the ask@AAR: Do you believe in destiny?
I’ve just finished reading Pachinko which I loved. It’s a multigenerational tale of Koreans living in Japan during the 20th and 21st centuries. One of the themes the novel explores is whether or not your nationality/race/ancestors define who you are. Lee, the author, makes a strong case that in places of great prejudice, it does. This I feel is true. I do not, however, believe in kismet or mystical destiny.
Thus, everytime I encounter the trope in romance, it irks me. I dislike the there’s only one person for me contention. It seems depressing–what if your soulmate dies from leukemia or moves away forever? Part of what I love about romance is the belief that everyone deserve a happy ending–somehow the idea that you are destined for just one other soul puts that at risk.
How about you? Do you believe in kismet? Do you like destiny in your love stories? And if so, what are some romances that do that well?
In real life, I don’t believe in pre-ordained “destiny”. But in fiction, and romances in particular, it’s sort of a requirement. Call it what you will: fated mates, arranged marriage, marriages of convenience, mail order brides, shipwrecked together, snowed in . . . they’re all along a similar continuum for me. The story becomes about how the characters deal with the situation in which they find themselves.
In well-written “fated mates” stories, it is only one character that believes in the concept, and much of the story revolves around getting the other protagonist to not only “understand” the situation in which they find themselves, but to choose the other character (e.g. Patricia Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series, with Charles and Anna Cornick; or Kelly Armstrong’s Bitten, with Elena and Clay are good examples). A “not PNR” example of the same thing is “love at first site” stories (e.g. Devil’s Bride, by Stephanie Laurens; or The Bride by Julie Garwood – both books are “marriage of convenience” but also pretty much “love at first site” stories).
There is a good argument to be made that all romances are about predestination, in a way. It isn’t a romance without an HEA. It’s a psychological construct to think that characters have agency in any book that *absolutely* is going to end in an HEA, isn’t it? Characters in romances – by definition – are “pre-destined” to end up together.
Agree. BUT I do think DESTINY as the said plot device is sometimes just odd.
If everything is predestined or preplanned by a higher deity, what’s the point of living?
I don’t believe in fate, predestination or “God has a plan” at all. Life is just a mish-mash of uncertainties – and opportunities – and the way we choose to deal with them, as they arise, is a matter, usually and hopefully, of personal choice. I do think that some people are trapped by external circumstances beyond their control but human will is strong and so one can nearly always weigh up the choices and act on them. It’s not a trope I value in fiction as it takes away choice, careful evaluation of character and using one’s own life experiences to understand options.
IRL, I think we have many potential matches, with various degrees of fit. Relationships that endure usually start with a reasonably good fit, and the participants put in the work needed to make it last.
I think the overused destined/fated mate trope in PNR & UF can be traced to some early writers in one or both of those genres, with later writers accepting it as a genre feature. Each writer puts their own spin on it, but more often than not I just accept it as one of the poorer parts of the world-building.
I wrote a brief description of my beliefs about fate & free will years ago (http://www.ccrsdodona.org/m_dilemma/1995/vir/freewill.html).
I’m not a huge fan of fated mates in romance novels. I like there to be a natural emotional growth as the couple meet and get closer. That being said, if I pick up a book that is clearly part of the fated mates or omegaverse sub-genres, I accept that in that particular book the matings are fated and I have to go along with that trope if I’m going to read the book.
In real life, you can drive yourself crazy if you think about all the things that had to go right for you to be here (my parents only met because my Dad, who was serving in the British Army in Korea, was looking at one of his friend’s photos from back home and saw a friend of the guy’s girlfriend in one of the pictures and said, “Can you ask your girlfriend if this woman would like a pen pal?”) or to have met your significant other (I never would have met my husband if I hadn’t had a horrible boss in 1984 and ended up transferring to a completely different job, where in 1985 he showed up as a new hire). Either you attribute these events to chance and coincidence or you attribute them to kismet/fate, but inevitably we are who we are and where we are and with whom we are because of a series of decisions, choices, and actions made by ourselves and others.
My husband and I talk about this a lot. The circumstances under which we met were wildly random and unlikely. He thinks that’s amazing. I think, eh, we had a mutual acquaintance–we might have crossed paths some other time.
After we met, my husband and I discovered that we had been in the same places the previous two New Year’s Days—but since one was a concert and the other was the Pasadena Rose Parade, we figured it was unlikely we’d have met at either of those events.
I don’t know that we would have met at another time but…. I don’t feel we were fated to meet that night. I’m just glad we did.
Makes me wonder. If the good things in life, like meeting one’s future spouse, are fated to happen, does that mean the bad things – loss of a child, rape, terminal cancer, etc. – are also fated to happen?
Not to go too far afield but there are some people who think everything is fated. Some people will just say “God has a plan” when they hit hard times assuming there is a big picture they just don’t know about. Others say their suffering is so they can earn their spot in heaven.
For the Puritan faith and some others there was a strong belief in “predestination”- that God had already decided who was going to heaven and who wasn’t. But you could mess it up so you had to live a perfect life (according to their rules) so that you didn’t make God change his mind. So you couldn’t earn your way in, but you could lose your spot. It was all gloom and doom IMHO.
I really don’t like the idea of anything being pre-set, it makes me feel trapped. I was raised on the idea of “free will” and that we choose our destiny, both personally and spiritually.
(I think that’s why in the Catholic sacraments of baptism and confirmation there is a line where you say affirmatively- or your godparent at baptism says it for you- that you “reject Satan and all his works”)
It’s your choice (when you are old enough you state for yourself that you reject Satan etc.) and your free will. You just have to make the right choice.
My husband’s old secretary was Pentecostal. One day, she was late to work–she lived out in the country–due to flat tire. When she finally arrived she told him, “God was looking out for me–a friend drove by and picked me up.” My husband asked if this was the same God who gave her the flat tire….
I guess it depends on if you think God causes everything to happen, or as some believe he’s like a big clockmaker who set everything up and pushed it into motion and let it go.
I think a lot of people’s answers would be- he didn’t cause the flat but he will jump in to help you out.
I remember when my mother had terminal cancer, my father (who became a born-again Christian after her diagnosis) said that God had given her cancer to bring him back into the fold.
Since I was an atheist, I asked if God would give him terminal cancer to bring me back into the fold. He didn’t reply, but I could imagine a real domino effect going on, each person in the family converting and then being killed off to make the next one convert.
I’m so sorry to hear about your mother’s illness.
I don’t want to criticize anyone’s religion, but I do think it’s fascinating that so many different groups and religions can look at the same text- The New Testament, and get completely different things from it.
When you look at all the offshoots of Christianity and the beliefs, sometimes it’s hard to even see the common core.
I’m always fascinated to look at those Bible sites that show you all the different translations in different sect’s Bibles for Bible verses. The meanings vary so wildly.
As one of my professors once said, “The Bible may indeed be a perfect document, but it is subject to the interpretation of people—who are far from perfect.”
I actually don’t mind the trope as long as the characters still evolve as the story moves long and I can see how their “fated mating” has a reason to be. When the couple is fated and all they do from the moment they meet is have sex, then there’s no point in the story after ll.
I think it’s a fun trope as in most of the books I read or recall, one or both of the people are struggling against it and they have to come to actually like and trust each other with this big thing hanging over their head that they don’t want to accept or give in to.
Kresley Cole’s “Immortals After Dark” series was fun to me with the god-like characters and their one true mate who often blows them off for centuries.
I also really enjoy Ruby Dixon’s works where to live on the Ice Planet, every animal including humans and human-like aliens I guess, have to accept a symbiont that keeps them healthy. It also picks for you your “mate” in order to keep the species propagating and it’s physically impossible to resist.
Part of the fun is the aliens that live there are accepting that “resonance always decides” and throwing a bunch of twenty something 21st century earth women who often say “hell no” and seeing how it will work out.
Of all the authors who has done this the best, Cole is one of the ones at the top.
I don’t believe in it at all in real life, but I think that’s why it’s such a big trope in romance.
In the “real world” our whole lives are filled with uncertainty, and choosing who you spend the rest of your life with, create a family with and build a home with is one of the most important decisions you can make. And it’s one you by and large make with somewhat of a leap of faith, that you will grow together and stand by each other in good times and bad.
The “fated mate” trope says not only will you be a good match, you are supposed to be together. It’s more than a guarantee, it’s a mandate. It’s no wonder it’s popular.
I’ve seen fans posting things about Ruby Dixon’s books like “a I wish we had a Khui that pairs us with the right person”. I don’t necessarily agree with that at all, but I understand the appeal of some force telling you with 100% certainty “this is the person made for you” and handing you your “soulmate”.
Because in the real world, as we all know things are often messy, uncertain and difficult.
Interesting.
I cannot stand the ‘fated mates’ nonsense in a lot of paranormal romances, which is perhaps why I never read them anymore (yes Marian, I too read those Carpathian books back in the day with fascination even though they were quite disturbing, but my taste has definitely evolved since then).
I feel that relying on destiny as a substitute for demonstrating a developing emotional connection is a sign of laziness or lack of skill in an author. I want to feel the characters falling in love, possibly overcoming misconceptions about each other or learning to appreciate each other’s strengths, rather than just being told they’re meant for each other and that’s that. Insta-love books also bore me. I abandon many a romance when I feel like the falling in love part of the story is done, even if the book has 20% or 50% still to go.
I want to feel like the characters have found their way to each other and that they have chosen each other. None of this ‘written in the stars’ BS for me.
You’ve expressed that beautifully. Thank you!
Oh no, these weren’t the Carpathian books. This was a series of self-published romances that was not just derivative but somehow unhealthier than any other paranormal I’ve read. I just looked them up on Smashwords to be sure, and the characters spend most of their time wallowing in misery (occasionally crying or even screaming) because they don’t have soulmates. Thankfully the writer’s blog said she’s now tired of soulmates and thinks the topic is stale.
And I also find destiny-propelled instalove boring. If I have to read a soulmate romance, I want finding the soulmate to be the start of the couple’s problems, not the end of them.
Sorry, my mistake! It was a long time ago, and there are definitely some similar elements, like the insanity thing. I am getting intolerant in my (reading) old age, and there are so many books I kind of liked back in the day that I now look back on with utter disdain….
Regarding similar elements, I believe Lara Adrian’s Midnight Breed series also had the trope where the Breedmates were recognized by a birthmark, and as you mentioned, the “terrible thing will happen unless he finds the woman born to complete him” is from the Carpathian books.
One thing that made this particular writer’s series different was that the men weren’t vampires, were-creatures or any other paranormal race I’ve read about before. So that could have been interesting. But otherwise, there was nothing new except for everyone being either clinically depressed or explosively angry until they found a soulmate.
Julie Anne Long’s 10 or 11 book Pennyroyal Green series is strung together by Olivia Eversea’s single minded love for Lyon Redmond – her one and only. I haven’t read the entire series and so can’t judge on whether it’s worth it or not. Some of the books are fantastic – but they don’t dwell on Olivia.
But they’re not fated to be together–they just fell in love when they were young and never got over each other. That doesn’t bother me–I love the Olivia/Lyon storyline in those books!
Oh, boy, the soulmate trope.
I once came across a writer who was working on a series of paranormal romances that used this trope, and used it hard.
Basically, if one of the extremely powerful, immortal men in the series found out you were his soulmate, that was it for you. You could forget about privacy, because he’d be watching you from the time you were born. You couldn’t show the slightest interest in anyone else because the man would be homicidal with jealousy.
You wouldn’t even have a choice about being a soulmate, because being born with a particular birthmark = soulmate. On top of that, if the men in the stories didn’t find soulmates, they would go insane out of sheer loneliness. I knew the writer was aiming for romantic, but these stories were so bleak, smothering and toxic that I read them out of morbid fascination.
And yeah, the whole “you are destined for only one person and there is only one person in the world who can ever complete you and make you happy” trope meant the men were just twiddling their thumbs until their soulmates hurried up and got born. Though at least one of those men had meaningless sex with countless women whom he took no interest in because they lacked the soulmate birthmark.
Anyway, the bottom line is… no, unless destiny is handled well in the romance, I wouldn’t be interested. I’m not even keen on those romances where the heroine isn’t allowed to have a good relationship with her dead first husband, or to love him as much as she loves the hero, because to me that’s just another version of the “only one person for you” trope.
I want to feel that these people are together because they chose each other, rather than because fate put a gun to his head. Very often, the soulmate trope takes away the heroine’s agency as well. I’ve no doubt that a good enough author could pull off this trope, but it’s just not a risk I want to take when there are so many books out there which are more likely to work for me.
The lack of choice is certainly an odd thing in destiny love stories.
It feels like insecurity, to give characters no choice at all.
And the other strange thing about the soulmate trope, at least in the stories I read, is how accepting everyone is of their fate. If I were told, “Hey, you’ll go insane unless you find the one person in the world who is destined to love you”, I wouldn’t be searching for a soulmate, I’d be looking for a way to break this curse that had been laid over both of us. Because doesn’t that person also deserve to make their own choices in life rather than being born to make me happy, like some sort of indentured servitude?
But none of the men in the stories, immensely powerful though they were, ever questioned the rules. They’d read the script and they knew their place in it.
The concept of “destined to be together” that I like is the one that I have seen in the oriental narrative (be it in manga or Japanese novels) I do not remember one in specific but more than destiny it is a connection for example:
Heroina had a teacher that she greatly admired and was a father figure during her adolescence, then the man dies and she remembers him fondly then she meets the hero they fall in love and oh! He is the son of that teacher and also has among his late father’s belongings a photograph where the father goes out with the heroine and her classmates at graduation.
Stories like that … things you can look at as “a pretty coincidence” or “destiny” or if you are a Christian “the hand of God” but doesn’t feel like “the only destined person you can ever really experience love with”.
I would only accept destined couples, to have only one person that you could ever love if the story is in a fantasy world and they are all immortal.