Romance is hit or miss

No, I am not talking about real life romance (although, I guess that is as well?). My blog is not about real life, duh, it's about the important things.

Yeah that was sarcastic happy Valentine's Day!

In stories of all kinds, be it books, TV shows, movies, videogames, there elements that we nearly expect to see all the time because they are staples. Some form of drama, some form of victory, and some form of romance. Personally, the thing I hate most of out those three is romance. Why? Because it can either be very effective or it can be just stupid and unecessary. Sure, one could make the argument that drama can be stupid, but hey, at least it's still dramatic. Romance can just be downright...bleck.

In today's world, everything has to be...oh, how should I put this? Intimate. You can't just kiss someone, you have to tightly fling arms around them and feel their heart's embrace. What? Lame. Just kiss the damn girl/ guy, don't need to make a whole song out of it (looking at you, Sebastian and Flounder). Most stories, of course, have to put this into effective because it is the only way that people will watch/ read. But do we really need to be flinging our shirts off every time we kiss someone? Imagine seeing a couple kissing at your local grocery market and suddenly BAM their shirts are off. My reaction: stay inside and play videogames.

Oh wait, that's just a natural reaction.

See what I mean, though? It's unrealistic and it's just wrong. I get that two characters can be madly in love, but, I don't need a whole scene about it. Old movies did it best. The couple in love would scooch in for a kiss, then the scene would fade to like drapes or something and zoom out to reveal the two getting dressed once more. Perfect. We didn't need to see anything, we know what happened, let's get on with the important parts.

Intimacy can be used comedically, sure, because it has a purpose: to be funny. If in a big dramatic movie people are going over the top that's not serious it's ridiculous. If in a funny movie they are going over the top it's not serious it's what is supposed to happen.

Again, hit or miss. But enough with the intimate times, we can come back to that later (we will). Let's talk about the elements of romance in a story.

I feel that the only way romance can work effectively is if the story depends on it. Like if things go to hell and love can save the day, go for it. But if it's just a character who loves another and at the end of the day the boy gets the girl, please don't stress over it. We've seen it thousands of times before, we know how it's going to end.

There are stories that do rely on romance and those that don't, and there are even two types of stories that don't. So let's get started.

Now I'm not one to really read or watch anything romantic because it usually bores the heck out of me. That's just the type of person I am, I don't care. Coming at this from objective point of view, a romance story obviously needs a strong romance. Duh. Speaks for itself. This can be good and bad. You can have the cheesy romance of hot boy meets hot new girl at school and everything is great until *gasp* something bad happens and they break up because hot boy was supposedly cheating on hot girl AND OMG IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD.

No, it's not. Stop it. They get together in the end.

Sometimes, though, we have a change of pace. What happens if one dies? Oh, there we go, there's a story. Again, I can't name any examples because spoilers and why would I want to spoil your Valentine's Day? For the most part I can't name any examples because I simply have not read these types of stories, but, I'm sure you guys can think of a few.

Thus, romance is a hit if it brings something new to the table. Sometimes the tragic death of one of the lovers can be seen from fairly early on in the story if you're perceptive enough to pick up on the foreshadowing. In one such story I read, I dreaded the death of a character because I knew that the author was relentless enough to kill them off even though the main character depended on their love. In the end, though, these are the romance stories we remember. The ones with a sad ending. Sort of. Titanic had a sad and happy ending, because, I mean, one of them made it? Right, that's happy?

It's a major miss, though, if it's been seen before, done before, or more often than not, involves supernatural teenagers. It's almost like the teenage genre is going to die because of romance, and that's just not fair. I write about teenagers what the heck romance (see this is why I have little romance, it ruins everything). I won't bag on the Twilight series for the sake of not wanting to beat a dead horse, so instead, I'll bag on one of my favorite shows, Teen Wolf.

The show pushes teen romance because it focuses on high school students and all they do, apparently, is skip school and get into complicated relationships. I can vouch for the first part of that. Anyway, Scott and Allison's relationship, for me, is like when someone scrapes their fork on a plate. Drives me up a freaking wall. Why? Because it detracts so much from the better parts of the show. Scott and Allison always had complications and it was so annoying to watch. There are bigger problems than you two out there HELLO. Stiles and Lydia, aka Stydia (you ship it...you know you do), is a romantic element of the show that I don't mind because it hardly takes away from anything. It is in their character for Stiles to be awkward around Lydia and for Lydia to brush off anyone that comes near her (because she's awesome and she can). Scott and Allison's relationship is uncharacteristic and annoying. The relationship between Derek and Jennifer, though uncharacteristic, was not annoying. We'd always seen Derek Hale as a dark, mysterious character who shut everyone out. When Jennifer came along, it seemed like we were seeing a shadow of a former Derek, which was interesting and added to the story.

Onto other things. Stories that do not focus on romance, yet have these elements in them. I suppose I'll start with the bad news and then work my way to the good news, because that's how I roll.

If you have to consciously think to yourself as you're creating romance "oh shoot, this character needs to fall in love with this one," please, do not do that. Know what that is? Bloating your story. If you made your outline and wrote the skeleton without any problems or regrets, then why shoehorn something else in there to make it fit? It'd be like completing a puzzle but you have an extra piece. If you find that one piece actually didn't fit, try the extra one. But if you're content, please just let it be.

I've fallen victim to this, definitely. I added in an entire character, full with her own arc and all that jazz, just to be a love interest. You know what I did when I realized that all she did was serve as a love interest? Cut her straight out of the story. With hindsight being 20-20, I can look back and realize how totally unnatural for the story it was to have her in it. Just everything about her character made the story veer from it's solid path, and I did not like that very much.

Not all of us are artists, though, some of us just like to watch or read these things, but, we can all notice it. We can notice when romance is thrown into the story for the sake of merely appeal. It can even be thrown in to try and be a romantic element and completely fail.

For appeal, it's easy to spot. You've got a hot girl and a wimpy guy and they get together. Bam, done, you know why it's there. It's the underdog story, yeah, go team! But is it necessary?

No.

For the sake of trying to be a romantic element and failing, it's often easy to note. It's almost as if this failure is written into the story. If the character cannot get the love interest, eventually, it becomes less of a quest and more of a "oh my gosh just stop it is not happening." In the Inheritance Cycle, I grew sick of Eragon and Arya's little thing. Either date or not. Jeez. There wasn't even closure to it...nevermind.

Complications arise with Disney. I'm not sure if these are romance stories or not. Mulan, Tangled, these are adventure stories where as the story develops, yes, the princess starts to fall in love with her guy. Though we know how all of these stories will end, there is my favorite dark horse story of all the Disney movies: Frozen. 

It is not a romance story. Argue with me all you want, it is not a romance story. Love is an Open Door is meant to be a love song, but in the grand scheme of the story, that song is nothing more than a political move to steal Arendelle from underneath Anna and Elsa's feet. Not very romantic, is it? Nope, not at all. Because Hans sucks.

Frozen is actually a story about family, and getting your family back. And going to college. But mostly about how to trust your family in tough times and if nothing else...that even girls can have cool ice powers (besides Killer Frost, who has been confirmed for the CW's The Flash)!

Disney's movies will always incorporate romance as a main point, but there other stories that do so effectively. As mentioned before, there's Titanic, and then of course, some of my favorites, the Night Angel trilogy, Sword Art Online, and even the story arc of Marvel's Mad Titan, Thanos.

Titanic is clearly a love story, and while it is the focal point of the movie, the real story behind the movie is the sinking of the ship. You could argue (so I will) that the whole story of Jack and Rose is just a little look around the boat. There probably still could have been a very interesting movie featuring other characters on the boat. There were over two thousand to pick from. Heck the last half of the movie could have stood on it's own, but, the romance of Jack and Rose brought more to the table and ultimately made the movie the masterpiece it is today...and like any masterpiece, it too has a crappy sequel!

It's tough to discuss the Night Angel trilogy's romance without spoiling anything, but, I think I can do it! There are actually two main romances throughout the story, even a small third one that made me sad in Shadow's Edge. One of them is one that is not intimate then becomes very intimate, and the other is one that once was very intimate but then they had a baby and that changed everything (literally, everything). Some turn of events happen where a character in love with this girl accidentally gets magically bound to a girl that thinks she loves him, but, by the third book our main hero and his lady friend have decided that they only live once and that they should, well, stay up late every night. Now, the magic bond allows both our hero and our confused third wheel to feel each other's emotions, so almost every night there is torment on one side of this. Now the other relationship is intertwined with so much conspiracy but at the end of the day, love is the ultimate desire for both of these characters and the interesting part is to see how they eventually come to realize this after so long being separated.

Sword Art Online, which has my favorite love story of all time, plays on romance masterfully. It is a survival story, first off, but then we have two characters who find that after two years of toughing it out and giving it all they've got, they need each other to survive. Their love keeps each other going, it literally changes the game, it frees people up to do things that they never thought possible. Their love gives other characters hope. While the story does depend on the romance after a while, we find that even if it is ripped down to its bare minimum, the romance element empowers the story because of how well it was done. It's two heroes longing for each other and they are so close yet so far away, ah, it is gut-wrenching to watch.

I suppose I made it sound like SAO is indeed a love story, but it is not. It is a survival story where love is the method of survival, if that makes sense.

Lastly, I mentioned Thanos because the only reason that Thanos did anything in his quest for power was for his great love of Death (a character, yes). He loves Death so much that he would do anything for her (it?) including becoming the strongest power in all the universe (he does, it's awesome). Yet the battle between the Avengers, Adam Warlock, the Fantastic Four, Spiderman and Thanos is not a love story. The love story makes the story relevant, but it is an action story of good versus evil. The romance between Thanos and Death (which is pretty much one-sided because Death says like one thing the entire story arc) is really the only reason that all of the events are taking place.

So do you see how important romance can be if it hits home? It can make a story great. But when it misses, it can miss big time. It can take away from the story.

Sometimes this isn't true. The little thing that the elf-lady and the dwarf from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug didn't take anything away from the story, but at the same time I feel that if it weren't part of the story at all I would miss it. Percy Jackson and Annabeth's little romance is slightly annoying, slightly charming, ultimately gratifying, but all of the pushing we had toward it was a little unnecessary.

Pushing romance into a story, is, again, a terrible mistake to be made. Just imagine how different Attack on Titan would be if Mikasa and Eren hooked up? Or in SAO if Kirito decided to drop Asuna and instead go for Suguha? Those stories would be absolutely terrible. If that were to happen, the story would not win, the romance would win. In a story where you have either a specific romance or not, treading into dangerous waters always gets you killed.

That doesn't mean that all stories based around romance are effective, though. I hardly care for any of them, and that's not going to change. There are some stories where it has no elements of romance but there is still an awkward love story, like the Maze Runner trilogy, because you have no idea if you want them to get together or not simply by the character's actions. In cases like that, it just means that the love interest is an awful person and the hero could go better than that...again, the Maze Runner trilogy.

Romance just needs to stop filtering its way into everything before it ruins everything. Already we have authors and creators regretting it. Fan-service is no fun if it isn't what the story calls for. Because then, it isn't what you set out to make, is it?

See you next time!

P.S.: MAZE RUNNER WHY YOU BE DELAYED?!