Young adult romance novels, Harlequin novels, most manhwa/manhua (1 | 2 | 3) be like:
Bride, mistress, wife, tycoon, love, marriage, secret, heir, heiress, temptress, forbidden, boss, CEO, king, prince, destiny, millionaire, duke, seduction, wedding, night, princess, affair, marquiss, kiss, beauty, husband, secretary, stranger, playboy, vampire, werewolf, baby, seduction, lord, desire, billionaire—
Notice some pattern?
Oh, how we love it dREAmY and forBIdDEN, someone of a higher status, elite, has quite the skillsets, wealthy, charming, influential. Lots of it also include non-consensual, being forced, coerced, chased, desired with unhealthy amount of possessiveness, basically started off (and maybe ended up still) a toxic relationship.
What the heck is going on? When did it start to be like this, what sparked it, and why did it become so popular? What does it say about women that lots of us ended up fancying this theme? Is it because of the fairytale stuffs, Cinderella and her friends?
This is the kind of nonsense that got me stopped reading random shojo manga around
middle school and started being extremely selective of that genre.
This... phenomenon? Syndrome? Trope? is now also a common appearance in
the boys love (BL) genre and I'm starting to find it appalling.
Unrealistic expectation aside, I think there's some kind of sickness about it. I've been trying to find related study topics—perhaps in cognitive behavior, psychology, literature.. maybe there's something in history or art as well. Maybe I'm bad at finding the right keywords, though when I do find it, I'll definitely expand this article as I try to learn more.
For the moment, here's a castle, as I'm suspecting fairytale is the main culprit influence.
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