Hoist With My Own Trope
Jun. 21st, 2011 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightProbably not the right use of the word, but whatever. Further to my Game of Thrones post yesterday, I realised something last night. :sigh: It's happening again.
More behind cut with spoilers for Game of Thrones, BtVS and a very old sci-fi novel by CJ Cherryh called Serpent's Reach, should anyone care about that.
What happened was that I've realised I now have a favourite male character in the show. Well, I have several - Tyrion, Bronn and Sam Tarley are all big favourites - but my most favourite is one guaranteed to bring me nothing but misery. It's Jorah Mormont. And what clinched it for me was when Dany kissed him on the cheek, a gesture that expressed both her gratitude to him for being her protector and guide - being her knight, I suppose - and also implicit in the gesture, her knowledge that he's in love with her, though she doesn't - and never will - return his feelings.
At this point, many of you will probably be going eww! After all, Dany is young enough to be Jorah's daughter. That doesn't bother me, have to admit, especially as I know Jorah's love is doomed to remain unrequited. And it's the unrequited thing that bugs me about myself. I'm beginning to suspect I have a Thing for it - or rather, a Thing for always liking the morally dodgy male character who falls in love with the heroine and who is never loved in return. Ring any bells, does it?
And Spike isn't even the first. Long before him, there was this morally dodgy secondary character in the CJ Cherryh novel I mentioned, who was in love with the heroine and ended up dead fighting at her side, and sure enough he got one kiss from her as he lay dying so he could die happy. Because of course that's the real bugger of liking such characters - they nearly always end up dead.
Why, oh why, can't I learn to like the hero best? Liking Angel more than Spike would have saved me a lot of grief during the Buffy years. Even after the character has been so comprehensively trashed in the Buffy comic, I know intellectually that it's still more sensible to be more invested in Angel than Spike. Angel has his own comic. He'll pay for his sins a little, but ultimately he'll be a hero again (or we'll be supposed to view him as such). He may not get the girl (not the Jossian way, and Buffy's not just a prop to Angel's story), but he has a better chance than Spike, who will be lucky to get even fourth character billing (after Buffy, Xander and Willow) in the Buffy comic.
Likewise, letting myself get too invested in Jorah Mormont is a monumentally bad idea. I haven't read the books and don't know what happens to him (and please don't tell me if you do know), but I'm willing to bet he comes to a sticky end at some point. I just wonder if he'll get an 'I love you', 'No, you don't, but thanks for saying it' moment before he goes?
:grump, grouse:
Also, how annoying that I've just managed to amass a collection of GoT icons that I really like (though am still missing some, like a good Bronn/Tyrion one and one of Dany with the dragons) and the show ends. I shall probably end up putting them in storage because I want to upload some new True Blood or Misfits ones, and then uploading them again for season 2, only to find I want season 2 icons instead. Bother!
More behind cut with spoilers for Game of Thrones, BtVS and a very old sci-fi novel by CJ Cherryh called Serpent's Reach, should anyone care about that.
What happened was that I've realised I now have a favourite male character in the show. Well, I have several - Tyrion, Bronn and Sam Tarley are all big favourites - but my most favourite is one guaranteed to bring me nothing but misery. It's Jorah Mormont. And what clinched it for me was when Dany kissed him on the cheek, a gesture that expressed both her gratitude to him for being her protector and guide - being her knight, I suppose - and also implicit in the gesture, her knowledge that he's in love with her, though she doesn't - and never will - return his feelings.
At this point, many of you will probably be going eww! After all, Dany is young enough to be Jorah's daughter. That doesn't bother me, have to admit, especially as I know Jorah's love is doomed to remain unrequited. And it's the unrequited thing that bugs me about myself. I'm beginning to suspect I have a Thing for it - or rather, a Thing for always liking the morally dodgy male character who falls in love with the heroine and who is never loved in return. Ring any bells, does it?
And Spike isn't even the first. Long before him, there was this morally dodgy secondary character in the CJ Cherryh novel I mentioned, who was in love with the heroine and ended up dead fighting at her side, and sure enough he got one kiss from her as he lay dying so he could die happy. Because of course that's the real bugger of liking such characters - they nearly always end up dead.
Why, oh why, can't I learn to like the hero best? Liking Angel more than Spike would have saved me a lot of grief during the Buffy years. Even after the character has been so comprehensively trashed in the Buffy comic, I know intellectually that it's still more sensible to be more invested in Angel than Spike. Angel has his own comic. He'll pay for his sins a little, but ultimately he'll be a hero again (or we'll be supposed to view him as such). He may not get the girl (not the Jossian way, and Buffy's not just a prop to Angel's story), but he has a better chance than Spike, who will be lucky to get even fourth character billing (after Buffy, Xander and Willow) in the Buffy comic.
Likewise, letting myself get too invested in Jorah Mormont is a monumentally bad idea. I haven't read the books and don't know what happens to him (and please don't tell me if you do know), but I'm willing to bet he comes to a sticky end at some point. I just wonder if he'll get an 'I love you', 'No, you don't, but thanks for saying it' moment before he goes?
:grump, grouse:
Also, how annoying that I've just managed to amass a collection of GoT icons that I really like (though am still missing some, like a good Bronn/Tyrion one and one of Dany with the dragons) and the show ends. I shall probably end up putting them in storage because I want to upload some new True Blood or Misfits ones, and then uploading them again for season 2, only to find I want season 2 icons instead. Bother!