Diverting my usual Glee filled posts now to another favourite show of mine...Grey's Anatomy.
I've been watching all the season 5 and season 6 episodes and one thing occured to me (with the help of wikipedia)...the relationship between Owen and Cristina is similar to that of what you'd find in a Victorian era romance novel like Pride & Prejudice or Wuthering Heights.
My friends think I'm weird because Kevin McKidd aka Owen Hunt is my 'old man crush' (mind you my friend Kaity likes Alan Rickman - yeah! Which one do you think is weirder?) Anywho a bit of background information on these two characters and their relationship...
Cristina Yang is the best friend to Meredith. She's focused, driven, competitive and so keen on surgeries that she'll steal and hijack patients. She's pretty much the best at everything except for conveying her feelings and her bedside manner is pretty appalling. Although she has gone through some pretty emotional things in her life - losing her father for one - she's had a few relationships that she probably shouldn't have, for one her med school professor. While an intern she had a relationship with Dr. Burke - who I hate. They got engaged but after her smart hesitation to marry him he thankfully left her. And so ended that relationship. Yay.
A few seasons later, along comes Major Owen Hunt...
Owen Hunt is a US Army Trauma surgeon who has served in Iraq. He appeared briefly at the beginning of season 5 when he performed a tracheotomy on a man with a pen, suffering a wound himself he stapled it back together with no anesthetic and took out an icicle, which was embedded in Cristina. Oh and they briefly shared a hot, steamy, passionate kiss. Dr Webber offered him a position at Sacret Heart but he turned it down and went back to finish his tour in Iraq.
A few episodes later he returns all weird and what not. Later you find out that he was honourably discharged from the Army because his entire unit was killed in Iraq except him and from this he's suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Their relationship...after he returns and as time goes on he slowly becomes more infatuated and in love with Cristina - this is after he forgets her name and she gets all shitty with him because he's playing it all 'hot n cold' with her. They end up getting together. Time goes on. One day his ex-fiancee Beth shows up. Cristina doesn't know this. Thinks he's a Mc-Ass. She also finds out he hasn't told his mother he's back yet. She's still not impressed. He explains that he calls her weekly but keeps it brief because the son she knew before he left is not the son who returned but Cristina "see's him" as the man that returned and isn't afraid of him.
He has all these terrors and one night strangles Cristina in his sleep. Quick! Call the cops! I kid, she's fine. He's extremely angry with himself but she still cares for him. They have hot, steamy sex in the on call room (yeah, like every other bloody person in the hospital) and she's lying there in his arms and is afraid to fall asleep. They break up. Tear. He starts therapy and learns about the things that set him off and figures out ways to communicate with Cristina using three word sentences - in my trunk, take care now, etc. - because he thinks its cruel to say the three words he wants to say to her. I. Love. You. Swoon. She gets frustrated that he hasn't said any words to her other than those sentences and so he tells her about them. Before she leaves she says to him take care now. Yay.
More time passes and one day a soldier comes to the hospital for treatment and it influences Owen to consider returning to the Army. He shares this delightful news with Cristina but she disagrees with his decision and doesn't support it. Later she tells him she doesn't want him to die. They go visit his mother together. This proves to be a huge step in his PTSD recovery. He tells Cristina that he slept for the first time without nightmares and that he can be a better man for her "all she has to do is say yes". She tells him that she loves him and she can't breathe without him. Their season 5 relationship ends with them meeting half way on the cross walk where they share a passionate kiss and she says yes. She leaves. He's smiling. End.
Then in season 6 somewhere along the track, he asks his friend Teddy to work at Seattle Grace-Mercy West. You later find out that he loved her but after her admitting how she feels he stays with Cristina...for 95% of the season. But don't worry. In the end they get back together, in a way.
In summary...he's a wounded soul with a dark past and she's the damsel in distress but together they have instant chemistry and it was pretty much love at first site (they did kiss within hours of meeting each other!)
I would continue on with their season 6 relationship but it's mainly this part that makes me think how much their relationship is like a victorian romance novel. Firstly, lets look at other relationships from this era.
Heathcliff & Cathy from Wuthering Heights (in summary)...Heathcliff, an orphan, was brought home by Mr. Earnshaw, Cathy's dad one day. He and Cathy grew close and eventually fell in love. They pretty much were "one soul" aka two halves of a soul forever sundered and struggling to unite. Their love was more an addiction ("I wish I could hold you until we were both dead." - slow down crazy!) Although they both married other people because of society, they still loved one another till the end (I still remember that scene with the coffin. Eww.)
Mr Darcy & Elizabeth Bennett from Pride & Prejudice (in summary)...She comes from a family of five girls with a mother whose life mission is to get all her daughter's married off. Lizzy, the eldest, is quite rebellious (for those days) and doesn't want to marry any of her suitors. Meanwhile, her sister Jane falls in love and eventually marries Mr Bingley. Mr Bingley has a very rich and attractive friend, Mr Darcy. Mr Darcy and Lizzy don't quite hit it off and the entire book you believe they hate, actually loath is a better word, each other. She thinks he's too proud and too rich. He thinks she's not handsome enough but she's tolerable. However you later find out that they love one another much to everyone's - including their own - suprise. They see past their prejudice's and marry one another and live happily ever after.
Back to Owen & Cristina...I think that their relationship is a mixture between what Heathcliff and Cathy had and what Mr Darcy and Elizabeth had. At first there was this attraction to one another but then he went back to Iraq. Owen later returned all wounded from the war and had all these issues (which of course you would have if your entire unit except you was killed). This Owen couldn't remember who Cristina was or what had happened before he left, which of course pissed her off just a little bit. Eventually he starts to like Cristina again (cute scene in which he refers to her as a single malt scotch and not the cheap wine Mark Sloan said she was to Derek). She starts to fall for him too and eventually they come to love one another.
Time goes on...One night he strangles her in her sleep. At first she's fine with it but later can't get past it and so they break up. But she's still in love with him and so is he but for her sake he doesn't want to be. Eventually they declare their love for one another, him through "take care now" and her more so through "I can't breathe without you". Despite the fact that he invites Teddy to come work at SG-MW and they both declare their love for one another, he still loves Cristina more then Beth or Teddy and ultimately they end up together with the help of a psycho, crazy mad gunman whose wife died at the hospital and who wants to kill Derek, Dr. Webber and Lexie. But in the end all is well.
I think that they're pretty much the modern day Heathcliff & Cathy or Mr Darcy & Elizabeth. They have a love thats so complicated, but so strong at the same time. They face these dark issues but remain together during the worst of times (with the exception of the choking bit but it all works out in the end).
My friends find it weird that I find these relationships compelling and heart-warming but its not the whole deep and dark side of it that I love, it's the fact that despite what happens they always end up together in the end because their love's so strong that nothing can break the ties that bind it.
And with that, I am done.
Thoughts?
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