Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2008-05-13 05:01 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2008-05-13 05:01 pm
[ SECRET POST #494 ]
⌈ Secret Post #494 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 10 pages, 250 secrets from Secret Submission Post #071.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: 16
Ways Squall/Rinoa Works:
1) Their extremes dovetail and balance out. Squall, left to his own devices, fixates on evaluating the past and planning for the future to the exclusion of paying attention to the present; Rinoa, left to hers, lives in the now to the exclusion of planning more than a few steps ahead - when they're together, Rinoa keeps Squall connected to the now and Squall makes sure that Rinoa doesn't go off half-cocked. Rinoa provides a positive perspective which breaks up Squall's negativity; Squall grounds Rinoa's naivete with realism. Squall has skill and ability but absolutely no drive; Rinoa has passion and motivation but lacks the level of ability needed to follow through on her goals without getting herself into a world of trouble. Rinoa has a knee-jerk drive to fix things; Squall needs fixing and, let's face it, possibly always will to some degree.
2) They share some key traits in common. Specifically, they both have a sense of obligation to other people which dictates a lot of their actions. For Rinoa it's that previously mentioned drive to fix things; it's why she's in Timber, it's why she latches onto Squall, it's why she goes along with plans like getting herself sealed away or allowing Ultimecia to possess her even though these things scare her: she needs to help people. For Squall, it's a sense of duty and responsibility that's probably rooted in his own insecurity: repeatedly throughout the game, whenever someone says to Squall "do this thing," he may bitch about it, but he always does it. And both characters, when they set their minds on a goal, pursue it tenaciously and do not give up. God help the person who stands in the way when both of them set themselves to the same mutual goal.
3) Rinoa is the first person in Squall's life since he was four years old to express interest in and unconditional affection for him for his own sake. He responds to her efforts to get him to open up because she's not just looking for him to support her *coughQuistiscough* but because she actually cares about him, and she wants to help fix his damage because, as I've mentioned, Rinoa has this thing about fixing things. As far as we can tell from the game, Rinoa is the first person since Ellone to tell Squall "I care about you" in terms that he can actually understand. Given that Squall has been locked in his four-year-old self's abandonment issues for thirteen years, I don't know why anyone is surprised when, after spending the first two discs frozen in indecision and then finding himself once again faced with the prospect of losing the only person in the world who cares about him, he gloms onto her and gloms hard.
The obvious problem here is that, hypothetically, Squall's damage might eventually be healed enough that he would no longer need Rinoa the way he does in the game, and the need to fix him may no longer be there to draw Rinoa to him. I kind of doubt it, because Squall is really, really broken, but even assuming that happens, it's going to take a long while (because Squall is really broken, and Rinoa's not a paragon of emotional maturity herself), and that gives them plenty of time to develop a more balanced partnership.
Or not. I'm hardly claiming it's an omg perfect healthy everlasting true love, or that there aren't ways it could go wrong, I just think that a) there's plenty of grounds for it to work, so people who enjoy shipping it are hardly delusional and b) it's silly to beat the "your first relationship as a teenager is obviously not going to be a lasting one" drum as much as it gets beaten when Squall in particular does not have the emotional makeup of the average teenager and probably never will.
/soapbox
Re: 16
(Anonymous) 2008-05-14 06:43 am (UTC)(link)But hey, if we're soapboxing now, count me in!
You said yourself that Rinoa's immature, and I think that's where the problem lies. She's also incredibly fickle, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for someone like Squall who need someone who is, and will stay devoted to him? Rinoa dumps Seifer as soon as she finds out he might be executed; even though there aren't any more major power player evil sorceresses out there, Squall's job is still dangerous, and if rumor gets around that he was killed, comes back to Rinoa, and a hotter guy comes along?
People say that Rinoa wasn't in love with Seifer because she says that she "thinks" she's in love with him; that's just how Rinoa is. She's not the type for a hard commitment. If someone asked her how she felt about Squall? She'd say she thought she was in love with him, not that she was. It doesn't mean that she's not, just like it doesn't mean she didn't have feelings for Seifer. Even in the Timber Owls, where Rinoa is considered the leader in some ways, she doesn't do most of the hard work. She'll likely grow out of it, but at this point? That's a major problem.
Quistis, on the other hand, hasn't shown anything but commitment to Squall. She understands him better than anyone, and even though she passes her feelings off as sisterly affection, there's a high chance that she just said that because she saw him falling for Rinoa, and wanted him to be happy. She makes a few, "I wonder," and "if only," remarks after that, which to me, shows that she's not quite over him yet. While she might just exist as a beacon of support now, you said yourself that he needs someone to heal him; how could support not do that? What Rinoa has over Quistis is the fact that she pushes Squall, and if Quistis would learn to, things would be a lot different.
I don't agree that the secret insulted the fans, but man, jump off your high horse. There's plenty in FFVIII that's up for interpretation and exploration, whether the ending was as open as VII's or not. You're not going to change my mind, and I know I'm not going to change yours. Not to mention, uh, it's a game. :| No rebuttals are going to do anything but stroke egos and cause wank, mine included. They're fictional characters, of course people are going to disagree on what to do with them. Life goes on.
Re: 16
That's my interpretation of the text of the game. You clearly have a very different one, and I really don't care either way. If other people like to ship Squall/Quistis it is no skin off me...
...which is, frankly, my problem with the secret and a lot of the arguments people make against Squall/Rinoa: they insist that anyone who thinks Squall/Rinoa works is "100% delusional" and that nobody should ship it, ever. In my arguments for the pairing I never claimed that it is the only pairing possible for either character and that there were no potential problems with it. I don't care if people prefer other ships or just plain don't like the pairing. But when people are telling me that I'm delusional for thinking it works? I am not the one on a high horse.
Or, to put it another way: I am not telling anyone they can't ship or not ship what they like. When people start doing me the same courtesy instead of telling me that I'm delusional for shipping what I like, then I'll shut up about my reasons for shipping it, and then maybe everyone can be happy!
Oh, wait, it's fandom.
Never mind.