Needs Help: Happily Married

Quoting the discussion page:

"errorladen: "Anyone else think that a bunch of examples here are really unnecessary? The way I read this trope is that a major couple is happily married despite the alarmingly common need for relationship angst in various media. Basically, subverting the expectation that a (insert genre) story would have said angst.

It seems that a bunch of people just crammed in examples of random married people from whatever they could think of in whatever they felt like.

Examples I read as being valid, and why:

Who Framed Roger Rabbit example: Eddie Valiant actually expresses surprise at the fact, mirroring audience expecations

the Song of Ice & Fire example: while I haven't actually read the books, the example makes clear that the marriage works out unusually well in the context.

Examples I don't, and why they and similar examples should be removed:

Batman's parents: background characters with very little screen time and very little reason for us to expect angst from them. Basically People Sit In Chairs for any fictional marriage without angst.

Ron and Hermione: "X and Y eventually become this at the end." Seriously, isn't that basically what Happily Ever After is for instead?"

miribai:"Definitely agreed re. Ron and Hermione. The problem too with couples like Ron and Hermione is that we don't know whether they fit the trope just because we see them get together, and then we see in 19 years time they turn up at Kings Cross as a still married couple. That doesn't mean much. They could have had drama coming out the wazoo for those 19 years. Their entire relationship basically happened 'off page', so we don't know. The same logic applies to background characters.

I was surprised to see couples like Jin and Sun from Lost given as an example. They end up happily married in the end, but for much of the series they're dealing with some pretty serious marital issues. Another example is Mike and Susan from Desperate Housewives - they had long periods of separation. And as for Pete and Trudy Campbell from Mad Men, their happily married period was very short lived. The rest of the time, they've been a train-wreck.

I think a lot of examples of this trope should probably be removed, so as not to broaden the definition of it to the extent it becomes meaningless"."

Opening this topic.

I think there's a lot of example overlap between this and They Do when there shouldn't be. Ron and Hermione would probably fall in that category, "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue aside.

I think the trope we want here is Always Happily Married. The "always" part is the important factor, since drama in a relationship is expected (because that's realistic).

Ehh, I don't think we need to go that far.

I don't think the definition / description are causing the misuse, and you're objecting to two characters being Happily Married because they're only a married couple for a very small part of the time.

It does seem like adding the word always might help. People think of it as, "These characters end up Happily Married," without reading the page or giving the example context.

But your definition seems to imply the trope is "two characters have a perfect relationship with no ups or downs whatsoever", to the point the unrealistic nature of how consistently and improbably happy they are is the core of the trope, not simply that two characters have reached the stage of being Happily Married and stay that way for much if not all of the story without going through Will They or Won't They? or only getting together just long enough to be broken up again, but still possibly going through ups and downs, because just getting that far is quite rare in fiction, unless you're just the parents of a more major character. At best, it's making True Love Is Boring a Defied Trope.

To my reading, the first two paragraphs already describe defying True Love Is Boring, and your post "no ups and Downs" suggest the assumption True Love Is Boring. I'll guess that you went a little overboard in your description.

What about the current or past definition for this page isn't about defying True Love Is Boring?

EDIT: the first words "against all odds" suggest to me that this is intended to be a rare trope.

edited 3rd Jan '15 10:41:50 PM by crazysamaritan

Wait, are you suggesting tightening the definition or do you see your definition as the one the page has now? Because the point of my post was that it sounded like the former.

I don't think the point is about a marriage with no ups and down, but about a well-functioning marriage. There might be disputes, but they're never close to divorce material. And as such, I think it has to both last for an amount of time where you'd expect the wedding bliss to wear off, and have some sort of contrast or mention that emphasises the trope.

I find the last point there somewhat important. Without it it's really just People Sit On Chairs, especially when it comes to background characters. A contrast could come from one or both characters being a type you wouldn't expect be married, or at least not happily so, or a situation where you don't expect any couples to be married, or a mention about the couple being unusually happy, or the couple being opposites in a way you don't expect them to get along.

The thing is, this trope really isn't People Sit On Chairs in fiction if it's people in the main cast who are Happily Married. 'Cause seriously, the main characters who aren't going though major relational drama and who are married to each other is really small. Most main characters either (a) aren't married or (b) having serious relationship drama if they are. The length of the marriage does have something to do with the trope I think as a newly married couple wouldn't be this trope. So does the audience getting to know the characters over length of time (epilogues wouldn't count either).

Following the description of People Sit In Chairs: " don't convey any meaning — they aren't storytelling conventions at all, they're just things that happen normally or incidentally during the storytelling. " and "It doesn't matter how commonly it occurs, this is something that never carried any meaning to begin with".

edited 4th Jan '15 2:39:43 PM by MagBas

I see Always Happily Married as the intended definition present.

It seems tropable because it conveys the relationships that aren't filled with drama or boring. Relationships are, appropriately, a balancing act.

edited 4th Jan '15 4:04:24 PM by crazysamaritan

@12: Which may be why I don't like the examples that are just parents of main characters (and are otherwise secondary characters at best), even if I'm not sure they should be declared not examples as presently described.

Original YKTTW, for the record, though I don't know how much help it is.

I see the root problem being Zero Context Example. If you can't think of anything to say about the couple then it doesn't count. I remember removing/commenting out a lot of these in the past but apparently they've swept back in. "Alice and Bob are married" doesn't count, because as stated earlier, it's People Sit On Chairs. "Alice and Bob are married and don't have angst" isn't any better. It has to be relevant to the story and/or influence the characterization.

Another problem I see is bleed over from other tropes. "Alice and Bob are married at the end of the story" is not this trope. We should remove those examples from this page along with the ZCE.

There's no need to alter the description, but a reorganization would be good to remove confusion.

As for Always Happily Married, that sounds too The Same But More to be valid and could also have trouble with Sickening Sweethearts.

^I think he isn't proposing a split, but either a redefinition or that Always Happily Married is what this is supposed to be.

"There's no need to alter the description, but a reorganization would be good to remove confusion." Additionally, a trope along the lines of "The married couple is always happy" sounds like it would bleed over into Sickening Sweethearts.

Clock is set.

Even if the name stays the same we should put some effort into getting rid of the ZC Es.

I took care of the subpages a while ago but I have a good feeling this trope attracts massive amounts of contextless entries.

So here's what this trope seems to me:

Two characters who are married and one or more of the following applies:

• Any Romance Arc conflict ends. If there was a Love Triangle, it is officially over. Even if the third party is still around trying to drive a wedge against the two, it's clear that his/her efforts are unwanted and stand no chance of working. Any misunderstandings, extramarital attractions or Triang Relations are disclosed and handled by the couple before any conflict can arise.
• The happiness or compatibility of the marriage actively works to solve some sort of problem. For example, in more fantastic stories, The Power of Love between the married couple solves some sort of danger or dilemma. But, it has to come from their happy marriage specifically. For example, their wedding rings/vows/etc. possess some sort of magical, symbolic, or legal power which helps solve a problem.

If they're just "a married couple" and their marriage isn't a plot point at all, then they wouldn't qualify for any of the above situations and thus wouldn't be this trope.

edited 12th Feb '15 9:38:10 AM by KingZeal

There being an end of (or in some cases a lack of) a Romance Arc is key to this.

So what about the examples where we're introduced to a happy married couple?

IMO, it should be something like the second point above. This is assuming, of course, that the trope as it is will be declared PSOC.