Childhood friend romances

[eclipse]

Eclipse, a small digression: you mentioned Twilight. Is it really THAT bad? I have never watched or read it, but many people are saying it's so EXTREMELY PAINFUL to follow that it seems they wouldn't do it even if promised a big reward unless they have a gun pointed at their head

Let's say that if I found out that some guy was watching me as I sleep, my first reaction wouldn't be "OMG SO ROMANTIC!"

[Samias]

I don't really mind childhood friend romances even though they're somewhat unreal. Teen romances in general hardly ever last, but it's fiction so I typically don't sweat that kind of semantics. I read a lot of manga and one of my favourite series of all time, Skip Beat, has both a childhood romance gone wrong and a forgotten childhood connection rediscovered and I love the series to death. I think the whole romance problem is also compounded by a lack of compelling characters in the genre. Either the men or the women or sometimes both are written with all the depth of a cardboard cutout at times, in which case childhood friend doesn't become a part of their history, but is virtually the only reason why a character exists, which is just boring.

My least favourite romance of all time that I have actually read to the bitter end is Harry Potter. Worst epilogue ever. I swear my eyes could've rolled back until they got stuck there. It wasn't really going all that badly but accelerated right into processed cheesiness.

...Actually Tales of Graces f is up there too, if only because the future arc is LET'S SHIP ALL THESE PEOPLE and Cheria makes me want to claw my face off.

[Dwalin2010]

My least favourite romance of all time that I have actually read to the bitter end is Harry Potter. Worst epilogue ever. I swear my eyes could've rolled back until they got stuck there. It wasn't really going all that badly but accelerated right into processed cheesiness.

...Actually Tales of Graces f is up there too, if only because the future arc is LET'S SHIP ALL THESE PEOPLE and Cheria makes me want to claw my face off.

Haven't yet played Tales of Graces, but I am going to. But what's wrong with this Cheria?

As for Harry Potter, I agree with you. The childhood friend stories there are among the few I still don't like. I am not really a fan of how they are described, and the fact the characters date so many people before getting together gets on my nerves. By the way, the pairing Ron x Hermione really made me say "what the [censored]?" There was absolutely NOTHING to indicate things could go this way, from how the relationship between these 2 characters was described before, romantic love was really out of place there. Nevertheless, there are people who haven't been surprised at all

[Samias]

I don't mind that people date other people over the course of 7 in-universe years. That makes a lot of sense. I just thought that the epilogue was tacked on half-heartedly to try and make the ending more cheery, but it felt very... awkward. The huge tonal shift almost read like an entirely different writer.

Cheria... fetishy clothes in garish colours, melting-off-her-face eyes, and the most annoying childhood friend and tsundere tropes rolled into one person, surrounded by an in-universe shipping squad. Tales characters are rarely deep but the whole can't-spit-out-her-obvious-feelings-to-oblivious-boy goes about 40 hours too far here.

[Life]

Best ending for Harry Potter would have been Harry waking up in his cupboard underneath the stairs.

Realistically, childhood love stories come out bad for the most part. They're completely unrealistic and usually complimented by bad writing. There was a French movie that did it really well (name escapes me for the moment) but in general, they're stupid.

[Dwalin2010]

Best ending for Harry Potter would have been Harry waking up in his cupboard underneath the stairs.

Why?

As for the stories not being realistic, I really don't understand why some people say fiction should necessarily be close to reality. In my case, I read or watch fiction because I want to immerse myself in a world where endings give a sense of hope unlike real life.

To be honest, I don't see the point of sad endings in fiction at all, unless it's based on a real-life tragedy that can't be changed. There already are enough tearjerking endings in real life. I mean, if somebody just wants to cry, they can watch a documentary about children dying in Africa or something like that (just my opinion).

And it's not like such pairings don't exist in real life at all. Even though such stories are relatively few, I have great respect for those people who never change partners and stay with the same person since childhood.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Dwalin2010

[S_Cero]

I don't like childhood romances. Mainly because 100% of the childhood romances I've read were done bad. Thus they leave a bad taste in my mouth.

[eclipse]

Why?

I'm not Lifey, but I would've liked that ending better, too. Instead of being a lighthearted magic-on-top-of-real-world children's story, it would've been about escape mechanisms that an abused boy made up to keep himself sane, and most definitely NOT for children.

[Dwalin2010]

I'm not Lifey, but I would've liked that ending better, too. Instead of being a lighthearted magic-on-top-of-real-world children's story, it would've been about escape mechanisms that an abused boy made up to keep himself sane, and most definitely NOT for children.

There are far too many real-life cases that end like that, so I don't think there is anything wrong in writing a book where things end differently and which gives a sense of hope. I don't think that, to be considered a masterpiece, a book must necessarily have a sad ending, only because it would be more realistic that way (not saying Harry Potter is a masterpiece, but still, my opinion is this).

[Agro]

I associate childhood-friend romances with anime so it's an instant "no" from me, since anime is objectively terrible (most of the time). Also childhood-friend-romances are often kind of creepy, especially if you've grown up with a person the entire time. They're like your siblings! Gosh, if I had a shot at one of my childhood friend-crushes I'd be like "nononononono". Hell, I wouldn't even go for the guy that I liked during high school.

[Life]

There are far too many real-life cases that end like that, so I don't think there is anything wrong in writing a book where things end differently and which gives a sense of hope. I don't think that, to be considered a masterpiece, a book must necessarily have a sad ending, only because it would be more realistic that way (not saying Harry Potter is a masterpiece, but still, my opinion is this).

To be considered a masterpiece, a book must have an EFFECTIVE ending. Eclipse explained perfectly why HP's revised ending would be better. Or take a book like... Let's go with Alice in Wonderland (or Through the Looking Glass, my Lewis Carroll isn't up to par). Is the book better if it turns out that Wonderland is real? No, the realization that Wonderland stems from Alice's brain opens up a whirlwind of discussion about her sanity and reliability as a narrator, thereby having the more effective ending.

Speaking of HP, I would claim that it's a masterpiece.

[Dwalin2010]

To be considered a masterpiece, a book must have an EFFECTIVE ending. Eclipse explained perfectly why HP's revised ending would be better. Or take a book like... Let's go with Alice in Wonderland (or Through the Looking Glass, my Lewis Carroll isn't up to par). Is the book better if it turns out that Wonderland is real? No, the realization that Wonderland stems from Alice's brain opens up a whirlwind of discussion about her sanity and reliability as a narrator, thereby having the more effective ending.

Speaking of HP, I would claim that it's a masterpiece.

I am not saying I disagree completely or that I don't understand. However, I can speak only for myself, and in my personal case I have read enough sad endings for the rest of my life during my times at school and university. Now I just prefer positive emotions.

[Samias]

I disagree that Harry Potter should have a downer ending. I just think that the "and everyone hooked up as you'd expect and had a lot of babies and got back together again and named their kids after people they know" ending was possibly the worst possible execution. I honestly believe the books are better served by that particular chapter not existing at all, but JK Rowling said she didn't want the ending to be ambiguous or to have room to write more books about Harry. Being set up for "And it was all just a dream and Harry is crazy" after 7 books is arguably a worse situation for this particular series, though. I would have thrown my book out the window if that were the case.

If a high school friend is considered a "childhood friend", then I might consider my boyfriend to be one. We met online when I was 13, met in person when I was 15, and have been going steady ever since and are planning to move in and marry each other in the next couple of years. And I definitely had a crush on my next door neighbour who I went to school with and was really close friends with without it feeling like a sibling relationship, though nothing ever came out of it. I don't think knowing someone for a long time as a friend makes a relationship impossible, or even improbable. It's probably not going to be TRUE LOVE FOREVER that gets sold to us in media, but that's also why I don't find it hard to enjoy those kinds of stories when I read them, so long as the writing is solid.

[Dwalin2010]

I agree with Samias for the most part.

It's probably not going to be TRUE LOVE FOREVER that gets sold to us in media

But I don't really think the media sell it to us as true love forever, there aren't that many childhood love stories with happy endings in fiction. For example, in most animes I heard about the main character chooses somebody else other than the childhood friend (unfortunately, in my opinion).

[Samias]

TRUE LOVE FOREVER is a pretty common theme in all romances, not necessarily childhood friends trope. When the main characters pick someone the resolution is almost always "and then they were together forever". It's easy to pick on the teen romance genre, but rom-coms of all sorts do the same thing even with older characters because marketers believe it's an easy sell to women's fantasies. Of course, most romances are objectively terrible because many of them follow the same arcs with flat characters that reduce one or more characters to a one-note caricature, and the time frame often seems impossible for anyone who has really been in a relationship.

[Dwalin2010]

Has anyone played Dragon Quest V and VIII ? I think that among the childhood friend romances in video games those are the cutest ones (in V it doesn't necessarily take place though, as you can choose between different girls). It isn't a romantic simulator though, but rather an RPG.

[Aizenberg]

I'm just a teenage dirt bag baby