favourite thing/s about enemies to lovers as a trope?
mmmkay, gonna be a bit pedantic for a sec and confess that I’m never entirely sure what particular narrative/set of dynamics people are referring to with “enemies to lovers” as an apparently codified trope - like, people tend to get very prescriptive about what “counts” as “enemies to lovers” (i.e. claiming that the stakes of the story need to be super high - different stories have different scopes, people! two people don’t have to kill each other to count as “enemies”; or alternatively, on the anti side, acting as if a relationship is “just abuse” and doesn’t count as ETL for not being “healthy” enough), while also seemingly using it as some sort of catch-all for rivalshipping or villain/hero in general.
The second one in particular tends to frustrate me because the “x to y” framing implies a sort of linear progression, with the “lovers” bit as a naturalized end state, implying that the rivalry needs to be “overcome” to bring about a sort of amatonormative/sex-normative “happy ending”. And - probably obviously, to people who know me - that framework of expectations makes me extremely grouchy, even if the scenario itself isn’t inherently objectionable to me. That, on top of the fact that most “enemies to lovers” shipping manifestos that I’ve seen have never seemed intuitive to me, or have clearly been talking about a different set of tropes from what I’m drawn to, kind of suggests to me that I don’t like “enemies to lovers” as it’s generally defined.
But, if you were asking about rivalshipping or villain/hero shipping in general, as I assume you probably were (given that you read my blog):
I think my favourite thing about that sort of trope is the singularity of connection that can arise from it. The idea that the person who is the most set against you, ideologically, or who has posed the biggest threat to you, is also the person who understands you the most, who sees you in a way that nobody else does, especially if you’ve always struggled with truly connecting with people. I like the idea of that person giving you a mirror to yourself, letting you see what you might have become under different circumstances - and I like the gratification in knowing you can do the same for them, that your existence provides them with a unique kind of insight that no other person can give them. I like the sort of control you can exert over someone through that dynamic, but the way in which you also in turn become vulnerable to them. And I like the way it indicates a particular kind of loneliness - that the person who has the most intimate handle on you is also the person who’s inherently separated from you in a fundamental way.
Additionally, I listed on this post that one of my favourite relationship tropes involves “a years-ongoing, on-again off-again dynamic between people who know each other inside out (sometimes too well) and keep resurfacing for each other/seeking each other out at points of crisis,” and I think that’s the kind of dynamic I tend to prefer in rival ships. I like seeing people who have a unique understanding of each other, but who aren’t uncomplicatedly supportive of each other, make reappearances when one person is having a turning point, moment of crisis, paradigm shift, etc. Because that involves the one person having a presence that’s challenging to the other, that forces them to face things about themselves in a way that a gentle approach doesn’t, or doesn’t do so in as interesting a way for me.
For an example (and they’re not one of my biggest ships, but I dig the potential in their dynamic) - that’s why I loved Kylo’s “you’re nothing - but not to me” line in TLJ. Because the context of the line was him forcing her to accept a truth that she’d been suppressing/refusing to acknowledge; not in a nice way, but in a way that was important to her character journey. And that kind of cruelty that results in necessary character development is something I like seeing and exploring.
Additionally - in terms of a more “linear” progression to this kind of shipping, I tend to prefer the characters starting off as friends or allies and then becoming rivals, but with the sexual aspect of the relationship not necessarily being dependent on that linear development - using the erotic to explore the differing dynamics that can arise between two people, but not as an end goal to some form of romantic development, or as something representative of a harmony that gets lost when conflict arises.
