Tragic and Doomed

[deird_lj]

I think I've finally figured out why I don't like Aragorn and Arwen ending up together:

They're Buffy and Angel.


Seriously!

They're a couple who meet as teenagers well, when one of them is a teenager and the other one is already really old but immortal and seemingly young, and who promptly fall into an epic love story even though they're two completely different species, and get to stand around looking all tragic and doomed and heartbroken because they will forever be parted...

...and then they get married and live happily ever after.


Is it me, or is that sort of missing the point?


Buffy/Angel? Love it. Mostly. But the whole big idea behind their relationship is that it's tragic and doomed and heartbreaking, and they'll never end up together, and it's so beautiful and doomed and... doomed...


Aragorn and Arwen have a clear purpose - to be the Buffy-and-Angel, and look longingly into each other's eyes for a while before they go off and live their respective lives. That's how it's supposed to work! Having them end up together just doesn't fit.


(Which is all a long drawn-out way of saying: Aragorn/Eowyn 4eva! Woo!)

Comments

[snickfic]

Is this a commentary on A/A in the books in the movies? 'Cuz in the books they're played much less for the tragedy than in the movies; actually, they're played much less, period. I find them just impossibly irritating in the movies for all the reasons you mention.

Also, I'd argue that emotionally, they're much nearer being equals than B/A. Arwen is thousands of years old, yes, but Aragorn is also an adult. Besides, unlike Buffy and Angel they spent years getting to know each other really well (didn't Elrond raise Aragorn?). And unlike B/A, there's no indication of any fundamental personality conflicts (which isn't to say that there aren't any, but they're not in evidence).

So while I could see not being very excited about A/A, just because there's very little story of them together to be excited about, they don't annoy me at all the way B/A do.

Which is not to say, mind, that Eowyn isn't the awesomest warrior-woman type in all of high fantasy.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with snickfic about...just about everything. Which is not at all shocking. So in the books, they don't annoy me, I'm just not invested at all (really, almost everything between takes place offscreen).

In the movies, however, yeah, I think he's ridiculous for not choosing Eowyn (who I love with Faramir in the books, but not in the movies because there isn't enough of them, and I also don't like the guy who was cast as Faramir. Peter Jackson pretty much failed when it came to the romance), because she's far, far cooler.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Eowyn can have whoever she wants, just as long as I get Eomer! Which is weird because I don't usually go for the strong, silent types. Maybe it's because we first see him as an outcast? *shrugs and goes back to drooling*

P.S. I don't remember the character from the books, at all. But the movies...yummy! Karl Urban uber alles! (Except Spike.) I'm totally off-point, aren't I?

[elisi]

Hmmm. Well it's certainly a point, except they don't live happily ever after. I mean, they live happily for a very long time, but he is mortal and she's not. And once he's dead all of the other elves have long since left and she's stuck.

Also, of course, they're a re-play of Beren/Luthien. Except Beren/Luthen was seriously awesome, with Luthien being a much more take-charge kinda lady. (It's FOREVER since I read the Silmarillion, bit as far as I remember kicked all kinds of ass!)

Mostly, I don't pay too much attention to A/A. *g* (Although I agree it's a bit much in the films.)

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

*snorfle*

[fireflyfaery.livejournal.com]

One word.

Incest.

Though apparently in the Tolkien mythos, if you read the Silmarillion, that makes it *better* ... ?

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

I can definitely see a resemblance, but at least Arwen was her own person when she met Aragorn, while Angel was severely emotionally stunted and let Buffy define his redemption. (I prefer them as adults not because I want them to last forever, but because it is less unhealthy and they are more interesting as people.)

But A/A is needlessly sappy and melodramatic in the movies anyway.

(...So what would Aragorn/Eowyn be?)

[next_to_normal]

Eowyn rules, Arwen drools.

I think that sums it up.