Dark Elements in Romance Fiction · 12:28pm Nov 21st, 2014
Introduction
Dark elements are part, or at least potentially part, of any love story save the fluffiest (the Cakes have a contest to see which can call one another by the sappiest possible pet name! D'aww ...). What follows is a discussion of dark elements in romance fiction.
I. Incompatibility: This is generally more Sad than Dark (unless the "incompatibility" is something horrible to the beloved) but it's very common. Take two admirable, honorable and likeable characters, have them fall in love, and then have the love fail simply because something about their personalities or situations prevents it from working out. This is in some ways is worse than Betrayal because there's no clear villain of the piece -- no one who can be pointed to as having been despicable, false or nasty. The former couple may well still care about one another as friends afterward.
This happens between my Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash -- Fluttershy is a shy, cautious polyamorist with a strong sex drive, and Rainbow Dash a brash, impulsive monogamist with a weak sex drive, and while they love one another deathlessly, they can't make it work long-term -- and they fall in love not knowing this, because both of them are pretty innocent when it starts. And their loyalty and love for one another never really fade -- either would still give her life for the other. They just know that their marrying would be a terrible idea.
Indeed, this probably happens in real life more often than deliberate Betrayal, though Betrayal is more dramatic for fictional purposes. And it doesn't always wind up even as well as it does for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, because often one makes a villain out of the ex-beloved -- this makes oneself feel better about the whole situation, since one can then pretend that oneself was totally innocent in the matter.
II. Betrayal: A common concept in my writing of love is that it's not sex which ends innocence, but betrayal. It is the awareness of the ability of others to claim to love one and act as if they loved one in one moment, and then treat one with hatred or indifference the next, which really kills one's trust in the goodness of others. It could be said that all the other darknesses are variants on betrayal -- even death is the nature of life betraying one's own hopes and desires.
Betrayal can take many forms. The simplest in a romantic context is the false lover -- he or she who does not really love one, or loves one very shallowly and temporarily, departing as soon as difficulties ensue. This is what happens in the backstory of my Fluttershy (courtesy of Bad Horse) with "Nosey," who has a one-night stand with her and never even likes her; and in the backstory of my Rarity with Rush Rocks, who has a teenage affair with her and reveals that he doesn't really love her when she gets pregnant and whose automatic response is simply to hand her money for an abortion, since he's of a good Mane Line Fillydelphia family and she's just lower middle-class.
One can pile betrayal upon betrayal. Ceymi betrays the interests of her Hive for love of Thermal Soar, and then Thermal Soar for her own interests combined with those of her Hive, and then is in turn betrayed by Chrysalis, who is aslo engaging in an infinitely-greater betrayal of the best interests of her whole species and planet and even multiverse in pursuit of her own ambitions. (Ah, but Ceymi and Thermal, though both long-dead by that time, may get the last laugh on Chrysalis).
One can even betray oneself, in that one may for foolish, impulsive or superficial reasons behave badly in ways that destroy one's own happiness. My teenaged Cheerilee rejects Big Mac because he's two years younger than her, which seems like a great gulf of time when she's 15, and in consequence makes both of them unhappy for the next decade and a half, when -- sadder but wiser -- she realizes that she always loved him. (This particular example is Sad rather than Dark, but it could be worse -- consider the plot of Looking For Mr. Goodbar, which has a terribly dark ending, leading to the Murder of the protagonist).
III. Emotional Abuse: Very common in real life, especially because at the lower ends it shades into mere quarreling. Extreme emotional abuse counts as a form of Betrayal, while mild abuse is Incompatibility. Extreme emotional abuse can be horrifying and can over time cumulatively destroy the sanity of the victim; mild abuse produces unhappiness. Contrary to what some people will tell you, such abuse can be mutual. It also has terrible effects on any children.
Unhappy thought: we know in canon that the Ponies are quite capable of being emotionally abusive to one another. 
Trixie and Piercing have terrible arguments and near-breakups. One could unkindly say that they deserve one another. They almost never take it to direct physical violence, though.
IV. Physical Abuse: The next step up from emotional abuse, this happens for various reasons, which boil down to (1) "You're mine so I can beat you," (2) "We're close so normal restraints don't apply," and (3) I love you so you can make me MAD!" Physical abuse is not only criminal in most modern Western societies (and presumably also Equestria) but is dangerous because it can escalate to severe injury or even death. Like emotional abuse, physical abuse can be mutual. One problem in dealing with this through the criminal justice system is that the initiation of violence can be murky; another is that the couple will often close ranks against any outsiders, most ESPECIALLY including investigating police officers.
Happy thought: while this probably happens in Equestria a lot more than does rape or murder, it is probably less common than in our world because the Ponies are less violent. On the other hand, we do know from canon that the Ponies are capable of violence -- they are just more restrained where the infliction of severe harm is concerned.
V. Rape: This is really more a "violence complication" than it is a Romantic Darkness, unless the rapist is the beloved (in which case this is a subset of Betrayal). For an example of this, look at what happens to Rosalie Hale in the backstory of the Twilight series. The reason why Rape gets used as a dark element in romance fiction is twofold:
(1) - Rape often sours the victim on sexuality. Sadly true, and what's even sadder is that it often leads to a rejection of the victim by an existing lover or spouse. This seems to derive from very deep and unpleasant aspects of our sociobiology (as does rape itself) though it is by no means always the case. In other words, not only is the victim likely to devalue herself (or himself, as men get raped as well), but this lowered self-estimate is likely to be reinforced by the lowered esteem of others. This is a vicious circle that in reality often emotionally-destroys the life of the victim, and it's one of the reasons we treat rape as a much more severe crime than simple assault and battery.
(2) - Rape may actually lead to a sexual relationship. Even more sadly true and embedded deeply in human sociobiology, though this is thankfully far less common in modern societies than in ancient ones. Consider that in pre-modern times, a woman might well be made captive by her enemies; she would normally be enslaved and raped, and if she did not emotionally-submit to this the chance of survival of herself and her offspring (often her children by rape) would be much reduced. This happened often enough that there is a human tendency to become submissive when abused in this fashion; it probably long predates agriculture and even anatomically-modern humanity.
Rape is real and I see no logical reason to exclude it from fiction. I do have a problem with the trivialization of rape in fiction, but then I have a problem with the trivialization of a lot of cruelty in fiction -- the more so because this can lead the innocent and ignorant to trivialize real-life cruelty.
If you want a happy thought, consider this: because of both Pony sociobiology and Equestrian culture, rape is probably a lot less common among Ponies and specifically Equestrians than it is among Humans and in most Human cultures. Humans are descended from hominoid ancestors who probably raped routinely; by comparison, rape is much more rare among equoids. And Equestria is a mildly-matriarchal culture which seems to extoll self-restraint as a major virtue for males. This doesn't mean that rapes never happen -- among other things, Ponies aren't perfect, or even all good, and miscommunications are certainly possible -- but they are much more rare than in our culture.
VI. Death: In real life all loves are parted by death in the end. What's worse, the deeper the love, the more painful the parting. My Equestria is maybe a little brighter than this because my version of it includes both afterlives and possible reincarnations. But few Ponies are sure of any such thing, at least when they're still alive.
This has been especially hard on immortals such as Celestia and Luna, who must face the reality of losing almost everypony they love to death in the end. Indeed, it's part of the reason why my Luna went insane -- she's not as good at emotional detachment as is Celestia, and the steady loss of friends and lovers to death increasingly depressed her. When one is as Loyal in friendship and love as Luna is, and as Honest with herself as she was, the awareness of loss can kill one's Laughter.
This can also work between any two characters with mismatched life spans for any reason. Note all the Sparity fics where Rarity dies in the end? Unless Rarity becomes very long-lived, this is necessarily the case, because Dragons live longer than Ponies. What's worse, their peaks of sexual maturity are also mismatched: if Rarity wishes to marry Spike, she must accept that he's going to be terribly young by his race's standards -- by the time he's a full adult, she will be at least well into middle age.
It can work this way if the lifespans are the same but the age cohorts differ. Even if Trixie fails to Ascend, Piercing Gaze (who is 22 years her senior) will probably predecease her; she will face an expected two decades of widowhood, made worse by the fact that the demisexual and extremely obnoxious Trixie isn't really compatible with very many other Ponies (she's just barely compatible with Piercing). If she Ascends, it's much, much worse from her from an emotonal POV.
VII. Suicide: Strong passions are aroused by love, and they can turn against the one who feels them. Those in love may kill themselves -- this is especially likely if they are rejected. This may be for various motives -- shame (for sexual dishonor), humiliation (for failure -- in A Robust Solution my Fluttershy has considered suicide because such extreme rejection is humiliating to an aristocratic Pegasus because it implies she's unworthy of being loved, and Rarity misunderstands her motive -- she, being a bourgeoisie Unicorn, assumes that Fluttershy felt dishonored by her loss of virginity); or guilt (if one feels one has irreperably harmed one's beloved).
This happens in real life too. Our current official ideology of interchangeable hookups sanctified by hygienic practices obscures this, but human nature hasn't really changed over the last century or two, and rejection -- especially as part of the breakup of a pre-existing love affair -- is one of the more common motives for suicide. So it probably also happens in Equestria.
VIII. Murder: One of the darkest possible elements in a love story is murder, especially murder motivated by love or jealousy. There are many possible variants -- jealous lover kills rival, jealous lover kills rival and beloved, jealous love kills rival and beloved and then commits suicide, and any other one imaginable (because of the variety of killers and victims, it's actually more than the factorial of 3, and one can envision more complex love patterns than mere triangles).
And this, too, happens in real life. If you want a happy thought here, consider that since the Ponies are less violent than Humans, murder is in general a much rarer crime, and thus so are crimes of passion.
Conclusion: Tartarus, this was depressing to write. But it should be kept in mind by writers of romantic fiction that love can, sadly, go sour. Sometimes terribly sour.
If you want a silver lining (or, if you are sexually-libertine, a really dark one), it's essentially because of complications like this that the Free Love Future is impossible. Sexual relationships have terrible potential downsides, which is the reason for prudence. And in a Free Love future, love stories are almost impossible to write -- there's no drama.
Hm, this needs more views.
There can still be drama, it just requires someone to carry an idiot ball.
Or for love and 'free love' to be two separate things, which is trivial.
th08.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2012/308/5/0/sweetie_belle_thinking_by_nintendoxs-d5jwyzx.png
This pretty much sums up my current state
Number 1 is the only one that strikes me as GOOD story telling most of the time.
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You means "sours the victim" instead of "leads to a relationship?" I basically agree with you from the POV of stories I like to read -- depicting rape sympathetically is pretty nasty, and I prefer strong to weak female characters; but the second situation also occurs in real life. Just not as often to women from a Western society, because the West is very hostile to rape by the standards of most Human cultures.
The "leads to a relationship" situation is very rare in Equestria for the same reasons, namely cultural expectations. Equestria is even more hostile to rape than is the modern West, so the victim would be inclined to see the perpetrator as monstrous. In societies where bride- or concubine-capture is normal, there is an implicit social bargain in this situation, "yield to your captor and be spared." In societies where this is not the case, the captive lacks the degree of trust in the captor required to attempt to make this bargain. Which, all-in-all, I see as a good thing, as I would not want to see that sort of dynamic become common again in our society (as it was in medieval and earlier times).
Though, not so long ago even in the West, the second story was remarkably common at least in romantic fiction. Kathleen E. Woodiwiss wrote a several historical romance novels, beginning with The Flame and the Flower (1972), whose basic premise could be summed up as "dashing hero rapes virtuous heroine owing to miscommunication, after problems love ensues." This, ironically, became possible to openly publish owing to the Sexual Revolution, and early radical feminism, helping to gut the pornography laws.
There's actually a MLP:FIM connection here. In a lot of fanfiction (though obviously not in the main show), Rarity's a fan of the Equestrian equivalent of "bodice-ripper" (spicy) style romance novels, and she's gotten Twilight interested in the subgenre. One reason why, of course, is that they're both a bit sexually-frustrated (Rarity has more actual romantic contact with stallions than does Twilight, but she also has a significantly-stronger sex drive than does her friend).
Now, sexually-explicit romantic novels are often at least slightly rape fantasies -- the rape's not usually as literal as in The Flame and the Flower, but the point is that it's a fantasy from the female point of view of being overwhelmed by (admirable) male sexuality so that the (generally quite willing) "victim" can yield without feeling guilty for her actions. Since this is a fantasy, it is quite unlike reality in that the "rapist" and "victim" really love one another, allowing for a happy ending to the tale.
From a male point of view, of course, this fantasy is still attractive, since he can vicariously enjoy aggressive tendencies which expressing in real life would get him in rather serious trouble, and be very unlikely to lead to True Love. The interesting thing is that the fandom of this sort of story is largely female. This is probably because from a male POV such stories are about defeat: the worst tendencies of male sexuality in the hero are tamed by the heroine's virtue and capacity for love.
Does this last part sound familiar? If it makes you think of a certain Chaos God and a shy yellow-and-pink Pegasus, it probably should -- Discord's attraction for Fluttershy, and the way she responds to it, are the G (or in Divine Jealousy, PG) rated version of this scenario. What's even better is that the situation is very strongly implied in canon.
Versions of this date back to the earliest romance novels. Most obviously, in Pamela (Samuel Richardson, 1740), Mr. B means to ravish his maidservant Pamela Andrews, but is shamed into abandoning the attempt by her obvious virtue, and winds up falling in love with her and marrying her. This is a very emotionally (though not sexually) explicit example of the scenario, as it is Pamela's goodness which conquers Mr. B's unruly lusts.
It should be noted that when the situation was first created, it was revolutionary in its implications regarding both sexual and social relations. Under older assumptions, Mr. B was behaving badly but understandably -- he had a pretty young maid, she was of far lower social status than he, and he was trying to tumble her. She might have fought him off or run off, but certainly he was not going to marry her; she's nobody compared to him.
Under the newer assumptions of the Enlightenment and Awakening, Pamela is a moral being in the eyes of God and Man just as is Mr. B, and she has authentic human rights, despite the fact that she is both of lower social status and female. What Mr. B wants to do to her is wrong because it is a violation of the expectations and obligations of virtue; she reminds him of this and by her intellectual and moral courage wins his respect. When Mr. B comes to respect her, he no longer wishes to rape her, but instead to honorably marry one who has so strongly proven her worth. (Interestingly and realistically, the novel goes on to chronicle how Pamela, having married Mr. B, must adapt to her change in social postiion -- basically, she succeeds in her efforts). This was close to radical by the standards of 1740.
An Equestrian version of Pamela might well be gender-flipped, with a lustful (because she's very lonely) aristocratic mare attempting to take advantage of the susceptibility of her stallion-servant to unsuppressed marescent. The stallion is poor but honest; he's been raised in the path of Harmony and knows that sex without Love and Friendship is morally wrong. He nobly resists the temptation, and by his courage and self-restraint wins her respect: she comes to realize that she wants to marry such an exemplar of righteous masculinity. A happy ending ensues (perhaps with exactly the same detailing of how the stallion adusts to his new and more important role).
I could, really, see Rarity happily reading either version of the tale.
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Tanith Lee's attempted to show this scenario more than once, often as tragedy because the free-love societies totally misunderstand and devalue love.