A bride and groom in royal garb stand under a wedding arch. A well-dressed suitor interrupts the proceedings, reaching dramatically for the bride.
Suitor: Wait – you don’t love him!
The bride looks adoringly at her groom. The suitor looks undeterred.
Bride: Of course not, I love his port cities and the low tariffs he’s giving me as a wedding gift.
Suitor: You mean the port cities I just invaded?
Furious, the groom points his drawn sword at the suitor.
Groom: If so, then you’ve incurred the wrath of our two kingdoms!
Bride: Hold on. We’re not married yet, so this is a you problem, not a me problem.
The groom stares in anger as the bride walks away on the suitor’s arm.
Suitor: Have I told you about my devilishly handsome iron mines?
P.S. Our bills are paid by our wonderful patrons. Could you chip in?
To be honest I do kind of feel two people going along with a political marriage to each other while not falling in love but instead teaming up to do a bunch of political intrigue/empire building/whatever could be pretty interesting “romance” plot.
Like, basically the ultimate power couple in which the “couple” part is only in legal terms.
The fact that there is no love or lust doesn’t mean there can’t be respect and a deep platonic relationship.
I’d love to see a plot like that, perhaps even with one or both of them going into the marriage angry or sad that they won’t have a marriage with someone they are attracted to, only to realize over time there’s more kinds of relationships and attraction than they thought.
Yeah that is true and a good point. And it would be nice to see more relationships between main characters of compatible orientations who have strong platonic relationships.
Something like this could act as a a sort of more nuanced take on political marriages if that makes sense. Like rather than it being a terrible fate to be avoided at all costs (which is completely fair, consent is important) or somehow magically being a perfect match (also fair, true love finds a way I guess), it could be interesting to see such a relationship remaining platonic but also entering a mutually beneficial partnership.
Honestly I’m feeling tempted to keep these ideas in mind for when trying to write my own story.
I think Radiance is a pretty good example of a political marriage that neither party wants, but there is a great deal of mutual respect and both characters are intelligent and sensible, so they eventually end up developing love on the basis of good cooperation.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla portrays Odin and Freyja as a platonic power couple.
He still treated her like trash and actually didn’t refused the builder’s obviously sexist marriage proposal.
The only good thing was seeing Loki getting th last laugh, he was the true hero of that game to me.
“And they poisoned their political opponents and lived Machiavellian ever after.”
Another great comic, Bunny and Chris!
I’m sure the iron mines are outright handsome…
There is one dating sim called the seven princess problem that handled political marriages very well. Depending on background it has more or less importance.
Some characters are only romance-able if you marry someone else due to the political climate being unfeasible.
Some are purely platonic and looking for someone who matches ethically because a political marriage is too important for their nation for them to marry for love.
Some matches become more difficult if you are from the same nation due to it not being a proper match.
I thought it handled the issue well. It treats things like fashion sense and etiquette as vitally important to survival in political settings.
This is excellent.
“I appreciate a lady who appreciates trade commodities.”