I’m re-reading Julia Quinn’s The Viscount Who Loved Me, which is the 2nd of the Bridgerton series, and among my favorite of the Quinns. And I noticed as I read, mild spoiler alert, that the marriage element of the happily ever after happens almost midway through the book – leaving the characters to resolve whatever conflicts they have to address as a married couple.
I realized, partially related to Candy’s thoughts on romance cliche, that when the characters get married in the middle of the book, it’s almost a let down for me. I find myself…disappointed. I have to ask myself why: is it because I think the illicitness of sneaking around for clandestine snogging in a Regency is half the fun – the danger that they might get caught – although only rarely is a moment where boobs are free and pants are undone interrupted, so once the hero has gotten to 2nd base and is rounding to 3rd, I kind of know they aren’t going to be discovered and have their naughty naughty escapades cast in the public light of shameful gossip. Adding overt shame to the protagonists’ sexual exploration isn’t a hallmark of many Regencies I’ve read.
So do I get bummed out because the risk, the chance of discovery, no matter how remote, is gone once they are married and in each other’s company so frequently? Is it that the author no longer has to come up with clever scenarios to bring the hero and heroine together? Or is it that the conquest is won, the rake has been tamed, and the bliss of marriage and ever-frequent sex makes for a boring finish to the book, regardless of the conflict being addressed by each character or both?
I will say that this is an issue I have with historicals, not contemporaries. I don’t know that I’ve read too many contemporary romances where the hero and heroine get hitched halfway through and then fight the forces of evil for the rest of the book.
But I have to wonder if my disappointment is evidence of my own compliance with the Disney-fied Happily Ever After ending, with wedding bells seen or implied serving as the ultimate culmination of the romance. Maybe I have learned to expect the story to end at the nuptial canoodling and am bothered when it violates my expectations.
I do get bored with recurring characters from prior novels popping up into later stories, bedecked with wedded bliss and all the fire and spark of vanilla yogurt. Do I expect the same of newly-married couples who are also the protagonists of the story? Or is it the loss of the attraction phase, and the beginning of the attached phase, that loses my interest? I know my favorite element of a well-written romance novel is the attraction between the protagonists, so maybe it’s the end of the zest and the beginning of the rest that tends to let me down a little. (As a married person myself, it’s not like I think the attraction ends after marriage. I’m plenty attracted to my husband!)
Am I the only one with this peculiar expectation? Does marriage take away some of the zest for any of you? Or are there well-written examples that you remember fondly?
I like it better when marriage is left to the end, too. I think there are a few reasons for this:
1. I have totally been conditioned to believe that the marriage is the culmination of a romance, not the middle point.
2. To me, personally, the courtship is what’s most exciting about a romance novel. The flirting, the arguments, the Black Moment, the Forbidden Attraction (and accompanying Forbidden Nookie). Marriage implies that all of that is over. I mean, the romance isn’t over, and obviously neither is their love, and if one is strictly realistic I bet most of the courtship and falling-in-love bits happened AFTER the marriage in Ye Olden Tymes. But when I read a romance I think the primary thing I’m looking for is the courtship. Plus some of the zing is gone when you realize that the possibility of the hero and heroine losing each other is that much less once they’re married. Not that there’s any doubt that they WILL end up with each other, because it’s a romance, after all; I mean that pull on your heartstrings when the hero or heroine come a hairsbreadth from not getting together. It’s somewhat manipulative, but I love it when that happens. I mean, of course a married couple could definitely separate and one of them could run away to that conveniently secluded hunting lodge in deepest darkest Yorkshire and sulk and pout and cry when something bad happens, but it’s different if they’re married—they’re a single legal entity, now, y’know?
Actually, I don’t mind when they’re married right away (witness my conditional love of the Marriage Of Convenience), but I make a distinction which lemme see if I can articulate, hmmm. See, Sarah is SO right when she says they get hitched halfway through and the rest of the book is kicking evil’s ass. I mean, I don’t pick up a Romance novel to read about ass-kicking, now do I? So there, I guess that’s the distinction—giving the plot over to external conflict (which so very very often is just SO contrived and downright BAD in this genre) means I start yawning and start resenting the author for wrapping up the intense interpersonal conflict way too early.
Sometimes, they can get married early on and there’s still a ton of tension and it’s a great read. Not always, but sometimes. And then it’s fine with me. (And no, I’m not just saying that because I married my characters like halfway through the book. Um. Really.)
I’m with you Beth. Getting married at the start, and still having the force the characters to define their relationship is just as good as getting married at the end.
But you smacked the nail on the head- I don’t read romances to watch them “kick danger’s ass.” I read romances for the romance. If all the married couple is doing is boinking, then having one falling into some danger so the other can rescue him or her thus leading to more boinking – that’s not romance. That’s plot contrivance.
Yeah, actually, I take back what I said. Or part of what I said. Having the protagonists marry halfway through and then proceed not to work on the relationship but to resolve some kind of side-plot is part of the reason why I like my marriages/engagements/HEA resolution at the END of the book. One of my all-time favorite books, Upon a Wicked Time by Karen Ranney has the h/h married in the beginning of the book, and oh my, the craziness and relationship angst that goes on. No suspense side-plot that I can remember, just the hero (who’s the tartiest man-tart to ever walk God’s sweet earth) coming to realize what a gem his wife is, and his wife becoming severely disillusioned with his assholery then re-illusioned when he reforms.
Off topic question: That link at end of every blog entry “Was it good for you?” – where does it actually take you to?
I’m thinking that there’s something wrong with my browser because it usually takes me to middle of a page.
Thanks. 🙂
That is odd- what browser are you using? “Was it good for you” closes the extended text of the entry, and your browser might just relocate you in the same spot the page would be in if the text were still extended to full-length. But that link just closes the extended text. It’s the opposite of “more more more” which extends the hidden portion.
“more more more” works fine and “was it good for you” takes me to a different blog entry, usually somewhere below the current entry.
I’m using Firefox 1.0.3. Ooh, let me test it in IE 6. Be right back. Yes, it happens in IE as well. The slight difference is the link took me to the bottom of the actual page, to the bit where I learnt that this blog has over 30,000 visitors since March this year. [Congratulations!]
Thanks.