Ireth
Myth Weaver
I've been thinking a lot about this, and it seems to me that there's a bit of a discrepancy in how people view relationships between immortal and mortal beings in fantasy. Take Twilight for example (*ducks thrown tomatoes and rocks*) -- much of the outcry against it, from what I've seen, is because Edward is 100+ years old and stuck in a 17-year-old body, while Bella is physically and mentally 17 (later 18). It's disgusting because Edward, while eternally young and beautiful (YMMV on that one), has the life experience of a very old man, making his relationship with Bella one of ephebophilia -- though you may argue it won't matter much once Bella's been dead for a century or two, the fact remains that while she's still human, it's icky.
Taking another literary example, let's look at Tuck Everlasting. Like Edward, Jesse Tuck is a 104-year-old stuck in the body of a 17-year-old, and he is in love with the 15-year-old Winnie Foster. The main conflict in the book, much like in Twilight, is whether or not Winnie will choose to be immortal, in this case by drinking from the magical spring that had this effect on Jesse and his family. This relationship, unlike Twilight, is realistically sweet and romantic, and I've yet to hear anyone protesting "but he's so oooold!" This may be due to the fact that Jesse is not an abusive, emotionally manipulative stalker like the aforesaid sparklepire, but that's beside the point. He's still an older man in love with an underage girl. Not to spoil it too much, the endings of both stories are quite different.
So why the discrepancy? There are other examples of such relationships I could mention, which have their own points for discussion -- a famous one is Aragorn and Arwen. In these cases, the lovers in question are both mature adults who have waited a long time to be together -- I believe Aragorn waited more than sixty years between meeting Arwen and finally marrying her after the War of the Ring. He's in his late eighties when they're married, though due to his elven ancestry he looks much younger. In this case, the woe of "but I'll outlive you!" is resolved by Arwen giving up her immortality (since she's only mostly elven, she has the choice), so in the end she only outlives him by a matter of years rather than centuries.
What are your thoughts on this?
Taking another literary example, let's look at Tuck Everlasting. Like Edward, Jesse Tuck is a 104-year-old stuck in the body of a 17-year-old, and he is in love with the 15-year-old Winnie Foster. The main conflict in the book, much like in Twilight, is whether or not Winnie will choose to be immortal, in this case by drinking from the magical spring that had this effect on Jesse and his family. This relationship, unlike Twilight, is realistically sweet and romantic, and I've yet to hear anyone protesting "but he's so oooold!" This may be due to the fact that Jesse is not an abusive, emotionally manipulative stalker like the aforesaid sparklepire, but that's beside the point. He's still an older man in love with an underage girl. Not to spoil it too much, the endings of both stories are quite different.
So why the discrepancy? There are other examples of such relationships I could mention, which have their own points for discussion -- a famous one is Aragorn and Arwen. In these cases, the lovers in question are both mature adults who have waited a long time to be together -- I believe Aragorn waited more than sixty years between meeting Arwen and finally marrying her after the War of the Ring. He's in his late eighties when they're married, though due to his elven ancestry he looks much younger. In this case, the woe of "but I'll outlive you!" is resolved by Arwen giving up her immortality (since she's only mostly elven, she has the choice), so in the end she only outlives him by a matter of years rather than centuries.
What are your thoughts on this?