Excellent points, especially about Raoul *not* being the ideal romance-novel main male character. "Taming the beast" in various romances is a power fantasy. Suzy McKee Charnas - author of the published POTO short story, "Beauty and the Opera, Or the Phantom Beast" - spells it out in her essay, "The Beast's Embrace." (https://web.archive.org/web/20211203031340/http://www.suzymckeecharnas.com/essays/the-beasts-embrace.htm)
Since Raoul's love is messy, complicated, confusing (including to him), and not always the most dignified, there's no power fantasy aspect to "taming" him.
Also, you half-answered the question in "Raoul is Not an American High School Jock" (https://vicomte-de-chagny.dreamwidth.org/18596.html). Fannishness is supposed to hate "the jocks;" Raoul is "a jock," and thus we are "supposed to" hate Raoul.
Another thought: one common fanfic assumption is that if there's relationship writing in a story, that story "has to" follow the standard romance-novel tropes. POTO clearly doesn't, and while romance-writing may be one possible transformative-work interpretation, there's room for many others.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2023-08-02 06:16 pm (UTC)Since Raoul's love is messy, complicated, confusing (including to him), and not always the most dignified, there's no power fantasy aspect to "taming" him.
Also, you half-answered the question in "Raoul is Not an American High School Jock" (https://vicomte-de-chagny.dreamwidth.org/18596.html). Fannishness is supposed to hate "the jocks;" Raoul is "a jock," and thus we are "supposed to" hate Raoul.
Another thought: one common fanfic assumption is that if there's relationship writing in a story, that story "has to" follow the standard romance-novel tropes. POTO clearly doesn't, and while romance-writing may be one possible transformative-work interpretation, there's room for many others.