Why Romance SUCKS in Fantasy Books | 2 To Ramble
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2024
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
1:49 - The Authors / The Priority
4:55 - Does bad romance ruin a great story?
5:55 - Do authors feel a need to include romance?
9:00 - What makes a good romance?
11:16 - Love at first sight
16:58 - Did they earn their love?
20:15 - Before & After
21:02 - Is friendship a good basis of a relationship?
25:59 - What romances do we like?
28:18 - Cheating
39:47 - Final thoughts
Maybe the real trauma was the friends we made along the way ~ Richard on his friendship w/ Austin
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the point being made, but I feel like there’s nothing wrong with thinking of your “romantic partner” as a friend. My fiancée was a friend before girlfriend and now, not only is she my fiancée, but she’s also my best friend in life. I think friendship is a good basis for a relationship, that’s where it starts.
Ill let Rich respond when he sees this to clarify what he meant!
Yeah, I see Richard's point about using the more important term of spouse, but when people say their spouse is their best friend I think they usually mean that not only is it the person they've committed to for the big things in life, but that in the everyday things it's the person they most want to spend time with, even when the honeymoon phase ends, even if they each have other friends, they would rather have their spouse along on most things vs. wanting a break from them. That's not true of all marriages, so I think it makes sense to use the "best friend' terminology to distinguish those closer marriages.
The Stalin quote is "one death is a tragedy, one million deaths a statistic"
I liked how Pierce Brown handled the romance between Darrow and Eo, and the romance between Darrow and Mustang. (I just started Dark Age.) I loved seeing him fall in love with Mustang, and how they supported each other, and the push and pull of him trying to keep her at arm's length because of Eo, for a long time. I loved seeing how they were better together. They made each other stronger, and she helped him get through his walls and realize he can, finally, LIVE FOR MORE.
Agreed! -A
I hope you realize the moment you mentioned that you two trauma bonded at least 50 fan fiction writers started sharpening their pencils.
*gulp*
I don't really read fan fiction... But I could make an exception...
Lmao ship their asses.
thumbnail is work of art
I really enjoy the relationship between Holden and Naomi in The Expanse books series. (Sci-Fi) They go through so much over the 9 book series and I think it's a great example of the "weathering the storms" of life together. Another great video guys!😊
Thank you!!
I just found you guys from mike's book reviews and really enjoying your content. Keep up the good work.
Thanks a ton!
“Use this podcast as the template”
What made you think I wasn’t already??
And they say female writers know how to write a good romance better than male. Here I am, a girl, wishing I could send this podcast to every author out there 😭
🥲🙏
I still can’t get over the romance in Red Rising (the original trilogy), specially the chemistry between the characters. The romance in the story only enriched it and made the characters grow, it was never in the way of plot and character development, it only made the story better and helped us see another side of our hardcore fighters in which they are vulnerable in a good way
Agreed!! -A
Yes name of the wind review please
I don’t mean to dogpile onto Richard (because I’ve seen many other comments discussing the “your romantic partner isn’t your friend”) BUT when I met my wife we first became fast friends. Than, in classic friends lovers fashion, we became romantically involved. And to this day she is my BEST friend. I know our relationship is vastly different than with my guy friends because we’re romantically involved but I’d much rather go out doing things with her than any of my buddies. And that’s due to our friendship being so rich and she understands me much deeper than any of my other friends could. (I know other people have said similar things more eloquently, but I just wanted to through this out there)
2 fantasy series that have great romances: The Faithful & The Fallen by John Gwynne and The Gael Song by Shauna Lawless. She was recently tapped to write a romantsy and I bet it will the best series ever written in that cringy genre. That publisher was smart to choose her!!
The Kushiel’s Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. It’s more of a political intrigue book with fantasy elements. But it has a great romance that shows the progression of a relationship from pre-development of feelings to a committed partnership over the course of the first trilogy.
28:22 Austin with the hard hitting questions 😭💀
i love how you guys mentioned La La Land, thats one of my all time favourite movies, everything about it to me is just perfect!
Right!? Incredible film
@@2ToRamble Absolutely! The colours in the film too! And i wont spoil it but the ending AHHH, chefs kiss of a film
The perfect example an amazing story of love at first sight and then the struggle: The Princess Bride
So happy to hear your praise for lalaland!!! I completely agree and its so hard to find people who love it 😍
Romance in fantasy books is like hiking the Appalachian Trail. Sure, some people like to hike, and the trail can be stunning, challenging, and rewarding. But there are so many other trails -- why does everyone have to hike that particular one? Also, because it's fantasy, the dark lord is an imminent threat and you're the only one who can stop him. So naturally, instead of strategizing, gathering allies, and honing your skills to defeat him, you simply must find a hiking partner and hit the AT
Im only in the beginning of your video. So im sure youll touch on this, but my personal experience is that in romantasy, the romance itself is a fantasy. The way the partners treat eachother, their sexual experiences together, etc, seem to be based off a fantasy rather than real life. Its like hyper masculine "i could kill you" vibes, or unrealistic sexual encounters. I dunno. All my favourite romance and love scenes are the ones that are real and honest.
Thats a great point!
Romantasy is a subset of romance, not fantasy. Same with SciFi. IMO, women like romantasy because the man can have attributes that normal human men don’t have (ex: telepathy). At least that’s one thing that’s fairly unique to romantasy.
About your point on cheaters, Rich, how about this? A man and a woman fall in love and marry. The man starts off great, but as time goes on, he becomes a terrible person and begins emotionally abusing his wife. So, the wife distances herself from him and ends up falling for another man and sleeps with him. But not long after, she and her horrible husband end up stuck together somewhere and the husband has some experiences that change him back to the man he was and they fall in love again. So, when he finally learns about his wife's actions, he forgives her because he knew what he put her through when he was awful, and that she was sorry even back then, and that she would never cheat now. How would you feel about this?
Also, here's your episode rating.
Emotional Impact: 4
Thought-provokingness: 4.25
Characters: 3.75
Plot: 3.25
Worldbuilding: 3
Prose: 4
Overall: 4 stars
High rambler rating for the story youbjust told, curious on Richard’s thoughts 😁
Richard what about the romance in the Tower of Midnight that came out of left field! Huh? What? I wish Sanderson would have ignored that note, if it was a note in Jordan’s papers.
“A partner is more important than a friend-“
I’m never certain whether my visceral disagreement with that kind of mindset - which isn’t an uncommon mindset! - is more to do with the depth of importance I give to my friendships, or more to do with my aromantic nonhierarchical polyamorous leanings, but either way… always interesting to see other worldviews, anyway, hah.
On that front, when you’re defining “friends” as “buddies you go see at the bar,” that actually does help it make more sense to me. That’s the kind of relationship I personally tend to think of as a friendly acquaintance. My close *friends* are connections that I’ve maintained for decades. They’re people who join my family gatherings for important holidays (and vice versa), they’re people with whom I’ve maintained relationships even after moving halfway across the country. So it’s possible that in the future, when this kind of topic comes up in conversation, I should make a more concerted effort to make sure there’s some mutual understanding in terminology!
(The conversation also makes me wonder whether I’ve been denying myself friends over the years! It’s great that I do have and know how to maintain these very deep connections, but it’s also possible that I’ve been devaluing or at least afraid to … *count*, for lack of a better word, relationships that I could possibly be considering as a different kind of friendship.)
Glad this got you thinking, now you have me thinking if Rich and I are even friends ✍️ (actually a great convo about defining what a friend is!)
@@2ToRamble I mean, I was describing the extreme end. Personally, I would also call someone with whom you’re holding regular animated discussions, putting a lot of work into creating something together, a friend. xD
In thinking about that you have me continuing to ponder, actually. Because now that I think of it, the way I think about online friends is perhaps a bit closer to the norm! It isn’t like they’re visiting my house or joining holidays, but there are still a few who I’d consider friends. And it kind of is from that base; meaningful discussions about our interests, and a mutual interest in how life is going. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have many friends IRL right now that happen to fall into that in-between of “definitely a friend, but not exactly honorary family members.”
It’s also possible that my gut reaction to “buddies you go see at the bar” is to think of that as an acquaintance because my base assumption was that that’s the *only* point of connection; an equivalent to “people you’re friendly with at work” or “people in your weekly knitting group / book club” something. Which may be flawed! Since my IRL connections are either deep (in which case I’d think of it as “going to the bar WITH someone” because it’d be a joint venture rather than a meeting point), or else acquaintances who, again, I don’t keep in touch with outside of a specific setting… I assumed the latter when Richard might have meant something closer to a middle ground. 😂
It's ok, Austin. I didn't go to prom either.
I might get some tomatoes thrown at me, but the romance that started blossoming in The Final Empire is the reason why I will not be continuing with the Mistborn trilogy (at least not in the near future)
Sanderson is bad at romance, I don't think anyone's going to argue that point. If you can look past that the story itself is still pretty good.
@@philippschmidt80Adolin and Shallan are pretty good together, I very much enjoy reading their scenes
Yeaahhh....I love Mistborn, but the Vin/Elena romance isn't the best.
@@philippschmidt80 I'm glad to see that I am not alone in this. Like I said, I gave up on the trilogy but I might reprise it eventually, despite I know that I'll be rolling my eyes everytime those two are on page
Haha, this can be such an issue in romance too- there is no build up 🙄
Honestly the best romances I’ve read by men in sff are written by queer men but queer relationships have a different dynamic than straight relationships.
You came for my parents’ relationship (without knowing) and ooohhh that explains so much, I’m taking that to therapy 😂
Please someone take the Richard cheating on austin with his father quote as a clip and post it out of context 😂
Excellent episode though it’s definitely given me a different perspective on romance in fantasy.
Please dont clip that 😭😂
Wow I’m waiting for the name of the wind review it’s honestly the most enjoyable book I’ve ever read although the romance is pretty bad
I was actually scared to watch this episode because I do like some romance in my books but I ended up agreeing with most that was said! Insta-love just does not work for me and I guess that comes down to stories that are well developed are good, and the romance needs to be too. I read ACOTAR maybe 7ish years ago and as soon as the romance part was “done” I could not bring myself to finish the books, because the main thing IS the romance (even if it is a lot cringy), the whole plot and world was just there as a background I guess. Which is very different than when I read the Mistborn trilogy. I like the romance in there (which I know and I have seen in the comments it’s not necessarily true for everyone) but the plot is so much more important! I think the haters-to-lovers trope is so popular because to actually make enemies fall in love it usually takes a lot of banter and back and forth and that’s what makes it good (when it is well written). Anyways, it was great hearing your thoughts on it, i’ve been loving to organize/do the dishes and listen to you guys
Glad you enjoyed! I (austin) do rly enjoy enemies to lovers when done well, youre right it makes for a lot of good back and forth scenes
have you guys read red rising
😁
Twilight. There I said it.
I haven’t listened yet but if my story doesn’t have at least one romance I’m annoyed. I’m halfway through the two towers and I’m hoping that Gandalf and Galadriel get together
To add to the discussion regarding why authors put in romances, I think it's a bit misguided to add romance as essential to the human condition. Assexuals exist, plus there are many different ways to express love for another person other than the romantic.
I'd say there are a couple of other reasons you can point to. For one, fantasy has its origin in legends and myths, and romance is often part of that in some way. Guinevere and King Arthur, Maid Marian and Robin Hood. Even the Greek Gods were all gettin' busy with each other.
There's also the practical side in that fantasy stories often have large casts and creating various types of relationships is generally useful to keep things varied. I did mention different ways to express love, but I don't assume most fantasy authors would think of all of them.
Finally, slightly cynically, traditionally fantasy readers were quite nerdy men who didn't necessarily have a lot of luck with women, so there's a bit of wish fulfillment there. Like you said, often the protagonist in those classic fantasy stories was just some rando farm boy, it's easy to kinda put yourself in his shoes. And, if you're in his shoes, maybe you'll finally get that girlfriend.
Just some food for thought.
Thankyou for the food for thought 🤝
I like romance in Japanese fantasy light novels more than anything I read lol. I don't know why they can't make it feel beautiful and pure by sharing a proper relationship. A lot of these authors do have bad history with relationships so I am not technically surprised lol.
Great title. Also dune is better than red rising. And Richard is bald
Complete facts❤
I FOUND MY PEOPLE!!
@@2ToRamble omnis vir lupus 🤘 not sandworms
@@2ToRamble typo, dune is way better mb
*Reads title*
Me: Romance sucks in romance
If I want romance, I have to ignore books altogether 😅 Kdramas give me the dose I need when I need it.
It would be interesting to have a plot where there's cheating, but then an apocalypse happens and these two people are literally the last on earth. So there is no possibility that the other person could cheat again.
Oh damn. Oh DAMN. Thats a great idea
I have no interest in romance in my books so it doesnt bother me if its good or bad 😂
Fair!
I always hated the trope of nerd gets bullied by jock - jocks girlfriend likes nerd
A classic
Guys, you are not a target demographic for romantacy.
So I guess @sammy0084 wasn't far off with their prediction about this video involving conversation of genocide 😂
Wait what did we say 😂😂
“Instant love isn’t a thing”
…
75% of romance books… 😂
Women write insta love too. They just write more flirting and banter and spicy scenes.
😻😻😻😻😻😻😝
I don't read romance don't like it. So Im just rant.
Y'all haven't read Berserk and it shows
Rich has! I havent tho
I think the biggest thing missing from men writing romance is SINCERITY. We can write murder and violence and trauma, but the second we have to be vulnerable and sincere--to actually allow ourselves to be seen--we panic. You don't need feelings to swing a sword. Socially, we associate feelings with women, women with femininity, and femininity with weakness. Because in a patriarchal society, the worst thing a man can be is a woman! Oh, no!
This is also why queer romance so often sidesteps this pitfall (though, not always). It is usually extremely sincere, sometimes to a fault haha. Straight men (especially writers) would benefit greatly from reading queer romance. It would force them to engage with feelings that make them uncomfortable in the context of a relationship they wouldn't typically identify with.
Also, the second I see a writer describing a woman's breasts, I know it was written by a man, without even checking the cover. Boobs are great fellas, I get it! But boobs =/= romance haha.
The last sentence is the wake up call Richard needed, thank you for your service 😂
Edit: also yes sincerety is a great point especially if you want your reader to take the relationship seriously