[spoilers] Harry and Ruth. The Wonder Years.

[A Cousin]

(27-11-2010 04:47 PM)binkie Wrote:  I'm posting in this thread for the first time. Hello!.

Well, hello there Binkie! Good to see you wandering out of the Lucas thread. I don't understand most of what you post over there, but I can certainly appreciate the passion behind them!

(27-11-2010 04:47 PM)binkie Wrote:  I am curious, though, to understand exactly why there is so much support for the idea of Harry and Ruth as a happy (romantic) couple. Do we really think that Harry is right for Ruth, or even good for her, just because he loves her? What would Ruth get out of a long term emotional relationship with Harry except the knowledge that she is loved? She had this kind of relationship with George, and it does not seem to have been what she needed.

For me, the draw is that it is a complicated relationship acted out on an mature playing field by two very flawed characters by two brilliant actors-of-a-certain-age. I do not have specific answers to the above questions, (IMO) because that is precisely what the progression of their "relationship" is about. It is hardly over. I am of the mind that they do not need to be married or even together. I just want it to be resolved in a way that works for both of them. Maybe that resolution will be that love does not conquer all? Fine. There are others who would disagree with me.

(27-11-2010 04:47 PM)binkie Wrote:  It seems to me sometimes that Harry puts a lot of invisible pressure on Ruth to be human and emotionally capable - perhaps because these are areas in which he feels himself to be lacking - and I wonder whether he is more in love with the idea of Ruth than he is actually in love with her as a complex and flawed human being.

My opinion is that they do it to each other. He expects her to be his "moral compass," she expects him to be "the still point of the turning world." S9 as it pertains to HR has been about both of them coming to terms with the other as they really are. The thing about Ruth & Harry and why I am so invested in it is because the best of who they are as individuals is what keeps them apart.

(27-11-2010 04:47 PM)binkie Wrote:  I am not trying to undermine the optimism of this thread (I am a big fan of cheesecake myself). I just wonder what it is that we are in fact so invested in when we look at this relationship.

Oh, Binkie, you'd have to work a lot harder than this to undermine my optimism! When it comes down to it, it is simply all in good fun. Nothing deeper than that, really.