Ships, II

[selenak]

Children of depressed fathers (well, or uncles), siblings whose brothers were probably the most consistent source of affection for them. Both damaged by war and loss, though she knew her parent figure loved her, and his father realized it too late. Both had sought death, in their way, and had to deal with life instead. Of course they were made for another.
Mind you, I could have done with a little more transition in the House of Healing, but of all of Tolkien’s (few) romances, this is still the only one I find believable in the books. (Pace, Beren/Luthien fans.) (In the films, I also get invested in Arwen/Aragorn, and feel guiltily fascinated by the thought of Eowyn/Grima, but that wasn’t the question.)



They never share a scene, and so it’s all speculation and a few lines of references. I see Winn as initially idolizing Opaka, both for her connection to the Prophets and the fact she was who Winn wanted to be, Kai, and then feeling increasing resentment and frustration for the same reason. Opaka on her part knew that a church, especially in a time of crisis, needed its pragmatists as well as its saints, and secretely favoured Winn as her successor, though Barail was definitely more loved by her as a person. She hoped the two of them would work in tandem, completing each other.




They start out as opposites (male/female, faithful Corps loyalist/ renegade, old/young, hunter/hunted, etc.) and then in a supreme irony of fate end up as almost identical. As the fifth season closes, Lyta wears black leather, forces people who tried to kill her to commit suicide even after they’ve been disarmed, mindmesses with Garibaldi, talks about telepaths as “my people” and thinks that for their larger sake, harming or killing some of them is justified. Sounds familiar?
I don’t think Lyta ever realized. Bester might have, once he was himself on the run after the telepath war, but we’re getting into book canon territory here. In the end, she was his best student, and in a very real sense, they had to destroy each other.




Far more interesting and complicated on screen than in most of the fanfic I’ve read, though admittedly I didn’t read much. They brought up the worst and the best in each other. The fact that they were able to forgive each other was extraordinary. Great chemistry, of course. Even when they were terrible for each other, they were a fascinatingly dysfunctional mess to watch. I don’t see them settling down in an house as a permanent couple, but I could see them as lifelong (Buffy’s life) friends with romantic interludes, which I never would have believed back when the relationship began.



Being both obsessed with Angel was the initial bond, and ultimately the reason why it fell apart. She found him attractive, used him, and probably genuinenly liked him right until the point where he brought Dru to sire her. (Which wasn’t about saving Darla as much as it was about hurting Angel.) He found her fascinating, obsessed about her almost as much as about Angel, and might have had a death wish somewhere along the line. I don’t think they ever had sex; she was experienced enough to realize that he was only in love with the unobtainable, and she needed him to be in love with her most of the time.