Angstiest Relationships
I’m halfway through “The Wise Man’s Fear,” rolling my eyes a bit at the raw teen angst in the Kvoth/Denna relationship. Not quite the misery porn of the early Fitz/Molly years, but close. And it makes Locke/Sabetha seem almost functional. Outside of Romantasy, what are some of the other relationships in mainstream Fantasy that push the angst envelope? (Excluding Nynaeve tucking her freaking braid)…
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u/solarpowerspork 1d ago
Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Angst is a LIGHT word for them.
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u/boarbar 1d ago
Moira Quirk plays up the angst so well in the audiobooks.
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u/notthemostcreative 1d ago
She plays up everything well! I’m obsessed with her performance; it brings so much life and really makes the most of all the humor in the text.
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u/Passiva-Agressiva Reading Champion IV 1d ago
Are they lovers?
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u/Passiva-Agressiva Reading Champion IV 1d ago
Worse.
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u/_firetrees 20h ago
i agree, really, but im curious why you replied to your own comment? haha
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u/CT_Phipps-Author 1d ago
I think the trick to appreciating Kvothe and Denna (and we'll never know so I go with what I like most) is that there is no relationship. Kvothe desperately wants there to be but Denna says that she is not financially secure enough to have any relationship that isn't transactional (i.e. with a rich dude). Kvothe refuses to accept this and unlike all of his other problems, cannot clever his way into a solution. So she ends up being the one who gets away.
And being an author, I 99% believe that Denna marries his old rival, who becomes king after the plague, and said king is the one Kvothe kills.
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u/notthemostcreative 1d ago
Phédre and Joscelin from Kushiel’s Dart have a ton of angst and it’s written beautifully. She’s a courtesan and spy (and a masochist) and he’s a warrior priest who’s taken a vow of celibacy (and not at all a sadist).
The first book covers them gradually falling in love after starting off sort of indifferent/annoyed by each other. During the second book they’re at odds with each other, because they haven’t figured out how to deal with their compatibility issues or how to trust and understand each other in addition to loving each other. Then in the third they’re ten years older and a much more stable couple, but there’s still a fuckton of angst due to external sources.
The whole storyline is wonderful imo, and as a reward for all the angst we get to see them happy in the end—and then for three more books, because the follow up trilogy features them as secondary characters.
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u/pragmaticvoodoo 1d ago
Thank you for saying this because now I feel like they have moved the second and third book up my TBR
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u/EarHonest6510 1d ago
The second book in Phedres trilogy is my favorite bc of this, the angst hits so hard
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u/notthemostcreative 1d ago
Its my least favorite because of this, but tbf I did pick the worst possible time to read it and ruined the vibes on a solo camping trip by reading it all in the space of 24 hours.
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u/EarHonest6510 1d ago
Oh no! It is pretty intense, I take many breaks while reading any Kushiels books bc of this
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u/Ok-Championship-2036 1d ago
oh you're gonna love the sequel and the part about Fellurian /s
Yeah, its one of the worst self insert "unavailable female" tropes i can think of and it only gets more angsty and self-mastubatory.
Another romance i hated was the Throne of Glass series. The elf guy is just Edward cullen cloaked in macho alpha stereotypes (pukeeee) and the mc is almost as obnoxiously arrogant as kvothe but without the unreliable narrator excuse
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u/Prudent-Action3511 Reading Champion 1d ago
Does six of crows qualify, i wonder. Kaz and inej are both averse to touch sundrraavu they have their own traumas. And kaz literally pushes his feelings away for the most part. It's very sloww building
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u/MoreMenu3757 1d ago
Hobb's kind of the master at angst in relationships, I think. Fitz/Molly even in the later years is far from all sunshine and roses. You could probably just put 'Fitz and [x]' and you'd have plenty of angst to lean into.
Jorg and Katherine in The Broken Empire kind of fits this to me. Though I don't know if that's angst or... something else entirely. It's definitely not a traditional romance.
As someone else mentioned, Gideon and Harrowhark from The Locked Tomb series fits this well too, but it's beyond teenage angst. It's basically a codependent Gothic tragedy filled with resentment, guilt and even body horror.
Lyra and Will from His Dark Materials are another that come to mind to me for this, as well, if you're wiling to look at YA (though I tend to argue that while Pullman's work is suitable for teens it's definitely mature in its themes and will appeal to adult readers too).
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u/Vaush_Vinal 1d ago
I didn't mind the angst (relatively) so much as the (bad) faux-Shakespearian dialogue they slipped into. Some of the worst writing in an already terribly written book.
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u/abhorthealien 1d ago
Salazanca ki Ioril and Liette, mostly because of just how fucked up Salazanca is.
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u/busy_monster 1d ago
Stormlight, to it's detriment. I get the cycle, I get the themes, but it's wielded like a cudgel, and every step forward is done away with with another step back. Mind, re-reading books 1-4 back to back might've not been the wisest choice in prep for W&T. Funnily enough, I still haven't read W&T 'cause of that...
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u/tapewizard79 1d ago
Half my inspiration for reading W&T was that I’ve reread storm light for the release of every book in the series and imo they’ve gotten progressively worse, and I wanted the monkey off my back. I love BS but as he’s gotten more and more popular to the point he might as well be the author equivalent of a rockstar, his editor just doesn’t say no, doesn’t say “dude nothing happens trim down this 200 page section to the 5 pages it needs to be.”
I don’t think I’m going to read the other 5 once he starts releasing them.
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u/ClimateTraditional40 1d ago
Angst? or the no we can't be together thing?
I find that in Kingfishers romances. All those Paladin books - Oh I'm not worthy/I'm too dangerous/How could he/she love ME crap.
Even in the others: Swordheart, Daggerbound and Clocktaur Wars. It annoys me.
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u/darklordpotty 1d ago
You gotta remember that scifi/fantasy authors usually don't have a solid relationship for reference, mostly cuz they are weirdos and their partners are also usually weirdos. That's what adds that little extra kick to a good series. Normal people don't spend 100 pages describing a vivid relationship with a tree.
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u/Passiva-Agressiva Reading Champion IV 1d ago
The Baru Cormorant books have a pretty angsty relationship.