Favorites: Top 3 Romantic Couples in Fiction

Matthew Crawley and Lady Mary Crawley

Downton Abbey: Season 2

 Without a doubt my most favorite romantic couple ever!!!! Of course, they had a pretty stereotyped relationship.

 Snobby wealthy girl looks down on a middle class (but very handsome) man.

 After a while the girl realizes that he's an incredible catch.

 She falls in love with him and (best of all) he's in love with her!

Guy proposes, she turns him down.

War starts and he comes back with a second girl...and they're engaged.

She gets a second guy...and they get engaged.

They both still realize they're in love with one another and now they're stuck.

The second girl dies and the second guy is a jerk.

The second guy gets his ass kicked.

On a cold winter night, the guy gets down on one knee and says,

"Lady Mary Crawley, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Girl answers

"Yes!"

They kiss and spin around in the falling snow and the credits roll.

And then comes the wedding....

But that's not until January.

     Stereotyped or not, Mary and Matthew are an incredible couple, just like most of the couples in Downton Abbey. I like the fact that they're both human...and Matthew isn't out for Mary's blood or her money for that matter, and Mary isn't obsessed with Matthew, she's genuinely in love with him. Point being, it's a breath of fresh air to read about real everyday people who go through real everyday problems in a vampire obsessed culture.

   Then comes Fifty Shades of Grey where love is just a cruel game of sex and (basically) abuse. It's an awful thing to read about and I can't understand why any woman in her right mind would even pick up a novel like that. 

    As predictable as Mary and Matthew's storyline may be, it's wonderful to see a man who will defend a woman, who makes mistakes, who knows that he's not perfect, but does the best he can to be the best kind of man out there.

  It's a relief to see a frightened woman who is doing her utmost to be strong and confident, who is in love, but is willing to let go of that love for his happiness, who puts her family before her heart and desires, and will sacrifice her future to atone for her mistakes, even if it means giving up the only man she has ever truly loved.

    I'll take the predictable over the absolute unbelievable.

~ ~ ~

Faramir and Lady Eowyn

The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King

     I've never read The Lord of The Rings, but maybe my love of the three films will make me some kind of Tolkien fan (I hope I didn't commit heresy for saying that). In spite of my lack of knowledge, I loved Faramir and Eowyn and thought that were so totally made for one another. I mean, if any two people deserved some small amount of happiness in the story I really think it would have been them.

      Sadly in the movies you only saw about fifteen minutes of relationship development and that's only in the extended edition. Yet, the simple (rather fast) love story had a deep impact on me. To begin with, their personal lives prior to meeting one another, were very similar. Both were lonely, they were losing their homes as well as their families,  they were willing to die for what they had left, and they were just absolutely desperate to be loved.

     I love the fact that they met in the hospital (or the House of Healing, I guess it's called in the books). and it was the ultimate love at first sight story as well. So even though they know that Middle-Earth is about to end at any second, they both seem to think,  

"We've been through Hell and back. We're tired and have lost just about everything and now, we have finally found what we've spent our entire lives looking for. So if we're going to die, at least we can die knowing that, for half an hour we were the happiest that we have ever been.

     Yet, love and sacrifice conquers all and everyone lives happily ever after and no one deserved a happily ever after more than these two.

~ ~ ~

 Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley

Anne of Green Gables

      I think anyone who has ever read the books or seen the movies (proud to say, I have done both) have absolutely loved Anne and Gilbert. Ever since that immortal scene in the first story where Gilbert calls Anne carrots and Anne slams his slate over his head. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

      Now, I'll admit, I was sooooo in love with Gilbert when I watched the movies! I thought he was so perfect! I think every girl has always wanted a Gilbert Blythe of their own. His genuine kindness and strength of character was such a needed quality for Anne's feisty and and often times troublesome nature. He never ever doubted Anne's talent and was always a source of guidance, even when she thought she didn't need it.

      In the third movie Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story, Anne's love and devotion for Gilbert is put to the ultimate test when he is MIA in WWI. There's a scene in the film when she tells Diana, "I'm not going to stay here and wait for my husbands funeral." Against all odds, Anne travels Europe to find her husband. Through hardship and pain, they are eventually reunited, but not without consequences in the end.

    When a friend of Anne's is killed she promises him before he dies that she will take care of his son. When Anne and Gilbert go and find him, he's gone. Anne is desperate and terrified that this precious child is lost forever. Then Gilbert says simply, "We will find him. No matter what it takes." That scene always brings tears to my eyes because it makes me realize that not even war or death or destruction can change the love and compassion that Gilbert gives Anne or the inspiration and hope he has always instilled in her.