Snowflake Challenge #11

[justanorthernlight]

Challenge #11

In your own space, Talk about your favorite trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Trope: Stranded together via the elements (i.e, stuck in a snowstorm, taking shelter together, etc). I don't know if there is a better name for this, its similar to some other tropes and can include Huddling for Warmth, Tending Each Others' Wounds, and There Was Only One Bed, but those extra tropes aren't necessary to my enjoyment of it.

It's hard for me to articulate exactly what elements make this trope for me, I guess usually the trapped scenario is a lens through which to examine the relationship(s) between the characters who are trapped. There's usually a lot of emotional tension over things-left-unsaid and no escape from each others' company and the feelings it brings up...

Somewhere between Trope and Theme: Found Family. No elaboration necessary.

Theme: I really love stories that engage with characters who are the, hm, collateral damage of somebody else's good cause. It's generally a side-effect of Grey-and-Grey morality, where one side is a significantly darker shade of grey but the lighter side doesn't exactly have clean hands. G'Kar in Babylon 5, Jyn in Rogue One, and basically every character Flint uses as cannon fodder in Black Sails, are all examples that come to mind.

I wrote a whole wall of text on this, but it got too rambling so instead I'm just going to link one of my favorite B5 quotes/scenes on this theme (episode 3x14: Ship of Tears): "'Some must be sacrificed if all are to be saved.' At first I took that as revelation for the future. Now I see that it is as much about how we got here as about where we are going."

Comments

[severina]

Ohhh, stranded together is a good one. I also tend to use that a little in disaster fics (eg zombies, which I add to my fics regularly. LOL) Found family is another good one!

[justanorthernlight]

Yes, for me it involves a confined space (cabin, cave, tent, etc), for peak "We're stuck with each other, lets confront (or pointedly ignore) whatever this simmering tension is."