Favorite Fictional Couples
Sep. 10th, 2005 07:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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bookchick. . .
Name 20 of your CURRENT favorite fictional couples, then tag 5 people to do the same.
Definitely a meme for a romance writer (whichbookchick is). This one turned out - not surprisingly - to be pretty darned tough for me. I managed to come up with 17, which is more than I thought I could scrape together. As I looked through my book and video shelves, I saw works with couples who used to mean a lot to me, but who aren't really part of my present consciousness. Of the ones I could consider "current," several are of my own creation, either through my own writing or gaming.
The top five can not really be sorted in rank:
1. Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkoskigan - from Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series. Read the omnibus Cordelia's Honor for a great space opera with one of my very favorite heroines and a man I would marry in an instant.
2. Jehane bet Ishak, Ammar ibn Khairan and Rodrigo Belmonte - from one of my all-time favorite books, The Lions of Al-Rassasn by Guy Gavriel Kay. Three people from different cultures and faiths drawn together in mutual respect, friendship, and love during a time of war and the ending of an age. Jehane and Ammar end up together, but she and Rodrigo also share an unstated love.
3. Deidre Organa and Ute Warhit - over a period of years, these two Star Wars RPG characters clashed, united, and finally fell in love and married. Intense role-playing with one of my favorite men.
4. Seonaid Montgomery and Vladimir - from my novel. It's an anti-romance, so they don't actually become a happily-ever-after couple by the last page, but the author knows that happens in the first chapter of the sequel.
5. Jessica, Corin, and Richard - my avatar and her two husbands from my personal myth cycle.
6. Elizabeth Middleton and Nathaniel Bonner - from Into the Wilderness, by Sara Donati.
7. Beatrice and Benedict - two former lovers, "too wise to woo peaceably", tricked into falling in love again
8. The Rasuli and Mrs. Petticaris - Sean Connery and Candace Bergen in The Wind and the Lion. Another case of not-really-a-couple, but no less a love story. Ditto the following --
9. Rose Greenhow and Alan Pinkerton - from the made-for-television film The Rose and the Jackal. Rose is a Confederate widow spying for the South in Washington, DC. Alan Pinkerton (who would go on to found the famed Pinkerton Agency) is the first head of the Secret Service and the only man who suspects her.
10. Phedre and Joscelin - from the Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey
11. Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven - Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story, another pair of former lovers who find out they really are made for each other.
12. Princess Leia and Han Solo
13. Queen Christina and Cardinal Azzollino - from Ruth Wolff's play The Abdication, which I analyzed and directed for my undergraduate thesis. Another pair of lovers-who-aren't.
14. Anna and the King - as portrayed by Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat. Also not lovers.
15. Salustra and Signar - from Taylor Caldwell's The Romance of Atlantis. Rulers of Atlantis and Althrustri just before the cataclysm. Opponents who fall in love.
16. Guinevere and Lancelot - of all the versions, my favorite is the much-maligned move First Knight. I like the way Gere's Lancelot becomes a better man because of his love for Julia Ormond's Guinevere. I like the way he really does become her champion, and his decision to leave Camelot in order to honor her and Arthur. One of the reasons I like it so much is that it so strongly resonates with the story of Deidre and Ute.
17. Guinevere and Gunnar - in Parke Godwin's Beloved Exile, the story of Guinevere after the fall of Camelot, including her many years of captivity among the Saxons.
Looking at this list, I see for the first time how very many of my favorites come from different worlds, whose love is a bridging of cultures -- and/or religions -- as well as a uniting of hearts. More than a few find love in scenarios of war or captivity. Only in The Philadelphia Story would the couple be an expected pairing -- two people from the same "world" and the same level of power. And I am surprised at how many of these "couples" are people who love each other in a real and binding way but who never actually become "a couple." (It makes sense, I just never realized how many of my favorites follow that pattern.)
Tagging:thomryng, poliphilo, saskia139, _storyteller_, and kateri_thinks -- but everyone is free to play!
ETA: 18. Remington Steele and Laura Holt
bookchick. . . Name 20 of your CURRENT favorite fictional couples, then tag 5 people to do the same.
Definitely a meme for a romance writer (which
bookchick is). This one turned out - not surprisingly - to be pretty darned tough for me. I managed to come up with 17, which is more than I thought I could scrape together. As I looked through my book and video shelves, I saw works with couples who used to mean a lot to me, but who aren't really part of my present consciousness. Of the ones I could consider "current," several are of my own creation, either through my own writing or gaming.The top five can not really be sorted in rank:
1. Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkoskigan - from Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series. Read the omnibus Cordelia's Honor for a great space opera with one of my very favorite heroines and a man I would marry in an instant.
2. Jehane bet Ishak, Ammar ibn Khairan and Rodrigo Belmonte - from one of my all-time favorite books, The Lions of Al-Rassasn by Guy Gavriel Kay. Three people from different cultures and faiths drawn together in mutual respect, friendship, and love during a time of war and the ending of an age. Jehane and Ammar end up together, but she and Rodrigo also share an unstated love.
3. Deidre Organa and Ute Warhit - over a period of years, these two Star Wars RPG characters clashed, united, and finally fell in love and married. Intense role-playing with one of my favorite men.
4. Seonaid Montgomery and Vladimir - from my novel. It's an anti-romance, so they don't actually become a happily-ever-after couple by the last page, but the author knows that happens in the first chapter of the sequel.
5. Jessica, Corin, and Richard - my avatar and her two husbands from my personal myth cycle.
6. Elizabeth Middleton and Nathaniel Bonner - from Into the Wilderness, by Sara Donati.
7. Beatrice and Benedict - two former lovers, "too wise to woo peaceably", tricked into falling in love again
8. The Rasuli and Mrs. Petticaris - Sean Connery and Candace Bergen in The Wind and the Lion. Another case of not-really-a-couple, but no less a love story. Ditto the following --
9. Rose Greenhow and Alan Pinkerton - from the made-for-television film The Rose and the Jackal. Rose is a Confederate widow spying for the South in Washington, DC. Alan Pinkerton (who would go on to found the famed Pinkerton Agency) is the first head of the Secret Service and the only man who suspects her.
10. Phedre and Joscelin - from the Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey
11. Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven - Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story, another pair of former lovers who find out they really are made for each other.
12. Princess Leia and Han Solo
13. Queen Christina and Cardinal Azzollino - from Ruth Wolff's play The Abdication, which I analyzed and directed for my undergraduate thesis. Another pair of lovers-who-aren't.
14. Anna and the King - as portrayed by Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat. Also not lovers.
15. Salustra and Signar - from Taylor Caldwell's The Romance of Atlantis. Rulers of Atlantis and Althrustri just before the cataclysm. Opponents who fall in love.
16. Guinevere and Lancelot - of all the versions, my favorite is the much-maligned move First Knight. I like the way Gere's Lancelot becomes a better man because of his love for Julia Ormond's Guinevere. I like the way he really does become her champion, and his decision to leave Camelot in order to honor her and Arthur. One of the reasons I like it so much is that it so strongly resonates with the story of Deidre and Ute.
17. Guinevere and Gunnar - in Parke Godwin's Beloved Exile, the story of Guinevere after the fall of Camelot, including her many years of captivity among the Saxons.
Looking at this list, I see for the first time how very many of my favorites come from different worlds, whose love is a bridging of cultures -- and/or religions -- as well as a uniting of hearts. More than a few find love in scenarios of war or captivity. Only in The Philadelphia Story would the couple be an expected pairing -- two people from the same "world" and the same level of power. And I am surprised at how many of these "couples" are people who love each other in a real and binding way but who never actually become "a couple." (It makes sense, I just never realized how many of my favorites follow that pattern.)
Tagging:
thomryng, poliphilo, saskia139, _storyteller_, and kateri_thinks -- but everyone is free to play!ETA: 18. Remington Steele and Laura Holt
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-10 03:46 pm (UTC)Hey, where's Delenn and Sheridan? ;>
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-10 03:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-10 03:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-10 04:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-10 06:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-10 09:47 pm (UTC)Elizabeth and Nathaniel thank you
Date: 2005-09-11 10:46 pm (UTC)Sara Donati
www.tiedtothetracks.com/storytelling
Re: Elizabeth and Nathaniel thank you
Date: 2005-09-12 12:34 am (UTC)*blush*
Thank you for visiting!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 05:39 am (UTC)Thank you