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Random Introspection
I have come to a realization today. My brain is full of characters, my infatuations, my life, my thought processes all drowning in sketches of people and fleshed out personalities. Perhaps belatedly I have realized that, though I fiercely love strong women and mad geniuses, my favorite figure has tumbled out of medieval literature and continued to appear in most genres of entertainment. He is the 'Courtly Lover,' the one who suffers under the burden of a love which cannot be returned, and yet strives to be a better person for the sake of that love. There is something about that struggle which is so painful that it becomes almost inexpressibly beautiful. Something about it, when well executed, that chokes my breathing and makes my heart ache and does everything I ever wanted fiction to do to me.
I don't know what it is about them, but these characters are made uncommonly complex by the depth of their feelings and their inability to act on them that makes them so devastatingly poetic. Cognitive dissonance exalts and destroys them.
Like Lennier in Babylon 5 who, for five years serves the woman he loves unselfishly and, in one moment of weakness and hope, demolishes his whole existence. He is a beautiful character, altruistic, faithful, kind, painfully devoted to Delenn even though he knows (despite secret hopes) that she will never love him back. And he is flawed. The impossibility of his situation force him to do something terrible, something he would never have done had not the image of grey (Hi Hi Darien!!!) eyes been in his head.
But Lennier is just the most recent example of my obsession with the courtly lover. I was never more infatuated with Xander in Buffy the Vampire Slayer than in the early seasons when he harbored an impossible love for her. Do I even have to mention Spike? If I tell you that my favorite episode of Buffy is "Crush" (the total freaking elucidation of Spike's position as the courtly lover), that should tell you all you need to know about that. A large part of Fitzwilliam Darcy's appeal (to me, at least) was his willingness finally to submit himself (he, who would in no other circumstances submit to anything) to a love which was first impossible due to differences in rank and then impossible due to Elizabeth's unwillingness to return his affection.
Almost the entirety of my love for Stargate is based on this obsession of mine. Sam and Jack are both courtly lovers, because, though their affections are returned, the realization of a relationship between the two of them is impossible due to their positions. The agony of their situation is the most beautiful part of that whole show. And the only negligable pleasure I receive from watching One Tree Hill with my sister is Keith's sad, long-suffering, and ultimately unrequited love for Karen (god, even the names are trite and pedantic).
Also, this obsession with courtly love may explain why I greatly prefer the part of the story leading up to the establishment of a relationship and the realization of a love than the parts which follow. Partly because pain and uncertainty are a lot more interesting than happiness and then the almost inevitable degradation of relationships as seen in fiction (especially television shows, which is the medium I most often and fully indulge in) and partly because the awkwardness, humilation, pain, and confusion have a beauty which cannot be touched, and which is felt in every glance and motion, as if the person drops away from himself and becomes the pain in a way so gorgeously poetic that I can't help but be drawn to it.
The question is, however, why am I obsessed with the pain and the jagged hopeless hope of the courtly lover? Partially, I think I see myself in him, in his agony of unrequited love. Not for any particular person (at least right now). But I feel his pain in myself and take some strange pleasure in the constriction of my throat and heart that comes at the height of his anguish and hope for what he knows is unattainable. Maybe I feel the impossibility of his situation in my own.
Or maybe, I'm just a freak.
But "Sad is happy for deep people" and maybe pain can be lovely, too. There's a reason why this figure has stuck with storytelling for hundreds of years.
I think he's pretty anyway.
I don't know what it is about them, but these characters are made uncommonly complex by the depth of their feelings and their inability to act on them that makes them so devastatingly poetic. Cognitive dissonance exalts and destroys them.
Like Lennier in Babylon 5 who, for five years serves the woman he loves unselfishly and, in one moment of weakness and hope, demolishes his whole existence. He is a beautiful character, altruistic, faithful, kind, painfully devoted to Delenn even though he knows (despite secret hopes) that she will never love him back. And he is flawed. The impossibility of his situation force him to do something terrible, something he would never have done had not the image of grey (Hi Hi Darien!!!) eyes been in his head.
But Lennier is just the most recent example of my obsession with the courtly lover. I was never more infatuated with Xander in Buffy the Vampire Slayer than in the early seasons when he harbored an impossible love for her. Do I even have to mention Spike? If I tell you that my favorite episode of Buffy is "Crush" (the total freaking elucidation of Spike's position as the courtly lover), that should tell you all you need to know about that. A large part of Fitzwilliam Darcy's appeal (to me, at least) was his willingness finally to submit himself (he, who would in no other circumstances submit to anything) to a love which was first impossible due to differences in rank and then impossible due to Elizabeth's unwillingness to return his affection.
Almost the entirety of my love for Stargate is based on this obsession of mine. Sam and Jack are both courtly lovers, because, though their affections are returned, the realization of a relationship between the two of them is impossible due to their positions. The agony of their situation is the most beautiful part of that whole show. And the only negligable pleasure I receive from watching One Tree Hill with my sister is Keith's sad, long-suffering, and ultimately unrequited love for Karen (god, even the names are trite and pedantic).
Also, this obsession with courtly love may explain why I greatly prefer the part of the story leading up to the establishment of a relationship and the realization of a love than the parts which follow. Partly because pain and uncertainty are a lot more interesting than happiness and then the almost inevitable degradation of relationships as seen in fiction (especially television shows, which is the medium I most often and fully indulge in) and partly because the awkwardness, humilation, pain, and confusion have a beauty which cannot be touched, and which is felt in every glance and motion, as if the person drops away from himself and becomes the pain in a way so gorgeously poetic that I can't help but be drawn to it.
The question is, however, why am I obsessed with the pain and the jagged hopeless hope of the courtly lover? Partially, I think I see myself in him, in his agony of unrequited love. Not for any particular person (at least right now). But I feel his pain in myself and take some strange pleasure in the constriction of my throat and heart that comes at the height of his anguish and hope for what he knows is unattainable. Maybe I feel the impossibility of his situation in my own.
Or maybe, I'm just a freak.
But "Sad is happy for deep people" and maybe pain can be lovely, too. There's a reason why this figure has stuck with storytelling for hundreds of years.
I think he's pretty anyway.