Page: In Defense of Kel/Neal

[osprey_archer]

I reread Page over Christmas break, and then didn't post about it because things got busy, and also because it is my favorite book with my favorite Tamora Pierce heroine, so there's not much to write about it except SQUEE!

Hooray for Kel! And her epic hard work (she's always squeezing more time to practice into her ridiculously busy days), and her grim determination to overcome her fear of heights, and her delicious crush on Neal...

I am still sad that Kel and Neal never get together in the later books. The argument seems to be that it would send a bad message to have Kel get together with her first crush, because...presumably there's an epidemic of American schoolgirls who refuse to date anyone who wasn't their very first crush? "We can never be together! I gave my heart to Tony in the fifth grade!"

Yeah, that's not a thing. Marrying one's first crush/first love/high school sweetheart is very much not an ideal. One of the few things that Bella is absolutely right about in the Twilight books is that people are going to be just horrified if she marries her high school sweetheart just out of high school.

I had a friend who got married when she was, let's see, nineteen or twenty? And everyone, but everyone thought this was the worst thing ever. That sort of thing is considered lower-class and stupid and doomed to failure.

So no, the fact that this happens all the time in books is not a sign of a deep-seated American belief that everyone should marry young to their first love. Rather, it reflects the fact that it's narratively very unsatisfying to spend three hundred pages getting invested in a couple of crazy kids and their relationship, only to have the book end "And then they didn't get together! PSYCH! HA, they all married people who aren't even in the book!"

This reflects actual marriage patterns, but for goodness' sake, this is fiction. The mere fact that something is "realistic" doesn't mean that it's a satisfying plot for a novel.

Besides, if you want to write a book about how your first crush is not necessarily going to be your One True Love, probably the heroine's first crush should not be on someone as awesomely snarky as Neal. Couldn't Kel have gotten a hopeless crush on Cleon or Roald, and then grown out of it to realize that Neal was must better suited to her?

People tend to grow out of first crushes because their first crush is on someone unsuitable. If a first crush does happen to alight on someone who would be a good match, then it's silly to say "Well, you should get over it anyway, because after all you first started feeling this way when you were twelve, and obviously that means your feelings don't count. Because...because... twelve-year-olds don't have real feelings! And it's Bad to marry your first crush. Just on general principles!"

Comments

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

The argument seems to be that it would send a bad message to have Kel get together with her first crush, because...presumably there's an epidemic of American schoolgirls who refuse to date anyone who wasn't their very first crush?

*snerk*

I mean, I do appreciate that Pierce doesn't always do this because it IS so epidemic in YA fiction (and for single books, I can understand it, but for trilogies/series, I think there's more flexibility).

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I just think she could have done this in any of the other quartets. Daine has a schoolgirl crush on Kaddar! (Alternatively, Daine realizes that she isn't actually in love with Numair, but I don't think the books were ever going to go that route.) Aly realizes that Nawat is actually boring!

Actually, I think we're meant to assume that Aly has had crushes before, back in Tortall, but we don't see any of them so they don't count, narratively speaking.

Or Kel could have had her schoolgirl crush on anyone other than tall snarky Neal. The possibilities are endless!

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

*nods* I would really have preferred it in either of those...

Although I mostly ship Kel/her career/being a BAMF, so it doesn't bother me tooooo much.

[ladyherenya]

The mere fact that something is "realistic" doesn't mean that it's a satisfying plot for a novel.

Good point. It's like a tight-rope stories have to walk: between being realistic - or, I guess, convincing - and being satisfying. I appreciate the realism of Kel's relationships, especially that she doesn't have to end up with anyone for a 'happy ending', but I was also a bit disappointed because I was emotionally invested in her relationship with Neal... (It is possible that this contributed to me not realising how awesome Kel and the PotS books were until Lady Knight.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

When I first read Squire, I spent most of it in a state of high indignation over that interloping Cleon. Now that I am no longer twelve, I can see that Cleon is really pretty unobjectionable. But he's still not Neal.

[artemis_wandering]

Intriguing! I am definitely in the "ugh, how could you marry your first "love" but I'm actually with Pierce in that it is an epidemic. Or rather, in certain parts of the country, perhaps? Where I went to middle school and high school, it was never looked down on for doing that, generally. And, more importantly, I think it's an epidemic in YA novels. Perhaps that was the concern more than standard American society. That said, it definitely sounds like, if the author was going to try to a make a statement, then she should have crafted the book better and, as you said, had the heroine grow into the love of Neal, or something.

That said, that's definitely a Pierce book I didn't read growing up. Hmm. Might have to check it out eventually!