The First Cut Is the Deepest: Difference between revisions

 

[[Alice and Bob]] have been growing closer and closer, possibly leading up to a [[Relationship Upgrade]]...only there's a problem: [[Wrong Guy First|Alice's ex, Charlie]]. No, it's not that Alice is still in love with Charlie, it's that the fallout from her relationship with Charlie has left her with [[Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids|serious emotional baggage]] that must be worked out before [[Second Love|any new relationship]] can succeed. Can also happen when Charlie is dead and Alice still has grief issues to work out. Will often culminate in an [[Epiphany Therapy]] session between Alice and Bob, where Alice spills all her baggage.

 

If the emotional baggage is not worked out, Alice and Bob may become an [[Anchored Ship]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* [[Inuyasha]]'s past relationship with Kikyo causes this between him and [[Reincarnation Romance|Kagome]]...at least early on. When Kikyo is [[Came Back Wrong|resurrected]] it becomes a whole new [[Love Triangle|can of worms]].

* At the beginning of ''[[Kodomo no Omocha]]'', child star Sana claims to be in a romantic relationship with her older manager Rei, whom she refers to as her "gigolo". After she is made to understand what's wrong with this ''and'' it looks like he may get back with his old girlfriend Asako Kurumi, she's left confused about romance, and this is one of the factors that impedes her getting together with Hayama.

** And as many readers fail to understand, {{spoiler|when they do get together, it's not just because Godai has matured from a boy to a man, but because Kyoko has worked through her baggage with Soichiro enough to be able to fully pursue a relationship with someone else. Also, a big point of Godai's maturation is recognizing this trope; Kyoko may be over Soichiro enough to be able to get with him, but she'll never fully be over him, and he'll have to accept that if he wants to be with her.}}

* ''[[The Wallflower]]'': Sunako being cruelly rejected by her first love was what caused her to retreat to the darkness in the first place and is still one of the issues (though certainly not the only one) keeping her and Kyohei an [[Anchored Ship]].

 

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Enchanted]]'': Robert's divorce effectively killed his belief in romance until [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|Giselle]] came along.

* ''[[Just Like Heaven]]'' had the grief variant with David's wife's death keeping him from forming any new relationships. Elizabeth ''thinks'' it's the first variety at first, and mocks him over his inability to get over being dumped.

 

== Music ==

* The [[Trope Namer]] is the song by Cat Stevens, [[Covered Up|which has been covered]] by P.P. Arnold, Keith Hampshire, Rod Stewart, and Sheryl Crow, describing just this kind of situation.

* The 1990s [[Hong Kong|Cantopop]] song ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvK2oxMNBK4 Soothe My Wound]'' is as much as on this topic as the example above ''when [[Alice and Bob]] are already on the bed'', as exemplified by the refrain:

''did also romantically promised me'' }}

 

== Literature ==

* In ''[[Rebecca]]'', the female protagonist believes that her husband Maxim is still carrying a torch for the titular Rebecca, his exalted dead first wife. {{spoiler|Subverted when she learns that the beloved Rebecca was actually a Manipulative Bitch who Maxim ''hated''.}}

* Ekatrin from the [[Vorkosigan Saga]] had a relationship with her first husband that was borderline abusive. Miles has to convince her that things could be different with him. Unfortunately, he decides to approach that task as if it were a covert ops mission...

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Chuck]]'' had this with Chuck and his ex Jill, and Sarah's ex partner (in both the cop way and the sleeping together way) with Bryce Larkin.

* While it's not the first cut, Ted from [[How I Met Your Mother]] has to eventually admit that being left at the altar gave him some serious emotional baggage to deal with.

** Though he did get a first cut too — the girl he lost his virginity to in high school pretended she loved him to get him into bed, ran out on him the moment they finished the deed, promised to call and didn't, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|borrowed twenty dollars that she never returned.]]

* In ''[[Dexter]]'' Dexter and Rita's relationship is slowed by her [[Broken Bird]] status due to her [[Domestic Abuser|ex-husband]]. Unusually for this trope, Dexter chose to date her because of this as it left her, like him, uninterested in sex.

 

* ''[[Megatokyo]]'':Erika's past with Hitoshi made her the [[Broken Bird]] she is today, and caused serious problems when she and Largo began to strike up a relationship.

** Lately, Kimiko seems to be insinuating that Piro's past with Miho will have to be resolved before the two of them can move forward.

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[Kim Possible]]'', Kim was cool with her old flame Josh dating Tara, but the ''second'' cut was the deepest: when Eric turned out to be one of Drakken's synthodrones, it nearly [[Break the Cutie|broke her]], until Ron snapped her out of her depression.

 

* Two examples in ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' and its related media. In the original game, Aerith asks Cloud if he'd ever met her first boyfriend who was also SOLDIER First Class. Several side stories in the game provide more information on him and, until her death, each has a clear impact on Aerith. Furthermore, it turns out that {{spoiler|her boyfriend is Zack, who was part of a Shinra experiment along with Cloud and whose history Cloud adopts as his own memories, creating a triangular influence of the ex on a current relationship.}} Later, in Advent Children, Tifa and Cloud become closer, but his remembrance of Aerith is his major driving force.

* Isabela's romance backstory in [[Dragon Age 2]] gives this as the reason she is so casual about sex and resistant to any emotional attachment.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Romance Arc]]

[[Category:Love Tropes]]