Love in the Genres-Fantasy Couples

There’s something incredibly profound and absolutely terrifying about loving, and being loved.  Love grants us our greatest heights and deepest lows, and can be simultaneously our strength and a weakness.  The same emotional upheaval applies to our favorite fictional characters.  Any well-designed literary or movie creation with the capacity for emotions can be at risk of meeting their perfect match-the one being that holds the power to complete or destroy them.  And when they succumb, the fallout can be epic.

From the times of ancient gods and myths one recurring them is of the deity who falls helplessly in love with a mortal.  Modern interpretations of this classic theme have included a number of popular storylines and characters, each replete with obstacles and consequences the lucky or unlucky couple will have to face.  That beings from vastly different backgrounds strive to have a relationship should give us hope, or encouragement, but mostly we just like to watch them angst and love.

The immortal elf, Arwen, fell in love with a mortal, Aragorn, in the epic Lord of the Rings.  Aragorn was not an ordinary man, he was destined to be a king, but Arwen lived centuries on Earth with the chance to travel to another realm and continue living forever.  To realize her love for Aragorn, though, meant staying in a world filled with strife and encroaching evil, and giving up her immortality.  Aragorn tried to persuade her to leave, but Arwen insisted on staying with him, even knowing she would far outlive him in the end.  They ultimately were married and established as king and queen in Middle Earth.

An immortal of a different type, Edward Cullen, was smitten with a mortal Bella Swan in the Twilight series.  Edward was not strictly speaking a god, but instead a vampire with god-like powers.  His family quickly welcomed Bella into the arms, but doing so put her in danger, and Edward tried to leave Bella behind for her own safety.  Once again it took the stubborn human to make the love connection work, and ultimately Bella joined the clan as one of them.  Theirs was a different type of happily-ever-after, but in the end, they were together, so they were happy.

When Thor met Jane Foster in the Marvel movie Thor, he was not looking for a relationship.  He had literally had his world taken from him, along with his powers.  Temporarily forced to be human, he learned humility and found a respect for the humans of the earth realm, but overall found he could not deny a great attraction to one feisty, beautiful scientist.  He gave his heart to her, even knowing he had to leave to save the universe, and then suffered the tragedy when he was unable to return.  While Jane pined for Thor, not knowing his fate, at least until the next movie, Thor had the guardian of Asgard, Heimdall, to watch Jane for him.  The ultimate fate of these two lovers has yet to be revealed.

There are countless other-world romances, some with happy endings, some not, and I plan to address a number of these in the month of February in celebration of one of my favorite holidays, Valentine’s Day.  Please check in again as next week I will have the next installment in this month-long blog series.

Thanks for your support,

Amy