You and me could have a vampire romance

[foxfirefey]

sunnyskywalker is reviewing a paranormal romance fitting into a certain common theme:

This book is terrible. However, it is also an absolutely perfect encapsulation of the deeply-embedded cultural narratives all the romances with hot, rich, creepily controlling vampires are tapping into: namely, that the world is full of natural human predators who deserve their position at the top of the social hierarchy, and that to survive you need to find a predator who will resist the urge to hurt you and will protect you from the other predators because he thinks you’re special.

...

For whatever reason, Harkness, Meyer, et al. find the tale of the frighteningly violent man who basically owns you but decides to protect rather than hurt you because you’re special appealing. Enough so to write book after book around the theme of, “He won’t treat me the way he treated those other women or the way he’s constantly threatening to treat me, because I’m different than the others, so really it’s like I have control! Slavery is freedom!” And literally immortal overlords literally sucking the life out of the less powerful for millenia? Means it will be totally romantic if one of them takes a liking to you and lifts you up to your “proper” station in life! There’s no need to question this setup’s moral foundations or ask if it could change. After all, they are stronger, faster, and more powerful than you, and the good ones won’t hurt you (much) if you just do as they say, so really it’s a pretty sweet deal even if you are just their ditch-digger or carpenter or whatever for your entire life with no hope of anything more, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Comments

[kaberett]

Hah. Nicely done.

[dejla]

Yeah, this. You win the Bad Books Dissection award.

[ironed_orchid]

Oh yes! Well done.

[weaverbird]

Perfectly put!

[giglet]

Word!

And, while we are at it, this is preferable to the Cinderella myth exactly how?

[foxfirefey]

I suppose due to lack of a grueling abusive situation beforehand, to prove the protagonist's worthy innocence and good girlitude.

[gehayi]

So instead of being abused by your family and then meeting a guy who takes you away from the abuser, you have a loving family (if a bit boring) and some nice friends (likewise), but then you meet a guy who stalks you, emotionally abuses you, patronizes you, belittles your intelligence, demands to have everything his way and is willing, even eager, to commit rape (though of course neither of you calls it that), murder and/or genocide to keep you around. But it's okay that he does all that, because he's pretty and rich and can completely fix that terrible defect of yours: being human, i.e. not perfect like your stalker/abuser/kidnapper/possible rapist/potential murderer.

DEAR GOD, I HATE ROMANTICIZED ABUSE. And I hate the fact that it's usually women writers telling other women this, too. And not just about vampires. Werewolves. Other shapeshifters. Fallen angels. Un-fallen angels. Demons. Sons of Lucifer. Fae. Aliens. Gods. And sometimes just human males, if they're nobility, in the right tax bracket, or both.

[sunnyskywalker]

Yes. With the fun bonus that in this case, Diana's mother bound Diana's magical powers so that she couldn't use them until she met Mr. Creepy because she had a vision that it would be better that way. (Other witches are Jus Jealous of Diana's awesome powers and would have hurt her unless she seemed weak, and her mother foresaw that Matthew would protect Diana from them so it would be safe to get her powers then. Alas, she doesn't seem to have foreseen who would protect Diana from Matthew...)

I hate it so very much. And while logically I can see that telling these stories might be a coping strategy developed by women with few options through the ages, I don't think it's being understood used that way in the current market. At least I sure as hell hope not. The alternative, that it's being mindlessly pushed as an ideal, is terrifying.

[inoru_no_hoshi]

As much a fan of vampire romance as a general trope I am, I'm also sure there must be a way to do it without it being excessively creepy/etc. on the part of the vampire while still keeping them as, essentially, apex predators.

It just hasn't been figured out quite yet, I think, and that is a shame because the current interpretation is perpetuating a lot of Bad Ideas about How Romance Ought to Be. :(

[tree]

while not strictly a vamp!rom, Team Human does a pretty good job of what you describe, i think. also it's (intentionally) funny. :)

[sunnyskywalker]

I'll have to check that out one of these days! Because yeah, after this I was very curious to see if there were any romances involving vampires which didn't make me despair for humanity.

[clean_dirt]

Great analysis! I never thought about the trope that way before, but it's soo true.

Sidenote: I tried the audiobook version of this story. It was a good cure for insomnia. I accidentally skipped a CD and never noticed the difference due to the slow pacing.
I tried the sequel, but the issues you mentioned became even more grating when placed in Elizabethan London.

[sunnyskywalker]

I wish I'd skipped a big chunk of it too, let me tell you...

[stardreamer]

It's not just vampires. A lot of non-vampire romances use very similar tropes -- the powerful man with the legendary bad temper who is abusive to just about everybody else, but doesn't abuse you because you're special. I consider this to be an aspect of the truly appalling amount of energy our society devotes to grooming young women to consider creepy, skeezy behavior "romantic".

"A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person." - Dave Barry
"If a man is mean to other people, sooner or later he'll be mean to you." - James Marsters

[sunnyskywalker]

It is appalling!

And very nice quotes.

[shirenomad]

Occasionally a plot-muse tries to convince me to write a story that starts off looking like this trope, and then everything goes to hell as it would in real life, ending as far from a happy ending as physically possible.

Then I realize the readers would STILL think the "romantic" vampire was the sexiest thing on toast and would fangirl-splain the results of the story into blaming the "heroine" (read: sucker) for not being QUITE perfect enough for him, but they TOTALLY would be if in the same situation!

[sunnyskywalker]

I had that same temptation and the same realization XD

[thaeus]

This looks like an appropriate post to share the Robert Pattinson video going out that compiles clips from interviews where he rags on Twilight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFA6Ycch1EM

[sunnyskywalker]

That is excellent and should be linked far and wide.

[clare_dragonfly]

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave."

[sunnyskywalker]

Ah, classic flashbacks! That movie had the good sense to point out that you don't want to marry that dude, no matter how hot he is. What happened since then?