy more than he wants her to be with him. (Shut up, I'm not crying. It's raining on my face.)
They have fun. I can't tell you how important this is to me. Watching two (or more) people simply delight in each other is shipping catnip to me. Neal gives Sara the thrill she craves, and Sara is the perfect mix of grounded and adventurous for Neal. Because Neal's never going to be someone who can just stay still. But he still wants a feeling of safety and security. And Sara is someone who can match him on both those desires.
That's not to say there aren't issues. The relationship is emotionally risky for Sara in a way it isn't for Neal, because Sara is emotionally susceptible to Neal in a way he simply isn't to her. I'm not saying that Neal doesn't love Sara, that he doesn't value her opinion, and want to be with her. I'm talking about a particular kind of vulnerability that's instinctive and subconscious. Most people have this vulnerability to Neal, because Neal is extremely good at bringing it out in people. (Not on purpose. Again, this is something that's automatic and subconscious.) Sara and Peter have this vulnerability the most though. (Elizabeth and Jones have it the least. I keep wanting to write a whole meta piece on this, especially how it relates to Elizabeth and Neal's relationship, but it's never quite coalesced.) This doesn't mean that Neal/Sara is an abusive or unhealthy relationship in the least. Nor does it mean that it's a bad relationship for Sara to be in. It's simply something that's there, the same way it's there in so many of Neal's other relationships.
And, let's be honest, when you pair someone like Neal, who deals with his problems by running away or the con, with someone like Sara, who has abandonment issues, painful issues will come up.
I'm also very aware of the fact that the earliest Neal and Sara interactions involved Neal lying to and manipulating Sara, convincing her to let her guard down and trust him, so he could rob her. Now, I don't think those earliest interactions doom them or invalidate their relationship at all. They address it. They work through it. But because fandom is so willfully blind to the idea that Neal may have ever wronged Sara, I want attention paid to it.
But while all that's true, they make it work. They tend to have a bickering phase, where they snap and snark at each other, and then once that's out of their systems, they confront their issues honestly. And they make each other happy.
Something that really draws me to Neal/Sara is the way they play with gender roles. I've talked extensively about the way Neal is coded so differently than a typical male hero. Part of that is his interests (art, fashion, gourmet cuisine), but it's also largely in the way he responds to the world. Neal's main tools are manipulation and emotional intelligence. He survives using soft power. ("The ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion." Also, "the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction." Both quotes from Wikipedia.) Now, this could be because Neal has no hard power to work with. He has no authority or power within the FBI hierarchy, so he survives a different way. But given how utterly superb Neal is at soft power, the lack of evidence that he ever tried to cultivate hard power pre-series, and his chosen profession, I'd say Neal's reliance on soft power is a choice. And all this is something that's much more associated with femininity than masculinity. Neal's an expert shot, but he dislikes it, and it rarely comes up. (Neal actively rejects this marker of proper masculinity.) He can't fight. He never wins a physical confrontation.
And then there's Sara. Sara fails at soft power. There's no better example than 3x14, "Pulling Strings," when she has to try to seduce her ex-fiance. And she can't do it. He catches on. This is played as shippy moment. "If you had kissed me half as passionately as you looked at Caffrey, this might have ended nicely." And I certainly don't mind the shippiness. But that really proves the point. Sara can't fake an attraction she doesn't feel. She can't puff up Bryan's ego convincingly. Her strengths shine through later in the scene, when she whacks him with her baton. Sara works best when she's either using her baton (physical hard power) or her Sterling Bosch influence and connections (institutional hard power).
Sara is visually feminine. (Though not a feminine people find comforting. More on this later.). But her personality is not coded feminine. She's blunt and can be abrasive. Sara doesn't prioritize being liked, as women are supposed to do. Sara is openly confident and ambitious, again not something admired in women. It's not that Sara rejects femininity, it's that she doesn't perform it correctly.
So, the show has these two characters, and then it puts them together, and I go to delighted pieces. Their contrasts are allowed to just be. And I love that there's never any question of them accepting the other. Especially Neal with Sara. I loved the way he recognizes how important Sara's career is to her, and encourages her to go after the London promotion.
Neal/Sara is this subtle genderfuck, and I love it so, so much.
If you thought I could talk about White Collar without talking about White Collar fandom, then you underestimate my bitterness. (Never underestimate my bitterness. I am the grand lord of bitterness.) 'Cause White Collar fandom sucks. I talked a bit about fandom’s inability to even recognize that Neal has wronged Sara. This is problem with just about every character in regards to Neal, but it hits Sara really hard. White Collar fandom is really sexist, and it has enormous difficulty recognizing that women characters even have points of view to be acknowledged. I vividly remember one person commenting about 4x04, “Parting Shots,” that they wanted to punch Sara in the face during her conversation with Neal about Cape Verde because she was "making it all about her." And, of course, this was patently false. Sara specifically said it wasn't about her. But what's really going is the idea that Sara doesn't have the right to have feelings, especially not feelings that aren't convenient to Neal. (I love Neal a whole lot, but, god, he is fandom's great white dick.) Again, this isn't something that only Sara faces, but she gets it hard because she presses so many of fandoms other buttons. Sara doesn't perform femininity well, as described above. Again, she's blunt, she can be abrasive, and she doesn't coddle male egos. Her visual presentation is feminine, but it's a sharp femininity, not an accommodating one. She's a female love interest in a strongly boyslash focused fandom. She's overtly sexual. I've seen a fair amount of Neal/Sara hate that boiled down to "they have too much sex," and of course, Neal was too pure for that sort of thing, so it must be Sara tainting him.
Credit where credit is due, Sara and Neal/Sara had a strong upswing in popularity as season 4 went on. I'm honestly not sure why that happened, though of course I've thought about it. It's possible that Sara's introduction was further from fandom's mind, so they stopped judging her so much on it. (Because Sara was initially confrontational and adversarial towards Neal, but that only lasted like two or three episodes. Once she let her walls down, we saw what a warm, compassionate person she was. But throughout season three, her haters refused to admit she had had any development or character exploration since her first episode.) It's also possible that people felt that season four Neal/Sara conformed more to conventional relationship standards than season three Neal/Sara, so they no longer found it so threatening and/or uncomfortable. But these are only hypotheses. I don't think I have the answer.
Of course, Sara got her popularity boost just in time for those fans to turn their hate on Neal's new love interest. (And the way fandom reacted to Rachel, and how that differed from reactions to past male villains is a post of its own.)
In conclusion, I sure do love this ship.
This entry was originally posted at http://veleda-k.dreamwidth.org/447974.html. Please consider commenting there.
Everyone knows I love Neal/Sara a lot. They are this complex, adult relationship, and they are not flawless, and the relationship is not flawless, but when it works, it works.
Neal/Sara feels like a very real relationship to me. I have a lot of ships that are melodramatic and over the top, so that is something I enjoy, but I love Neal/Sara so much because they aren't like that. They don't need each other to live. They don't even need each other to be happy. If Neal and Sara never get back together, then I have no doubt they will build happy, meaningful lives apart. (I mean, I hate the idea of a world in which Neal and Sara don't get back together. I believe they do! But if they didn't, it wouldn't destroy either of them.)
And they deal with their problems like adults. I will never be over how they addressed the fallout from Neal's Cape Verde misadventure. Sara makes it clear that she realizes that Neal fleeing the country wasn't about her, but that it still hurt her, largely because it triggered wounds that Neal is not responsible for. And Neal for his part validates and even encourages Sara's right to be angry at him. He fully acknowledges her inner emotional life. (Oh, if fandom could only do the same. But more on that.)
Even their breakups are mature. The first time, Sara doesn't scream, she doesn’t make ultimatums, she doesn't try to change Neal. She simply makes it clear that he's gone somewhere she can't follow, and she sadly, gently breaks it off. And Neal accepts her decision, and never tries to turn the blame back on her. And the second time is honestly even better, in that it's two adults making hard choices that they know are for the best. Sara can't give up her dream job to stay with Neal. That's not fair to her. And Neal wants her to be happy more than he wants her to be with him. (Shut up, I'm not crying. It's raining on my face.)
They have fun. I can't tell you how important this is to me. Watching two (or more) people simply delight in each other is shipping catnip to me. Neal gives Sara the thrill she craves, and Sara is the perfect mix of grounded and adventurous for Neal. Because Neal's never going to be someone who can just stay still. But he still wants a feeling of safety and security. And Sara is someone who can match him on both those desires.
That's not to say there aren't issues. The relationship is emotionally risky for Sara in a way it isn't for Neal, because Sara is emotionally susceptible to Neal in a way he simply isn't to her. I'm not saying that Neal doesn't love Sara, that he doesn't value her opinion, and want to be with her. I'm talking about a particular kind of vulnerability that's instinctive and subconscious. Most people have this vulnerability to Neal, because Neal is extremely good at bringing it out in people. (Not on purpose. Again, this is something that's automatic and subconscious.) Sara and Peter have this vulnerability the most though. (Elizabeth and Jones have it the least. I keep wanting to write a whole meta piece on this, especially how it relates to Elizabeth and Neal's relationship, but it's never quite coalesced.) This doesn't mean that Neal/Sara is an abusive or unhealthy relationship in the least. Nor does it mean that it's a bad relationship for Sara to be in. It's simply something that's there, the same way it's there in so many of Neal's other relationships.
And, let's be honest, when you pair someone like Neal, who deals with his problems by running away or the con, with someone like Sara, who has abandonment issues, painful issues will come up.
I'm also very aware of the fact that the earliest Neal and Sara interactions involved Neal lying to and manipulating Sara, convincing her to let her guard down and trust him, so he could rob her. Now, I don't think those earliest interactions doom them or invalidate their relationship at all. They address it. They work through it. But because fandom is so willfully blind to the idea that Neal may have ever wronged Sara, I want attention paid to it.
But while all that's true, they make it work. They tend to have a bickering phase, where they snap and snark at each other, and then once that's out of their systems, they confront their issues honestly. And they make each other happy.
Something that really draws me to Neal/Sara is the way they play with gender roles. I've talked extensively about the way Neal is coded so differently than a typical male hero. Part of that is his interests (art, fashion, gourmet cuisine), but it's also largely in the way he responds to the world. Neal's main tools are manipulation and emotional intelligence. He survives using soft power. ("The ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion." Also, "the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction." Both quotes from Wikipedia.) Now, this could be because Neal has no hard power to work with. He has no authority or power within the FBI hierarchy, so he survives a different way. But given how utterly superb Neal is at soft power, the lack of evidence that he ever tried to cultivate hard power pre-series, and his chosen profession, I'd say Neal's reliance on soft power is a choice. And all this is something that's much more associated with femininity than masculinity. Neal's an expert shot, but he dislikes it, and it rarely comes up. (Neal actively rejects this marker of proper masculinity.) He can't fight. He never wins a physical confrontation.
And then there's Sara. Sara fails at soft power. There's no better example than 3x14, "Pulling Strings," when she has to try to seduce her ex-fiance. And she can't do it. He catches on. This is played as shippy moment. "If you had kissed me half as passionately as you looked at Caffrey, this might have ended nicely." And I certainly don't mind the shippiness. But that really proves the point. Sara can't fake an attraction she doesn't feel. She can't puff up Bryan's ego convincingly. Her strengths shine through later in the scene, when she whacks him with her baton. Sara works best when she's either using her baton (physical hard power) or her Sterling Bosch influence and connections (institutional hard power).
Sara is visually feminine. (Though not a feminine people find comforting. More on this later.). But her personality is not coded feminine. She's blunt and can be abrasive. Sara doesn't prioritize being liked, as women are supposed to do. Sara is openly confident and ambitious, again not something admired in women. It's not that Sara rejects femininity, it's that she doesn't perform it correctly.
So, the show has these two characters, and then it puts them together, and I go to delighted pieces. Their contrasts are allowed to just be. And I love that there's never any question of them accepting the other. Especially Neal with Sara. I loved the way he recognizes how important Sara's career is to her, and encourages her to go after the London promotion.
Neal/Sara is this subtle genderfuck, and I love it so, so much.
If you thought I could talk about White Collar without talking about White Collar fandom, then you underestimate my bitterness. (Never underestimate my bitterness. I am the grand lord of bitterness.) 'Cause White Collar fandom sucks. I talked a bit about fandom’s inability to even recognize that Neal has wronged Sara. This is problem with just about every character in regards to Neal, but it hits Sara really hard. White Collar fandom is really sexist, and it has enormous difficulty recognizing that women characters even have points of view to be acknowledged. I vividly remember one person commenting about 4x04, “Parting Shots,” that they wanted to punch Sara in the face during her conversation with Neal about Cape Verde because she was "making it all about her." And, of course, this was patently false. Sara specifically said it wasn't about her. But what's really going is the idea that Sara doesn't have the right to have feelings, especially not feelings that aren't convenient to Neal. (I love Neal a whole lot, but, god, he is fandom's great white dick.) Again, this isn't something that only Sara faces, but she gets it hard because she presses so many of fandoms other buttons. Sara doesn't perform femininity well, as described above. Again, she's blunt, she can be abrasive, and she doesn't coddle male egos. Her visual presentation is feminine, but it's a sharp femininity, not an accommodating one. She's a female love interest in a strongly boyslash focused fandom. She's overtly sexual. I've seen a fair amount of Neal/Sara hate that boiled down to "they have too much sex," and of course, Neal was too pure for that sort of thing, so it must be Sara tainting him.
Credit where credit is due, Sara and Neal/Sara had a strong upswing in popularity as season 4 went on. I'm honestly not sure why that happened, though of course I've thought about it. It's possible that Sara's introduction was further from fandom's mind, so they stopped judging her so much on it. (Because Sara was initially confrontational and adversarial towards Neal, but that only lasted like two or three episodes. Once she let her walls down, we saw what a warm, compassionate person she was. But throughout season three, her haters refused to admit she had had any development or character exploration since her first episode.) It's also possible that people felt that season four Neal/Sara conformed more to conventional relationship standards than season three Neal/Sara, so they no longer found it so threatening and/or uncomfortable. But these are only hypotheses. I don't think I have the answer.
Of course, Sara got her popularity boost just in time for those fans to turn their hate on Neal's new love interest. (And the way fandom reacted to Rachel, and how that differed from reactions to past male villains is a post of its own.)
In conclusion, I sure do love this ship.
This entry was originally posted at http://veleda-k.dreamwidth.org/447974.html. Please consider commenting there.