I was rewatching some of Shingeki no Bahamut, which has a bit of that Beauty & the Beast shit going on, and some scenes reminded me very much of Star Wars for some reason… And it made me realize that Reylo parallels a lot of romance stories out there.
In Shingeki no Bahamut (Virgin Soul), our precious heroine, Nina, falls in love with the “villain” of the story, King Charioce XVII. This guy.
Charioce is the series’ villain as he leads the kingdom’s forces against Nina’s group and their cause. He is a ruthless, cold-hearted man who holds no mercy for anyone… but perhaps save for the girl he develops feelings for. His mother was a pauper but his father was royalty, hence making Charioce of royal blood. Remind you of a certain dark, handsome prince? Ben Solo. As the “People’s King”, Charioce secured his spot on the throne with cutthroat methods, eliminating anyone in his way.
Charioce has a certain goal that he seeks to accomplish no matter what. Everything he does as King is necessary for that purpose. And the result is the abuse and exploitation of those that are not human (i.e. angels, demons, etc.). He only answers to his own convictions… until meets an innocent but strong, half-human/dragon girl, Nina. She falls in love with him and he falls in love with her. For half of the series, he doesn’t know that Nina is the dragon he is trying to hunt down. Until she reveals herself before him, transforming from that of a beast to that of a young woman who loves him in return… despite his misdeeds.
For all his efforts to capture and kill this dragon, Charioce does the exact opposite when he discovers the truth. Instead of hurting her, or risk geting hurt by her, Charioce seeks to touch her.
He reaches out, but abruptly stops, only to remove his gauntlets first. He wants to feel this contact with his own hand. Feel his skin brace against the warmth of her own.
It’d been too long since he’d last touched the warmth of another person’s.
He touches her and something incredible happens between the both of them. An energy neither can explain but only feel by the physical connection they share together.
Ignoring the heavy sexual tones here, the 2 “enemies” finally glimpse each other’s true colors.
But then they are caught by the ‘wise companion’ and the two starcrossed lovers are separated once again.
But then at the climax, the two lovers are reunited and work as a power couple to defeat the greater evil.
“I’m not giving up on us!” Nina tells Chris. Whatever he’s trying to accomplish, she’s not leaving his side. She loves him too much.
So we get this badass team up with these two power couples. The woman, a pauper, and the man, a prince/king = Rey/Nina and Ben/Chris.
But the battle ends with the two lovers knocked out together…
At one point, Charioce has a private moment with Nina. He explains to her that he is a bad man who has done terrible things to reach his goal. And he cannot stop, not even for her, although she makes his convictions waver. The “villain” never wanted to involve himself with the “heroine”, but he never expected to fall in love with her, let alone receive her love and compassion in return.
Nina says, “Why you want to become a scary king… that I don’t know. But, how I feel about you… I want to help you with whatever you’re dealing with.”
Nina knows that, deep down, Charioce is suffering. He sees no hope for himself, yet he can’t help but love her. She doesn’t know why he must do these bad things but she wants him to know that he is not alone. He has her love and support, if only he will accept it. Meanwhile, everyone else hates Charioce for his misdeeds and Nina’s friends do NOT approve of her romance with the enemy.
Her lover is their enemy, and she knows that.
Which is why the heroine continues having secret rendezvous with her lover enemy. Shh, no one must know about it.
There are a few other similarities I saw between the romance in SnB and Star Wars TLJ but I thought this post was long enough. I just wanted to point out some similaries between these two enemies/lovers romances. Like, seriously, Reylo parallels so many romance stories out there. You could take a scene from TLJ and another romance film and put those two scenes side by side and they would be near exact both in context and visually.