I was going to reply to this whole statement in the poll thread (which I have not voted in; I feel my opinion is too complex to boil it down to one sentence and so I will express it here) but I wanted Laudre's comments here where I can see them.

>But how it was done -- I still can't quite figure out what it
>is about "Interlude on Titan," specifically, that sets my teeth on
>edge and makes the little author-voice in the back of my head scream
>things like "CONTRIVED!" and "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!", but that's
>exactly how it feels to me. (And I find the story the exact opposite
>of enjoyable, so I'm not planning on rereading it to figure it out.)
>"Interlude at Vortigern's Lake No. 2" is only moreso -- I mean, Jesus,
>Corwin and Utena have to fuck to prevent Akio from driving a
>wedge between them? Akio? Christ, could this be any
>more of a betrayal to the characters, and the emotional arc that's
>been developing up until then?

If Utena were still fourteen or something, I might agree with you. One of the things it's hard to forget, despite Gryphon's best efforts, is that everyone's grown and changed a lot in the past several IC years. It'd actually be a lot easier if I hadn't seen RGU, because every time I see her name I envision her as she is in the show, and then have to consciously back up and reenvision her as a young adult.

But as for having sex to overshadow memories of previous sexual encounters...well, I've seen that RL before. It's quite real. And I will say no more on that subject. (No, it did not involve me, thank the gods.)

>
>Akio is the last person in the Ten Worlds to be credible as a threat
>to Utena and Corwin's relationship (I won't simply call it a
>friendship, because after "Interlude at Bancroft Tower" the word
>"friendship" became too simple, even if they weren't technically
>romantically involved). That this becomes the... the
>justification for this makes them taking the next step feel
>rushed, cheap, contrived, and a betrayal of the natural, organic way
>their relationship had developed until then. To even imply
>that because they don't call each other by a particular label
>(boyfriend and girlfriend, or lover, or whatever), and because they're
>not having sex, that they could therefore be driven apart by someone
>like Akio -- who is, I suppose, a reasonably complex and competent
>villain by UF standards, but that's not saying much at all -- is
>insulting to the readers, to the characters, and, I'm sorry to say, is
>rather a disappointment in the Symphony and in Gryph's writing skills,
>because I know it can be better than this, because it
>has. As I said above, that relationship stands at the emotional
>core of the Symphony, and for it to reach its consummation at any
>point other than marking the end of the Symphony cycle/subseries... it
>feels dramatically very, very wrong.

This is part of why I felt voting in a poll wasn't quite complex enough for what I needed to express. The fact is, it did feel contrived, just a little. Not as much as you're making it out to be, though, and for a different reason entirely. Much like the incest thing, which I commented on in another Annotations thread, it feels out there not because it exists but because it happened more than once. I think the Kate/Juri/Miki grouping felt more realistic of the two, but like Juri pointed out at some point (and Kate later echoed, if only in jest), relationships like that don't really happen RL because finding three people capable of handling it -and- compatible with each other is nigh impossible. Sure, they had their parents' web of such people around to draw inspiration from, but that made a lot more sense given the centuries they've had to settle into that situation. But all of that pales before one simple fact.

None of this affected my enjoyment of the story.

As Pasha pointed out, this is NOT fucking War and Peace. You can't go into it expecting RL relationships, any more than you can expect RL mech battles or RL spellcasting. (Boy, wouldn't THAT be nice. But I digress.) This is prose told specifically in anime style, a manga with just text. Anime, by its very nature, requires a measure of suspension of disbelief, and I went in knowing full well what I expected out of such a story and what I didn't. Did I think the threesomes were a bit silly? Well, yes. But not very much so, truth be told--I was more bothered by the notion that humanlike people spontaneously existed on many planets at the same time rather than being spread intentionally, because only the latter challenged my suspension of disbelief.

As for the villain bit, what the hell are you smoking? Competent villains are next to IMPOSSIBLE to get correctly, and yet Gryphon has managed to do so several times. The key is to create a tense situation, where the heroes can win despite a great plan almost knocking them for a loop...instead of winning because their opponent is a dork. The Amar battle was moderately successful, the Night to Remember and the Qo'Nos (sp?) exceedingly so. Not every battle was perfect, true, but when a villain has a good plan, it's too easy to either let the heroes win too easily (or not interestingly enough; Excessive Force was a once-read for me not because I hated it but because the villain was uninteresting; I prefer intelligence and machination) or even worse, let the villains win. I was disappointed when the Valiant was hijacked, because I thought they'd won, and I should have had more faith, you know? I knew Gryphon hates movies where the bad guys win as much as I do.

I admit, some stories were not as successful in this regard. Akio, in particular, has been considerably less successful than I would have expected, though he's characterized perfectly...and I strongly suspect the Order of the Black Rose will fix that opinion most thoroughly. We've been seeing his secret hand in things for some time, after all, with villains disappearing after defeats.

My high point for great villains (outside UF) could have been Magneto, if I didn't get so irritated at people who insist on wearing underwear outside their pants. (I forever love Wolverine for switching to jeans, like, y'know, a normal person.) Instead, it's Grand Admiral Thrawn. Someone tell George Lucas to make the next three movies off Zahn's books and leave screenwriting to someone else, please.

"They say one should not speak unkindly of the dead, so I say, 'nice try'." --Lezard