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Not very many fictional couples get me excited, and of those that do, Raoul/Christine and Will/Elizabeth are the only ones that really have anything in common. My reactions to most romances in fiction are "Ugh, shoehorned love interest" or "I like these characters as individuals, but not together" or "Yeah, sure, they make a cute couple, but I'm not really feeling it."
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I don't really worry about whether characters make a 'cute couple' -- perhaps because I'm not accustomed to thinking of people in units of more than one, with their relationships radiating out from that. Do Julien Sorel and Madame de Renal form a cute couple? No. Am I enthused by their relationship? No. Does the author present it as romantic? Questionable. Do people write fanfic about it? At a quick glance, no.
Do Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney form a cute couple? The description seems more than a little incongruous. Am I enthused by their relationship? Yes. Does the author present it as romantic? Very much so, although as a plot driver there is a limit to what she can do with it in later books. (Do people write fanfic about it? Apparently so.)
I've certainly had the 'shoehorned love interest' reaction (to which my usual response is a forlorn hope that the author will subvert the trope this time, almost never fulfilled). I think my gut feeling tends to be nothing more sophisticated than 'first come, first served'; once a romantic relationship has been established or introduced, I'm very reluctant to see that overturned in favour of a late-comer. (Hence Will/Elizabeth.) I also dislike 'they hate each other, so they love each other' as a trope; I don't particularly get on with the Georgette Heyer plots where the protagonists fight tooth and nail throughout the entire book, and then realise/reveal that they are in love ("The Grand Sophy", "Regency Buck", "Faro's Daughter", "Bath Tangle"). I much prefer the 'friends to lovers' plots: "Sprig Muslin", "These Old Shades", "Cotillion", "Friday's Child".
But the whole fanfic 'shipping' culture of picking characters and pairing them up -- disregarding what actually happens to canon, and on occasion whether the characters even appear in the same canon or not, but just treating the world of fiction as a mix-and-match opportunity for writing romance -- is pretty alien to me. Ironically the ones I tend to get excited about are simply the ones whom I perceive as getting a raw deal from the shippers (or possibly the author); more a case of perversity than romance.
As I've said in the past, I basically took Raoul/Christine pretty much for granted in "Phantom of the Opera" until "Love Never Dies" came along... and, concomitantly, I discovered POTO fandom!
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I think it helps when the relationship is already established (i.e. Will and Elizabeth have known each other for years and are obviously in love, but can't marry because of class differences), but I don't know...
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Good point. If Will had just walked in to deliver his master's sword and had fallen in love with the Governor's beautiful daughter on the spot, I don't think the relationship would have been the same.
(Though, thinking about it, Robin and Marian are basically enemies-to-lovers in "The Adventures of Robin Hood"...)
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Then it would have been "shoehorned love interest" and I would have hated it. :D
(Though, thinking about it, Robin and Marian are basically enemies-to-lovers in "The Adventures of Robin Hood"...)
True, that.