#also thought about writing a post on what would happen if movie firstprince and book firstprince meet

[meraki-yao]

RWRB Book Thoughts: Ellen and Oscar

Re-reading RWRB and thinking about Oscar and Ellen. The thing is book Ellen and Oscar's relationship scares me because it's like the worst-case scenario of my own parents (they're a lot better now but covid was hell) So I understand it.

Ellen and Oscar are soulmates. As in they are both intelligent, stubborn and headstrong. They are very similar people. Unfortunately this is a case where it's like forcefully pushing two North ends of a magnet together: Ellen in particular wants and needs a complimentary relationship instead of collaborative relationship, which is why Leo works for her: Leo is meek compared to Oscar. He really just listens and generally agrees with Ellen. His appearances are limited in the book but when he does show up he doesn't really have his own opinion. Ellen wants/needs someone who won't speak up against her.

Honestly? I, kinda feel sad for Oscar. He said it himself, "We're both too fucking proud. But God, that woman. Your mother is, without question, the love of my life. I'll never love anyone else like that." It's sad to know that he never stopped loving Ellen while vice versa isn't true, and to know that she's it for Oscar.

When it comes to parenting I honestly think Oscar is the better parent. It was really shitty of him to leave without telling Alex and June and that evidently really hurt Alex til this day, but when it comes to the other parent things? I was re-reading/listening to Chapter Four today when he goes to DC for Christmas, and both Alex and June are so much more comfortable with him. Part of that is probably because he doesn't carry the inherent pressure of being the fucking president, but part of it is that he really cares about his kids as they are. Ellen downplays June's passion for journalism and pressures her into a political job that she didn't want at all, while Oscar "raved about June's latest blog post for The Atlantic". Ellen immediately started piling up all the political consequences of firstprince literally minutes after Alex plucked up the courage to come out to her while Oscar gave him relationship advice. This isn't to say Ellen isn't a good mother, she is flawed, as Oscar is, as all parents are. But if we're looking at non-crisis moments, Oscar's actions are more comfortable for his children.

There's a reason June initially wanted to go to California and be close to her dad. Yesterday I talked a little about how I hated how Ellen and Alex treated June at the earlier chapters of the book. Well in the rest of the book it's implied that she has a much closer relationship with Oscar, jumping into his arms when he arrives at the White House, him picking her up and spinning her when they arrive at the lakehouse.

Either way, Ellen and Oscar clash becasue they're too alike, and my opinion is that Ellen tends to fan the flames more, see Christmas dinner where Oscar suggests campaigning with them to help and she immediately shoots it down with "you can't be serious". Anyways, the children suffer the most. And uh, speaking from experience here, that shit never goes away. My parents are still together and are a lot better compared to the past, but I flinch at any sound of argument/angry yelling because of all of their fighting.

And there's this one paragraph in the book: "Even before Alex's parents split, they both had a habit of calling him by the other's last name when he exhibited a particular trait. They still do. When he runs his mouth off to the press, his mom called him into her office and says ' get your shit together Diaz.' When his hard-headedness gets him stuck, his dad texts him, 'Let it go, Claremont'" and God that's so shitty? To know, to be reminded that one parent hates the part of you that is from the other parent. Even if that's not what Ellen and Oscar's intention is, that's what it feels like, and it's really, fucking, shitty.

I wonder how would book Alex feel if he know that there was an alternative universe out there where his family was functional. I wonder how would he feel if he knew that movie Alex doesn't have his loving sister, but has loving, gentle parents who have a healthy, functional relationship.

My guess, is that he would say that he'd choose his life and his sister no matter what, and he means it because he does love June, but deep down a part of him would be jealous of movie Alex for having a smaller but healthier and happier family.

[meraki-yao]

i really don’t know why some of yall are concerned about a romance sequel having conflict like ya every relationship encounters conflict but being able to see them over come any kind of conflict whether that’s about the politics of the rwrb world or their relationship in some way seeing a queer couple continue to over come conflict is what’s the most meaningful and important thing like what kind of media do yall consume where conflict is none of any kind existent?

Well…

Okay.

Before anything, I gotta clarify that my answer is based on my experience, thoughts, opinions and preferences, and I can only speak for myself.

I’m not against all conflict. I think as humans, conflict is inevitable, and that’s where character growth comes from.

I’m unsure about any more big conflict. I’m unsure about a conflict that’s dramatic, high stakes, and long enough to sustain a movie’s 2 hour run time.

There are a few reasons to this:

Because I love firstprince and treat them as semi-real, there’s this parasocial feelings of not wanting anything bad to happen to them. It’s like when my close irl friends introduce me to their partner and they seem like a healthy, good pair, I think “damn, I hope things go well with them, I hope they last”

The immediate/basic big conflicts a relationship like this has: getting together, getting to know each other, falling in love, becoming committed, coming out, all of these were covered in the movie already. Please also note that these are all over-arching and continuous.

The remaining conflicts I can think of are homophobia perhaps from the public (but most likely not the majority of the public if the Buckingham protest is anything to go by), remaining conflicts with the royal family (maybe the King, Maybe Philip gets a redemption, maybe Princess Catherine comes back into the picture), and figuring out how their gonna manage their relationship now that they’re out and committed. But the thing is I don’t really think these points suit the format or structure of movie storytelling. These are closer to moments of life, which is why I personally want/think a sequel series would work better. Even for the book, the bonus chapter shows smaller conflicts and moments, but it’s not a continuous, over-arching thing like the main plot in the book/movie is

I don’t want them to create conflict for conflict’s sake, whatever happens should be reasonable and in character. So with that being said, they’re not gonna be on the verge of breaking up. Alex already established that he would rather hurt himself before he would ever hurt Henry.

But if the conflict isn’t about Firstprince’s relationship, it kind of no longer fits the understanding of a romance movie

The current movie has such a “fairytale” feeling to it, and the ending, even with the shooting star, feels so much like a “happily ever after” conclusion, that going “sike we’re not done there’s more big conflicts” feels… slightly off? It’s kind of like the distorting feeling I got when I watched Into the Wood for the first time

And this is entirely me, this is entirely personal, but I don’t really want RWRB movie-verse to put more focus on the political aspect (note that I mean straight-up political details, not Alex’s ambitions and desire to help people, I still want the latter) such as what happened with Richards in the books. Partly because that’s much harder to write and perform in a good way, partly because it takes away from the “fairytale-ness” of the movie

So TL:DR I’m not against conflict, it’s just part of life and any story, but I’m unsure/ don’t want a relationship plot conflict that suits a movie structure. I want to see them deal with the pre-existing, less dramatic but still important conflict that they currently have, and in my opinion, that would suit a series more. This is why in my first post about a sequel, I said I don’t want a sequel in the traditional sense of a streaming media movie sequel