Love Interests, ones you hated, ones you liked and why?

[frigidmagi]

Okay someone linked me to a rant on live journal about how silly most love interests are in fantasy... The girl had a point.

So let's talk.

What were some of the love interests you liked? Some you hated?

More importantly why did you like or hate them? What makes for a good fantasy love interest in your eyes?

Let her rip folks.

[Norseman]

Gah! I really don't know, mainly because I've yet to read any fantasy novel with a good love interest. Then again in many stories the love interest seems purely tacked on with no real purpose to the overall tale. I suppose what I want from a love interest is that she's necessary to the plot, but I can't really say more than that.

[LadyTevar]

I have to agree with Norseman. There are very few novels that have a good Romantic Relationship. Even in those with women protagonists give her a choice of the Asshole or the 'Good Guy', neither of which is really what she wants, but she has to pick one.

[Hotfoot]

It's not a love interest, and it's not fantasy, but let me show you a real relationship that I thought was done well and done poorly.

Splinter Cell: Sam Fisher is a bad-ass covert agent. With a college-aged daughter. In the first game, the bad guys are bringing attacks to the United States, and bad shit is going down. Sam is on the phone with his daughter when she screams and then the phone goes dead. Sam flips out, but has to keep his mind on his job. All the while, he is worried about her.

Turns out later that she was okay, the lights just went off and scared her. It was enough to add tension to the story without getting silly.

Splinter Cell (The Novel): Sam's daughter gets involved with an Israeli, who turns out is Palestinian, who rapes her, kidnaps her, and gets his righteous comeuppance later in the story by dear old dad, who has gone from a soft-spoken badass to a freely cursing dumbass.

Right way, wrong way

[Norseman]

I have to agree with Norseman. There are very few novels that have a good Romantic Relationship. Even in those with women protagonists give her a choice of the Asshole or the 'Good Guy', neither of which is really what she wants, but she has to pick one.

I have however seen books that handle the relationship fairly well, just none that handle the initial romance all that well. I could suggest that this is because relationships are easier to observe than romances, and the people who write these books often have very limited personal experience with the subject matter.

That's why I cheat a little when I write about relationships, I handwave the initial romance, the how's and why's of why they are together. Otherwise I steal from the best, like Shakespeare, and hope for the best.

[Cynical Cat]

There's a lot of bad romances in fantasy.

The Black Company has a good one between Croaker and The Lady, mostly because it's not seriously a romance to begin with. He's interested in her and has something of a crush while knowing her heart is as black as the pit. She values him as an honest historian and is lonely. The relationship is ackward and strained and mostly one sided, but it evolves and changes.

Akka and Esmenet from The Prince of Nothing was good, the doomed romance between two outcasts who appreciate each other while the world despises them both.

The awful is legion.

[Batman]

The OP says fantasy, it does NOT say novel, therefore I'm nominating the Jaheira romance from BG2 (and to a lesser extent, the Aerie one). I think those were rather well done.

[rhoenix]

For what it's worth, most of the fantasy archetypes I purposefully threw out the window for the only story of mine that I actually finished. With those two though, I tried to make sure that for their talents and weaknesses, they learned that they could accomplish far more as partners.

I also took the "helpless damsel in distress" cliche and turned it into "damsel usually leads armies from the front" without emasculating the hero, which just made it more fun.

I did both of those things because those archetypes have been way overplayed in stories, to me. Having a heroine in the story who's still a woman, but utterly terrifying in a swordfight felt refreshing for exactly that reason - especially since the hero's certainly not helpless.

[Steve]

Most of my reading tends to be comics, of which I have no opinions to give on this topic at the moment, and franchise-setting novels (B5 and Trek primarily). IOW, I don't read fantasy per se. However, I was asked to post, and a thought came to mind.

One of the few "fantasy" works I've read was Stirling's Nantucket trilogy, which has its share of romantic coupling, but of them all none really leapt out at me like the particular tastes of the Hollard siblings.

Kenneth, the brother, falls in love with Princess Raupasha by the end of the third book, having met her late in the second when she was rescued having survived the depredations of the fleeing Assyrian royalty, having been defeated by the joint Babylonian/Nantucketer alliance.

His sister Kathryn? She falls for... the Prince and then King Kashtiliash, the heir and emperor of the Babylonians (his father dies in the second book due to illness).

Now, they aren't the only "uptimer/downtimer" romances in the novel series. The most prominent one is clearly the lesbian couple of Marian Alston, Nantucket's military chief (USCG officer), and Swindapa of the "Moon People" in Alba/Britain. But I just found it easier to accept Marian and Swindapa falling in love than I did the Hollards, and specifically Kathryn choosing to marry an Eastern autocrat from a traditionally patriarchal society.
King Kash at least seemed attracted to her in part because she was so unique compared to the women of his culture, but their marriage made me do a double-take a bit. What's Kathryn going to do when he wants to marry a daughter of their's off to some vassal who's loyalty he wants to guarantee? What's she going to do if the alliance collapses without a common enemy to fight? And why would an assertive woman from American culture circa 1998 fall in love, much less devote her life to, a Bronze Age Near-Eastern King from a culture completely at odds with the values and society she was raised in?

Raupasha and Kenneth is slightly better off in my eyes since Raupasha was not actually in any ruling position yet when they met, and was only given her family's throne under Babylonian auspices and as a vassal (in fact, the one scene in the third book I remember that showed Kenneth being perhaps a bit less comfortable with his "allies" than his sister was when Raupasha, to respond to allegations that she was raising an army in her homeland against Babylonian wishes and interests, had to bow and kowtow to King Kashtiliash in the degrading fashion practiced back then).
Even if they'd consummated their relationship earlier, I don't remember since it's been three years since I read the novels, their relationship was basically solidifed when Kenneth didn't turn a facially-scarred Raupasha away after she was wounded in the final battles against Walker in the third book.

Anyway, I'm not sure precisely how that fits to what everyone else is considering. I just found it a bit jarring that Kathryn didn't just make Kash a fuckbuddy over physical attraction and mutual exotic allure, but that she actually married him. I suppose she could've been so smitten she didn't think the possible consequences through.....

Anyway, that's all I got for the moment.