There is nothing strange about the possiblity that Heathcliff may have been Cathy`s brother, in fact it`s even strongly hinted in canon about how young Heathcliff first comes to the story and the "likeness" between him and Cathy. I truly believe that it can be read as an incest story and that was a veiled intention of Brönte`s.
About the Malfoys, I`ve always been unable to read Weasleycest and even squicked by the idea of Weasleycest and twincest, but Malfoycest never came as a surprise for me and I`ve always enjoyed reading about it. I think you hit the nail on the head as to why.
when JKR mentions Lolita as one of her favorite books and describes it as "a tragic love story." I didn`t know that. It`s kinda cool. I see the Potterverse as one much less innocent and puerile than it is commonly thought, just because sex or some sex related subject isn`t mentioned every twenty pages or so it doesn`t mean its universe can`t be largely sexual and full of sexual subtext, as I believe it is.
I truly believe that it can be read as an incest story and that was a veiled intention of Brönte`s.
It makes perfect sense to me--I mean, one could read their similarities as just a coincidence of temper, but I really like the idea of Earnshaw bringing all this upon himself!
About the Malfoys, I`ve always been unable to read Weasleycest and even squicked by the idea of Weasleycest and twincest, but Malfoycest never came as a surprise for me and I`ve always enjoyed reading about it.
Yes, with the Weasleys, they're far from a perfect family but I can't see how you could introduce incest without introducing all the real life issues that come with it because of the way their family is set up. The Malfoys, as someone said in azalia's thread, are described as being weird by definition--as are the Blacks. Also, imo, their relationship in canon already has incestual overtones the way the Weasley family doesn't.
Ahhhh this is an old, old guilty pleasure of mine. Remind me to send a link to a fanfic that I wrote before I took this SN. The whole AU premise was that these twins had been born with a gene for madness, and ran away lest they hurt their family and friends (and possibly inherit royal responsibilities). And part of their suppression of violence was to replace it with sex. To them, it was a question of survival, and also... they're the only family they have. Then one of them has the gene fixed, and the other doesn't... LOL, it sounds better in summary than it does in practice. Might be better off without the link *g
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Your position and points pretty much match my reaction to the whole incest discussion. I wish I could come up with something more articulate to add, but all I've got this morning is "what you said".
Great essay; I'm totally with you on all of it--Flowers in The Attic! The Seven Ravens! I feel like you and I had the same childhood. *g*
And vis a vis WH--yes, absolutely is the inference of half-brotherness there, which is the story's underlying tragedy, the real prohibition that underlies why C & H can't get together. Less appealingly, WH is really a story of DAD Earnshaw's sin and how it takes a couple of generations for it to wash through the family genes--Heathcliff is left entirely heirless, biologically. He's framed almost as a germ that has to work its way through the family system. It's a story of Dad's infidelity and its consequences.
Hee! I love that we both have such excellent taste in stories! As stupid as it sounds, I really think somebody should make a proper movie or miniseries of Flowers in the Attic. The movie was so stupid and hello? Cut out the incest! I remember us all walking out of the theater going, "Um, did they not realize that was the whole point?" I think somebody could do a great job if they had a sense of humor about it and just piled on the Gothic awfulness.
The idea of Heathcliff being almost a personification of Earnshaw's sin seems very traditional to me too--another Scarlet Letter, in a way. Though he really is washed out in the end--strange really, that the most fertile-seeming character winds up barren.
I think perhaps the reason I don't see incest as TEH EBIL EBIL HORRAR is because I read The Hotel New Hampshire when I was about 13. When my mum handed it to me and said, "Read this; it's good."
Or maybe it comes from starting Julian May's Milieu series when I was 17, and looking at the family tree she put at the end of the book and thinking, "that makes no sense" and then reaching the third or fourth book and seeing that actually, yes it did.
It is, as kitsune13 said at Nimbus, just another type of trope, and it's something that comes from a literary tradition. And let's not forget that in P&P, Darcy is meant to marry his first cousin, which is only one degree away from siblinghood. And didn't everyone laugh in the second Brady Bunch movie? Or is that different because they're step-siblings
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Mind, I think that in real life, in sibling-situations, there are probably very often real-world power imbalances that are exploited by one party or the other, but in a fictional narrative the writer can create a universe where those issues are part of the story.
Absolutely. I think, as I said above, that's a big reason Weasleycest is so problematic. The Malfoys and the Blacks can be OTT weird with their own rules, but with the Weasleys it would seem like a real life situation and we know those siblings have weaknesses another might exploit.
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About the Malfoys, I`ve always been unable to read Weasleycest and even squicked by the idea of Weasleycest and twincest, but Malfoycest never came as a surprise for me and I`ve always enjoyed reading about it. I think you hit the nail on the head as to why.
when JKR mentions Lolita as one of her favorite books and describes it as "a tragic love story."
I didn`t know that. It`s kinda cool. I see the Potterverse as one much less innocent and puerile than it is commonly thought, just because sex or some sex related subject isn`t mentioned every twenty pages or so it doesn`t mean its universe can`t be largely sexual and full of sexual subtext, as I believe it is.
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It makes perfect sense to me--I mean, one could read their similarities as just a coincidence of temper, but I really like the idea of Earnshaw bringing all this upon himself!
About the Malfoys, I`ve always been unable to read Weasleycest and even squicked by the idea of Weasleycest and twincest, but Malfoycest never came as a surprise for me and I`ve always enjoyed reading about it.
Yes, with the Weasleys, they're far from a perfect family but I can't see how you could introduce incest without introducing all the real life issues that come with it because of the way their family is set up. The Malfoys, as someone said in azalia's thread, are described as being weird by definition--as are the Blacks. Also, imo, their relationship in canon already has incestual overtones the way the Weasley family doesn't.
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Ah yes. There definitely had been chemistry between the two, that weren't strictly 'siblingly'!
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And vis a vis WH--yes, absolutely is the inference of half-brotherness there, which is the story's underlying tragedy, the real prohibition that underlies why C & H can't get together. Less appealingly, WH is really a story of DAD Earnshaw's sin and how it takes a couple of generations for it to wash through the family genes--Heathcliff is left entirely heirless, biologically. He's framed almost as a germ that has to work its way through the family system. It's a story of Dad's infidelity and its consequences.
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The idea of Heathcliff being almost a personification of Earnshaw's sin seems very traditional to me too--another Scarlet Letter, in a way. Though he really is washed out in the end--strange really, that the most fertile-seeming character winds up barren.
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Or maybe it comes from starting Julian May's Milieu series when I was 17, and looking at the family tree she put at the end of the book and thinking, "that makes no sense" and then reaching the third or fourth book and seeing that actually, yes it did.
It is, as kitsune13 said at Nimbus, just another type of trope, and it's something that comes from a literary tradition. And let's not forget that in P&P, Darcy is meant to marry his first cousin, which is only one degree away from siblinghood. And didn't everyone laugh in the second Brady Bunch movie? Or is that different because they're step-siblings ( ... )
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Mind, I think that in real life, in sibling-situations, there are probably very often real-world power imbalances that are exploited by one party or the other, but in a fictional narrative the writer can create a universe where those issues are part of the story.
Absolutely. I think, as I said above, that's a big reason Weasleycest is so problematic. The Malfoys and the Blacks can be OTT weird with their own rules, but with the Weasleys it would seem like a real life situation and we know those siblings have weaknesses another might exploit.
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