Love At First Sight: Difference between revisions

Love at first sight. It's a staple of [[Fairy Tale|Fairy Tales]]s, love songs, and [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney animated movies]]. Two characters meet, and fall deeply, madly, passionately in love with each other almost immediately. This is one of the most common story archetypes, probably [[Older Than Feudalism|going back]] to [[Greek Mythology]].

In [[Real Life]], this often leads to problems. Its actually more true in [[Real Life]] to say its love at first smell. Its more of a chemical thing then a visual thing. They've just met, so they don't actually know each other that well. Depending on where a story falls in the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]], '''Love At First Sight''' is either a recipe for [[Happily Ever After]] or eventual disillusionment and heartbreak. Of course, even if the characters really are perfect for each other, they can still end up being [[Star-Crossed Lovers]] who are destined to be apart.

* In ''[[Flame of Recca]]'', Recca has this to an extent with Yanagi ([[The Dulcinea Effect]] kicking in full power). Despite meeting her for the first time, he swears to protect her and is shown blushing around her. Of course, as the series goes on, his feelings for her deepen (as do hers for him), but it's still nevertheless [[Love At First Sight]].

** It's also shown in the novels, that Lemon was heavily implied to be attracted to Sōsuke. When he first saw him, he thought Sōsuke was very good looking and "charming", despite the boy being completely emotionless (read: "eye candy"). Later, after Sōsuke wins a tournament that helped win back Lemon's money, Lemon hugged him with "more passion than a french kiss would warrant," making Sōsuke slightly uncomfortable. And later still, Lemon gets drunk, and subsequently invades Sōsuke's personal space by hugging and groping him while blushing -- whichblushing—which irritates Sōsuke to no end.

* After listening with agonized stoicism to an awkward [[Cannot Spit It Out|not-quite-confession]] from {{spoiler|Elraine}} that she's been falling in love with him bit by bit for [[Double Arts|the entire series]], though she doesn't expect him to understand or even know what she's talking about... {{spoiler|Kiri Luchile}} reveals to the reader, although not to her, that he actually [[Love At First Sight|did this]]. He's got his reasons for keeping quiet, though.

** For a straighter version, [[Idiot Hero|Firo]] claims [[Love At First Sight]] for [[Artificial Human|Ennis]]. Too bad that she happens to be the one woman in the series that happens to be borderline asexual... {{spoiler|It takes them ''fifty years'' to get married.}}

* In ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'', both Sakura and Syaoran describe their attraction to Yukito as [[Love At First Sight]]. Subverted as {{spoiler|Yukito was created to be the perfect match for Sakura, and [[Loving a Shadow|his power]] was what Syaoran was subconsciously attracted to.}}. Still, {{spoiler|Yukito falls for Sakura's ''brother'', and Syaoran and Sakura fall in love with each other.}}

* In the [[Manhwa]] ''[[Pig Bride]]'' Ji Oh and Mu Hwa get one of the most detailed [[Love At First Sight]] sequences ever. 4 pages are dedicated to the few seconds where Ji Oh first sees Mu Hwa perched on his dormitory veranda railing and there's even a close up of her reflected in his eye when she springs at him wielding a sword. The strangest part? They're only the ''[[Beta Couple]]!''

* Thugboy fell for [[Empowered]] hard when he first laid eyes on her -- ither—it even broke him out of his terminal "Whatever." mood.

* In "[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/babayaga/index.html Vasilissa the Beautiful]", the Tsar falls in love with Vasilissa the Beautiful on sight -- havingsight—having first been intrigued by her weaving and sewing abilities.

** A side note: The Prince and Princess are said to look very much alike, to the point where the Princess can [[Sweet Polly Oliver|masquerade as the Prince]] for months (including getting married to another princess! long story). My classmates wondered if it's the girl who looked very butch or the boy who looked very effeminate -- aseffeminate—as they said, "Would you marry a girl who looked like ''you''?"

* ''[[Luminosity]]'' has this as one of the things that simply happen to vampires and werewolves. This can be interesting if the other party is human, as they aren't affected, but generally they end up being turned--automaticallyturned—automatically mutual--ormutual—or getting attached to the sheer devotion, respectively. {{spoiler|Half-vampires whom vampires fall for get neither perk.}}

** Compare Frollo's song, "Hellfire", to Quasi's, in which he sings with innocent joy about how this wondrous feeling he's discovered must be like "Heaven's Light". Then again, we're talking about ''Disney'' here -- theyhere—they gave ''Hunchback'' a (mostly) happy ending.

* Ben and Elaine in ''[[The Graduate]]'': one date which gets off to a very rocky start, then they share burgers and life stories in a drive-in restaurant, then some [[The Reveal|uncomfortable truths are aired,]] and months later he's still willing to drive up to Berkeley to chase after her. Hardly a day after they have an argument, they're talking about marriage, and their passion seems to go strong for the rest of the movie -- notmovie—not counting {{spoiler|the last seven seconds.}}

* In [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] novel ''For the Emperor'', [[Ciaphas Cain]] describes his first meeting with Amberley Vail. He declares he's never believed in [[Love At First Sight]], but he can still remember (decades later) every detail about her from that first meeting.

*** Implied that {{spoiler|it had already happened ''before'' she was born and that that was the reason he stayed for the entire pregnancy, and that he just mistook it for his feelings for Bella. Which is even [[Squick|squickiersquick]]ier.}}

* Averted ''so hard'' in the ''[[Darkest Powers]]'' series by Chloe and Derek that it's worth mentioning. First of all, they meet in a group home for "troubled" kids, which is a code word for "mentally disturbed" <s>which is a code word for "has superpowers"</s>. Derek assumes that Chloe is a [[Upper Class Twit|flighty]] [[Dumb Blonde|blonde]] [[The Ditz|ditz]] whose only point of interest is the fact that she's a necromancer, and even then only because he can use her to manipulate his brother, Simon, into finally escaping to safety. As for physical attraction, he doesn't even ''notice'' her looks (although she is legitimately cute). On Chloe's end of things, Derek is initially withdrawn, ominous, intimidating, and pretty much a [[Jerkass]]. He has also been viciously mauled by (werewolf) puberty, so his face looks like a "before" picture for acne cream, his hair is constantly greasy, lank, and dull, and [[Goggles Do Nothing|the deodorant does nothing]] -- even—even though he showers twice a day. Not to mention that the first time they're alone together, the interaction goes downhill, until Derek ends up ''[[Does Not Know His Own Strength|throwing her across the room]]''. It's an accident -- ''actually'' an accident, not "[[Domestic Abuse|Why'd you make me hit you, baby]]?" -- but—but Chloe doesn't know that until a few chapters later¹. At the end of the trilogy, they end up together after their relationships develops in a completely believable manner, turning out to be the complete opposite of [[Strangled by the Red String]].

*** No matter who else got rejected by Narcissus, the last person is always Echo in an exceptionally cruel manner. Since she had the misfortune of getting cursed to [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|repeat only what people said to her]], it was a big problem when Narcissus needed directions to the nearest city. He had no way of knowing she was cursed, but it doesn't mean he should have ''[[Kick the Dog|called Echo an idiot]]'' and gone out of his way to avoid her. Rather understandable that Aphrodite considered this the last straw -- especiallystraw—especially since Echo was so in love with him that she [[Love Martyr|couldn't bear to cause him harm, even to seek justice for herself]].

*** Weirdly enough, they end up the most stable (and presumably happy) couple in Greek mythology. It probably helped that he lavished gifts and ''non-sexual'' attention on her to genuinely win her over -- andover—and unlike Zeus, he never cheats on her. [[Dark Is Not Evil|Just because he's the king of the Underworld]] [[Even Evil Has Standards|doesn't mean he can't respect his wife's feelings.]]

* In ''[[Odin Sphere]]'' {{spoiler|Oswald the emotionless [[Dark Is Not Evil|Shadow Knight]] fell in [[Love At First Sight]] with Odin's daughter Gwendolyn when he saw her wearing her late mother's dress while on a spying mission in Odin's realm. A feather she left behind reminded him of the prophecy of the dragon Hindel: "Seek the bird... that shall be your destiny."}}

* In ''[[Girl Genius]]'', Zola plans to manage her meeting with the heir to the Storm King -- andKing—and make it look like [[Love At First Sight]].

* Shown to have some basis in science -- thescience—the first few minutes of a relationship have shown to be predictive of the relationship's future success, more so than what two people have in common or whether they like each other. ''DAMN.''