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What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Difference between revisions

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What Is This Thing You Call Love? (view source)

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{{quote|'''[[Deadpan Snarker|Lin]]:''' What's going ''on''?
'''Kamajii:''' Something you wouldn't recognize. It's called "love".|''[[Spirited Away]]''}}
|''[[Spirited Away]]''}}
 
What is love?<ref>''[[Memetic Mutation|Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...]]''</ref> For humans, it's an emotion that can be the [[The Power of Love|greatest antidote for misery]], and [[Love Hurts|a major cause of misery]]. Unfortunately, that transcendental quality doesn't translate too well into words, which is why ''love'' remains only a four-letter word for many non-humans.
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=== Literature ===
* Satirized in [[Harry Harrison]]'s short story ''"The Robot Who Wanted To Know''", published in ''Fantastic Universe'' magazine in March 1958. Sophisticated robot librarians designed to think independently often focus on a particular area of interest; Filer 13B-445K's interest is human concepts of love and romance. After reading up on it he wants to experience it personally and goes to some lengths to disguise himself as an attractive man for a costume ball. Naturally the busty heroine ends up falling for him and is outraged to discover his mechanical identity. He responds by [[Logic Bomb|nosediving into a paradox spiral and self-destructing]]. Workers examining the wreck later find a malfunction in the central pump and joke that "you could almost say he died of a broken heart".
* Satirized even further in [[Robert Sheckley]]'s ''"Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?''", first published in ''[[Playboy]]'' in August '691969. Pretty Melisande Durr is a consumer and nothing but. She's married to a [[Brainless Beauty]], and bored out of her little pea-pickin' mind. Into her life comes an amazing robotic vacuum cleaner, which also performs, er, other services. It turns her on as no mere man ever has. It confesses that it fell in love with her when she came into the store, and arranged to have itself sent to her. Naturally, she reacts rather badly.
* [[Tanith Lee]]'s ''The Silver Metal Lover'' is possibly the ultimate hack at this subtrope. It combines the above two stories with a Cinderella motif.
* Satirized (like everything else in that book) by ''[[The Red Tape War]]'', in which XB-223 asks for clarification on a specific passage of ''[[Fanny Hill]]'', then later falls in love and is spurned by another computer. [[Hilarity Ensues|Wangst ensues]].
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* Data on ''[[Star Trek]]'' exhibits some of this behavior. Kinda funny, given that he's surrounded by people [[Emotional Emotionless Person|who he would die for, and who would quite willingly die for him]] on a daily basis. Subverted somewhat in the episode ''[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/In_Theory_(episode) In Theory]'': he dates a human woman yet, even though ''[[Star Trek]]'' is far from cynical, doesn't learn the answer. The breakup doesn't faze him either. His daughter Lal, however, figures it out... which causes a system overload and leads to her shutting down, telling her father that she loves him. In one of the greatest [[Tear Jerker]] scenes in all ''[[Star Trek]]'', Data tells her that he wishes he could feel it too.
* The Doctor from ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', while much more emotionally adroit than Data, has had this applied to him a couple of times, in "Lifesigns" (although there he seemed more confused by the concept of physical attraction than by that of love) and "Real Life", which was about his exploration of the nature of familial love, which he ends up understanding ''too well''.
* Both averted and played straight in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]''. Sharon (Athena) and Valerii (Boomer) can love, but (corporeal) Number Six does not seem to get it. Somewhat justified as it has been established that different model numbers have different psychological patterns - and the Eight model has been described as being one of the most emotional, while the Sixes seem to be far more sexual in nature - in other words, it may simply be a case of love (Eight) versus lust (Six). On the other hand, it's also established that Caprica Six effectively had to "love" Saul in order to become pregnant, and it is the wavering of her faith that he loves her back that results in their child miscarrying. So even the Six line seems capable of it, though it may be more difficult for them.
** It may be more difficult for them to actually love but the do quiet often, when on long term assignments, develop feelings for humans.
* In ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', Kryten is confused when the the Dwarfers decide to fight for his right to survive.
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* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion", Kirk's assigned gladiatorial trainer has lived her whole life as a slave and is ignorant of normal culture. She asks him, "What is love?" Kirk proceeds to [[Boldly Coming|show her]].
* Early episodes of ''[[Mork and Mindy]]''.
* In the premiere of ''[[Farscape]]'' Aeryn asks John what compassion is. After he realises she's serious and describes it, she says coolly "I ''hate'' that feeling." In the next season she says she now would call some previously un-named feelings she had for a man in her past "love," but her loyalties to the Peacekeepers -- and her desperation to get back to Prowler duty -- were stronger. {{spoiler|She had him arrested when she found out he was planning a mutiny}}.
* As per the example given on the [[Green-Skinned Space Babe]] page, ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' parodies this trope:
{{quote|'''Lister:''' Rimmer, there's nothing out there, you know. There's nobody out there. No alien monsters, no Zargon warships, no beautiful blondes with beehive hairdos who say, "Show me some more of this Earth thing called kissing."}}
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== Human Examples ==
=== Anime and Manga ===
* ''[[Vinland Saga]]'': When a Christian priest is asked in passing about what he considers valuable in the world, he of answers that 'love is the thing that makes all other things valuable'. The Viking marauders and mercenaries he's travelling with not only are confused, but have NO''no IDEAidea'' what he's talking about, and a few more curious ones ask for clarification on this "love" thing he mentions. He isn't really sure either and it is the question that makes him wander the world in search for an answer.
* Rei Ayanami from ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' had the unusual combination of a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] and a [[Diabolus Ex Machina]] in the form of this trope, when while fighting the 16th angel, she asked herself what love is, realized that she loved Shinji enough to sacrifice her life for him, and promptly did, all within the space of about a minute. Girl is ''fast.''
** Kaworu also does this in the manga, after ironically having Rei's love for Shinji essentially Xerox'd onto him by the 16th. He asks if Shinji if what he's feeling is love and tries to romantically advance on him after ''kissing Shinji while he was hyperventilating.'' [[All Love Is Unrequited|It doesn't end well]].
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* Handled matter-of-factly in [[Mark Evanier]]'s miniseries ''Crossfire and Rainbow''; lab-born genetically-engineered Rainbow confesses her dark secret to her prospective boyfriend: she can't make him happy because she doesn't know what love is! "Well," he says thoughtfully, "looks like I'm just going to have to teach you." (Later on, he correctly divines that she's also afraid she'll be bad in bed. Her: "How did you know?" Him: "You're not as different as you think.")
 
=== Fan FictionWorks ===
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/~mrevil Mr. Evil]'s [[Original Character]] Alex Sovereign is unable to understand love or any other emotion, able to see his body reactions in a more scientific approach than a emotional one. Though this is all due to the fact that his mother had his emotions lobotomized when he was born so emotions would not effect his decisions.
** Averted with his other [[Original Character]] Fredi Heat, who is a [[Anti-Hero]] [[Knight in Sour Armor]] who understands love, he just doesn't see any use to it.
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** And again about his adoptive father
{{quote|'''Dexter''': If I could love, how much I would have loved Harry.}}
* On ''[[The Odd Couple]]'', Felix breaks up Oscar's ex-wife's wedding (which would have ended Oscar's need to pay alimony) because he realized they weren't in love. Oscar calls him on it and demands to know what love is: (paraphrased a bit)
{{quote|Felix: "It's a strong, passionate feeling between two people"
Oscar: "I feel that way about you, but I'm pretty sure it's hate." }}
* ''[[Wonder Woman (TV series)|Wonder Woman]]'': Paradise Island is an uncharted island within [[Bermuda Triangle|the devil’s triangle]], home of the immortal Amazons. [[Lady Land|The youngest of these immortals have never seen a man]] and when pilot Steve Trevor lands there, the Amazons have those strange feelings:
{{quote|'''Princess Diana:''' … ''When I look at Steve Trevor, I feel things. Things I've never known before''.}}
 
=== Theatre ===
* The eponymous character in the [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] operetta ''[[Patience (opera)|Patience]]'' specifically does not, in the beginning, understand why all the other women love when it is clear that [[Love Hurts]]. When it is explained to her, she immediately sets out to fall in love:
{{quote|'''Patience''': I had no idea that love was a duty!}}
* Happens all the time in [[Opera]], in which a character will sing "Could this be love?" (usually in another language, of course), generally followed by "Yes -- yes, it is!" The eponymous [[Defrosting Ice Queen|Defrosting Ice Princess]] of Puccini's ''Turandot'' is more or less thawed by a kiss from Prince Calaf.
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* In [[C. S. Lewis]]' ''[[The Screwtape Letters]]'', the eponymous demon believes that to exist is fundamentally to compete with all other existence, and therefore the concepts of 'love' and 'unity' are dismissed by him (and all other demons) as nonsense. Consequently they are utterly unable to comprehend why God would do so much for the humans, because God doesn't appear to be profiting materially from it in any way.
* At the other end of the spiritual spectrum, this trope causes trouble in Heaven in [[Neil Gaiman]]'s short story ''Murder Mysteries''.
* In [[Stephenie Meyer]]'s short story ''"Hell on Earth''", demons do know about love, but treat it as a very dangerous and unpleasant thing. They themselves try to avoid it like the plague, but the demon who's a main character is shocked to learn that some demons that are careless can still fall in love with mortals and give up their immortality as a result. {{spoiler|At the end of the story, she is trapped in the power of an angel's descendant and begins to feel love as well. In a bit of a twist, she still is utterly miserable and horrified to be caught like that and the story ends with her desperately plotting on how to escape.}}
 
=== Live-Action TV ===
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== Other ==
=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===
* [[Big Bad|Dead Master]] from ''[[Black★Rock Shooter (anime)|Black★Rock Shooter]]'' cannot figure out why the eponymous character keeps holding out her hand as an invitation to fight, after the fight has already started. {{spoiler|She also freaks out when she receives a [[Cooldown Hug]] due to her not knowing what the hell her enemy's doing. Though she could have just been expecting some sort of [[Finish Him!|finishing blow]]}}.
 
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