When is romance in a work unneeded and unwanted? And how would it be better presented?

[Erttheking]

I've been noticing through a lot of these threads that there seems to be an underlying hatred towards what many refer to as "Mandatory romances" in fiction. As someone who rather enjoys a good romance, this got me thinking. While I do love a good romance, I myself roll my eyes more than a few times when it's either underdeveloped and crowbared in, or overdevloped and saps away attention from the main plot. A good example of both would be the GI Joe movie, where the red head and the black character (Cannot remember their names at all) have a few snarky comments at each other early on in the movie, and then at the end they kiss. Enthralling. As for the opposite...Star Wars prequels.

However, I don't think that romance in a work is bad, only when it is badly written. Love is a part of life, and I find that two people making a connection like that makes a work even more special, but only when the work can convince me that the feelings that the two are showing for each other are genuine. For THAT to work, I feel like relationships need to build up slowly. With the couple starting off not particularly close, maybe even hostile towards each other. As time goes on, they get to know each other, learn what they other is really like. They move from causal acquaintances to friends. They start to hang out with each other, joking around, just enjoying each other's company. Then their feelings turn a little more intimate. That's just a personal policy of mine though, "your lover should also be your best friend," just because the connection would be better and have a strong foundation to work on. Not to mention, maybe it's just me, but I like romance to be a little causal. Like your lover is the person you whisper sweet nothingness into his/her ear, but it's also the same person you'd sit on the couch and play videogames with, go out drinking with, tell stupid jokes to, and really would be the type of person you just have fun with.

Speaking of which, one of the areas where I find love falls flat on its face is the stranger to lover jump. Hey, Bella, you know nothing about Edward, you just met him three days ago, I'm pretty sure you don't really love him, you just want to bone him. People need to get to KNOW each other for romance to work, and areas like "Love at first sight" make me grind my teeth in rage. Not to mention when there's a major plot going on and the romance overrides it. It should exist alongside it, something that the characters indulge in on their road.

Well, overall I feel like that sums up my feelings. Romance doesn't work when its underdeveloped, over developed, and focuses too much on true love.

Oh, and big grand speeches dedicated to how much love they're in, yeah, let's go without.

So, what do you think?

 

[Zontar]

I think it's bad when it detracts from the real plot. A perfect example is Sword Art Online. Once you take out the badly written romance which no one hopped onto the show for, what did you have ? 3 and a half episodes of a 25 episode show.

Though a hilarious inversion is Enemy at the Gate. In that, the romance subplot that everyone hated was the only part of the movie which was based on what actually happened.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It ultimately depends on how it's presented.

Even if a romance is unnecessary it can still be entertaining thanks to on screen chemistry.

I can't really claim with certainty when it is or isn't warranted untill I see how it's displayed on film.

 

[Esotera]

I watched Cowboys & Aliens last night and they handled it really well. It was obvious that the romance between Daniel Craig & Olivia Wilde had been forced on it from the top, but it never got stupid.

Spoiler: Spoiler for ending

She just kissed him so that she could hop into a part of the spaceship he couldn't reach, which totally makes sense as she's an alien being and presumably doesn't have much in common with a cowboy.

Another show I can think of that handles it really well is The Killing. All the romance around the main protagonists is really awkward and messy...which is what it's like in real life. Ultimately as long as romance isn't just tacked on to something, and is vaguely realistic, it's absolutely fine.

 

[senordesol]

'Bad romances' are typically characterized by the following:

1. The audience has no reason to care if the love interest ends/stays together: this is pretty basic, but often over-looked. 'Chemistry' is not found in lingering gazes or excessive giggling at bad jokes; but in personality. If I like the male lead for his personality, and I like the female lead for her personality, and they work well together; then I'll be invested in their relationship.

I was more invested in the relationship featured in the first 5 minutes of Up than I was throughout the Star Wars prequel trilogy (though that may be a bad example). Reason being is in Up, I could see how the two characters played off each other -how they complimented each other. They dreamed together, worked together, and hurt together. By the start of movie proper I was heartbroken for the main protagonist for having lost what was clearly his soulmate.

In Star Wars we are somehow expected to care about the 'romance' between the two characters, even though there's nothing to go on. Anakin had no reason to 'love' Padme, she was wooden and dour. Padme had no reason to 'love' Anakin; he was a pissy, megalomaniac brat. The only thing they had going was that they happened to be two attractive people.

A 'love' plot is interesting. An 'attraction' plot is not. Often the two are confused.

2. The love plot has nothing to do with the story: Plenty has been said already in terms of female characters lacking dynamism in many stories, so I'll just say this: If you just want to tell a story about a guy who kicks a lot of ass, just do that. When the narrative attempts to 'raise the stakes' by putting his wife or girlfriend in danger (but who otherwise has no bearing on the plot; i.e.: 'damseled') it really doesn't provide any excitement or tension.

3. Either no or contrived reasons the relationship couldn't work: Also known as the 'would you guys just screw already!?' syndrome, sometimes a writer will try to convince the audience that the love affair is somehow 'forbidden' or is taboo according to whatever convenient social obstacles happen to block the romance.

The thing is: relationships aren't special. If you act like the universe itself is against the lovers, then you're building the plot up into something that's...kind of stupid. The whole 'love conquers all' idea is so done and played out...it's practically worthless and tends to be indicative of narrative bankruptcy.

4. Absolute predictability: Half of all marriages end in divorce, but 99% of all romance plots end the same way. There's a lesson to be learned there.

 

[balladbird]

I think the expression is more in regard to romances that feel like they were thrown in to check a box off the "list of audience expectations" more than anything. I'm of two minds when it comes to those, since on one hand, obligatory movie romances are trite, uninteresting, fanservice-y, and superfluous, but on the other hand without there being a role for "obligatory love interest", the number of significant parts for women in movies would shrivel by 80%... so, I guess I make my peace with them.

that said, romance is a characterization thing, so from a technical standpoint, it's never "needed" in the sense you ask, but as a part of character development, or wish fulfillment, or simply to deepen the lore of the world it takes place in it can still be seen as a good thing. People tend to be entirely too left-brained in their analysis of plots anyway

 

[AustinN]

Most romances are planned from the start, and usually it works. But I think that sometimes, it's better to let relationships develop naturally. Just write the characters, and see who ends up having the best chemistry. Stubborn shippers aren't the only reason people sometimes dislike the official pairing.

 

[Squilookle]

In the case of war films, which suffer this a lot, I say that any time a film chooses to depict a kind of warfare that has been sorely lacking on film for a long long time, it should also choose to give us as much screen time of it as the story will permit. Romances we can find anywhere, anytime on film, and all war film romances often serve to do is fill in time between the more expensive stuff happening.

Know your audience. If people came to see people get stabbed or stuff blow up, then THAT is what they are expecting. I wouldn't call 300 a perfect film by any stretch, but it DID at least understand that nobody wanted to see sappy romance while there were Persians out there ready to get hit with big pointy things. The target audience for Love Actually would not have been impressed with a gritty disaster scene of a plane crashing and blowing up on landing at the airport, so why put in a lovey dovey romance that goes nowhere in a film about riddling those pesky Nazzies with bullets?

[sub]Probably not the best example but you get the idea...[/sub]​

 

[Lilani]

When the romance could be removed from the story, and the substance of the rest of the plot would be essentially unchanged. Any story element is like this, really. There can be some value in side stories and anecdotes that the final conclusion doesn't completely hinge on, they can add depth to a story world and make everything seem bigger than the group of characters you're focusing on. However, romance tends to be one of those things that the audience is expected to invest heavily in (or at least the writer hopes they invest heavily into it), and it's rather frustrating to invest heavily into something that really has nothing to do with the main plot you were first asked to invest in.

If romance is in a story, it should affect the plot. Love changes people, changes opinions, allegiances, priorities, goals, motivations, behavior. If you have some characters fall in love and it does absolutely nothing to change the path they were already on to begin with, and you don't even address why things DIDN'T change, then something has gone terribly wrong in both your plot and character development.

 

[RJ 17]

The best romances are ones that serve the story. The story shouldn't serve the romance...unless, of course, you're writing a romance story to begin with.

"Unwanted" and "Unneeded" romances are often "Unnatural" romances. By that I mean romances that are forced purely for the sake of having a romance. Two characters meet for the first time, two days later they're already having romantic feelings for one another...yeah, I don't buy it. Just as real relationships require chemistry and time to develop and such, so too must literary romances build up and develop.

For instance, despite how horribly it was portrayed, Anakin and Padme was a "good" romance. It was terribly written and acted out, but it was still pertinent to the story. Anakin grew up having a crush on Padme, and since years pass between the movies it can easily be said that there's time for the romance to develop. Beyond that, it was a romance that served the story in that it was Anakin's love for Padme that ultimately drove him to the Dark Side. It gave The Emperor a very strong tool to manipulate Anakin with, saying that he needs the power of the Dark Side if he wants to protect the one he loves.

Again, I'm not saying what we saw was, by any means, a good romance on screen...the actors that played the parts had about as much chemistry together as a porcupine and a chihuahua. The thought and concept behind the romance, though, was sound.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Now, I honestly consider it a step -up- from the third film. It brought back the comedy and that sense of adventure. The only thing I hated... was the fucking priest and mermaid sub plot. It felt like a vapid, stupid, aggravating romance just for Romance's sake. Like a crappy spanish soap opera with the poor writing turned up to the umpteenth degree! The priest felt just pointlessly "innocent and pure" for the sake of it, and the mermaid instantly fell in love with him despite not even having a LINE OF DIALOG.

Hey?

Didn't the mermaid (who he'd dubbed "Sirena" I think, for no reason) fall in love with him because he kept trying to not let her die, even though he risked the anger of all the scary pirates while doing so? Shouldn't equate to falling in love, but, well, rubbish action movie.

(Might be biased, because I thought the mermaids were by far the best thing about the movie)

 

[Hagi]

Way I see it bad romances are sub-plots or side-plots. As in, they're separate things with their own scenes dedicated to them and other scenes (that focus on the main-plot) where it's basically completely absent. Either way, they're plots, chapters, arcs or whatever. You can clearly look at any scene and say whether or not it's part of the romance or not.

A good romance is part of the characters themselves. It doesn't have it's own scenes, it isn't a sub-plot or a side-plot. It's just the way some of the characters act, it's part of a character's identity and not part of the story.

At the core I believe a good romance is presented as a feeling some of the characters have. A bad romance is presented as an event that's happening to some of the characters.

 

[shootthebandit]

How else do people get 14 year old girls into movie theatres without some poorly thought out romance.

When expendables 2 had some soppy bit about that snipers widowed girlfriend or when stallone says "mumble mumble, ADRIAN mumble mumble something bad happens to people im close to". Seriously this is fucking expendables, why has someone tried to crowbar some estrogen into it