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S2.E5 - Forbidden Love
170 Plays1 year ago
We all know it from Romeo and Juliet, but we went a bit darker than I think any of us expected in this episode. Maybe it was forbidden for a reason!
- Naomi Gibson, author of Every Line of You, Game Over Girl
- Melissa Welliver, author of The Undying Tower, My Love Life and the Apocalypse
- Jamie Greenwood, creator & host of the Write and Wrong Podcast
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Transcript
Introduction to Favorite Tropes
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the chosen ones and other tropes where I asked two published authors about their favourite tropes and the ones that make them want to cry. Um, you know the Hunger Games? And now... I do know the Hunger Games. I've heard about it. Yeah, you do know them, yeah. Essentially what the Duzzies do to them is not parenting, it's child abuse. Yeah. Beautiful. Man's playing a G-nanny as well. Might be familiar to you.
00:00:25
Speaker
It's
Exploration of Forbidden Love
00:00:46
Speaker
Forbidden love. So sometimes two characters are perfect for each other, but people and or society around them doesn't agree and deem said romance forbidden, not allowed, banned. That's pretty much it. I mean, it does what it says on the tin. I assume we're going to talk about Romeo and Juliet at one point, but if you want the archetypal
00:00:49
Speaker
not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as fun though, is it? It's not as
00:01:12
Speaker
example of forbidden love. It's Romeo and Juliet. Let's start with Melissa this week. Melissa, forbidden love. Tell us about it. Unfortunately, when I was looking into this, most of the examples that sprang to mind, especially from fantasy, were incest.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yes. There's so many incest examples. I was like, oh. And then I was thinking, oh, how deep does incest go? Like if you just read most Jane Eyre books, Jane Eyre books, Jane Austen books. Everyone's because of Jane. It was a different time.
00:01:50
Speaker
And it's like some cousins and stuff. But then, oh, yeah, like obviously in Game of Thrones, it's like a lot of brothers and sisters. Yeah, they love each other. And it's kind of forbidden, but kind of not like in House of the Dragon, it's not forbidden. So yeah, I don't know. Like so then I then I wasn't sure if it technically was because obviously it changes depending on the time in those series. So like House of the Dragon happens 200 years earlier. So it's a bit different.
00:02:13
Speaker
And then obviously, yeah, there are the ones to do with like all the Romans. The problem with Roman Juliet is there's so many Roman Juliet retellings as well. Such as everyone's favorite Nomeo and Juliet. Everyone's favorite retelling. So I don't know, it's a common one. It's not one I love, especially because I found so many incest examples.
00:02:40
Speaker
But it's also not one, I understand why it's there because obviously it creates automatic conflict, which is perfect for stories. Every writer knows you need conflict in stories. And if you're writing specifically an A plot love story, it does create perfect conflict because they're not supposed to be together. So it's quite an easy one.
00:02:57
Speaker
And it also has ranges. Yeah, it goes all the way up to brother-sister incest, which is bleh. But also it can be as simple as she's a, you know, she's a nerd, he's a jock or something like that. That can also fall into forbidden love. So I do like that it has a bit of scale to it, which some of the others we've looked at don't have any scale. So I do know a bit on the fence. I'm interested to see what everyone else thinks because I think I'll change my mind throughout the episode.
00:03:19
Speaker
Based on what you've just said, I will point out, it's kind of a unique trope in romance in that it's one of the only ones where the conflict is created by the kind of setup and everything that's going on around the two people falling in love, but you don't have to have those two butting heads.
00:03:41
Speaker
Right. Yeah, that's true. Because in almost all the other ones, they have to like challenge each other and butt heads and then eventually kind of find a common ground. But with this one, you can immediately have, you know, Romeo and Juliet go to a party wearing masks and immediately fall in love. Yeah, insta-love. Exactly.
00:03:59
Speaker
It's true. I know. I was also mixed on this one. I was like, this is, it's not something I thought about before. I think there's sometimes it's done really well. Sometimes it's done really horribly. Right. Naomi, what do you think?
00:04:13
Speaker
I'm less mixed. I actually quite like it. Oh, good. I love incest. Yeah. Not the incest. Yeah, I quite like it for a bit of romance. There's something about the idea where if you're told something is off-limits, it serves to make it all the more irresistible.
00:04:31
Speaker
And I think if a character's told you can't have that, the reader immediately wants to see the character get it. So it's like an obvious goal for me and one I'm happy to watch or read. But I agree, there's a line with it.
00:04:47
Speaker
Too often it is crossed and I think the ones I prefer are probably where there's like a class divide or something that is not incest. So ones that came to mind for me were all class divides actually, like the notebook for example.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, when Ali and Noah, I think their names are. That was a really nice classified there and I really enjoyed that. And The Binding, I think I, you know, you guys know this is one of my favorite books. There's a really good classified romance in that and that really ticks like a lot of boxes for me. But one that I loved actually was Carnival Row. Have you guys seen that on Amazon?
00:05:24
Speaker
I haven't watched season two, I've seen season one. I haven't seen season two yet but I absolutely love season one. Season one was great and you know that brother and sister and upper class family and their humans and they get like a new neighbour and the neighbour is a crich or like a member of the fair, he's got goat legs and horns and she the sister like treats him absolutely abominably because obviously he's crich and everyone treats the crich abominably but then eventually it has like sexy results.
00:05:52
Speaker
That's so true! I really enjoyed their romance and like obviously her brother turns against her and she like totally absconds with her rich boyfriend and it's just it was just really great I really enjoyed that that one I think forbidden romance when it's done well is done really really well and but I think class divide forbidden romance is interesting more than general forbidden romance.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, Carnival Row is unabashedly an allegory for racism and such. Yeah, absolutely. When it's done as like social commentary or cultural commentary, I think it's much more interesting, but obviously you need to, when writing that, be very aware and knowledgeable about the subject and make sure you're doing the right thing. Yeah, and you're being careful.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, so something I thought of along those lines. It's not class, but Brokeback Mountain.
00:06:48
Speaker
Oh yeah, like just a gay romance generally. Exactly, yeah. Because at a time and in kind of an area where it's just not accepted for them to be gay. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's a good one because it's not them coming from different backgrounds, well, slightly different backgrounds, but not really. They're coming from like the same place, but it's just purely that they're not allowed to be together because of where they live and the time they live in and stuff. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah.
00:07:14
Speaker
That one's good. And it's, it's very thought provoking, you know, when you go through it and you're like, wow, that, you know, there was a love struggle. There is still struggle, you know, come out, come out the other side, a better person, maybe there's so many of these are class divide though. That's very true. Yeah. I think it's safer to do class divide. Cause I also had Titanic is class divide memoirs of a geisha.
00:07:42
Speaker
Oh yeah, I love it. Moulin Rouge. Dirty dancing. And obviously the street versions step up. Those are both class divides where it's like, oh, one of them is prim and proper and one of them's from the streets.
00:08:02
Speaker
Oh, what about, um, she does ballet. What about, yeah, like save the last dance. Is that a flipping romance? Yeah, it feels like it does. It's just really big in dancing. I just noticed. There's a, also Shakespeare in Love. That's Class Divide 2. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's, and then there's also cross dressing and stuff, but I don't think that's, uh, I don't think there's a crossover there.
00:08:30
Speaker
Here's a whole, uh, here's a whole genre that I found to be very entwined with this is vampires. Yes. I was waiting until we got to vampires. Yeah, absolutely. Which vampires do you want to start with? Um, well, okay. I was going to start with Twilight cause I think that's very obvious. Obviously Bella is forbidden because he wants to eat her. But also it's, it's kind of reverse as well because, um,
00:09:00
Speaker
she's obviously gonna die, you know, one day and it's like there's no point in trying to start up a romance with someone who's like mortal. Because it only got 80 years to live. What a drag. How embarrassing. What did you think about vampires?
00:09:16
Speaker
I 100% agree. Twilight, I would say, is probably an example of this being more flat than a lot of the other examples we've just given, where there's no interest or it doesn't provoke any thinking from me. The Twilight one, it's like, yeah, okay. He's a vampire.
00:09:41
Speaker
But then I was thinking, conversely, also vampires, proving that the vampire part is not the issue. I think in True Blood, it's much more interesting with Sookie and Bill and then Eric. Oh, yeah. And the reason for that, I think, is purely because, like we were just saying, it ties into True Blood, especially in season one. It gets a bit insane in the later seasons. But in season one,
00:10:06
Speaker
they ground it really well in this kind of world where vampires as a collective have come out, revealed themselves. And you see these press meetings and stuff where it's like the ambassadors of the vampires talking about coexistence with humans and this, that, the other. And they've set up this whole kind of tension around the world where everyone knows that vampires exist. And obviously, this is allegorical for various different things, but
00:10:34
Speaker
That presence, that kind of existence, everyone acknowledging like, oh, there's new people living in the world. They show quite well that the humans are not comfortable with this and the vampires are kind of shunned, but like in a kind of a fearful way.
00:10:50
Speaker
So I think that works really well because they've given so many layers to whites. And also it's not really expressly forbidden other than like friends and family are like, you shouldn't do that. That's bad. It's not like illegal, like in something like Brokeback Mountain.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah. I like it when it's, I suppose I like it better and it has more tension when you can understand why it would be fizzled. Like we were talking about with Brokeback Mountain and we're imagining, you know, as a viewer, oh, imagine if you can just be with the person you love for literally no reason apart from the law. So like it gives you more of an insight into it. Cause I was thinking vampire wise, obviously vampire diaries. Vampire diaries is all the time. They absolutely love it. They do it with like, oh, you're a witch and I'm a vampire. It'll never work.
00:11:35
Speaker
I'm like, why? It seems like you've got loads in common, I don't understand. And obviously she gets together with the bad boy in it, so it has bad boy connotations. Nobody likes her boyfriend, Damon, so she's not allowed to be with him. She should be with the nice vampire, the other killer vampire.
Incest in Fantasy Stories
00:11:50
Speaker
That's obviously a bunch of bad choice. But I was thinking in Supernatural stuff, which is actually where I rage quit the series, but then found out later. This is a spoiler, however, this is a very old series, so nobody shouts at me. Jason Clary,
00:12:04
Speaker
in City of Bones where you find out their brother and sister. City of Bones, wow. But then later you find out it's a lie. So this is why I haven't read those books and why I haven't bothered watching the TV show because, or no, I think I watched the movie, the very first movie. The movie with Lily Collins.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah. And it was just like really unclear if they're related or not. And I was like, even if she then decides that they're not later related, the fact that they almost were is just like, why would you do that? It's too much. This is the thing. Do you carry on no matter what with that thread, Game of Thrones style, they are related? Because I always wonder, it must have caused quite a lot of outrage because there's really weird like sexual chemistry in the book and in the TV show and the films and all that.
00:12:50
Speaker
like between clary and jace and then it's like oh no he's the secret brother jonathan it's just like oh god fine whatever and then later on it's like oh but guess what it's fine because it was a lie but it's like even then it's too weird it's yeah you guys win you can have them together they're not really related oh it's okay then like no
00:13:11
Speaker
It was a long time ago, but in my memory, they really downplayed that in the movie. I think they were trying to sweep it under the rug. Do you think so? It was in the last like 10 minutes of the movie. Yeah, it was, yeah. Yeah, okay. Among other things, but anyway.
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah it's weird when it gets into incestuous. It's so common though in fantasy. It's just everywhere. I don't know why. It's because it's a lot of it's based on history, right? It's based on like... Medieval history type. I mean the whole of Game of Thrones is essentially based on the War of the Roses.
00:13:47
Speaker
A lot of it is referential to actual events. I read this on an interview where he was saying everything that happens in Game of Thrones is inspired by something that actually happened in real life. I was like, damn, those weddings? Really?
00:14:08
Speaker
But I think in Game of Thrones you accept the incest so much more because everybody is so messed up as a character. They're not trying to be good people who are also shagging their brothers. They're like messed up characters and they have messed up romantic relationships. This is the least of your worries.
00:14:35
Speaker
We can write whatever we want. There's an interesting part of that with Game of Thrones though where now that we have seen, unless you have read the book
00:14:50
Speaker
previously. Now that we've seen House of the Dragon and we see how accepted it was for the Targaryen family to, and no one batted an eyelid, the Targaryens kept it in the family. But then one of them goes crazy, becomes the Mad King,
00:15:08
Speaker
you know, all hell ensues or as we're told, you know, that's the propaganda that we get. Obviously, you don't see that unfolding. And then I think the assumption is going into Game of Thrones, that the Song of Ice and Fire, which happens a long time afterwards, is that that's now frowned upon because it reached the point where the Mad King was so insane. Right. So that's why Jamie and Cersei are hiding it.
00:15:35
Speaker
Okay. From everyone, as opposed to, you know, openly doing it. I guess also she's married to the king, so that's probably... That's a big deal. Which brings me on to,
Affairs as Forbidden Love
00:15:48
Speaker
because we have tiptoed towards the dark side of this, this gets, I feel like this trope gets really dark.
00:15:54
Speaker
And moving on to the dark side of things, affairs. Affairs is a whole sub-genre of this, which I really don't like. It's not something that I'm like, oh great, the character that I like is having an affair and now I have very mixed feelings about them and everything that's going on.
00:16:15
Speaker
Sometimes I think this is, it can be done in a, I don't want to say like a tasteful way, like tasteful adultery. It's still not, but something like the English patient does it quite well. And obviously the great Gatsby is essentially all about a man trying to have an affair with a woman.
00:16:36
Speaker
That's so true. Yeah, it is. Yeah, like go along with it. Yeah. And she tries to help him. It's weird. Have you seen a simple favour with Anna Kendrick? Yes. Yeah. You know how Anna Kendrick's character has like this dark past, like she was married and she has a son, but her son is actually not her husband's son.
00:16:58
Speaker
And she had to kind of bear with her brother. And now she has this son with her own brother. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like this. It's only spoilers. I know. Yeah. Sorry. Unsubscribe.
00:17:14
Speaker
It's like a 10 second clip in the whole movie, right? And the rest of the movie is so good. And Anna Kendrick as a character, like her character is so lovely. Likeable. Likeable. And yeah, she has the... Like, she doesn't even bear with her brother. It's the weirdest thing.
00:17:30
Speaker
So yeah, you were just talking about affairs and it really made me think about that. That was Forbidden Love Incest. It's like all the layers of forbidden love. They don't actually, this is the thing about affairs, isn't it? It's like if there's chemistry. So in a book I loved when I was younger, and then I found out it was the same writer as the vampire diaries. I was very excited. So LJ Smith also wrote The Secret Circle, which was made into a very short-lived television show. I watched that television series.
00:17:59
Speaker
So Cassie is like the main character and then she makes friends with this very lovely girl, very head girl energy called Diana. And she has a boyfriend called Adam and they're together like before it starts, she moves to a new town, they're already together. But then of course there is this whole thing of Adam and Cassie for various witchy prophecy reasons. That's obviously a whole other episode we've done.
00:18:20
Speaker
and they have to be together like to break a spell basically. So it's really awkward because they're working out, oh, it's weird like the prophesied couple basically, but she's already with Diana and Diana is really nice. So they have all this like, I don't know if they did it very well on the TV show, but in the book, there's loads of sexual chemistry between them, but they cannot act upon it.
00:18:39
Speaker
because she loves Diana as like a sister and Adam does love Diana. So I think that's done quite well because I can't even remember if they kiss or anything actually before he breaks up with Diana because he realizes it's just not going to work. But it's like kind of sad as well and it adds an extra element because they feel awkward about it and it's just very awkward. The whole thing is just very awkward.
00:19:00
Speaker
Also, imagine being in a relationship with someone and literally being told, oh yeah, but you're only in a relationship because Destiny said so. Yes. And there's nothing you can fight against it. So it gets quite dry, actually, fully enough. It gets quite dry once it's not forbidden because in a way it's not forbidden because they're literally supposed to be together. Potsy breaks up with Diana and they're supposed to get together. They're a bit awkward about it. It does dry up the chemistry slightly because obviously it's like, okay, go ahead. It's like, oh, okay. That's no longer forbidden. I'm not interested. That's it, right?
00:19:30
Speaker
That's so much of the allure of this trope, the forbidden part of it. I think that probably happens in quite a few stories because it would be funny. I imagine, especially in like a television series or something, it would be quite funny because it's like you could do it in a comedy.
00:19:50
Speaker
Maybe. The forbidden part is the funny part. And then as soon as it's not forbidden, I think the couple would be like, oh, I'm not really into this anymore. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Well, that's why it's funny. It's in a simple favor with Anna Kendrick. That kind of is a comedy. It's like a weird comedy thriller mashup from genres. And it is funny, but it was also, I don't know. Horrifying? Yeah.
00:20:16
Speaker
But I guess that's that movie in a nutshell. It's kind of funny, but horrifying. I don't know. It's a really, really good movie.
00:20:23
Speaker
It is. It is excellent. I guess you just break all the tension is the problem. The real plot problem as a writer constructing a story is as soon as it's not forbidden anymore. And if that's one of your major plot points, as you were saying, Jamie, like you literally set up the whole story with an A-plot and they're not allowed to be together, as soon as you let them be together, you have ended the story, essentially. You've lost all the tension has faded from the room. Yeah. And that's a weird thing about it.
00:20:48
Speaker
I can't think of how you could possibly keep the tension, but you'd have to change it to a completely almost different genre it would feel. Yeah, because the forbidden part is the will they, won't they, right? So like almost always that they're willing, which is why the forbidden thing needs to be there. So the, the, the, the will they weren't, they purely comes down to whatever restriction is forbidden them from being together. So you then say, okay, no, it's, you can be together now. Your will they weren't there is over. So you kind of need to wrap up whatever the story is.
00:21:17
Speaker
Exactly. But I think that's why it works so well as a class divide though, because you still have that tension. Yeah, you couldn't go into other parts of the world. Exactly. It's like, well, how will it still work? It's like, okay, so fine, they've done the deed, but how will it work? What's the long-term picture here? I think that works pretty well. How do their friends see them? How does society as a whole see them? They're just social outcasts now. How's it going to work? Yeah.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. And it works well in dystopian, because in a way, Carnival Rose slightly dystopian, because there's like a revolutionary aspect, you know, the chosen ones coming to like, take over the government and overthrow them and try and change everything. So I think it works quite well in that. Like, for instance, obviously, in Hunger Games, it's forbidden because she and Peter can't both survive the Hunger Games. I think they do.
00:22:03
Speaker
And obviously she's like, ew, I don't like you, Peter. Because all the tension's gone now because we're allowed to be together. But you can carry on with the story of obviously the dystopia that they're surrounded by. And then you can push on with that. And then obviously in that, so I don't know if it really extends to friendship, but in the books of The Hunger Games, she's friends with the mare's daughter.
00:22:26
Speaker
And yeah, who brings her strawberries and stuff. And she's obviously slightly upper class because they have a slightly different feudal system basically in the books where there is actually a ruling class within each district. And I always thought that was quite sad. They skipped that. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Give it 10 years. We'll get the HBO Hunger Games TV series and then they can add it back in.
00:22:52
Speaker
That reminds me of the island, you know, the clone. He has like a friend who's also one of the workers and the worker obviously knows that he's a clone but he still like lets him hang out with him because he like feels for him and stuff. I think it can be done in a friendship way actually now. I hadn't really thought about, it's not as tense obviously and it doesn't quite work in the same way but there's definitely an element where you can have it as a forbidden friendship as well. I think so, yeah for sure.
00:23:19
Speaker
Is that like the boy in the striped pajamas? Yeah. That's super forbidden, obviously, isn't it? And that's the dark side again. It's just so dark a lot of the time. It's interesting. Like you said, yeah, a simple favour is a little bit comedy, but apart from that, it's quite hard to push this into a comedy setting, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:41
Speaker
How about his one that I thought was actually quite good in affairs, but like within context. Did you guys ever watch Scandal? No. Is that with Richard Gere? No, no, no, no. The television series. Oh, sorry. I've seen adverts for it. Kerry Washington. Does that have Sienna Miller in it or am I just? No, no, no. I don't know what movie you're thinking of.
00:24:07
Speaker
It's Kerry Washington. She plays Olivia Pope who is like a fixer for like politicians and like celebrities and stuff. So if there's something wrong, her and her team like fix it. But spoilers for Scandal, which is probably like 10 years old at this point.
00:24:27
Speaker
I mean the show is called Scandal and she seems to be this like super switched on like powerful person who no one could like make flinch and then it was revealed at some point in season one that she actually has an on again off again affair with the President of the United States.
00:24:42
Speaker
uh okay so that's quite a good uh yeah she's involved in the ultimate scandal yeah yeah it's quite a good sort kind of um forbidden love thing because there's obviously so much like passion and like
00:24:58
Speaker
tension between them, but he's the president of the United States. He can't leave his wife because of political reasons. Oh, my heart bleeds like I just don't care. I know, I was going to say wait, wait. Oh, I can't leave her. The papers will know. Oh, no. Give me some real stakes.
00:25:17
Speaker
But we talked about this going dark. I don't think we've talked about quite how dark this goes, because when I was doing a little bit of research for this, I like to sometimes jump on YouTube and see what videos people have made, give me a little snippet into their worlds. And it goes, this goes way too far for my sensitive disposition. I saw a YouTube video titled Step Sibling Romance Rex Slash Forbidden and Taboo Vibes.
00:25:48
Speaker
And I was like, I was like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm far too scared. Yeah. Because this, this is, this is now crossing a line where we're venturing from forbidden love into taboo. And that's a place which I don't dare go because I think you, you very quickly move from morally questionable to like out of control problematic free fall. Yeah. Yeah. Where it becomes so much more than, yeah.
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah, I had a quick flick through. I was like, let me just look up what taboo stuff there is. And I was like, I'm going to play it safe. So there's no video clips. I found a list of books, taboo books. And some of them are called, like, my dad's best friend and stuff. And I'm like, please. I thought you were going to say Lolita or something like that.
00:26:46
Speaker
I mean Lolita's, yeah, but Lolita at least has some kind of artful backing to it. Some of these, some of these romance ones. Just straight up, like not even trying. Yeah.
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it feels like, yeah, this is, this is, yeah. Yeah. I remember, um, I remember, um, Pornhub release every year, what their most common search terms are. And I was just checking actually. And, um, stepsister is a very common, I was just looking it up. So yeah, maybe people, maybe that's part of the allure people like about forbidden love. Maybe they like to imagine these things. Maybe, maybe that's why.
00:27:30
Speaker
But no. At least step implies there's no blood relation. Actual relation, yeah. It does seem to be step, yeah. Oh man. That's not good, that's one of the most searchful terms.
00:27:46
Speaker
Well, at least, as I say, at least it's not a blood relation. But I do think forbidden love, we're not going to do an episode on it. I can't. It leans into taboo and I think taboo is somewhere I dare not go. Yes, it's true. I'm too scared. I'm not growing up enough for this. No. You will not see a taboo novel coming out from Melissa Welliver.
00:28:10
Speaker
part of the dystopian universe. Oh my gosh. Under her pen name. So other than, other than straying into the taboo areas, what, what do you guys think is tricky or like can be problems in this with this trope?
00:28:38
Speaker
Hmm, with it. Yeah. A lot of it is taboo. So obviously, that was literally my opening was. That was a lot of incest when I was looking at this. But I think the major problem is sort of what I touched upon earlier, which is if you're going to make this an A-plot and your entire tension is based around.
00:28:56
Speaker
will they won't they speaking of say slow burn romance does that mean that they just can't get to get like does that restrict you a lot as a storyteller i'm not sure if it's if it's a restricted romance obviously they're getting sold those snatches of you know all they've met up on the cover of darkness nobody knows they've met up and they're sort of being together but
00:29:15
Speaker
Obviously, Roman and Juliet, like spoilers guys, you haven't seen Roman and Juliet. It doesn't end well. It does not end well. It's not like a happy ending. So I'm not sure. And then do you always, if you don't make it happy endings, as we're talking about, it's mostly darker genres. It's not really something you can push into rom-com as such. Then I'm not sure if it restricts you a little bit creatively to have a forbidden love storyline. I think there's only one way it can go.
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah, you've got to twin it with a few other things I think to make it work. Yes. Yeah.
00:29:49
Speaker
I think like we, well, we started off this episode talking, I think it works best when it is making cultural or political or like a statement comments on society. Yeah. Like broke back mountain. Um, like, like, you know, when there's classism involved, there's racism involved, that kind of thing. That's when I think it is at its strongest because it's, and it kind of ties into that. I think what is probably the, the, if you're thinking about writing this, I think what is probably
00:30:19
Speaker
the easiest way to fall flat and to make it kind of not hit is for not having a good reason for why the romance is forbidden. So like with Twilight, it's like, yeah, okay, he's gonna live forever and he wants to eat her.
00:30:37
Speaker
But it's kind of like, I mentioned the reason I think it works much better in True Blood, another vampire series, is because they set up this whole world. They set up this whole sort of speculative fantasy world where it's like, okay, well, what if vampires have always existed and the world is as it is, but vampires suddenly
00:30:58
Speaker
come out of the shadows and say, hell yeah, we also live here and we want to live with the rest of you. Even in, like, Buffy the Vampassler, because Buffy and Angel, I think, is a forbidden love. Yeah, massively, Angel.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah, and Spike more so, I think, because he really is a bad guy. Yeah, he's a bad guy. The groundwork has been laid, though. It works much better, I think, than Twilight, because they've spent many, many... Like, it's not a quick thing. Yeah, that's true. They've spent a long time establishing this kind of world order of, Buffy is here to protect the world from the secret vampires. All vampires equals bad, blah, blah, blah. And, you know,
00:31:35
Speaker
It's, that's what it's about. There has to be a good reason for it being forbidden. If the reason for it's forbidden is just kind of a bit wishy washy and like, you can poke a lot of holes in it. It's not really going to be, it's like you're probably better off having a more traditional romance and just doing a will they, won't they kind of thing.
00:31:55
Speaker
If it's used as a world building element, especially in dystopian speculative kind of things, it can be really cool and fun to get you thinking. It's still usually in darker settings, but I think it has more entertainment value in terms of the story. If it's involved with the world building, that's true. There was one that I read recently.
00:32:19
Speaker
absolutely loved the book, but I realised that there was some problematic areas in it. So there was a forbidden romance between a lecturer and a student.
00:32:31
Speaker
And the book as a whole, right, I absolutely thought it was the best thing I'd ever read ever and like writing goals. But if you really dig into it, there are like some really problematic things. So the lecturer was well aware that he was not allowed to like the student and he was told by faculty, you stay away from her.
00:32:50
Speaker
And so he treated her badly. So he was mean to her in order to push her away when actually you got chapters from his point of view and he was really obsessed with her.
00:33:06
Speaker
But actually, it was one of the most... I really, really enjoyed it, reading it. It was great. So I think sometimes you just have to take books of face value and just read them as a story. But at the same time, that can also be dangerous because, you know,
00:33:22
Speaker
That kind of thing does happen every day. Yes. Real world situations that maybe made me think of pretty little liars with Ari or a Mr.
Teacher-Student Romance Issues
00:33:29
Speaker
Fitz. Yeah. Yeah. It's not even a spoiler guys. Cause literally episode one, she's like underage drinking a bar, which obviously no one should ever do.
00:33:37
Speaker
And then she goes to the bathroom with a guy and then the next day at school, guess who's her new teacher? He does not leave that alone. Wow. That is instalove territory of not leaving it alone. He just does not understand at all that she is 16 years old. And he should not be anywhere near her. And he is, I mean, they make him as young as they possibly can in terms of actual time that's passed since he's done his degree.
00:34:01
Speaker
So he's maybe at, I say only, I really should be saying that, but like only six or seven years older than her, but it's still like, no. Absolutely not. And yet that is, they say together, here is a spoiler, the whole way through. They are together. I mean, they break up and make up. Of course they do. Cause it's like seven seasons, but they are like, they are the one true love of each other. So what you're saying is at season three, it's legal.
00:34:28
Speaker
No, because not very much time passes and they have to do a time jump at one point. And as soon as it's legal, they're not together as much, I noticed. I'm just saying. Did the tension go out of it there because she's legal? After the time jump, they are not together as much. She is no longer jail bait.
00:34:45
Speaker
That's true though, because I think a lot of people, like I remember my cousin, she's 15 and she watched that and she loved that series. I've never specifically talked to her about that relationship. However, I don't remember her mentioning, oh, wasn't that gross? Because I watched it as an adult. And I came from quite late. So I was like, bleh. No, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. That is something that could happen. You're totally right. You know, Juneau.
00:35:11
Speaker
Do you guys ever watch Juno? The movie? Yeah, yeah. With Michael Cera. Yeah. And the way that he treated Juno, like when I was watching it as a teen, right? She was just like this cool kid hanging out with the adult and she got on with the adult bed and she did a kid. Oh, I see. Sorry, yes. And as a teenager, I was watching it and I was like, oh, that's, you know, she's just found a kindred spirit. But actually as an adult now, watching it back, I'm like, he was so inappropriate with her.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah, really inappropriate and like encouraging her. And like, I just, it's, it's weird actually how you view things differently. Um, yeah. So it can be quite toxic, I guess, like that really toxic actually. Yeah. I'm also, I would say than any other ones we've spoken about. Yeah, for sure. This season, yes.
00:35:55
Speaker
I think the teacher student thing's actually really common. But like, yeah, I guess the safe way to play that, which I think is more common, probably because there's less high school shows now and more like collegey shows is like at college with a professor and it's still inappropriate, but it's not like illegal at this point. Yeah. Is it though, is it not illegal?
00:36:22
Speaker
Because if they're at college, they're like... Oh, sorry. No, no, no. It's not illegal, is it? But, like, people can get sacked over it, I think. Oh, yeah. You can get fired, for sure. Yeah, exactly. It's not illegal, no. It's just going to lose your job. Yeah. It's ruined. And it's true love, not worth. Professional, really. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. Exactly. And that, I think, is probably something that does happen more frequently than I imagine people hear about in real life. Yeah, for sure. It's interesting.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah. It's a scary trope. Would you guys ever do it? So I have written a forbidden romance with a classified that I really, really enjoyed writing. And one day I hope it sees a shell. And, and I also got accused of writing incest forbidden romance because, um, Mike Wayne, one of my, you know, what's coming in, um, in every line of view, Lydia, my main character names her AI after her. Oh yeah.
00:37:19
Speaker
Um, and so obviously people were like, what is her brother? And I'm like, no, like it's not. Um, yeah, they're very different people. And that's what I have to say. Listen guys, Lydia's got a lot of problems. Okay. Lydia's trying to figure it out. Henry's a very common name. You can't throw a stick without hitting Henry. Okay. So you, you, you, you have done it, would do it. Is that like a dystopian sci-fi kind of thing?
00:37:47
Speaker
the classified that I wrote was a dystopian sci-fi. I love that book. I really hope it sees a shot off one day. But yeah, I don't think I would do it with incest. Well, I hope not. I think it works so well in dystopian
00:38:03
Speaker
when you look at the kind of like big dystopian novels out there and you see these kind of very rigid structures like Handmaid's Tale and stuff like that, that's the kind of thing that can kind of work really well in.
Forbidden Romance in Dystopias
00:38:18
Speaker
It's a fantastic emotional hook to get you into the character. Sam O'Tale's a great example of that's just what makes you like Offred and Nick Moore because they're going to share more stuff with each other and they'll feel even more like you're really sitting in on a private conversation because it has a little bit of element.
00:38:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think I would maybe give it a go in that setting. I'd not really thought about it until we'd had this conversation like that. And I also, as I say, like the platonic thing of having friends who are on the other side of the divide as well. But yeah, I think that I think you have to be so careful with how you do it. And if there isn't anything else to explore, I either feel like at best I'll write myself into a corner in a waste of time. And at worst, you're venturing into weird incest, stammest nonsense.
00:39:02
Speaker
go there. But yeah, I think I would give it a go now actually. I'm a little bit over the fence. Yeah. I think I would do it in a very specific genre, in a very specific setting. Yeah. And I think what I'll say is I would never force it. I would never go into something being like, I'm going to do a forbidden romance unless it felt natural with the thing that I was already doing. Yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
I don't know. We've sold it, that's it. This one makes me feel weird. I wasn't expecting it, but yeah. Let's end the episode before we keep talking about it.
Conclusion and Social Media
00:39:45
Speaker
Thanks for putting up with our nonsense for another episode. To stay tuned to everything we're up to, you can follow the podcast on all socials at The Chosen Tropes. Follow Melissa at Melaba, Naomi at Naomi G. Wright, and Jamie at Jamie X. Greenwood. Don't forget to check out Naomi and Melissa's books as well as the Right and Wrong podcast. Thanks again, and we'll see you on the next trope.