Brooke (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
betweensunandmoon) wrote2021-10-28 08:35 pm
betweensunandmoon) wrote2021-10-28 08:35 pm
Of crime and romance
I don't read romance novels. I have no desire to be in a romantic relationship with anyone. Why, then, do most of my ideas for fanfiction and original fiction involve romance?
On that note, I really, really don't understand the appeal of romances where one half of the couple is a criminal and the other half is an ordinary person unaccustomed to the seedier side of life. (Probably one of the reasons I don't get the appeal of Erik/Christine, now that I think about it.) You'd think that I, pirate and gangster enthusiast that I am, would understand it, but I don't. I just think the ordinary person looks like an idiot. History doesn't help me on either front. Anne Bonny and Calico Jack Rackham were lovers, sure, but they were both pirates to begin with. Al and Mae Capone appear to have enjoyed a relatively stable and normal marriage, but stable relationships don't make for compelling romance stories. And both my actual favorite real-life examples of each kind of relationship ended in tragedy, albeit not for reasons that had anything to do with the relationships themselves.
And no, Captain Blood does not count, because (a) Peter was more or less forced to become a pirate and (b) Arabella is appalled by his piratical activities. Goodfellas and the Godfather trilogy deconstruct this in a way: in the former, we see Henry and Karen courting and then watch their marriage unravel over the course of the movie; in the latter, Kay ends up leaving Michael in the second movie.
What am I not seeing? Is there something wrong with me?
On that note, I really, really don't understand the appeal of romances where one half of the couple is a criminal and the other half is an ordinary person unaccustomed to the seedier side of life. (Probably one of the reasons I don't get the appeal of Erik/Christine, now that I think about it.) You'd think that I, pirate and gangster enthusiast that I am, would understand it, but I don't. I just think the ordinary person looks like an idiot. History doesn't help me on either front. Anne Bonny and Calico Jack Rackham were lovers, sure, but they were both pirates to begin with. Al and Mae Capone appear to have enjoyed a relatively stable and normal marriage, but stable relationships don't make for compelling romance stories. And both my actual favorite real-life examples of each kind of relationship ended in tragedy, albeit not for reasons that had anything to do with the relationships themselves.
And no, Captain Blood does not count, because (a) Peter was more or less forced to become a pirate and (b) Arabella is appalled by his piratical activities. Goodfellas and the Godfather trilogy deconstruct this in a way: in the former, we see Henry and Karen courting and then watch their marriage unravel over the course of the movie; in the latter, Kay ends up leaving Michael in the second movie.
What am I not seeing? Is there something wrong with me?
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Take The Yellow Poppy, for example, which has a romance involved at the heart of it but the plot of which is not *about* the couple's (atypical) romance...
I think the appeal of pairings where one half is a criminal is probably the 'wild free spirit trope' -- like shipping Elizabeth with Jack Sparrow because Will is boring', for example. Plus you've got the frisson that comes with the risk of the lover's getting caught; it's a love that takes its life in its hands every time the couple meet, sometimes literally.
And depending on the story you may get the 'reformed by the love of a good woman' trope; he may be a crook, but he is prepared to settle down and forsake the profits if that's what it takes to be with her. (I suspect that's not very common nowadays, though, because then you lose the whole excitement of the criminal career in the first place, whilst morality no longer demands that he become a reformed character and enter into marriage before the romance can be consumnated...)
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