romantic models
Dec. 6th, 2003 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mimeseresee, again, from discussion with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
latxcvi, and strangely also from discussion with MGaW who indulges my fits of Norrington Is the Best Evah!! while we work.
*
This was not something that had occurred to me originally, but bothlatxcvi and MGaW mentioned this in the same day, which was neat all on it's own, and then you know, the realization that Hey! It's *true*! hit and so I offer it up for discussion.
Jack, while certainly valid as a romantic other half, doesn't actually fits a discussion of romantic models simply because he's not really part of the love triangle of the movie. So.
Will and Norrington. Mostly just Norrington, because I don't think it's inaccurate to say that Will is a fairly standard young! romantic! hero! He's devoted, will do anything for her including die, and is respectable while also rogueish enough to not be, you know, Norrington. Which brings me into a whole area of things that annoy me about romantic pop culture and how I think we've been (at least a little) culturally indoctrinated to dismiss an authority figure as automatically less worthy than the rebel/loner/pirate/rogue. But that, like many other things, is for a later date.
so. Norrington.
First off, Elizabeth is a fool and a half for not marrying him. Socially speaking, her reputation has been *completely* compromised, she will not be welcome in polite society, and while marriage to Norrington would not have completely mitigated the circumstances, it would have helped. Also, she's a young woman of fairly high station and wealth. Norrington is her social match in every way, and while it's great that she chooses True Love over sensibility, there's not another person in Port Royal who is going to think that marrying the blacksmith's apprentice was, in any way, a smart thing to do. And! She could have done a great deal worse than to marry a man of rank, apparent wealth, and honor who respected and *loved* her. And sure, from a modern perspective it's all okay, because she chooses Love! over respectability, but she's from the 18th century. It's just not done. all right. now that I have got that off my chest...
It seems to me that Norrington gets forced into a mold of Stock Romance Villain (a la The Duke from Moulin Rouge, though it's not always a bad thing. Often, but not always. And what I mean by this is that in a romance, there is usually the character who represents societal conventions and blah blah it's an arranged marriage and their love can never be Real! and True! because he's not a penniless sitar player and does not know what it is to Suffer For Love!) because he's the main and obvious stumbling block to Will and Elizabeth's One True Love.
Okay, so if Norrington's romantic model isn't The Duke (and I'm using him here in a kind of archetypal way, since he's an immediate example of the kind of stock villain I'm talking about, though I maintain that there are nicer ones), then what is it?
gee, I dunno. Maybe Darcy? Colonel Brandon? Captain Wentworth? Mr. Knightley?
Norrington is, to me, very very obviously an Austen romantic hero. Like, the important thing about him is that he doesn't want Elizabeth for selfish reasons. He doesn't want to marry her (just) because she's the Governor's Daughter. He loves her for herself, and he loves her enough to let her go. He loves her enough to bless her choice.
okay, I'm sorry. I need to um, go watch it again because I love him *that much*.
latxcvi, and strangely also from discussion with MGaW who indulges my fits of Norrington Is the Best Evah!! while we work.*
This was not something that had occurred to me originally, but both
latxcvi and MGaW mentioned this in the same day, which was neat all on it's own, and then you know, the realization that Hey! It's *true*! hit and so I offer it up for discussion.Jack, while certainly valid as a romantic other half, doesn't actually fits a discussion of romantic models simply because he's not really part of the love triangle of the movie. So.
Will and Norrington. Mostly just Norrington, because I don't think it's inaccurate to say that Will is a fairly standard young! romantic! hero! He's devoted, will do anything for her including die, and is respectable while also rogueish enough to not be, you know, Norrington. Which brings me into a whole area of things that annoy me about romantic pop culture and how I think we've been (at least a little) culturally indoctrinated to dismiss an authority figure as automatically less worthy than the rebel/loner/pirate/rogue. But that, like many other things, is for a later date.
so. Norrington.
First off, Elizabeth is a fool and a half for not marrying him. Socially speaking, her reputation has been *completely* compromised, she will not be welcome in polite society, and while marriage to Norrington would not have completely mitigated the circumstances, it would have helped. Also, she's a young woman of fairly high station and wealth. Norrington is her social match in every way, and while it's great that she chooses True Love over sensibility, there's not another person in Port Royal who is going to think that marrying the blacksmith's apprentice was, in any way, a smart thing to do. And! She could have done a great deal worse than to marry a man of rank, apparent wealth, and honor who respected and *loved* her. And sure, from a modern perspective it's all okay, because she chooses Love! over respectability, but she's from the 18th century. It's just not done. all right. now that I have got that off my chest...
It seems to me that Norrington gets forced into a mold of Stock Romance Villain (a la The Duke from Moulin Rouge, though it's not always a bad thing. Often, but not always. And what I mean by this is that in a romance, there is usually the character who represents societal conventions and blah blah it's an arranged marriage and their love can never be Real! and True! because he's not a penniless sitar player and does not know what it is to Suffer For Love!) because he's the main and obvious stumbling block to Will and Elizabeth's One True Love.
Okay, so if Norrington's romantic model isn't The Duke (and I'm using him here in a kind of archetypal way, since he's an immediate example of the kind of stock villain I'm talking about, though I maintain that there are nicer ones), then what is it?
gee, I dunno. Maybe Darcy? Colonel Brandon? Captain Wentworth? Mr. Knightley?
Norrington is, to me, very very obviously an Austen romantic hero. Like, the important thing about him is that he doesn't want Elizabeth for selfish reasons. He doesn't want to marry her (just) because she's the Governor's Daughter. He loves her for herself, and he loves her enough to let her go. He loves her enough to bless her choice.
okay, I'm sorry. I need to um, go watch it again because I love him *that much*.
