because I'll always answer questions about my OTP

[tielan]

From redbrunja:

Please ask me questions about my OTPs in the comments! Any questions! All questions! Deep questions! Silly questions! Ship questions.

And I'll go with the "anything I've ever shipped, or that you think I could be persuaded to ship" addition.

Don't ask about Yuletide. The Bears can hear you.

Comments

Sure, I'm game!

[endeni]

Talk to me about Raleigh? What makes him such a perfect fit for Mako? And were you fascinated by this pairing from the very beginning?
I admit I wasn't the strongest Raleigh/Mako shipper when I first watched the movie - I wasn't really convinced by Raleigh's character, I thought him a bit bland and uninteresting. Then I began finding interesting meta underlining bits of the movie that totally went unnoticed by me before, like Raleigh and Mako having different memories of their first meeting and Raleigh adopting Mako's fighting style (having learned it in the drift) in his fight with Chuck and Raleigh generally treating her with adoration and respect.

Re: Sure, I'm game!

[tielan]

Apart from his Drift Compatibility with my favourite character in the movie (therefore, in-canon, proving him a perfect fit for Mako), I guess what I liked about Raleigh the first time I saw the movie was that he was a heroic character without being an asshole.

He meets Mako, she asides him in the first words she says in his presence, and he defuses the situation. He meets Newt and doesn't slap him down for being a kaiju-groupie. He doesn't bristle at Mako's criticism, and answers Chuck's in-your-face-dickishness calmly.

All the way through the movie, the pattern is repeated. He doesn't push, but he's not a pushover. To me, that's the mark of someone who knows themselves and is comfortable, confident of themselves. They know the best they can be and they've seen the worst they can be, and they can say, "this is me, and I don't have to prove it to anyone else; this is enough."

That's pretty rare, for any character. (And for most people, too.)

Raleigh's a truly nice guy - he never once had his ego on the table, wasn't out to prove he was better than everyone else. He knew what he could do and what he couldn't, and although he was willing to push, he also knew when to back down - it's not about whose dick is bigger, it's about respecting authority. He's not there to be the biggest cock of the walk, he's there to get back into the fight however he can help. And yes, he'd prefer that in Gipsy Danger, mind-melding with Mako, but he'll hold position, because he's done the "heroic thing" and it bit him in the ass hard.

Plus, as noted before, I have a thing for hero characters who can do the job but don't have ego on the table - both female and male. And Raleigh is a good male example of this. The job is the important thing - whether it's getting back into a Jaeger, making Chuck take back his insult to Mako, or saving his co-pilot - and his ego is less important than that.

This kind of self-sacrificing, self-effacing hero is more usually seen in female heroes than male ones. It's not necessarily a feminine trait and there's nothing effeminate about it, it's just that our cultural narratives elevate the liminal hero over the communal hero - the lone wolf archetype over the pillar of the community. And when working with the liminal hero/lone wolf archetype, the core of his journey is going to be conflict with the establishment, not cooperation and fitting in to get the job done.

Raleigh - at the point at which he goes to Hong Kong - struck me as more of a 'hero in the middle' than a 'hero out the front' - have you noticed how the victory/speech scenes are 'surrounding' scenes? The protags are enclosed into the centre of the crowd, part of the community, not being admired as leaders from a distance.

I dunno, I suppose it's just me and my affinity for characters who kick the traces and don't fit the expected mould.

(And my fondness for meta. Clearly!)

Re: Sure, I'm game!

[endeni]

Oh, wow, what a great answer!!
And, see, I didn't notice the "surrounding-ness" of those scene but it all makes perfect sense now. *nods*
/I have a thing for hero characters who can do the job but don't have ego on the table/ - Oh, yes, of course, like Maria. Didn't think about it like that before. Cool.
And I adore meta too! *g*

Re: Sure, I'm game!

[catpella]

I love all of this.

I also love that Raleigh is very clearly a male character but his masculinity is not needing be to proved in the alpha-dog ways like Chuck's is. As you said, the way he handles Mako's criticism is marvelous.