The Insignificant Other: A Multifandom Rant
Contains spoilers for the second season of Roswell, the third season of Alias, the fourth season of Farscape, Superman Returns, Tristan and Isolde and various screwball comedies
Several recent discussions made me think of one of my least favourite plot devices, which for lack of a better term I'd call The Insignificant Other. You know, the romantic rival who is solely inserted to heighten the angst between the movie's/show's leading couple, and inevitably ends up either revealed as evil or dismissed as unworthy so heroine and hero can finally get together. This usually makes me allergic to the couple in question. Two glaring examples would be the Liz/Max/Tess situation in the second season of Roswell, and the Sydney/Vaughn/Lauren situation in the third season of Alias. I actually stopped watching Roswell because of the way Tess was treated in the final season 2 episodes. There had been considerable character development for her throughout the season, especially via her relationships with the Valentis, and the 180° turnaround to One Dimensional Evil Woman was so blatantly following the need to get the show's leading couple back together again without allowing any audience sympathy for Tess that it put me off the show for good.
The Alias variation was simultanously less and more annoying. Less so because the 180° turnaround came mid-season, which at least did not negate an entire year of episodes. More so because Lauren didn't even get an attempt at interesting characterisation, and again, it was very blatant that her reign as the queen of bad mascara was simply there so there would be no sympathy for her as Sydney's romantic rival, or any need to condemm Vaughn. It felt like very bad fanfic translated to screen - they even had Sydney use the term "soulmate", for Rambaldi's sake! - with the rival of the writer's OTP bashed into a pulp.
Male variations of The Insignificant Other usually aren't evil, unless they are Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride, and The Princess Bride is such a lovely homage and send up that it's impossible to mind. No, instead male variations are dismissed as "safe", "boring", not worthy of the heroine's affection as opposed to the exciting, dangerous hero. Classic screwball comedy examples would be the fiances in The Philadelphia Story or His Girl Friday. The one in His Girl Friday is an interesting genderbender example because of course in the original stage comedy by Ben Hecht, reporter Hildy was a man and his fiancee a woman. When Billy Wilder filmed this version, the scene where Hildy is sitting at the typewriter, Walter lights his cigarette and the fiancee, watching this, realizes she's nothing next to this relationship takes on a far more sinister emotional tone, which seems to indicate that male Insignificant Others can be disregarded for boringness alone whereas female ones have to be evil as well, lest one should actually wonder about their feelings.
Now: I'm not against triangles per se. What irritates me about all of The Insignificant Other is that the characters in question aren't granted, well, a life of their own by their authors, silly as this may sound. Say what you want about the most recent Tristan and Isolde, but Marke is written as a sympathetic character there, and not dismissed as evil, boring or insignificant, and the angst comes from both Tristan and Isolde respecting and feeling affection for him, not simply from the "OMG we can't be together" factor. And despite still having issues with Bryan Singer leaving the X-Men franchise to the tender mercies of Bret Ratner for Superman Returns - a film which has its moments but which I did not love - , I can't help but appreciate that Richard White, Lois' fiance in SR, is not an Unsignficant Other, not dismissed as evil, boring or unworthy, either, but written as brave, self-depreciating and loving, with his relationship with Lois still existing at the end of the movie. See, it can be done.
The oddest case of an Insignificant Other in the media I've encountered wasn't even a person. It was, basically, the way Farscape dealt with John and Aeryn in season 4. Now, Farscape is unusual in that the hero and heroine actually go from UST to RST in the very first season. The show got very creative in still finding ways to keep angst and tension between them - John slowly going insane due to the neural chip in season 2, the two Johns situation in season 3, with Aeryn by necessity getting together with only one of them and after that John's death finding it at first impossible to accept the other. All this was connected to larger storylines and made sense given the characters. In season 4, however, the angst stopped being well written and became a case of plot device. Aeryn bringing Scorpius on board and refusing to explain what she did during her summer vacation, John taking drugs so he wouldn't be tormented by his love for Aeryn - if there had ever been any pay-off for these elements, they would probably have looked as good set-ups, but we didn't get pay-off. Instead, by the time "Mental as Anything" came along, the writers obviously decided they got bored with all the angst and separation and had our hero confess to our heroine that he didn't REALLY try not to love her, the drugs weren't addictive, don't you know, he just didn't want Scorpius to know he'd do anything for Aeryn. (Because Scorpius, John-observing genius that he is, clearly would not have figured that out several seasons ago.) And no, he wasn't upset about the silence or the Scorpius-bringing anymore, either. Kiss, reunion, and it was just as blatant as anything that ever happened to Tess or Lauren. (Scorpius was lucky he was male; I suppose if he had been a female character, the show wouldn't have just left it at slashy subtext but would have had him/her having an affair with John in season 4, culminating in his return to being EVIL (tm) and shot by Aeryn and John at the same time before that kiss and reunion.)
(If The Peacekeeper Wars had not been made to wrap up the Farscape saga, this would have put me off Aeryn and John as a couple for good. As it was, I came around again, though of course PKW cheated as well in other ways, but that's another story.)
So what triggers the irritation isn't just the creation/dismissal of a character as a mere plot device, the denial of three dimensional existence to her/him; it is the disrespect shown to the viewers as well, the assumption that they would not care about anything but the separation and reunion of the chosen couple. But this viewer cares, and hopes to not encounter such writing again, vain as the hope may be.
Several recent discussions made me think of one of my least favourite plot devices, which for lack of a better term I'd call The Insignificant Other. You know, the romantic rival who is solely inserted to heighten the angst between the movie's/show's leading couple, and inevitably ends up either revealed as evil or dismissed as unworthy so heroine and hero can finally get together. This usually makes me allergic to the couple in question. Two glaring examples would be the Liz/Max/Tess situation in the second season of Roswell, and the Sydney/Vaughn/Lauren situation in the third season of Alias. I actually stopped watching Roswell because of the way Tess was treated in the final season 2 episodes. There had been considerable character development for her throughout the season, especially via her relationships with the Valentis, and the 180° turnaround to One Dimensional Evil Woman was so blatantly following the need to get the show's leading couple back together again without allowing any audience sympathy for Tess that it put me off the show for good.
The Alias variation was simultanously less and more annoying. Less so because the 180° turnaround came mid-season, which at least did not negate an entire year of episodes. More so because Lauren didn't even get an attempt at interesting characterisation, and again, it was very blatant that her reign as the queen of bad mascara was simply there so there would be no sympathy for her as Sydney's romantic rival, or any need to condemm Vaughn. It felt like very bad fanfic translated to screen - they even had Sydney use the term "soulmate", for Rambaldi's sake! - with the rival of the writer's OTP bashed into a pulp.
Male variations of The Insignificant Other usually aren't evil, unless they are Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride, and The Princess Bride is such a lovely homage and send up that it's impossible to mind. No, instead male variations are dismissed as "safe", "boring", not worthy of the heroine's affection as opposed to the exciting, dangerous hero. Classic screwball comedy examples would be the fiances in The Philadelphia Story or His Girl Friday. The one in His Girl Friday is an interesting genderbender example because of course in the original stage comedy by Ben Hecht, reporter Hildy was a man and his fiancee a woman. When Billy Wilder filmed this version, the scene where Hildy is sitting at the typewriter, Walter lights his cigarette and the fiancee, watching this, realizes she's nothing next to this relationship takes on a far more sinister emotional tone, which seems to indicate that male Insignificant Others can be disregarded for boringness alone whereas female ones have to be evil as well, lest one should actually wonder about their feelings.
Now: I'm not against triangles per se. What irritates me about all of The Insignificant Other is that the characters in question aren't granted, well, a life of their own by their authors, silly as this may sound. Say what you want about the most recent Tristan and Isolde, but Marke is written as a sympathetic character there, and not dismissed as evil, boring or insignificant, and the angst comes from both Tristan and Isolde respecting and feeling affection for him, not simply from the "OMG we can't be together" factor. And despite still having issues with Bryan Singer leaving the X-Men franchise to the tender mercies of Bret Ratner for Superman Returns - a film which has its moments but which I did not love - , I can't help but appreciate that Richard White, Lois' fiance in SR, is not an Unsignficant Other, not dismissed as evil, boring or unworthy, either, but written as brave, self-depreciating and loving, with his relationship with Lois still existing at the end of the movie. See, it can be done.
The oddest case of an Insignificant Other in the media I've encountered wasn't even a person. It was, basically, the way Farscape dealt with John and Aeryn in season 4. Now, Farscape is unusual in that the hero and heroine actually go from UST to RST in the very first season. The show got very creative in still finding ways to keep angst and tension between them - John slowly going insane due to the neural chip in season 2, the two Johns situation in season 3, with Aeryn by necessity getting together with only one of them and after that John's death finding it at first impossible to accept the other. All this was connected to larger storylines and made sense given the characters. In season 4, however, the angst stopped being well written and became a case of plot device. Aeryn bringing Scorpius on board and refusing to explain what she did during her summer vacation, John taking drugs so he wouldn't be tormented by his love for Aeryn - if there had ever been any pay-off for these elements, they would probably have looked as good set-ups, but we didn't get pay-off. Instead, by the time "Mental as Anything" came along, the writers obviously decided they got bored with all the angst and separation and had our hero confess to our heroine that he didn't REALLY try not to love her, the drugs weren't addictive, don't you know, he just didn't want Scorpius to know he'd do anything for Aeryn. (Because Scorpius, John-observing genius that he is, clearly would not have figured that out several seasons ago.) And no, he wasn't upset about the silence or the Scorpius-bringing anymore, either. Kiss, reunion, and it was just as blatant as anything that ever happened to Tess or Lauren. (Scorpius was lucky he was male; I suppose if he had been a female character, the show wouldn't have just left it at slashy subtext but would have had him/her having an affair with John in season 4, culminating in his return to being EVIL (tm) and shot by Aeryn and John at the same time before that kiss and reunion.)
(If The Peacekeeper Wars had not been made to wrap up the Farscape saga, this would have put me off Aeryn and John as a couple for good. As it was, I came around again, though of course PKW cheated as well in other ways, but that's another story.)
So what triggers the irritation isn't just the creation/dismissal of a character as a mere plot device, the denial of three dimensional existence to her/him; it is the disrespect shown to the viewers as well, the assumption that they would not care about anything but the separation and reunion of the chosen couple. But this viewer cares, and hopes to not encounter such writing again, vain as the hope may be.