I just read that post you wrote about Francis/Richard and that got me thinking about Charles/Francis. I actually really like the idea of this relationship, and it just feels like we could have had it all, you know? TSH's ending still rips me apart.
Hmm, I disagree with you there? I've talked of how I feel about the Charles/Francis situation before, I think... Aha, in the Charles character piece I did, here (in the second to last paragraph).
To paraphrase what I've said before, I think it’s an unhealthy relationship. I think Francis likes Charles a lot more than Charles likes Francis, and that does not a healthy relationship make. Charles more or less manipulates Francis into doing whatever he wants him to, and Francis goes along with it because Charles is pretty and Francis has a weakness for pretty things.
To Charles, Francis is just a substitute for the thing he really wants, and I don't see him ever being capable of loving Francis the way Francis wants him to. Everything Charles was capable of giving he gave to someone else.
Character-wise, I don't think their temperaments fit, either. Charles is much too volatile and Francis is too nervous, too twitchy, and I think they'd have problems handling that. In some ways, they're similar enough to fit and in others, they're so different it stings. And I think in a way Francis lets Charles’s worst qualities surface and fester and reign because he doesn't want to and/or isn't able to stop him. Theirs wouldn't be a union built on equal grounds.
This is not to say, of course, that I don’t find the dynamic interesting. On the contrary, I think it’s absolutely fascinating, I just don't think it’s good or healthy for either of them. I don't really know if any of the Greek class are actually capable of having functional relationships, to be quite honest, they’re much too deceitful and messed up as it is.
