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My first attempt at a mini rant. This has been kinda bugging me. sweatdrop


We don't care that your misunderstood MC is angsting about her arranged marriage,despite the fact that this practice has gone on for like, centuries and your character knows nothing else. Okay, some may, but it's just so... Lame. It seems like with marriage in fantasy, the female always is against it. Why? if the character lives in a society based on marriage, would there really be a problem? I would think that they would be excited, what with all the celebrations and gifts that usually come along with it. Sure, the girl may be a bit sad/ scared about leaving her home, but ,for once, can't the excitement of the wedding/ being married outweigh it? Please?

It usually seems as if the girl's opposition to the marriage jump starts the story. Blegh. It's so predictable. Girl runs away, accusing their parents of being unfair (I should choose who I marry!!!111) gets lost in the Forbidden Forest (tm) and either gets saved by a rogushly handsome hunter, or finds their way through the forest into the city without so musch as a scratch, possibly one for good measure. It makes me want to hurt innocent things.

Do you know what would be cool? If a village girl ( it doesnt have to be the MC) Ran into such a magickal forest, got lost, and died of starvation. Realistic? I think so. 15 year old distraught girls aren't the best foragers in a strange forest. And don't give me that "chosen powers" crap.

But what would be better is a girl who doesn't mind marriage, and actually looks forward to it.

And if the whole marriage thing ain't for your story, don't do the "run away" thing. It's getting old. wink

Rest assured, the story I am writing currently has an arranged marriage in it. The main character has never met her husband to be and there is a very large age difference between the two. However, she is uber happy about it because his family is much richer than hers (don't worry, there's a reason she's marrying up).

Marriage is a political/financial alliance, that's all. She performs her "wifely duties" and all that, but she keeps the "roguishly handsome hunter" as her lover. Best of both worlds, IMO, and no need to meet up with any ROUSes.

Exactly...it's all well and good having a character who wants to be rebellious but too many writers don't take historical context into consideration.

It's like...my dad was pointing out to me the impossibility of the romance in Titanic. In real life it wouldn't just have been a "difficult relationship", it would have been impossible, simply because the class system was so in force in those days that people from such different class backgrounds would not have even looked twice at each other.

Which is why Leonardo dies.

Rose gets her little fantasy, her splurge in boy-toy world, but then reality crashes in (symbolized by the boat sinking and him dying).

IMO, it's handled really well. She's a modern girl with ideas that are perhaps a little too modern, but reality prevails. She may go against her fiance and her mother, but she can't resist reality.

Not entirely. History is full of examples of such flings. If a higher class person is going to have a whirlwind romance, it HAD to be with someone lower class. The scandal of it being someone of the same class (at least, if either were already married and/or not planning to marry that person immediately) would have made it absolutely impossible.

Basically, if Rose was going to have an affair, it HAD to be with Jack. As long as she shut the hell up about it and still married her fiance, that was the only semi-acceptable way for her to do it.

Also, remember the setting. They are on a boat, an enclosed space where all the different classes are mingling. If they were going to meet, that's the perfect place for it.

I don't think your dad is "wrong" in the sense that such an affair could ever have worked out. I just think that the movie handled it very realistically.

EDIT: My husband says I should clarify. My point is that the only way to handle an affair discreetly was to have it with someone of a much lower class. It was just so difficult to keep affairs among higher class equals out of the gossip papers.

Hmm, that's interesting. I didn't know that...I'm not all that knowledgeable on history of that period, you see. sweatdrop