My Favorite Animated Relationships

Has it really been a year? I am so ashamed. Now is not the time to whine or complain about how I let time slip away from me though. The fact of the matter is, I need to work on a blogging schedule and I really need to stick with it. I will attempt to do better, but I hope you guys can forgive my momentary absences. I plan to do a brief life update, but not in this post, so look forward to that.

P.S. I actually started this blog post last summer and apparently I never got around to fully editing it and making sure everything looked good before publication. Sooooo that is the major reason this post is so delayed. 

So jumping into the nitty gritty. I wanted something short and sweet and I love couples. It's a known fact. I also love cartoons. Another known fact. Pretty much everything in my life is a known fact. Anyway, so I wanted to introduce some of my favorite couples that I have fallen in love with since my childhood and also talk about them with you guys. They are listed in numerical order for convenience, but that does not mean that I favor one more than the other. In fact, I probably couldn't condense this list into a smaller list even if I tried. So just think of these couples as my Top 5. 

*Disclosure: These are not all Disney. That wasn't the point. Disney is not the only company that makes animated movies.*

*SPOILER ALERT: I should also warn you that there are some spoilers mentioned in these movies, so if you haven't watched all of these movies and you don't want to know anything about their plots then you might want to go watch these movies then come back and finish reading the blog.*

1. Anastasia and Dimitri from Anastasia 

They argue and bicker, so what's not to love about this couple? A personal touch that I love about Anastasia and Dimitri is that their relationship grows out of respect and awe. (Let's ignore the fact that Dimitri lies to her and continues to lie to her even after he starts to fall in love with her.) Actually, without ignoring the lie, Dimitri redeems himself because he denies taking the reward from the Dowager Empress because underneath it all, he's really a good guy. Again, their relationship starts out differently from similar Disney canon love stories because Dimitri does not immediately fall in love with Anastasia the moment he lays eyes on her. Instead, she woos him with her grace, her personality, and then finally her beauty. Once he falls in love with her, he becomes aware of his own shortcomings and pitfalls which mark him as a growing character and one worthy of Anastasia's love. 

2. Rapunzel and Flynn from Tangled 

Another exceptionally cute couple who seem to start off on a similar journey to Anastasia and Dimitri. Flynn is also quite an unsavory character at the beginning. After all, he is a WANTED man running around with her crown (not that he knows she is the princess though.) Long story short, Rapunzel convinces Flynn to take her to see the lanterns in exchange for the crown. Teaming up with a criminal is always a good idea right? Again, we have a romance that slowly grows and changes as the characters embark on this journey and both Rapunzel and Flynn learn more about themselves than they previously knew. In part of growing as individuals, they also grow as a couple and Flynn becomes aware that he wants Rapunzel in his life for longer than the amount of time it takes to complete this adventure. 

3. Mulan and Captain/General Shang from Mulan/Mulan II

We all have that story where we run off to China as a man and then inevitably get identified as a woman where we then have this awkward relationship with our previous captain, right? Anyone? Okay. Maybe not. The story between Mulan and Shang is perhaps far-fetched, but not any less romantic. What starts out as a completely platonic friendship grows into one of mutual respect and pride. Granted, Mulan had to become a woman for that to actually happen, but it wasn't long for Shang and Mulan to realize their feelings were a little bit stronger than that of friends. When Mulan II comes around, they begin a journey that actually tests their love (something far different from most other Disney movies/sequels of its kind) since Mulan and Shang do not end the first movie getting married or even solidifying their relationship despite the grandmother's desperate attempts to keep Shang there. The second movie is an emotional rollercoaster that leaves you falling in love with these two even more. 

4. Princess Odette and Prince Derek from The Swan Princess 

Another movie that has an unusual, but captivating love story is the story between Odette and Derek from The Swan Princess. Particularly, this song, "This is My Idea," that starts right after this GIF is one of my favorite songs of all time and it captures the whole growing romance between the two in a way that makes the characters believable and timeless. In the beginning, the two are not quite as fond of each other as King William and Queen Uberta would hope. As the two are forced to spend time together each summer as they grow older, their relationship begins to get complicated and in the middle of the song Derek's friend, Bromley, states that he thinks Derek is already falling in love with Odette when he shows jealousy for her flirting with the "castle guards." This song has a way of being catchy and completely embodying the relationship between boys and girls when they are young and forced to be around each other before realizing what it even means to have feelings for someone. What makes Derek and Odette falling in love even better is that once Derek sees how beautiful she is, he is convinced that is all he needs to love her, but Odette will not stand for that alone. Thus, Derek must prove his love for her and redeem himself. 

5. Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty 

When a man is willing to fight a dragon for you are there really any other words needed to express your love for her? If we must go into more depth though, I love the irony in the fact that Phillip and Aurora are intended to be married anyway until Phillip hears Aurora singing in the woods (this is long after she has left to live with the fairies, so he no longer knows what she looks like). Once he falls in love with this "other girl" he convinces his father to not force him to marry this Princess that he does not care for. Therefore, Phillip and Aurora fall in love on their own, but it is also similar to the love story between Prince Derek and Princess Odette where you can probably argue that Phillip is slowly growing to love Aurora when they are children, even though he might not realize it, and much like Derek to Odette, he has to prove his love for Aurora by fighting a DRAGON. In the movie, Phillip does not find out that Aurora is his betrothed until after he wakes her up with a kiss, but it is a fact that he becomes aware of making it seem so funny that he should fall in love with her any way even when he thought she was a peasant. This romance may seem a little close to that stereotypical label we put on Disney and the "love at first sight" problem, but again I can rationalize it away with the understanding that Phillip was familiar with Aurora, he just didn't recognize her which is not so unbelievable since neither of them had hit puberty when she had left, and he defies all attempts at imprisonment and death just to be with her. That really is true love.