I love stories, this is no secret to anyone. I love stories and I'm in the middle of watching one unfold right now! It's called Attack on Titan, you've probably heard of it, if you haven't heard of it then it's pretty much about big naked people eating small clothed people and the various ramifications therein, it's all a lot of fun and a certain part of it got me thinking about romances in stories (no it's surprisingly not the part about big naked people). That part was the "Will they won't they" "romance" between the 2 main leads; Eren and Mikasa.
It highlights one of my main thoughts about Romances in stories which is that they should never be the focus of an entire story. In Attack on Titan (Or to give it it's pornographic title, Attack on Tit an' Bum) I have no idea whether Eren and Mikasa will end up together, none at all, either way would satisfy me. However watch a normal romance film and any outcome other than the couple getting together at the end is an anticlimax normally and even if they don't get together it's usually telegraphed early on. The Greeks worked this out back in BC for goodness sake, A character either is high status and ends up low status or is low status and ends up high status, every story is a variation or combination of these 2 paths so in a story with only one element, that being the romance, it becomes incredibly easy to predict the outcome.
I don't want to hate on romances (well, maybe a little) they work fine a lot of the time, my problem with them is that the beginning of a romance is not a story, it's an element of a story and Attack On Titan treats it as such, as a small part of a bigger tapestry and that's why it works in my eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment