Not talking here about the obviously fantasy weddings we usually see (in pictures in the paper announcing them, for instance) between the beautiful bride and the handsome groom who might as well be made of sugar icing because they’re going to melt in the first heat of difficulty.\u00a0 No, talking here about the weddings in fantasy fiction…since there’s going to be one (though not yet…don’t start making the cake now.)<\/p>\n
Fiction allows the writer to propose better pairings, with more mature and capable partners…or to go with the conventional (prince and princess,\u00a0 knight and lady, peasant and peasant)…and then treat the resultant match with either a positive or negative bias.\u00a0\u00a0 The writer can opt for realism or fantasy-fantasy, and a lot will depend on the writer’s own background and attitude towards not just marriage but many other things.<\/p>\n
In my case, the experience was assumed, early on, to be all bad: my parents were divorced, my father lived far away and showed up only rarely and unpredictably.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He had another family, and it was made clear to me that his primary responsibility was there.\u00a0\u00a0 I married a man whose mother was a widow with three boys.\u00a0 Yes, hands were raised in shock and horror.\u00a0\u00a0 How could two people, neither of whom had a father in the house, possibly make a good marriage and be decent parents?<\/p>\n
I’m a bit grumpy about that presumption: we did it the same way ALL successfully married people and parents do it, whether or not they had a father around, with that familiar old four-letter word “Work.”\u00a0\u00a0 Our mothers worked at being good parents; we expected to work at being good partners and (if we had children) parents.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’m also a bit grumpy about all those questionnaires in magazines on finding the right partner, because (opinionated old lady that I am) I think there are three essentials that are almost never mentioned, in the lists you see:\u00a0 integrity, courage, and capacity to love.<\/p>\n
No marriage is trouble-free; life throws hard fast curve-balls at everyone.\u00a0 To survive as a couple requires both integrity–so you can trust one another–and courage–to deal with the troubles that will come–and the capacity to love, so it’s not all just jaw-clenching endurance.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have seen the marriages of friends and acquaintances founder on every broken leg of this triad:\u00a0 when trust is betrayed, when one or both partners can’t handle tough times, when one or both are cold calculators instead of generous lovers.<\/p>\n
I’m lucky: forty years, five months, 14 days of what I consider a good marriage.\u00a0 We’ve dealt with some big problems, starting with a year’s separation right off the bat–his deployment to Viet Nam.\u00a0\u00a0 We are not fantasy people, all perfect: we have both been angry, disappointed, frustrated, and imperfect in multiple ways.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s been work as well as fun; tears as well as laughter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A lot of experience, in those years, months, and days, and the experience is still building.<\/p>\n
So, when my characters start making sheep’s eyes at one another,\u00a0 I have the duty to figure out whether the romance will move toward marriage, whether that marriage serves the story, and whether that particular partnership serves the story best.\u00a0\u00a0 Do I meddle?\u00a0 You betcha.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Vatta’s War<\/em>, Stella was never going to get Rafe (“He’s wrong for you, girl!”)\u00a0 and though Ky and Rafe have their flings, marriage is not happening.<\/p>\n Characters, as well as writers, have a past.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They should not be forced into a “convenient” match (unless the story calls for it, but I don’t write that kind of story), or\u00a0 kept from one that’s part of their true nature.\u00a0\u00a0 Like real people, characters can change with time–their priorities, their understanding of themselves, their reasons for marriage (or no marriage) and children (or no children.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In their history are the marriages (or at least congress) of their parents, those also shaping their attitudes…and that’s particularly true for the half-elven, children of mortal and immortal.<\/p>\n This is leading up to Kings of the North<\/em>, of course…a major subplot of that book\u00a0 is, as you’d expect, Kieri’s search for a wife.\u00a0\u00a0 When he agreed, back in Tsaia, that yes, he would marry and provide an heir,\u00a0 that was in the context of discovering that he was Lyonya’s king.\u00a0 He was, as it were, in shock–amazed,\u00a0 even somewhat confused.\u00a0 He knew, as anyone would, that one of a king’s or queen’s duties was to provide an heir–to secure the succession–because that prevents the confusion and possible conflict of an undetermined succession.\u00a0\u00a0 But he had no idea–since he had never considered remarriage–what kind of woman he might now marry.<\/p>\n The trip to Lyonya was so eventful that he had no time to think.\u00a0\u00a0 So his consideration begins after his arrival in Lyonya, and he has many other urgent concerns besides marriage.\u00a0\u00a0 As time goes on, and he does think more and more about it,\u00a0 he is constrained (as are we all) by his past experience…something he needs to get beyond, to see clearly.\u00a0\u00a0 His only model for a wife is Tammarrion (who would now be much older and very different–but he has never tried to imagine how she would be in the present, decade by decade.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He is not the hot-blooded young man he was then…much has happened to him, and around him…so he has to understand himself better, before he can think clearly about what he wants or needs.<\/p>\n Mikeli, King of Tsaia, is\u00a0 where Kieri was 25 years ago…only not even that, because he’s a king, not a new-minted lord that others look down on.\u00a0 There’s no defensiveness about his position: he knows he can marry any girl in the kingdom, or a foreign woman (though this will cause comment–but he can do it.)\u00a0\u00a0 As a prince, he and his close friends flirted with the young women who came to the palace\u00a0 but–since his mother had died and there was no queen in residence–there were not the young women of rank who might have been there as his mother’s attendants.<\/p>\n Mikeli knows he should marry in a few years, and expects he will marry some girl from a noble house in Tsaia–possibly one of his friends’ sisters–but he’s not in a hurry. \u00a0 Even though he’s been the target of assassins, he’s got the confidence of youth that he’ll live to have some fun before he marries.\u00a0\u00a0 (This may or may not be true, or he may–since he’s not stupid or lazy–make the decision to do it sooner rather than later and marry within a year.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t know yet.\u00a0 I’m nudging, and trailing two appropriate young women past him to see if he looks up and notices.)<\/p>\n Then there’s Arcolin, who also needs to marry for political reasons.\u00a0\u00a0 Whatever he said, his long unrequited romance with Aesil M’dierra never really ended…softened, but didn’t end until that dinner…and still lingers as a faint perfume.\u00a0\u00a0 Arcolin is not loath to marry for political reasons, but he’s honorable enough to care that he’s fair to his future wife, and she’s comfortable with what he has to offer.\u00a0 He’s had brief encounters (hardly even affairs) and does not aspire to the kind of marriage Kieri had (or wants.)\u00a0\u00a0 He expects to be a faithful partner, nothing much more.\u00a0\u00a0 At the moment (early in Book III) he also has other things to worry about, and I have no idea which baron’s daughter he might end up with.\u00a0\u00a0 If indeed he marries into the nobility and does not find someone else.<\/p>\n In Kings<\/em>, you’ll meet several much younger people–teenagers, in fact–who are too young (in that world) to marry, but looking around with wide eyes at new possibilities.\u00a0 Not so much romance, as a wider world than two of them have seen heretofore.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What will they be like when they return to the capital from their time as a duke’s squires?<\/p>\n Kings<\/em> will answer only some questions–the long arc is longer than that–but I hope you’ll enjoy following the characters through their own processes of growth-by-choice, and the fantasy weddings, when we get there, will be satisfying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not talking here about the obviously fantasy weddings we usually see (in pictures in the paper announcing them, for instance) between the beautiful bride and the handsome groom who might as well be made of sugar icing because they’re going to melt in the first heat of difficulty.\u00a0 No, talking here about the weddings in 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