Symbolic Distance

The couple on the couch are farther apart than they appear.

I reach out for you, but each time I do

I always find you gone

I know love is new, I'll take care of you

In my arms is where you belong

— Elvis Presley, "So Close, Yet So Far (From Paradise)"

When writers want to symbolically represent strained relationships, they may take advantage of the setting and space them far away from each other. This generally involves two or more people physically separated from each other, the camera panning out to emphasise the Rule of Symbolism by putting each at the edge of the screen. Earlier in the picture, there may have been a contrasting shot with the characters close together, to throw in a little Call-Back for the audience and illustrate further the purpose of the shot. They may be looking back at each other longingly, or one may be walking away as the other looks on in sadness. Either way, the shot is clearly used to tell the audience they are losing each other psychologically as well as literally.

This trope is typically seen in visual media, however it can occur in writing if the distance is given precedence between the two, and may involve the writer directly addressing the symbolism of the moment. It is almost always Played for Drama.

Compare Separated by the Wall, where a more artistic representation of two people against a single wall is used, commonly to symbolise a yearning for one another. May be used to illustrate a Friendless Background or All of the Other Reindeer. Compare Table Space, which may be used to achieve such an effect.

Sister Trope to Eating Lunch Alone and Alone in a Crowd, where distance is employed to represent loneliness. Pulling Your Child Away may accompany this.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• The first opening of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War starts with a shot that makes it look like Kaguya and Shirogane are staring face to face before the angle changes to reveal that they're actually several yards apart, making it clear that — while they might already be in love — they're a long ways away from actually getting together.
• My-HiME:
  • Episode 4 reveals that Takeda has a romantic interest in Natsuki. We are shown the two of them talking to each other from opposite ends of the Crystal Dome, showing the enormous distance between them.
  • After Mai gives Natsuki a pair of Modesty Shorts when a Panty Thief Orphan forces her into a Going Commando situation, Natsuki gives Mai and Mikoto a bit of an Info Dump about the HiME and the organization gathering them at the school. We're provided a shot from overhead of Mai and Mikoto lying together on the grass, while Natsuki is sitting apart from them, using the length of her legs to keep her distance, clearly contrasting the two girls' opposing closeness.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Episode 9 of the anime adaptation contains an overhead shot while the protagonists are discussing the relative merits of Miligan's offer to give them one of her old laboratories, where Oliver is separated from the rest of the group by a couple of paces, and standing in the shadow of a column while they're in full sunlight, while he mulls over the offer. It's symbolism for how his secrets and wildly divergent Series Goal subtly separate him from them.
• Your Name: The poster employs this, showing the two main characters separated, trapped within their respective urban and country environments and looking longingly at each other. They spend the movie trying to reach each other. As it turns out, this would end up having a layered meaning when we find out they are separated not just physically, but historically too.

Comics

• In Superman: Birthright, during the funeral of Kobe Asuru, a human rights activist and Clark Kent's friend, Asuru's sister Abena and Clark are located in close proximity at the beginning of the sequence, but following the conversation about Clark's "secret identity" as a super-powered person, the final panel has them on the opposite ends of the page.
• Spider-Man:
  • The cover for 'The Amazing Spider-Man '#601, at the height of the Brand New Day phase where Peter and MJ were separated shows Spider-Man fighting crime out her window, his back to her. MJ looks back at him in sadness.
  • Similarly on the cover of 'Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man' #98, Black Cat (at the time the main Love Interest for Spidey) and Spider-Man are pushed away from each other by Kingpin.

Film — Animated

• Encanto: Word of God revealed that Bruno's room was not always so large. The dozens upon dozens of stairs manifested as he became more and more distant from his family.
• The Lion King: In "The Lion King II: Simba's Pride" Kovu, after being very reluctantly admitted into Simba's pride thanks to Kiara, is clearly still not welcome. He sleeps alone outside, the camera panning out to show the rest of the pride far away within a cavern.
• Mulan: After Mulan makes a fool of herself at the war camp when attempting to fit in, her ostracization is symbolised through a far shot of the camp, showing her tent on the outskirts, far away from all the others. Next to a pigsty, no less.
• NIMONA (2023): During Nimona's climactic flashback, she and her human friend Gloreth are almost inseparable even after the former's shapeshifting powers are revealed. So, when the little girl's parents force the two of them apart, resulting in the village being accidentally burned to the ground by the angry mob they stirred up, the collapse of the friendship between Nimona and her friend is immediately demonstrated by the fact that the two of them are now eight feet apart. Back in the present, Nimona is in a park several miles from the colossal statue of Gloreth at the heart of the city, driving home both the broken friendship and Nimona's all-consuming loneliness.

Film — Live-Action

• Awakenings: The poster (seen on the main page) utilises this, showing Leonard L. out on the sea standing on a precipice, acting as a small island, as Dr. Sayer looks back on another piece of land extending off-screen. It serves to show how Leonard has become separated from the present world due to his Encephalitis Lethargica rendering him essentially dead for 30 years. Even on L-Dopa, he will never be able to become a functioning member of society.
• The Break-Up: To the surprise of no one, the two main characters in this film break-up. One scene of them in the duration of this pictures them on opposite sides of the couch in their apartment, trying their best to ignore each other.
• Citizen Kane: One of the most famous examples, this trope is employed by Welles throughout the movie to symbolise Kane's emotional separation from his wife, through usage of an increasingly-long breakfast table. This separates him and his wife further and further. Towards the end of the montage, they are reading rival newspapers to really solidify their severance.
• Date Movie: Exaggerated while being Played for Laughs. As a parody of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Julia and Grant are in a counseling session where the two of them are being interviewed about their relationship. At one point while they're both sitting in separate chairs, Julia mentions that there's a "huge space" between them. Cut to their chairs suddenly being literally spread far apart from each other.
• Picnic at Hanging Rock: Michael sees Miranda cross a brook in the distance and wants to go to her, but only looks at her longingly. This is the last time they meet.
• Trainspotting: In the film adaptation, Liz and Tommy's already-strained relationship finally collapses after it looks like their homemade porn film has accidentally been returned to the video shop with Tommy's other rented tapes (In reality, it was pinched by Renton). We don't see the ensuing breakup, but it's illustrated by a scene in which the two ex-lovers are found standing in the street the next morning, waiting for the bus with roughly ten feet between them — in total silence, with Liz too disgusted to even look at Tommy.
• Un Flic: At the end of the movie Edouard and Cathy accidentally meet each other on a street, standing on the opposite sides of it. They exchange a look and silently go separate ways, they know they cannot be together anymore after they find out some harsh truths about each other.

Literature

• Terry Pratchett takes this to absurd levels in the Discworld. His parody of Romeo and Juliet, the Tale Of Ye Starre-Crossed Lovers, Mellius and Gretalina, places the two lovers not only on different continents but separated in time by two hundred years. (It was apparently a very intense romance).
• The Great Gatsby:
  • Arguably one of the most famous symbols in literature, the green light represents the literal and emotional separation between Gatsby and Daisy. Gatsby will walk to the edge of his dock, and will literally 'reach out' his hand towards the pulsing light in the distance. Another interpretation argues that the distance is in fact less symbolic for the pair, but for the ever-lasting distance of the human longing for something you cannot have.
    "Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one."
  • The symbol of distance occurs when, after years apart, Gatsby and Daisy are reunited at Nick's house. Only, Gatsby cannot bring himself to be near her. They stand far away from each other at opposite ends of the extravagant room Gatsby set up, and they appear unable to get closer until Nick leaves the room, practically having to force them into their so-desired reunion. Later Gatsby literally says "I feel far away from her".
  • It is also noted by Nick that Gatsby stays far away from the debaccle and liveliness of the party, instead standing alone on his marble steps and looking at, but never approaching, the groups with "approving eyes".
• Never Let Me Go:
  • Kathy, towards the end of the book, considers this between her and her friends, imagining a line separating her and Tommy from Ruth, regarding how Ruth 'finished differently' to them as she never learnt the truth of the deferrals.
    "When all's said and done, I feel sad about that, and I think she would too if she could see it".
  • This trope appears subtly throughout the whole book, in how clones and 'patients' are kept separate. Kathy imagines how the 'quiet country roads' exist just for the clones, while the big 'super motorways' exist for everyone else.
  • Occurs when Tommy is having his final screaming fit, having just learned the deferrals were a lie and he and Kathy cannot be together for much longer. Kathy tries to go after him but the mud sucks her feet down, and for a time she can only watch him from afar on top of a hill, contrastingly calm. Eventually she breaks the distance and holds him tight, as if "that was the only way to stop us being swept away into the night".

Live-Action TV

• In the "Four Corners" episode of ER, the audience finally gets to meet Carter's parents (they've been The Ghost for 8 years at this point) when they come to town for his grandfather's funeral. Despite being in something as small as a car, the body language between Carter and his mother is downright chilling—they're sitting as far apart as possible, turned away from each other, perfectly demonstrating their distant relationship.
• House of the Dragon: In the episode The Lord of the Tides, childhood friends turned political enemies Alicent and Rhaenyra are positioned next to each other at the dinner table, but with a large, conspicuous space between them. Viserys, who is both Alicent's husband and Rhaenyra's father, later sits down in that space, representing how his decisions throughout the first season have led to the two women's estrangement.
• Kamen Rider Zero-One: The finale lacks an opening and instead adds a unique eyecatch early into the episode that depicts Aruto and Horobi standing in a scorched hellscape with their backs to one another — symbolizing their current hatred toward each other...and the damage their fighting has the potential to cause.
• Murdoch Mysteries: Table Space is used between Dr. Julia Ogden and her husband Dr. Darcy Garland is used to symbolise the emotional distance between them during their argument. Julia fights for women's rights to use contraceptives, which is illegal and threatens Darcy's possible promotion. In one previous scene, they were comfortably sitting very close on a sofa.

Music

• This is a huge motif in the romance arc of Confession Executive Committee's Miou Aida and Haruki Serizawa. Both are dear friends and have crushes on one another, but they don't know about the other's feelings for a very long time and lack the courage to take the next romantic step themselves. This is symbolically represented by their hands never quite managing to interlock, always barely touching at a distance of "10 centimeters". They eventually get better, but it takes years for them to really acknowledge their feelings for each other and finally close the gap.
• Taylor Swift's "The Story of Us," about an exes carefully avoiding each other when they both attend a gathering, creating an awkward amount of distance that is starkly contrasted with their previous closeness.
  How'd we end up this way?
  See me nervously pulling at my clothes
  And trying to look busy
  And you're doing your best to avoid me
  I'm starting to think one day I'll tell the story of us
  How I was losing my mind when I saw you here
  But you held your pride like you should have held me
  Oh, I'm scared to see the ending
  Why are we pretending this is nothing?
  I'd tell you I miss you but I don't know how
  I've never heard silence quite this loud

Theatre

• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: In the "Staircase Ballet" scene, after Albus is commanded to avoid Scorpius, the pair climb and descend two sets of moving staircases, each prop staircase gliding and turning in silence as the emotional distance and devastation between the two grows wider. According to movement director Steven Hoggett, "The scene is basically a story in itself. It affects people so much they assume the characters must have been speaking."

Video Games

• In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the montage of characters enjoying the Garreg Mach Ball includes a shot of Dimitri and Edelgard dancing with other people, their backs to each other. The feeling of "so close, and yet so far" is borne out by the narrative, in which one of them kills the other several years later because Poor Communication Kills.

Western Animation

• In the Amphibia episode "After the Rain", Anne keeps her physical distance from Hop Pop for most of the episode because she's mad at him for burying the music box and lying to her about it. When he gives an explanation for his actions (he wanted to protect his family after losing Sprig and Polly's parents to a heron attack) and a sincere apology, he starts to close the distance by walking towards Anne but stops halfway. When she forgives him, she walks the rest of the way and hugs him, closing the physical and symbolic distance between them.
• Moral Orel: The Awful Wedded Life of Clay and Bloberta is a major focus throughout the series. Their blatant emotional separation is the result of years of destructive behavior and hatred to the point they will not even look at each other unless they are fully clothed (shoes included). "Numb" showcases a divisive visual metaphor that serves as the page image for the episode, with Clay and Bloberta on separate beds with a wall between them, looking miserable.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield", Marge, at her last straw, snaps at her family and storms away from them up the hill towards the elite club she so desperately wants to join. The camera pans to show the others staying behind as she looks back at them, symbolising the divide that has grown between them throughout the episode. Soon after, she runs back and takes Maggie in her arms, choosing her family over superficial status.
  • In "Make Room For Lisa", Homer and Lisa's relationship with each other goes through a rough patch, and Lisa tells Homer that she knows they love each other, but they're also two very different people and she expects them to drift further apart as time passes. Homer tells her he'll never let that happen... before the shot pans back to show he's standing on a down-escalator that is literally moving him further away from her.
• In the Teen Titans episode "Stranded", Robin and Starfire have a falling out after Robin says Starfire isn't his girlfriend to a teasing Cyborg. While navigating through the planet the two are stranded on, they go through a cloudy mountain pass that ends with the two on different ends, highlighting the distance between them.

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