Perfectly Arranged Marriage / Literature

• Danielle L. Jensen really likes this trope.
  • In Malediction Trilogy human girl Cecile is abducted to marry troll prince Tristan because of a prophecy that their marriage would break a curse. Although distrustful at first, they gradually come to love each other.
  • In The Bridge Kingdom Archives Aren, king of Ithicana, and Lara, princess of Maridrina, get married as a part of the peace treaty between the two nations - which have been fighting for generations. Again, following initial distrust, they fall in love.
• Machado de Assis wrote a short about a couple falling in love with each other while teaming up to prevent their own Arranged Marriage.
• In the 1632 series, Prince Ulrik of Denmark and Princess Kristina of Sweden are headed this way. They aren't in love yet (something to do with him being in his mid-twenties and her being only nine), but they are very close. Another example is Ludwig Guenther and Emilie. Despite the disparity in their ages (he is in his fifties, she is 19), they are consistently presented as loving, mutually supportive, and politically on much the same page.
• Invoked in An Acceptable Time. Klep, destined to be the next chief of the enemy tribe, is captured during a raid and nursed back to health by Anaral, which quickly leads to a seemingly-doomed romance. Later, the "goddess" Polly sets the terms for peace between their tribes and throws in "OH YEAH, this deal will be sealed by Klep and Anaral getting married."
• In The Belgariad, this crops up frequently Because Destiny Says So... Destiny being a Sentient Cosmic Force of Prophecy who likes to reward cooperation:
  • Garion and Ce'Nedra are foreordained by fate and betrothed by a five-hundred-year-old treaty between their countries. True to the trope, they engage in quite a bit of Slap-Slap-Kiss, but also played with in that neither are told about the arrangement^note Ce'Nedra knew she had to be presented as the bride of the Rivan King on her sixteenth birthday, but not that said King would actually show up or that Garion was he. Garion, for his part, knew absolutely nothing, which was quite intentional. until after they get acquainted and fall in love anyway. As Ce'Nedra notes, Polgara was carefully managing the situation to ensure this happened.
  • Garion's ultimate ancestors Riva and Beldaran are another example: Beldaran's father Belgarath makes the arrangements, somewhat to her trepidation (though she is rather pleased to find out that Riva is, in her words, "gorgeous"), but they fall in Love at First Sight and remain devoted to each other for the rest of their lives. Indeed, her death basically kills Riva, who's a shadow of his former self for the rest of his life, forcing his and Beldaran's son to become Prince-Regent.
  • Another notable case happens in Polgara's backstory. In order to alleviate the Arendish civil wars, it was necessary to marry off two teenage members of opposing houses, who naturally hated each other. Polgara's solution was to lock them in a room together and wait 'til the shouting stopped and the giggling began'. It works; the couple emerges hand in hand apologizing for their previous behavior and stating their rather enthusiastic willingness to do their duty.
  • In general, Polgara has been doing this a lot, mostly because she's making sure that the heirs to the Rivan throne marry the right person (with the Prophecy giving her a helpful heads up as to who that is each time), and notes that she can't just tell them because young people tend to get stubborn about that sort of thing.
  • Barak and Merel are introduced as a subversion: while Barak was thrilled to marry the object of his infatuation, she despised being forced into wedlock, and they turned out not to get along at all. Eventually double-subverted once Babies Make Everything Better - or at least, the third baby is a catalyst for the reconciliation, and they sort out their differences.
• Every arranged marriage, whether on the Roman or the Indian side, in the Belisarius Series.
• Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow has a particularly good example. Joanna Sedley gets kidnapped from her first arranged marriage by the hero's Wicked Uncle, who intends to force her to marry the hero. The hero, Dick Shelton, ends up running for his life from outlaws with her, except that he doesn't know who she is and vice versa, and it's all very complicated and loaded with UST.
• A Brother's Price has examples of this, in a unique way, as the marriages in the book are not arranged by the parents (though they are asked for their opinion) but by the brides (plural). One sister may be in love, she will then talk to her sisters, and if the majority of them agree, the wedding takes place. Can result in a Perfectly Arranged Marriage for a sister who was not in love initially, but doesn't always.
• In Castle in the Air, a former soldier asks Princess Beatrice to marry him as his Standard Hero Reward. She only refuses on the grounds that she's already been engaged to Prince Justin, but decides that the marriage was arranged without her consent and thus she'll go and marry the soldier, for love. In the end, it's revealed that the soldier is Prince Justin under an enchantment. He and Beatrice go on and get married.
• In The Curse of Chalion, Royesse (Princess) Iselle arranges her own marriage—for rather urgent political reasons—to the crown prince of a neighboring kingdom whom she's never seen, pausing briefly to collect the rumor that he is "well-favored" (which she cynically says people will say about any prince who isn't a perfect fright), before returning to more important practical considerations. When she finally meets him, they've already bonded over their shared love and admiration for the main character, Iselle's heroic secretary, and by the morning after the wedding, he observes that they look like a couple madly in love.
• A Deal with a Demon: Azazel sets up a marriage of convenience between Briar Rose and the dragon Sol, who desires half-human kids to help keep his kingdom safe with an influx of magic. The two end up genuinely falling in love, and she even chooses to stay after the seven years of the trail marriage are up.
• King Kelson of Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series has truly rotten luck with his brides. His first marriage is a politically important match to a princess of a rival house who, better still, has been raised to regard him as hellspawn. Kelson is incredibly nervous, but the girl is young and beautiful - and he is seventeen - so by the time the wedding day rolls around he's convinced he's falling in love, and there are indications that the girl may be too. Unfortunately, Kelson is widowed before the ceremony ends. In the next book, he falls in love with a perfectly acceptable princess - who, due to convolutions of plot, is rendered politically impossible as his wife. It is she who arranges for Kelson to marry his final prospect, a cousin who is a really ideal match from the political point of view. At first Kelson, still desperately in love with the other lady, can hardly bear the thought of marrying elsewhere; but as he gets to know Araxie better, the marriage becomes less and less distasteful to him...
• The Discreet Princess has one arranged by the villain. To explain; the Evil Prince's last wish is for his Prince Charming brother to marry the titular character and murder her as soon as they are alone. Once the misunderstandings are cleared up, the two enjoy a very long and happy marriage.
• Discworld: Lords and Ladies: It's not an arranged relationship since they're already romantically involved, but it is literally an arranged marriage when Granny Weatherwax basically intimidates Verence into skipping the marriage proposal and going straight to the part where he sets a date for the wedding, sends out invitations, and gets the dress made without even consulting Magrat about it.
  Magrat: It was all arranged! It was all set up before I even got here! I never had a chance to say yes or no!
  Nanny: Well, what would you have said if you had had the chance?
  Magrat: Well, I...
  Nanny: You'd still be marrying the king today, would you?
  Magrat: Well...
  Nanny: You do want to marry the king, don't you?
  Magrat: Well, yes, but...
  Nanny: That's nice, then.
• In Victoria Ugryumova's Doppelganger for the Jester, a political marriage between The Emperor and a Princess Classic turns out to be so happy for both parties that even his closest advisers wonder whether he is sick or something. His answer? "Gods, I can't believe I've fallen in love with my own wife." It doesn't end well.
• Dragonvarld: King Edward of Idylswylde with Ermintrude. They had never met before their wedding, which neither of them had a choice in. Despite that, they genuinely love each other and have a very happy marriage.
• Dune features one perfectly arranged couple that ruins another arranged couple. Duke Leto Atreides has Lady Jessica as a concubine. He has to stay technically unmarried because he is a noble and might need to link House Atreides to another House; while Jessica is a Bene Gesserit (scheming psychic space-witch), she is not of the nobility. Despite all that, they are very devotedly in love, which may have screwed the other Bene Gesserit over. Leto/Jessica was arranged by the other Bene Gesserit as one of the last steps in a very convoluted plan to produce the Kwisatz Haderach (male scheming psychic space-witch except even more powerful). Jessica, who can control her child's sex, was supposed to have a daughter who could be bred to a Harkonnen son, and their child would be the Kwisatz Haderach. However, Jessica loved Leto so much she chose to bear him an heir, Paul, who as it turns out is the Kwisatz Haderach anyway. That little blip in the plan kicks off the whole epic.
  • Additionally, the marriage of Count Hasimir Fenring to the Bene Gesserit Sister Margot seems to have been quite happy despite having been arranged for political reasons (not genetic ones, however, as Hasimir is a "genetic eunuch"—sterile due to inbreeding).
• Not technically arranged, but in Orson Scott Card's Enderverse short story "Teacher's Pest" government agents manipulate Theresa and John Paul together, hoping that they'll get married and produce genius babies. They're smart enough to figure out what's happening, but, as John Paul says "even in cultures with actual arranged marriages, you're not forbidden to fall in love with your spouse."
• A somewhat odd example occurs in The Giver. All marriages are selected by the Community's elders, so the spouses don't have a choice in the matter. However, it's also mentioned that the marriages are determined by how well the two people would work together, so they all complement each other well.
• Zigzagged in Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi with Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan who were engaged as children by their mothers. While Jiang Yanli always liked Jin Zixuan, he initially did not reciprocate and had a low opinion of her. Not wanting their children to be in an unhappy marriage, their fathers dissolved the arrangement when they were older. However, over time Jin Zixuan begins to see her good qualities, has his own Jerkass Realization and geninuely falls for her. This would lead them to marry out of their own free will and were one of the few Happily Married couples before their tragic deaths.
• Llewelyn and Joanna in Sharon Kay Penman's Here Be Dragons.
• John Moore's Heroics for Beginners has this with the main character and his love interest; they met and fell in love before her father started looking for a husband for her, and so she intentionally became cold and unpleasant to all other potential suitors to put them off. Mention is also made of another prince whose family refused to let him marry until he was thirty and then betrothed him to a six-year-old girl; ten years later, he is the most envied man on the continent.
• In the Honor Harrington novels, the Mesan Alignment arranges marriages as part of a centuries-old breeding program. They do make a point of trying to bring about this trope, probably because spousal murder would put a crimp in their plans. They certainly succeeded with Albrecht Detweiler and his wife Eveline.
• The Hunger Games has the Capitol pressuring Katniss and Peeta into an engagement (and later, Peeta lies that they have gotten married in secret, with the audience buying it wholesale). In truth, they are only together because the government demands it of them. However, by the end of the series they are in love and spend the rest of their lives together, eventually starting a family.
• In I Became the Wife of the Monstrous Crown Prince, the protagonist Anthia is transferred into a R-rated novel where her Abusive Parents set her up in a marriage with the cursed crown prince Blake. Since she's the only one who isn't afraid of the prince's curse, Anthia and Blake fall deeply in love with each other.
• That Irresistible Poison by Alessandra Hazard: Prince Seyn and Prince Ksar were betrothed to each other for political reasons. But they develop sincere love for one another. So this is an Arranged Marriage that ends well.
• Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality:
  • In With a Tangled Skein, as Niobe and Cedric manage to sort out problems such as her being several years older and not fond of the prospect of marrying a man so much younger. With a bit of maturing by both parties and a dash of Rescue Romance, they settle into a happy albeit unfortunately short marriage.
  • In Wielding a Red Sword, this is invoked. Mym and Rapture (prince and princess in India) are put in an arranged marriage by their parents, which allows them to hear each other's thoughts and feel each other's feelings, meaning they can't help but get to know each other. So they stay in different parts of the castle, thinking that putting some distance between them will lessen the effect. Not only does that not work, but they soon find out that there is a spirit/demon/creature thing that will terrorize the princess if she's away from the prince, and due to the castle's first effect, he feels her fear. And worst of all, by the time they finally come around and learn to love each other, the princess's nation falls out of favor with the prince's, and the prince's parents stick another princess in the castle with him so he can do it all over again. This time, he and princess #2 opt to escape.
• In Kushiel's Legacy, Queen Ysandre de la Courcel married Cruarch Drustan mab Necthana because they loved each other. The fact that their marriage saved Terre D'Ange from an invading horde and restored Drustan to his throne is, in fact, coincidental.
• In the comedic play Leonce und Lena by German 19th century writer Georg Büchner, Prince Leonce and Princess Lena run away from their arranged marriage with each other, by chance meet for the first time in a lodging house, and of course fall in love with each other.
• The prince in The Little Mermaid is told to marry the princess of a neighboring kingdom, but he wants to marry the lady who helped him at a temple It turned out that said lady was the princess since she had been sent to live in the temple for a while. And ironically, the eponymous Little Mermaid made that happen by not letting him see her before she left, and thus lost the chance to marry him herself.
• In The Long-Nosed Princess by Patricia Hallowell, the eponymous Princess Felicity is arranged to marry the very handsome prince of a neighboring country, but he rejects her insultingly at first sight. She's heartbroken by this - not because she's fallen in love, but because he's destroyed her self-image. Later, while on his way to court another princess, he is attacked by Felicity's animal friends and she nurses him back to health. Why does he find himself thinking of Felicity constantly while courting the incredibly beautiful princess? And what is he going to do about that grinning fool of a Prince Harry who thinks he's going to marry Felicity?
• Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard contains the modern, matchmaker-style version: Sam’s betrothal to the local falafel heir she’s loved since childhood, arranged by her grandparents who love her and want her to be happy, is contrasted with her betrothal to a stupid smelly giant, arranged by her father who sees her as a possession to be traded for a magical weapon.
• In Maiden Crown, Princess Sophie and King Valdemar affirm to each other on their wedding night that they hope to be companions and love each other as husband and wife, and during the rest of the celebrations and for some time afterwards, they are indeed happy together. This begins falling apart after Sophie finds out about Valdemar's established relationship with her lady-in-waiting Tove, and further deteriorates when Sophie is accused of having an affair with Valdemar's messenger Stig and Stig is trialed for it. It almost completely collapses when Sophie accidentally kills Tove, but in the end, Valdemar forgives her and they begin to make amends.
• Discussed in the Mary Tudor POV novel Mary, Bloody Mary. Mary knows she will have an arranged marriage, and secretly hopes it will be to her governess's son Reginald Pole. Sadly, they become Star-Crossed Lovers, as Reginald is a devout Catholic while Mary's father is setting up his own church. Mary did eventually marry once she became queen (after the end of the book), but the marriage was not this trope.
• In The Mote in God's Eye, aristocrats Rod and Sally return from their expedition to the Moties to find they are being shepherded into an arranged marriage. Fortunately, they'd already fallen in love.
• Downplayed in Poster Girl as Aaron was killed before he could marry his betrothed Sonya, but from what we hear of it Sonya was quite happy with the match.
• The Queen of Ieflaria: Princess Esofi and Princess Adale end up with one. At first Esofi simply considered the marriage her duty, but wasn't enamored with Adale given she's an irresponsible hedonist starting out. For her own part Adale was not happy with being married to someone whom she didn't choose. The two bond however, finding they're attracted to each other as well, and become quite happy with the arrangement.
• Between Hannah and Daniel in The Queen's Fool, although it is a bit zig-zagged. First, she doesn't want to marry at all and would rather stay at court when Daniel leaves to Calais. They exchange a few letters and she falls in love with him by the time she has to leave the court. They get married, but their relationship is poisoned by Daniel's mother and sisters, eventually resulting in her running away from him, only to realize that she really loves him when Calais is taken by the French, she escapes to England, and he gets captured.
• Occurs twice in the Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb; in both cases, a Farseer prince was engaged to a foreign princess to secure an alliance and the couple ended up falling in love. The second one ended quite well, the first one less so.
• In The Riftwar Cycle, Prince Arutha is head over heels over Princess Anita and is extremely lucky that their marriage is also extremely politically beneficial for the Kingdom.
  • Of course, in this case, the marriage wasn't technically arranged. Their fathers had been considering arranging said marriage, but then the Riftwar broke out and they found themselves occupied with that and never got around to actually betrothing their children before they both died. Arutha proposed to Anita on his own initiative after the war ended.
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms does this for Liu Bei and Lady Sun (or Sun Shang Xiang in the period operas), despite the fact that it didn't turn out so well in actual history.
• Does happen a few times in The Royal Diaries:
  • The marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI didn't start out this way, but over the course of the book they start to understand and fall for each other (and in real life they genuinely did fall in love, to the point that Louis refused to take a mistress).
  • Jahanara's mother selects a bride for her oldest son Dara, who is quite eager for the marriage to take place as they have met before and were quite taken with each other. (It should be noted Jahanara's parents were an example as well.)
  • Sadly, while the fictional diary of Empress Elisabeth portrayed her marriage to Franz Joseph as this, the reality was an inversion.
  • Averted, much to her sorrow, with Kazunomiya: she had been in an arranged marriage with Prince Arisugawa, a marriage which both of them eagerly anticipated. Then it was broken off so she could marry the future shogun Iemochi instead. Iemochi, at the least, sympathizes with Kazunomiya's pain (as he himself can't be with the woman he loves because of class prejudice and his upcoming marriage) and is okay with her having an emotional affair with Arisugawa.
• Safehold:
  • In By Schism Rent Asunder, King Cayleb of Charis proposes marriage to Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm in what was originally a cold-blooded political move to unite their kingdoms. When they finally meet, it is Love at First Sight.
  • Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald and his wife Princess Ohlyvya were betrothed at a young age and eventually ended up falling in love, much to their mutual surprise. (And benefit, as the practically-minded Ohlyvya tempers some of Nahrmahn's... more volatile characteristics.)
  • Done deliberately with Irys and Hektor. They clearly like each other but both are unwilling to make a move due to the circumstances. Sharleyan decides to deal with it by making their arranged marriage a condition of the peace treaty between Charis and Corisande.
• In The Scholomance, there's Liesel and Alfie. Liesel, the school valedictorian, is desperately seeking power, and proposed a relationship to her boyfriend purely for power-related reasons: He's the descendant of the Scholomance's founder and thus a high-ranking person in magical society; he accepted due to her own great skill. However, after setting themselves up as a couple purely for their own societal gain, Liesel realized that she actually very much admired the kind of person Alfie was and grew to like him anyway; Alfie seems to care deeply about her in kind. El notes that, while it's not her idea of an ideal relationship, it seems to be working out well for the both of them and respects them for it.
• Signe and Guibor de Barbentain, in A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay. An unusual example, in that it is not supposed to please modern sensitivities - all nobles are in arranged marriages, most of them polite and civil, some downright unhappy. Signe and Guibor are introduced as a true exception, an arranged marriage that also happens to be a love match. Of course, when they are introduced, Guibor has been dead for a year, and Signe is an old woman left with happy memories.
• A Song of Ice and Fire.
  • Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark and Lady Catelyn Tully. Catelyn was engaged to Ned's older brother Brandon and Ned was (or at least was rumored to be) in love with a woman called Lady Ashara Dayne. Brandon was killed as part of a mass execution that kicked off a civil war, and the marriage between Cat and Ned was hastily set up to keep a Stark-Tully alliance going into the war. They have five children together and are still having good sex and maintaining a loving relationship as the first book starts, despite Cat's resentments about Ned insisting on having his bastard son Jon Snow around.
  • Princess Daenerys Targaryen and Drogo, Khal of the Dothraki horseriders, unexpectedly become very close soon after their marriage and are quickly eager to start a family, though the issues of consent and Stockholm/Lima Syndrome are murky given that Dany was sold to Drogo by her brother Viserys in order to gain an army. In the later books (with Drogo and Viserys now dead and Daenerys a Queen and Khaleesi in her own right), Dany is well aware that she was lucky Drogo came to care for her genuinely and that her fate could have been much less bearable, which is part of why she's campaigning against slavery.
  • Also, Lord Edmure Tully and Lady Roslin Frey genuinely come to love each other, despite the wedding itself turning out... badly. The infamous Red Wedding was a pretext for her family to slaughter his at the feast while Roslin got pregnant by Edmure with the next heir to Riverrun, and Edmure himself was taken captive. Roslin was tearful during the ceremony because she knew what was coming but was under threat by her father and brothers not to say anything.
  • Subverted with Prince Joffrey Baratheon and Ned and Cat's elder daughter Lady Sansa Stark. It's set up when they're preteens and Sansa genuinely falls for Joffrey and imagines him to be the perfect prince charming she always wanted to marry. Then he shows his true colors by executing her father and everything goes to hell, with Joffrey lavishing cruelties on Sansa whenever possible. Sansa now despises him and is terrified when she has her first moonblood because of the prospect of Joffrey forcing himself on her. Fortunately, their engagement is ultimately broken when his family needs an alliance with the Tyrells and Joffrey is betrothed to Margaery Tyrell, and later poisoned at their wedding feast thanks to Margaery's protective grandmother Olenna. Less fortunately, Sansa is put into another arranged marriage with the Lannisters, being forcibly wed to Joffrey's uncle Tyrion. However, while their marriage is not this trope, it's still a huge improvement for Sansa, since Tyrion is the White Sheep of the family and treats her kindly.
  • Weirdly enough, Lord Roose Bolton and "Fat Walda" Frey. Roose was allowed to pick whatever Frey girl he wanted when it came to choosing a bride, with the stipulation that he would receive the girl's weight in silver as a dowry, and "Fat" Walda (as opposed to her cousins "Fair" Walda and "White" Walda) was the heaviest. Based on what a cold-blooded blackheart Roose Bolton is, you wouldn't expect any marriage of his to turn out well. He even burns Walda's love letters when she writes to him. But by the fifth book, he mentions that he's "become oddly fond of [his] fat little wife," and their marriage actually seems quite happy.
  • Prince Tommen Baratheon and Lady Margaery Tyrell get along famously, although due to the age difference (Tommen is eight and Margaery is sixteen) the relationship is totally devoid of any romance, with Tommen seeing her as more of a Cool Big Sis figure. She was originally engaged to his older brother Joffrey, but his poisoning put an end to that (thankfully, given that Joffrey was The Caligula).
  • So far, Prince Trystane Martell of Dorne and Princess Myrcella Baratheon. Both are too young for their relationship to be romantic yet, but they are said to be very close and Myrcella is enjoying her life in Dorne and looks up to Trystane's older sister Arianne. Myrcella and Trystane play cyvasse together frequently (a strategy game not unlike chess), and Trystane doesn't mind that she usually wins.
• In The Swans War trilogy, a marriage is arranged between Lady Elise and Prince Michael by their evil relatives. Both of them like each other very much when they meet and agree to do everything they can to avoid being forced to marry. That is because an alliance of their houses will empower their evil relatives even more and can produce an heir to the mythical, non-existent throne of the country, ushering in a devastating war.
• Lynn Flewelling's Tamir Triad offers us Duke Rhius and Princess Ariani (parents of the main character); as Rhius put it: "I was in love with Ariani and her brother was in love with my holdings.". Played straight since they deeply loved each other when they married. Then Ariani turned mad after her son was killed right after birth to save his twin sister and started hating her husband since he knew and allowed.
• In Rick Griffin's Ten Thousand Miles Up all marriages on the Generation Ship White Flower II are bureaucratically arranged, but main character captain Ateri and his wife Jakari are very much in love with each other.
• Waltharius: Already before the conflict with the Huns, King Alpher of Aquitaine and King Heririch of Burgundy have made a solemn agreement that Alpher's son Walther will get Heririch's daughter Hiltgunt in marriage. Years later, when they are both hostages at Attila's court, they fall in love with each other, elope together, and in the finale, they marry.
• In Warbreaker, Siri and Susebron fall in love. This is particularly surprising, given that he originally seems like an Evil Overlord and she's been sent to keep him from invading her country.
• Wax and Wayne: Wax's relationship with Steris becomes this, to both their surprise. Since he's a nobleman-turned-Cowboy Cop-turned-nobleman and she's a coldly analytical society lady who's profoundly uncomfortable in society, they expect it to be purely a Nobility Marries Money partnership of convenience, but come to realize that they complement each other's talents perfectly and make a great couple.
• The book "When Dimple Met Rishi" is based on this, with the two's parents arranging for them to meet at a summer conference.
• Lampshaded in Words of Radiance, second book in The Stormlight Archive. Early in the book, Princess Jasnah of Alethekar begins to set up an Arranged Marriage between her student, Shallan, and her cousin, Adolin. When Adolin hears about this, he muses that letting somebody else pick a wife for him might be kind of relaxing, since Adolin is a Serial Romeo who's managed to offend every single girl in the royal court. Once they meet, it turns out they get on pretty well despite their personalities not being an obvious match. Shallan deals with the news fairly well, too: as the only daughter of a minor noble house, she had grown up assuming she'd end up in a political marriage of one sort or another. To find out her groom-to-be is, by most accounts, the most eligible bachelor in Alethkar is not too shabby. Over the course of the book and the next one, they fall genuinely in love with one another, especially with Adolin's stability, earnestness, and kindness helping to anchor Shallan as she deals with her Lightweaving powers and their severe impact on her mental stability.
• In Wraith Kings: Radiance, the bride and groom are from drastically different races, consider each other ugly, and hate the idea of getting married. But their wit and Brutal Honesty about all of the above bond the two. Before vows are even spoken, they've reached an understanding.
  “We’ll manage well enough together, Ildiko of Gaur.”
  She briefly touched his shoulder. "I believe you, Brishen of Bast-Haradis."
• In Piers Anthony's Xanth book Roc and a Hard Place, the King of the Nagas and Grossclout, probably the most powerful of the non-planetary demons, arrange for the marriage of Princess Nada and Prince D. Vore. Knowing that both will object to the arrangement, they and Metria come up with the idea of plonking them in a tower of the floating cloud castle where Roxanne Roc is undergoing community service. The two combine their resources to escape, then kill a monster together once they hit Xanth proper, as Vore proposes to Nada. (The monster started the fight.) When Nada and Vore hear their parents had arranged the match already, and set them up, they almost call things off... but decide not to.
• Souma with Liscia, Roroa, and Naden in How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom. All of these marriages were forced upon them, but they all come to truly love each other over time. In Liscia's case, this was invoked by her father, who had memories of an alternate timeline where the two met and fell in love naturally.
• Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte:
  • Siegwald and Lieselotte have been arranged to be married since very young, but their relationship has been a troubled one due to Lieselotte's aloofness, with Siegwald thinking Lieselotte never loved him. However, Lieselotte really does love Siegwald and he finds himself falling in love with her as he begins to understand her personality.
  • In the previous generation, August and Elizabeth truly loved each other and were happy to wed. Unfortunately, since the former was dying from a lifelong Soap Opera Disease and the latter has power-hungry parents, they attempted to undo the engagement despite everyone else being happy with it. Literally everyone else. Case in point: More than a decade after August's death, the fact that August and Elizabeth have an illegitimate child comes to light. Bruno, August's younger brother and the head of the Riefenstahl clan, is not scandalized by this; his greatest concern is putting the child under the protection of the clan as Elizabeth's parents have been trying to hunt the child down for all these years.
• Played hilariously in The Ambition of Oda Nobuna. Nobuna arranged for her younger sister Oichi to marry Asai Nagamasa. Except that unlike the real-life Oda Nobunaga, the Gender Fliped Nobuna doesn't actually have a younger sister Oichi. Instead she forces her younger brother Nobusumi to crossdress as "Oichi". Fortunately, it turns out that Asai Nagamasa is actually a woman crossdressing as a man, and the two of them fall in love. After the Asai clan betrays the Oda clan, unlike in reality where things ended badly for both Nagamasa and Oichi, in this case Nagamasa fakes her death and Nobusumi resumes his real identity. Then Nagamasa takes up the false identity Oichi and marries Nobusumi again.
• In Violet Evergarden, Princess Charlotte and Prince Damian. Charlotte is revealed to have fallen in love with Damian years earlier, well before their marriage was arranged. Part of her hesitation with going through with the marriage is because she feared that Damian didn't want to marry a girl ten years his junior. At Violet's encouragement, Charlotte wrote personal letters to Damian, asking what he wanted, even offering to break the engagement if he didn't feel the same way. He admits that he does love her too. Later episodes showed them being Happily Married.
• Andrzej and Oleńka in The Deluge begin the story bethrothed, although they never met before - the marriage has been arranged by their families. The sparks do fly from the get-go, but it takes quite a lot of ups and downs until they can get married and settle down together.
• Subverted in Sir Nigel: After Mary's sister Edith goes willingly to Paul de la Fosse's manor (a hunchbacked aristocrat with the connections to ensure he can seduce as many young women as he wants without consequence), Nigel rides out with Mary and a priest to give him an ultimatum: either he marries Edith then and there (his status and wealth make him a good party, if it wasn't for the whole Serial Rapist thing), or Nigel kills him to prevent Edith being Defiled Forever. Edith claims they were going to marry anyway, but Nigel forcing the point gets Paul to submit. Seeing her beloved only agree to marry her under duress finally breaks Edith out of her infatuation.