Love and Possession

[rowyn]

Lut and I were watching a Chinese martial arts film last night. It was one of those movies where the male protagonist kills the woman he loves because she has fallen in love with someone else and he can't stand to lose her.

This theme is pretty common to fiction. It's not always specifically in the "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy kills girl in a fit of vengeful passion" mold. Some times it's "girl loses boy, girl kills boy" or "boy kills boy who stole girl from him". And of course, there are non-lethal variants on it. But the theme they all have in common is the notion of exacting vengeance for an unrequited love.

I dislike this theme rather intensely. Often the character whose love is unrequited is presented sympathetically, as a tragic hero like Othello. Sure, he's not doing the right thing when he offs his wife -- but he's doing it for love. That makes it understandable, doesn't it?

Yeah, sure. Personally, I think it's a pretty poor sort of love that can't stand to see the loved one happy -- even if that happiness is found with someone else.

I've long recognized that I hate this portrayal of "true love" as selfish and greedy, caring only for possession and more than willing to destroy if they are denied it.

But what I just noticed today is that, in my own fiction, I very commonly invert this trope. My characters, even when badly hurt or spurned by their loved ones, continue to act in the best interest of those loved ones. "Yes, I've been betrayed," they say. "But I still want her [or him] to be happy." In my mind, that's what it means to love someone. You do what's best for them, regardless of what they do or don't do for you.

Still, it strikes me that, while I believe that, plenty of people do behave in the opposite way. Realistically speaking, different characters should react in different ways, and some of them ought to lash out dangerously. Infatuation, if not what I consider actual love, can easily turn to hatred.

Comments

[prester-scott.livejournal.com]

Where do you draw the line between being loving selflessly and being a doormat/having no self-respect?

[rowyn]

I thought of that question while I was writing this, but didn't get around to addressing it.

Maybe the tidest way to answer it is to say "what's in the other person's best interest is that I show respect for myself". I certainly don't mean that someone who truly loves another should put up with any kind of abuse from them. There's a qualitative difference between "I love you, but you betrayed me and I cannot allow you to do that again" and "I love you, but you betrayed me and now I will HURT YOU and/or your new lover, which demonstrates the depths of my passionate love for you!" The former is a reasonable response, and may arguably be in the other party's best interest. If a woman's husband beats her, leaving him and urging him to get counseling is probably going to be better for his long-term mental health than putting up with it is.* But the latter is just viciousness dressed up to pose as somethng else.

You can make a good case for "tough love" tactics, wherein you withdraw support for a person who engages in egregious behaviors, because those behaviors are ultimately self-destructive. But the trope I'm refering to isn't about standing up for yourself against unacceptable actions: it's about getting revenge because someone made you unhappy.

* Of course, depending on how impossible he makes it for her to escape his physical abuse, killing him may also be a reasonable response -- but I wouldn't say it demonstrates how much she loves him.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Goodness. I hadn't thought of this particular storyline as common in fiction. I mean, the "jealous husband/fiance/lover" is often the antagonist in stories that I can think of. No doubt about it, killing your "loved one" because you aren't loved back is motivated by something other than love.

Your antithesis to this - loving even if not loved back - reminds me of an argument I got into years ago. I had argued that if you really love someone, you love them even if it's not mutual. The person I argued with suggested that such thing isn't healthy or right: You should only love because you're getting something out of it.

I am still of the opinion that I was of back then - though I dislike "walk over me like a floor mat" scenarios.

As for "tough love" - that is for when you are doing something for the recipient's benefit - not your own vengeance. However, I seem to recall reading about a horrible situation in which some "pious" fellow murdered his wife and children, because he believed that they were sinless, and that the only way to keep them that way would be to kill them now - and he would thus heroically sacrifice his own soul to Hell to ensure their time in Paradise. (Wish I could find a reference. But it's been YEARS since I came across that one. It supposedly happened back in American Colonial times, or something like that.)

Pretty nasty.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

This is probably no surprise, but I agree with you on all counts.

Sometimes it's hard not to feel the feelings of jealousy or disappointment, but I think those have so much more to do with our sense of our own inadequacies and not much, if anything, to do with the actuality of the connection to another or others.

Real love is the truth, not the dream, or should be: as you've said, love always seeks what is best for the other person, whether or not it's the most immediately pleasurable path. (Of course, when they coincide it's a really really good thing. *grin*) Although I would offer the caveat that it's important to also love yourself enough to create empowering relationships rather than those based solely on neediness or self-sacrifice.

Anyway, thanks for the reminder. :-) It's a good season to be thinking about love and its blessings.

[sheepdog.livejournal.com]

*HUGS*

[telnar.livejournal.com]

I'm unfamiliar with the genre, but it strikes me as hard to portray a character who is perusing vengeance for an emotional wrong (as opposed to protecting him or herself against a recurrence) sympathetically enough that I would be rooting for that character. I guess that I see that behavior as somewhere between an undesirable trait and a sign of mental illness depending on the degree.

There is, after all, a neutral option between ongoing selfless love and vengeance, where the character breaks off contact out of irritation.

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

When undesirable traits come up as "natural" for a character, it ups the skill required to do that character sympathetically.

In order to handle "realistic hanging details" correctly, I generally need to adapt method acting, to writing.

If I can't "method write" the "villain", the whole plot becomes next to impossible to accurately write. Annoying.

(I really ought to change my default icon, but anyway...)

[krud42.livejournal.com]

If one follows the usual "the more conflict, the better the fiction" formula, then it doesn't necessarily pay to have characters who are emotionally well-adjusted, particuarly where relationships are concerned. Besides, there are plenty of people in real life who do behave that way, so it's more than just a trope of fiction. (Besides, not all characters need to be sympathetic, do they?)