Couplethink Rant (WAS: Shipping the Trio and the Twins)

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

David, who can dish out categorization but not take it, wrote:

> That said, I have never been able to formulate any really 
> satisfactory hypotheses about positions that are apparently 
> correlated, e.g. 'young Hermione' and H/H. I suppose first we need 
> a massive multivariate poll.

I would love to see such a poll!

> There's also the tricky question of what you think is 'true' 
> or will happen versus what you want to be true - not that I've 
> come across anyone with beliefs that strongly contradict their 
> preferences (e.g. "I think canon is firmly R/H but I feel Harry 
> is the right person for Hermione").

Do you mean just when it comes to shipping, David?  Or to 
speculations in general?  

It seems to me that I have a number of beliefs that strongly
contradict my preferences when it comes to the HP books, some
of which I've mentioned on the list.  I often find myself 
holding conflicting views between what I think would be "right" 
for the events or characters in the books, and what I suspect 
the author plans to do with them.  But then, I don't have a
shipping preference.

> David, who would like to hear more of Elkins' views on 
> the evil, twisted and deranged nature of the romantic 
> paradigm

Oh, I don't like that romantic paradigm.  No, sir.  I don't
like it at all.

It enforces what has always struck me as a very bizarre and 
artificial notion: namely, that the closest relationship in 
ones life "ought" to have a sexual element.  If it does not, 
then it is dismissed as "just" friendship.  

It also enforces the equally (to my mind) bizarre and artificial 
notion that a sexual relationship "ought" to be deeply emotionally 
and intellectually fulfilling.  If it is not, then it is dismissed 
as "cheap" sex.

It fosters "couple-think," which I find simply *creepy* and which
causes previously sane and rational people to start behaving in 
strange and unaccountable ways.

It causes them start talking in the first person plural, as if 
they have just been assimilated by some hive-minded alien species.  

It causes them to become morose if they are not currently sexually 
involved with anyone -- not because they are sexually frustrated,
which at least would be comprehensible, but rather, because they 
aren't a part of a *couple.*  

It causes them to whine piteously about the person they *are* 
sexually involved with, because that person is actually completely 
emotionally and intellectually incompatable with them, and yet 
they refuse to believe it.  After all, they're having SEX, aren't 
they?  So how could that person not be a perfect companion?

It causes previously sensible individuals to start using phrases 
like "soul mate."

It causes women get all whiney with their boyfriends.  

It causes men to get all sullen with their girlfriends.  

It causes gay couples, who surely ought to know better, to fall 
into grotesquely stereotypical gender patterns every last bit as 
icky as those of their straight counterparts.  

It causes people to believe that they can *change* each other.

Even worse, it causes people to believe that it is morally 
acceptable, rather than downright wicked, for them to *try* 
to change each other.

And even worse, it all too often causes people to *succeed* in 
changing each other.  And never for the better.

In the end, it turns people who were once charming, intelligent, 
interesting individuals into scary, inexplicable, boring, 
brainwashed, Hollow Man *POD PEOPLE* with eyes as dead and 
as empty as those of the Dementor Kiss'd.  And who then want 
nothing more than for *you* to become a pod person too.  Just 
like them.  Because oh, don't you see?  You'll be ever so much 
*happier* that way!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Nope.  No, sir.  I don't like that whole couple dynamic thing.  
I don't like it at *all.*  It is just plain *evil,* it is, and 
there are very few romance plotlines that manage not to strike 
me as propaganda for its Borg-like cause.


So.  Aren't you glad you asked?  ;-)


Elkins 

who finds that she often tends to lose her friends once they get 
involved in romantic relationships, but who can't even *begin* to 
imagine why.