'Equality' in fantasy relationships
Feb. 1st, 2015 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI read a thing about immortality and relationships with mortals.
It mentioned Doctor Who but not Highlander, so it missed quite a lot of the references I would make.
But what bothered me was their contention that, because half the relationship is immortal and in many cases measurably more powerful in many respects, the relationship is inherently unequal.
They reckoned that, because of this inequality, the immortals should just not date mortals.
This is bothering me in a niggly yet persistent way, and it's kind of on disability grounds.
In Highlander one of the most memorable relationships was between Methos, the world's oldest man, and Alexa, a terminally ill human.
Methos is 5000 years of sneaky, a thus far unbeaten warrior, and it's strongly implied on occasions that the only reason he doesn't rule the (known) world any more is he got bored.
Alexa is a waitress. I mean, as far as we know. She's just a pretty young woman he met at a bar.
So the age difference isn't the only way they're unequal.
But the poignancy of the story comes from him knowing she's going to die soon, and being fully willing to love her anyway. He's going to lose her, as he would lose any mortal lover, and, at his age, as he would lose Immortal beloveds too. He's the oldest because the others died, he wasn't the first. So the whole story is about that inevitably of loss, of grief, of mortality, and just not letting it win. He's still here and he's still living, and loving is part of that.
That seems like a pretty important story to me. I mean, it applies to all of us. Given that we're the ones sitting here in a position to watch the thing, we're the alive people watching everyone else die. The temptation to let loss or fear close you off to further pain is on occasion immense. But these stories of immortality are saying no, it's worth it, it's worth living as much as you can as long as you can.
You want to cut off that whole strand of storytelling because of an age difference?
I kind of reckon that after adulthood arrives there isn't so very much difference in power that is solely age related. I mean, I feel like I'm older but not more powerful from it. I wouldn't defer to someone just from them being older, once we're both adults who can make informed choices.
Also, if you look at it the other way up, saying people who will live a long time shouldn't date someone who will live much shorter is kind of like saying terminally ill people shouldn't date. Which, you know, no. They're the boss of them, they can spend their time dating whoever they want.
Plus, who knows how long anyone will live?
Like Tolkien's elves, when Tolkien wrote war stories. Elves were immortal right up until they got killed. Elves would have been better off individually sodding off to their nice immortal people land and leaving everyone else under the shadow, but a lot of them didn't choose to do so. And some of them loved mortals. But some of the ones that loved theoretically immortal elves would still lose them. There's a lot of different directions of story mileage there.
Or like a Highlander story I can only remember a single image from, where there's a half empty glass suddenly illuminated by lightning. That's it, that's a life over and done with, stepped outside and everything half finished. Nobody knows if they'll get hit by a bus tomorrow.
That's what immortality stories are about, the imminence of mortality. The way love consumes the life you thought you'd be living and transforms it, in the tragedy strand of drama making it much shorter. The thing where any imbalance is illusion when really everyone can die.
But the second part of the idea, that the Doctor (among other educated immortals) is so much smarter than humans that he shouldn't date humans... oh, that bothers me. Because think it through, and it's saying dating and IQ and education should all link up. Like you have to qualify to date. And from a disability perspective, that's a real and ongoing problem. A lot of people are very uncomfortable with intellectually impaired people dating, even when it's their free willed choice. But then you get movies about people 'nobly' staying with their beloved after a brain injury? Those are meant to show that the important part is a loving heart, but apparently only to a point. It's a bit of a mess of an argue, really. It's an argue about ability to consent and capacity to choose, but the cultural discomfort goes way beyond the legal lines.
Relationships can be abusive, and relationships involving power differences would have to work harder to not be abusive, yesno?
And someone wanting to date me because of my disability can, on the whole, sod right off.
... wanting to date me because I'm an interesting person in ways that include my disability, fine and fair, but wanting to date someone they seem to feel is most interesting when most disabled, danger will robinson...
But saying that people who are smartest are just too powerful to date ordinary humans is tangling too many strands.
the basic idea with disability rights and independent living is that we all, even the not smart ones, have a right to decide what we want out of life. other people making decisions about what is best for us is suck. that's the basic idea.
and deciding who is too smart for us to date is epic suck.
Being worried that they might use their alleged superiorities to manipulate us, make our lives less good, abuse us, that's a fair worry. That's a fair worry about anyone though.
Saying that simply having the most ability makes relationships so unfair they shouldn't bother, that's... really very rude to all the mortal human less intelligent side of the relationships.
Because as long as everyone respects each other's free will and right to choose then they can get along perfectly well, even if very briefly by the standards of the survivor.
This isn't just me saying of course I'd date the Doctor, or of course the Doctor would date me.
Though if he did then my English degree probably wouldn't be a large part of the appeal, since his criteria so far seem to involve being brave, curious, and likely to wander off. He likes it when his friends make their own plans and tell him where he's going wrong. Sure he does things behind their back or with lying for their own good sometimes, but by consistently choosing to associate with people who consider his advice more of a general guideline than the word of god he is not in fact showing a preference for people to prop up his feeling of power. He is instead valuing them for their free will and intrepid spirit, even if they've got far less of a toolkit for understanding this universe they're all exploring together.
Which seems fair enough to me.
It's like superhero teams where everyone has a different power, and the ones that can fly carry the ones that can't, but don't look down on them in any but the literal sense. Or teams where some of them have twice or more the IQ of the others, but still respect their opinions and acknowledge they're the bosses of themselves. Or like mixed ability sports teams, where some of them are wheelchair users and others can get equipment up steps. People can get along together without differences being especially relevant. Why should mixed abilities mean not associating? Even romantically? Can't see an angle where that's not ablist.
... the bit of the post about how it's always guys on TV 'having to' go date a younger woman when the last relationship ages out, whereas the much scarcer immortal women usually do the pining away forever bit, that's an imbalance that needs fixing. But see also: Highlander (the Raven): Amanda. We didn't get gender parity in Immortality, but we did get some ladies who knew how to live. But then either way up is clearly feeding on ugly cultural threads about a woman's obligation to stay young and attract men forever, so there's some work needs doing on that.
This might just be me defending my preferences for fictional really old guys, but I think saying that age or intelligence in and of themselves create a power imbalance that means the more powerful should just never date is really problematic in what it says about what the younger can freely choose and cope with.
(Plus in a culture with as much power imbalance between genders and races as historically Earth has had, it kind of rules out... heterosexuality? And anything but being perfectly matching in every power-related dimension, which is kind of all of them. But that's an argue beyond the scope of tonight.)
It mentioned Doctor Who but not Highlander, so it missed quite a lot of the references I would make.
But what bothered me was their contention that, because half the relationship is immortal and in many cases measurably more powerful in many respects, the relationship is inherently unequal.
They reckoned that, because of this inequality, the immortals should just not date mortals.
This is bothering me in a niggly yet persistent way, and it's kind of on disability grounds.
In Highlander one of the most memorable relationships was between Methos, the world's oldest man, and Alexa, a terminally ill human.
Methos is 5000 years of sneaky, a thus far unbeaten warrior, and it's strongly implied on occasions that the only reason he doesn't rule the (known) world any more is he got bored.
Alexa is a waitress. I mean, as far as we know. She's just a pretty young woman he met at a bar.
So the age difference isn't the only way they're unequal.
But the poignancy of the story comes from him knowing she's going to die soon, and being fully willing to love her anyway. He's going to lose her, as he would lose any mortal lover, and, at his age, as he would lose Immortal beloveds too. He's the oldest because the others died, he wasn't the first. So the whole story is about that inevitably of loss, of grief, of mortality, and just not letting it win. He's still here and he's still living, and loving is part of that.
That seems like a pretty important story to me. I mean, it applies to all of us. Given that we're the ones sitting here in a position to watch the thing, we're the alive people watching everyone else die. The temptation to let loss or fear close you off to further pain is on occasion immense. But these stories of immortality are saying no, it's worth it, it's worth living as much as you can as long as you can.
You want to cut off that whole strand of storytelling because of an age difference?
I kind of reckon that after adulthood arrives there isn't so very much difference in power that is solely age related. I mean, I feel like I'm older but not more powerful from it. I wouldn't defer to someone just from them being older, once we're both adults who can make informed choices.
Also, if you look at it the other way up, saying people who will live a long time shouldn't date someone who will live much shorter is kind of like saying terminally ill people shouldn't date. Which, you know, no. They're the boss of them, they can spend their time dating whoever they want.
Plus, who knows how long anyone will live?
Like Tolkien's elves, when Tolkien wrote war stories. Elves were immortal right up until they got killed. Elves would have been better off individually sodding off to their nice immortal people land and leaving everyone else under the shadow, but a lot of them didn't choose to do so. And some of them loved mortals. But some of the ones that loved theoretically immortal elves would still lose them. There's a lot of different directions of story mileage there.
Or like a Highlander story I can only remember a single image from, where there's a half empty glass suddenly illuminated by lightning. That's it, that's a life over and done with, stepped outside and everything half finished. Nobody knows if they'll get hit by a bus tomorrow.
That's what immortality stories are about, the imminence of mortality. The way love consumes the life you thought you'd be living and transforms it, in the tragedy strand of drama making it much shorter. The thing where any imbalance is illusion when really everyone can die.
But the second part of the idea, that the Doctor (among other educated immortals) is so much smarter than humans that he shouldn't date humans... oh, that bothers me. Because think it through, and it's saying dating and IQ and education should all link up. Like you have to qualify to date. And from a disability perspective, that's a real and ongoing problem. A lot of people are very uncomfortable with intellectually impaired people dating, even when it's their free willed choice. But then you get movies about people 'nobly' staying with their beloved after a brain injury? Those are meant to show that the important part is a loving heart, but apparently only to a point. It's a bit of a mess of an argue, really. It's an argue about ability to consent and capacity to choose, but the cultural discomfort goes way beyond the legal lines.
Relationships can be abusive, and relationships involving power differences would have to work harder to not be abusive, yesno?
And someone wanting to date me because of my disability can, on the whole, sod right off.
... wanting to date me because I'm an interesting person in ways that include my disability, fine and fair, but wanting to date someone they seem to feel is most interesting when most disabled, danger will robinson...
But saying that people who are smartest are just too powerful to date ordinary humans is tangling too many strands.
the basic idea with disability rights and independent living is that we all, even the not smart ones, have a right to decide what we want out of life. other people making decisions about what is best for us is suck. that's the basic idea.
and deciding who is too smart for us to date is epic suck.
Being worried that they might use their alleged superiorities to manipulate us, make our lives less good, abuse us, that's a fair worry. That's a fair worry about anyone though.
Saying that simply having the most ability makes relationships so unfair they shouldn't bother, that's... really very rude to all the mortal human less intelligent side of the relationships.
Because as long as everyone respects each other's free will and right to choose then they can get along perfectly well, even if very briefly by the standards of the survivor.
This isn't just me saying of course I'd date the Doctor, or of course the Doctor would date me.
Though if he did then my English degree probably wouldn't be a large part of the appeal, since his criteria so far seem to involve being brave, curious, and likely to wander off. He likes it when his friends make their own plans and tell him where he's going wrong. Sure he does things behind their back or with lying for their own good sometimes, but by consistently choosing to associate with people who consider his advice more of a general guideline than the word of god he is not in fact showing a preference for people to prop up his feeling of power. He is instead valuing them for their free will and intrepid spirit, even if they've got far less of a toolkit for understanding this universe they're all exploring together.
Which seems fair enough to me.
It's like superhero teams where everyone has a different power, and the ones that can fly carry the ones that can't, but don't look down on them in any but the literal sense. Or teams where some of them have twice or more the IQ of the others, but still respect their opinions and acknowledge they're the bosses of themselves. Or like mixed ability sports teams, where some of them are wheelchair users and others can get equipment up steps. People can get along together without differences being especially relevant. Why should mixed abilities mean not associating? Even romantically? Can't see an angle where that's not ablist.
... the bit of the post about how it's always guys on TV 'having to' go date a younger woman when the last relationship ages out, whereas the much scarcer immortal women usually do the pining away forever bit, that's an imbalance that needs fixing. But see also: Highlander (the Raven): Amanda. We didn't get gender parity in Immortality, but we did get some ladies who knew how to live. But then either way up is clearly feeding on ugly cultural threads about a woman's obligation to stay young and attract men forever, so there's some work needs doing on that.
This might just be me defending my preferences for fictional really old guys, but I think saying that age or intelligence in and of themselves create a power imbalance that means the more powerful should just never date is really problematic in what it says about what the younger can freely choose and cope with.
(Plus in a culture with as much power imbalance between genders and races as historically Earth has had, it kind of rules out... heterosexuality? And anything but being perfectly matching in every power-related dimension, which is kind of all of them. But that's an argue beyond the scope of tonight.)
no subject
Date: 2015-02-01 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 03:11 am (UTC)But.. I like the fact that these very human relationships are what keep the Immortal types (HL Immortals, Dr. Who, Vampires, etc.) from losing touch with what humanity means. I see it as similar in a way to how when you have children (or are around children), it reminds you of the really open, loving, different way they see the world before it becomes convoluded and choked down by society. And I would think, that if someone were Immortal, that they would need people along the way to keep up with what is new, to reintroduce them to the world in different ways. In a way, that's what all interpersonal relationships do, right?