>>>Yes! Yes, it is, Korra. There are weird grooming implications involved
>>>given the fact that you helped raise the boy.
>
>I thought I was the odd one out when I told myself this was a bad, bad
>idea.

In fairness, Korra obviously thought so too, at least unconsciously.

>No matter how
>long they both live, there's always going to be a sense that she has
>moral authority over him. That sense will never go away and it means
>they can be friends, sure, but anything more comes across badly.

This is a thing that immortals run up against a lot, actually - particularly the Æsir, but "ordinary" ones as well. It turns out that if you're going to live for a really, really long time, words like "always" and "never" are not necessarily accurate in a lot of their common idiomatic senses. However, this is getting well ahead of the game.

>There's no jealousy on the part of either one? At all?

No, not particularly. Jealousy is for people who think they stand to lose in some way.

>>That rather depends on what it's not yet time for, which is not
>>in evidence here. I mean, give Anthy and Utena credit for one thing,
>
>Gryphon, I respect you too much to pull punches here. What's in
>evidence, so far, is the beginnings of romance.

Not necessarily. It may be the beginnings of romantic attraction, but that, one submits, is not the same thing at all. One is a deliberate and complicated undertaking that is fully within an individual's control. The other is an unconscious response a person either feels or doesn't according to the whim of the Great Magnet. Choosing to act on B may lead to A, but in my experience, one doesn't get a choice as to whether B is there in the first place.

>In other words, their marriage can't be hurt by bringing Korra into
>it.

Not precisely. I mean, as you note, neither of them is particularly interested in that capacity, nor do they have any reason to believe that the converse is true. Nobody's seriously considering attempting to square the trilateral, as it were.

>Between that and
>the jealousy thing I mentioned above, I'm not at all sure why they
>would be for anything beyond friendship between Corwin and Korra.

I'm going to get into this more next time, and I can't really dig into it here without spoiling a fairly important scene, but it's worth noting that what U&A are primarily concerned with at this time is preserving that friendship - insulating it from the potential corrosive effects of that unconscious stepping back she noticed Korra doing - not necessarily promoting "anything beyond" it.

My original plan was to sort the whole thing out (at least for the short-to-medium term) in this one episode, but as the latter part of it came together, I realized that I'd have to let it ride a little to pace it properly. For now, just be aware that I'm not taking it lightly. As with many of the more intimately character-centered storylines around here, it is less a grand scheme than a thing that developed which I am now having to deal with.

>Now this makes perfect sense, and it's what I figured. Neither one of
>them is hurting for cash, after all. Though Miki is a part of all
>that. =)

Well, true, but Miki's such a bohemian he's also not bothered either way. If Juri woke up one morning and decided, "I cannot possibly go another day without making this stuff official," he'd buy a suit and report for duty, but it's not gonna be his idea. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.