Epic Fail

[boojumlol]

I have just finished Forever, the third and final book in Maggie Stiefvater’s Wolves of Mercy Falls series. I read quite a lot of young adult literature, both speculative fiction and realism. I have also read several books, series or parts of series in the paranormal romance subgenre, which has become so alarmingly huge since Twilight was published

Comments

[zebrallama]

+1

One of the reasons Joss Whedon likes supernatural monsters is precisely so he can play with internal conflict in relationships AND external conflict AND keep changing the balance between the two types of conflict. Well, plus he just likes monsters, but in my opinion that's much less important.

[boojumlol]

I like monsters too, but not as much as I like internal conflict. A combination can be totally awesome. :)

[blindmouse]

There's internal conflict in the Buffy/Angel dynamic, too, even before the season 2 thing. It's definitely Epic, but the dynamic works under its own steam, in ways you can believe in, I think. It doesn't rely on "They're in love because they're in love", the way the Grace/Sam story does, for example.

And argh, reincarnation, yes. When an author picks a romantic device that is specifically designed to allow them to get out of developing the relationship from first principles, you have to be a tad dubious.

[boojumlol]

Yeah, I know I'm being unfair to Buffy and Angel by implying that their relationship is as bloodless as Sam and Grace, or Luce and Daniel. I don't think Joss Whedon would have played it the same way if he hadn't intended it to end in tragedy. No other relationship he's written (that I'm aware of) is as grand, dramatic and, well, epic.

Yes, the reincarnation thing annoys me. I was willing to give Fallen a try because some of the contributers on Ferretbrain liked it so much they wrote articles (here and here) after their girl books for girls podcast. Other than the early school stuff, I was disappointed, and it mostly came down to the relationship.

I take you've read Shiver? What did you think?

[blindmouse]

I've never heard of Ferretbrain; have bookmarked it to check out later :)

I thought Shiver was sweet, and some of the werewolf stuff was interesting, and it was marvellous at atmosphere, but ultimately there wasn't enough actual story, so I came out with no desire to read any of the other books in the series.

[necaris]

Heh, glad to know the meanderings at Ferretbrain are helping some people! IIRC the girl books for girls podcast ended only a few chapters in so we only got the beginnings of relationship development (which was done reasonably, although there was foreshadowing of Epicness) and were mostly still swooning over the awesomely gothic school.

[katiefoolery]

One of the other problems of Epic Love is that it always seems to exist purely because it has to. There is rarely any attraction between the two parties; in fact, often the only attraction is that their relationship is forbidden or frowned upon in some way. I can never see them working out long term, which is why it's often a blessing in disguise when one (or both) parties eventually dies.

[boojumlol]

Yes, it's a sign of sloppy and lazy writing, in my opinion. How can you engage with a relationship when it's written that unconvincingly?

I also have a problem with love triangles, which are massively overused in YA lit at the moment. I suspect authors are trying to capitalise on the 'Team' thing with their fans. I think that's partly down to personal taste for me, though. After all, I could never get interested in the Rushton vs Dameon debates over at Obernet. ;)