Discussion: Does House Perceive Himself As A Romantic Figure?

[cuddyclothes]

As I've been editing "The Princess and The Peeved,"  I run up against the character in canon, and wonder about certain reactions he has.  It's a little too complicated, but it made me wonder

Comments

[srsly_yes]

Great question. I was mulling it over since yesterday. Here goes:

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I don't think House runs around thinking of himself as a classic romantic figure, but he has a romantic streak--a dark romantic streak that he'd deny if anybody accused him of such a thing. During the 2008 House Emmy panel, (which a friend and I attended and... ahem, believe the quote, "Viewers from as far as Northern California, who arrived as early as noon to wait in line for tickets," directly referenced us), Hugh Laurie said he, "Sees House as a romantic character, comparing him to the Phantom from Phantom of the Opera".

There's also House paraphrasing Rick Blaine's speech to Ali, the stalker girl in "Lines in the Sand":
House: I'm saying it 'coz it's true. Inside of us, we both know that you belong with Victor. Is there a Victor in your class? Well if you're not with someone your age, you'll regret it; maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Ali: What about us?
House: We'll always have Fresno.

[petitecuriosity]

I do agree that House doesn't really perceive himself as being romantic. I think that House is willing to identify himself as intelligent, in terms of both medicine and being able to get away with things. He knows he's clever. He might find himself funny at times, although mainly, it seems moreso that he uses humor as a defense mechanism against expressing any emotion too raw, or to lighten a situation that's tense. Other than that, he doesn't really seem to define himself in positive terms. In "Love Hurts," he tells Cameron that he's twice her age, unattractive, and isn't even nice

[sassyjumper]

Interesting question. Like yarroway, I wasn't quite sure if you meant "romantic" in the everyday sense, or the classical "romantic figure" sense, but .... I doubt House would see himself as romantic. I don't think he is comfortable with his softer side, or with being vulnerable -- and when you make honest, openly romantic gestures you are also making yourself vulnerable. Some of House's actions that *we* could read as romantic (like Petite's examples of gestures he made for Cuddy) could be - and often are - described by House as being in his own self-interest. E.g., He wanted to get Rachel into that preschool so Cuddy would be happy and his steady stream of sex wouldn't slow. Like others have said, House is capable of big sacrifice when it comes to the few people he loves -- but I don't know if he's comfortable acknowledging that. It's like he finds it easier to hold up this persona of the unlovable bastard, than to actually admit that he loves and wants loves (and set himself up for geting hurt in the process

[karaokegal]

The main thing with House is that he perceives himself as unloveable. Remember the conversation with Cameron, "Why do you like me?" We can have a longer conversation why he feels this way because you can make the case that it's the infarction/limp/being left by Stacy OR that the damage was inherently there prior to all that as a result of the EMOTIONAL (not physical-it never happened) abuse by his father. As a result of those two threads, the House we meet in the first episode is so damaged emotionally that he cannot accept love. That's why he always pushing back against any kind of emotional boundary pushing by Wilson, in spite of whatever emotional/physical relationship they might actually have.

This is why I found the attempted softening in the later seasons so very very revolting.