Hello! Your tags on that post about Woland/Margarita are my jammiest of jams. Do you have any other ships where a person in authority is brought to their knees in loving someone? Thank you!
Oooo, such a delightfully wonderful question! Thank you Anon!
(Before we begin, a word from our sponsor; pretty much all of the ones doing the kneeling are villains/morally ambiguous - but you already knew that when you read ‘person in authority’! - so. You know. Caution advised. Also, spoilers.)
Here are some I can think of right now:
Erik for Christine from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. The ghost in the machine/opera house, who has the employees whispering in terror and the managers utterly befuddled - on his knees before Christine Daae, though he is built up of death from head to foot and it is a corpse who loves and adores her:
‘My anger equaled my amazement. I rushed at the mask and tried to snatch it away, so as to see the face of the voice. The man said, `You are in no danger, so long as you do not touch the mask.' And, taking me gently by the wrists, he forced me into a chair and then went down on his knees before me and said nothing more! His humility gave me back some of my courage; and the light restored me to the realities of life...’
Brandin of Ygrath for Dianora, from Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. A sorcerer king who took over a peninsula and cursed the province of Tigana, planning to erase it from history and memory for all time due to his beloved son having died there during his conquest - but his passion for revenge is equalled by his passion for Dianora, his concubine, who harbours a deadly secret.
Brandin of Ygrath, who had named himself Brandin di Chiara, had dropped to his knees on the pier and had buried his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking helplessly. And Devin understood then how wrong he had been before: that this was not, after all, a man who was only pleased and happy that a stratagem had worked...Then He saw the King, the Tyrant, the sorcerer who had ruined them with his bitter, annihilating power, gather the woman into his arms, gently, with tenderness, but with the unmistakable urgency of a man deprived and hungry for too long.
Koschei the Deathless for Marya Morvena, from Deathless by Catherynne M Valente. Koschei, the Tsar of Life, marries Marya and plans to treat her no differently than his previous wives, but when she chooses to leave him and take up with the human Ivan Nikolayevich, Koschei soon comes a’calling:
The man in the black coat held up one hand to her, as if he could not believe she was real. ‘I look at you, Masha, and it is like drinking cold water. I look at you and it is like my throat being cut.’
‘Get off your knees.’ Her chest hurt. She felt old, and the wind off the river smelled sweet, but impossible.
‘I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried. For a year I have called every black tree Marya Morevna; I have looked for your face in the patterns of the ice. In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold.’
Naturally any staging for William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure where proud ‘snow-broth’ Angelo sinks to his knees in the presence of Isabella, the postulant who set him aflame with lust; not merely with her beauty but with her RHETORIC. Aw yisssss
(Royal Shakespeare Company 2019, Lucy Phelps as Isabella and Sandy Grierson as Angelo)
Alucard for Integra Hellsing, from Hellsing by Kouta Hirano. The monster who was once Dracula, who was once Prince Vlad III Tepes of Wallachia, will bow to nobody but Integra. She is the only authority he answers to. It’s left ambiguous in the manga/anime as to whether it’s a romantic love, but mein gott, the fanfiction! Also, this shot:
And for now, here’s something absolutely hilarious for the road:
In the Amelia Peabody series the titular Amelia, her beloved husband Radcliffe Emerson and their precocious - and very irritating at times, not going to lie - son Ramses (né Walter) come into conflict with 'The Master Criminal’, who runs an illicit underground antiquities trade and who is the dreaded overlord of the 19th century Egyptian criminal underworld. After having thwarted his endeavours once, Amelia naturally believes this criminal, Sethos, wants revenge on her...but after she’s been abducted to his hideout, we get this gem of a scene:
I set my back against the wall, prepared to defend myself to the last. ‘Do your worst, you monster,’ I cried. ‘You have taken away my parasol and stripped my of my tools, but never think you can break the spirit of a Peabody! Torture me, murder me-’
‘Torture? Murder?’ He gasped for breath, his hands tearing at the open throat of his shirt. ‘Madam! Amelia! You misunderstand me totally. Why, I killed a man yesterday and left him lying before your tent only because he dared hazard your safety by shooting at the man who was with you!’
Before I could take in this remarkable speech, much less respond to it, he had flung himself - not at my throat - but at my feet. ‘Most magnificent of women, I adore you with all my heart and soul! I brought you here, not to harm you, but to shower upon you the ardent devotion of a soul hopelessly caught in your spell!’ And he buried his flushed face in the folds of my trousers.’
Anyone have any recommendations they want to add to the list???
