a love that will go down in history - part 3

For previous parts, go here:
Part one: Romeo and Juliet, Cathy and Heathcliffe, and Bonnie and Clyde
Part two: Anthony and Cleopatra, Samson and Delilah, and Lancelot and Guinevere

And now...

Claire's Guide to Bad Fictional and Historical Relationships 

(Part the Third)

Helen and Paris

Ah, the face that launched a thousand ships and that other guy. 

This continues quite nicely from the last set of relationships as, yes that's right kids, one of them was married to someone else, and by getting it on they started a war. 

Oh, but let's not get overly sentimental here. Let's look at the REASON they got together. 

So, the Gods go to this wedding, right, and there's a massive feast, and Eris, Goddess of Spite, decides that she wants to mess with the other girls, because she's not been invited - largely because she's a total buzzkill. So she chucks this golden apple onto the middle of the table, inscribed 'to the fairest'. It's like the extreme version of the bouquet toss. Three Goddesses reach for it - Athena, Aphrodite and Hera. You can imagine that none of these women is the type to just back down. 

They turn to Zeus, king of the Gods, and demand that he decide. Now, he might be a jerk but he's not stupid - he's not going to pick between his wife, his daughter, and his daughter-in-law-who-he-wants-to-bone - so he tells them to go ask Paris. Paris was hanging out on a mountain being a shepherd, because a priest had told his parents that he would be the downfall of Troy, and that he should be killed. But they couldn't do that. So he got dumped on this mountain.

So they go. And of course they all try to bribe their way to victory - Hera offers Paris the chance to be king of Europe and Asia; Athena offers him wisdom and skill in war; and Aphrodite, clearly knowing her audience, offers him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Which Paris takes, because you know, why go for something practical when you could be having sex?

Paris decides that he wants Helen without ever having met her, just knowing she's mega-hot. Helen gets NO SAY IN THIS AT ALL.

Here's the thing that Aphrodite didn't mention, or probably care that much about. The most beautiful woman in the world is Helen, Zeus' daughter (conceived whilst he was a swan, with the Queen of another country, yeah myths are fun). And she is married. To the King of Sparta. 

Yes, that's right, Sparta. You know.

 Interesting point: You'll notice that Sparta is landlocked. In the film 'Troy', amongst its other crimes against cinema, Helen and Paris escape by boat. So they are not good at Geography, along with History, Mythology and scriptwriting.

So Paris decides to kidnap her - whilst visiting Sparta on a diplomatic mission no less! - and takes her back to Troy (maybe using a boat at some point, but not climbing out of a window and down cliffs directly into a boat like in the movie because COME ON). And naturally, Menelaus, her husband, is a bit narked about all this. 

Oh, but here's the kicker. Because Helen was so beautiful, and all her suitors were so powerful, her (adoptive) Father made all her suitors swear loyalty to whomever he chose as her husband. So not only did he upset SPARTA, but he also had basically every army in Greece coming after him because of this oath.

Thus begins the Iliad. At first, Paris tries to fight it out with Menelaus because he realises he's made a bit of a cockup, politically speaking, but Menelaus hands his ass to him and Aphrodite whisks him away before he gets turned into a Paris of a different gender. Transported back to his bedroom where Helen is, Aphrodite then forces - that's right forces - Helen to be with him, after she is shot by one of Eros' arrows.

Things suck a bit for Helen - she's gone from being Queen of a country that was pretty stellar for Women's Rights, to being forced to shack up with a rubbishy little prince who spent his entire life living on a mountain and staging bullfights for money.

And this war? Lasted like 9 years. And it was a siege, so she couldn't even exactly go on day trips, she was trapped in the city with this little oik for 9 years. And over the course of it basically everybody died. It was a mess.

And then Paris gets killed towards the end of the war, but does that end it? Oh no! Can't let Helen go back to her husband now, it's a matter of principle! Nope, instead they marry her off to one of Paris' brothers instead. Just, y'know, whatever.

After all this, the Greeks pull the Trojan Horse thing, get inside, and just wreck the place. Like murdering and raping basically everyone, and chucking babies off the city walls and everything. It's not nice. Not nice at all. There are mixed stories as to where Helen stood during this - The Odyssey says she tortured the Greek soldiers by mimicking the voices of their wives back home; The Iliad says she performed Bacchic rites with the Trojan women. The Aeneid says that she hides her new husband's sword (Paris' brother, remember), so that he gets hacked to bits by her actual husband and is unable to defend himself, which is terribly Spartan of her. 

Menelaus finds her, and is about to kill her, but instead she drops her clothes and he realises that she's too beautiful to kill. So back to Sparta she goes! 

The lesson here: Consent is important, kids! Or it could get messy!

Alternative lesson: When all else fails, just get your boobs out and it will probably be fine.

Body Count: Easily in the hundreds of thousands, plus lots of rapes and other such funtimes.

Gatsby and Daisy

Wow, okay, so, I'm hoping - like seriously hoping - that most people who have read 'The Great Gatsby' know that it really isn't a romance. Like really really. The only reason I'm including this is because I saw it on one of those stupid keepsake wedding frames with the lists of names, I mentioned in post 1 and I was so horrified that I felt it needed to be addressed.

So, Gatsby is this mysterious and extremely wealthy guy who throws all these really hedonistic parties in his huge manor house. And who is totally obsessed with this woman who he dated for a bit in 1917. Who is married to another man and has a kid.

And I mean like SUPER obsessed. Creepy stalker obsessed. His whole lifestyle, his money and his parties are all just to get her to pay attention to him - he followed her to where she lived and bought the house across the bay from her so he could stare creepily at her house from his garden.

THAT IS NOT WHAT NORMAL PEOPLE DO WHEN THEY LIKE SOMEONE, GATSBY.

Anyway, Gatsby gets his new neighbour, Nick, handily Daisy's cousin, to invite Daisy over so they can 'meet by chance'. Lo and behold, they start having an affair. Marvellous! But it's okay, because Daisy's husband, Tom, is also having an affair. So, tit for tat and their child is going to grow up with no issues whatsoever because it's not like either of them is actually near it for long enough to influence it in any way at all.

And then Daisy and Tom and Gatsby and Nick and this woman called Jordan, who Nick is supposed to be dating but doesn't seem to like all that much, all have tea together and Tom realises Daisy and Gatsby are having an affair. So he forces them all to drive to New York, and rents out a really expensive hotel suite and insists they get drunk and it's all super awkward when he confronts Gatsby, claiming that he and Daisy have a history, and also that Gatsby is a criminal who made his money through bootlegging. And Nick and Jordan are just like wuuuuut.

Suddenly Daisy realises that maybe actually her loyalties lie with her husband after all, but Tom sends her and Gatsby packing to prove that Gatsby can't do anything to him, because Daisy doesn't really love him. Except of course they're all drunk, so this can only end badly. And it does! With Tom's mistress getting run over by Gatsby's car as she attempts to leave her own husband and come and see Tom.

(from the 1949 movie of the book, which is clearly the best movie ever)

Well, that's kinda shitty, right? It get worse. Daisy was driving the car that hit poor old Myrtle up there, but Gatsby takes the fall for her. Tom, still narked at Gatsby, tells Myrtle's husband that Gatsby killed her, and Mr Myrtle promptly marches up to Gatsby's house and shoots him whilst he's chillaxing in his pool, because he also thinks that Gatsby was the one schtupping his wife, rather than Tom. Mr Myrtle kills himself too.

No-one turns up for Gatsby's funeral, and Daisy goes back to Tom where they can now concentrate their joint efforts on wrecking their child.

Body Count: 3. Which for a novel that's only 218 pages is pretty high.



Tristan and Isolde

You knew this relationship was going to end badly from the very start - Wagner wrote an opera about it, so clearly it wasn't going to end in hundreds of sprogs and fluffy bunnies ever after. And also being that it was Wagner and not any other composer, you kind of knew that it was just going to be an awful lot of Not Very Good Bad Awful Things right up until the death as well. Because, you know, Wagner.

This whole shebang starts when Isolde's fiance goes off and gets himself killed by Tristan. Isolde is naturally a bit upset about this. Then she stumbles over this guy who's been mortally wounded and cares for him, until she discovers that it's Tristan. She tries to kill him, but can't actually do it, so instead sends him packing with a flea in his ear, and makes him swear he'll never come back.

So obviously he comes back. And kidnaps her to take to Cornwall so his Uncle, King Marke, can marry her. Because some people just don't know how to return a favour.

Needless to say, Isolde is a bit narked about the whole thing, and makes a fuss the whole journey from Ireland to Cornwall. She keeps demanding that Tristan come see her and apologise, and he keeps sending snotty messages back. In the end, she refuses to get off the ship until Tristan comes to "drink atonement to her". Whilst she's passing this message on via her maid, Brangäne, she also discloses that she reason she wants Tristan to drink with her is so she can slip him a large dose of some nasty poison she brought along with her for just such an occasion, which her maid is more than a little shocked about.

Brangäne convinces Tristan to come down, and prepares the drinks for them. Both Isolde and Tristan drink, Isolde taking half of the potion as well, intending to kill herself. But uh-oh, what's this? Brangäne, redefining drink spiking in her own special way, has switched the poison with a potion that causes immediate and relentless love.

And then they arrive in Cornwall! Where Isolde is to be married! To Tristan's Uncle!

Naturally, of course, Tristan and Isolde sneak around behind everyone's backs and have their affair. Tristan spends a lot of time moping about daytime being awful because they can't be together, and melodramatically declares that because they can only be together at night then they should both kill themselves to enjoy the longest night ever. Then he makes them both dye their hair black and listen to Evanescence for a bit.

They try to hide the way they feel about each other, but Tristan's friend Melot is starting to suspect them anyway.

Melot, of course, shops them to King Marke and then tries to fight Tristan. Tristan refuses to explain why he has betrayed his Uncle, because in the immortal words of every teenager ever, he wouldn't understand! So instead he dives right into this fight, and then chucks away his sword and lets Melot stab him. That's right, he intentionally gets himself all stabbed to pieces.

Tristan's whisked away to France basically before anyone else has a chance to say anything, and Isolde has to trail along behind to try and catch up. Tristan wakes up, and is extremely narked that he is alive, and still in love with Isolde. Considering this is all only happening because he was roofied by Isolde's maid, I think he has a fair right to be miffed. In fact, he gets so upset about this love potion that he drives himself into exhausted delirium, and dies just as Isolde finally makes it to him.

Then King Marke arrives with Melot and Brangäne, and Melot immediately gets killed in a fight with Tristan's servant, who also dies. Marke rocks up, and explains to Isolde that actually he'd come to tell Tristan and Isolde they could get married, because Brangäne explained everything to him, thus making Tristan's melodrama even more daft because if he had just explained himself instead of stomping around like an angry 14-year-old then he'd still be alive.

And then, for no readily apparent reason at all, Isolde also dies. Possibly from all the melodrama.

So, I suppose in theory you could look at it as a happy ending of sorts because Isolde and Tristan end up dead, which had been Isolde's master plan in the beginning. As relationships go, however, murdering a girl's fiance, then kidnapping her for your Uncle, and then only falling in love with her because of some epic date-rape drugging, don't exactly provide the strongest foundations for a healthy future together. Especially when you're in love with someone, and you're angry that you've been drugged to be in love with this person.

Yeah guys, let's keep that in mind. Tristan was pretty angry about the whole thing.

What was that lesson we learned whilst we were at Troy? That's right kids - Consent is good!

Body Count:  5, counting Isolde's fiance, 4 if we don't count him. From a cast of 6 named characters.



Here endeth the lesson in Epic Relationships Which Aren't Really Epic. And to be fair, most of these issues could have been avoided by following three simple rules.

1) Don't cheat
2) Don't kill people
3) Consent consent consent!

All these guys could easily have lived much healthier lives if they'd just said

Honestly though, guys. Seriously. I hope that we have now learned that these are lists of people who we don't want to be associated with, unless it is a list of "people who have the correct number of limbs", or "people who might have eaten cheese once".

And if anyone, anyone tries to tell you that these are romantic stories, and that the only appropriate and correct response is this: