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  1. #1
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    Default Does The Hawk Mythos Perpetuate Harmful Ideas About "The One"?

    Urban Dictionary defines oneitis as: “An unhealthy romantic obsession or fixation for one person."


  2. #2
    Extraordinary Member Restingvoice's Avatar
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    Feels more like fated soulmates to me. Unhealthy obsession and fixation for one person sounds like a stalker in just one lifetime... or one 90s romcom

  3. #3
    Astonishing Member Johnrevenge's Avatar
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    Nope. In all their lifetimes they've been together on their own, not because one of them wanted to force the other into the relationship, it was never one sided.

  4. #4
    Ultimate Member sifighter's Avatar
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    I’ve always viewed it more as a curse, these are two characters who actually love each other but are destined to die over and over again sometimes out of sequence and be forced to search out for each other again and hopefully remember what they once had.

    The only time it ever felt weird was in the Justice League cartoon.
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  5. #5
    Ultimate Member WebLurker's Avatar
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    I think that fiction is the worst place to get relationship advice (although what we read does impact us, so there is a case to try and depict relationships well beyond "good writing"). Not much of a Hawk person, but, while I can see how their situation could make for interesting story fodder, I don't really find "fated love stories" to be that interesting. Heck, if I was going to write about something along the lines of this, the only way I could see making it interesting is if one member of the couple isn't interested in resuming their past lives relationship and falls for someone else outside of the cycle.
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  6. #6
    Astonishing Member Ra-El's Avatar
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    No, love and obsession are different things, imo, and as long as the writers don't make one of them a stalker (usually Hawkman) there's nothing harmful in their relationship.

  7. #7
    duke's casettetape lemonpeace's Avatar
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    yes and no?

    no in the sense that in-story they're supposed to be soulmates and usually are portrayed as having a relatively straightforward relationship between each other.

    yes in the sense that soulmates and the idea of "the one" aren't really healthy basis for writing (or being in) a romance because that's just not how relationships work. soulmates and love are made over time and takes work, that fate **** is lazy handwaving. most people can and will have multiple great love affairs in their life, I believe the statistic is like people have about 6 "soulmates" per romantic lifetime, so "the one" is kinda an unrealistic standard to set; hell, it could be a downright toxic ideology in real life.

    ultimately it's comics, it's a simple medium, it's unlikely they'll dig deep enough into it to get to the toxic. the issue usually only ever comes from writers not portraying the dynamic well, especially when/if they're trying to use it to create drama for story. it's just a romantic idea of love that's simple and easy to plug and play into any story. there are more problematic elements of the Hawk mythos that one could worry about if they really wanted to.
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  8. #8
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    So wait, are you telling me there isn't one great love that you're destined to meet and that is the one true love of your life?

  9. #9
    ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ Godlike13's Avatar
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    No.
    ......

  10. #10
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    Only when mishandled by a writer.

  11. #11
    Relaunched, not rebooted! SJNeal's Avatar
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    In real life, I don't subscribe to the idea of "the one", or "soulmates". There are ~8 billion people on this planet; the idea that only ONE is meant to be with you is actually pretty depressing, and statistically improbable.

    But this is comics, and when it comes to the Hawks, I'm all for it. *shrug*
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  12. #12
    Astonishing Member Kingdom X's Avatar
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    It was weird when it was between Carter and Kendra, but that whole thing with her being essentially possessed after her suicide was weird to begin with.

  13. #13
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    As long as it's a mutual thing that's perhaps even gotten more intense over the generations (they are really the only two people around with the same shared life experiences, at this point, and it could even be that their souls have gotten a little bit quantum entangled over the millenia), I'm cool with it. It's a story about reincarnating superheroes, so I'm not expecting a treatise on healthy relationships here.

    Although I did find it creepy in the Flash TV series, cause Hawkdude came across as a stalker, and Hawkchick seemed not all that into him, and only kinda seemed to go along with him resignedly, which felt all sorts of wrong.

  14. #14
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    The problem with the Hawks is that the situation is somewhere between rare and unique. It's not fair to judge their relationship based on things that don't apply- like only having only three score and ten to spend together or having no prior history when they first meet.

    In the real world no one meets a past long term lover but has no idea who that person is. You meet people you might be compatible with and build a relationship or not from that point. You might have a relationship end for one reason or another then reconnect later in life to reignite/continue that relationship.

    But in a soap opera world you might have your current partner seemingly killed only yo return with amnesia and plastic surgery. Now is it "The One" syndrome if you found yourself falling in love with this person who has all the traits you fell in love with originally? Then add in that you haven't been with this person for a mere decade, or half a century even, but for over 3000 years. Asking either of them to accept that they aren't the endgame is like asking a couple celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary to consider a one-night stand as having the same depth as their marriage.

    I think the comics come off crrepy becuase some writers treat them as the same two people throughout their reincarnations (Khufu is Carter is Nighthawk ...) and others treat each incarnation as a different person (Khufu could as easily be reincarnated as Lex Luthor, Ghandi, or Stan Lee without any change to any of them). If you read the Hawks as Kufu and Chayera meeting again every lifetime it seems romantic. If you read it as hundreds of different men and women united only by the fact they once dated at the dawn now in arranged marriages- it seems creepier.
    Last edited by Jon Clark; 02-21-2021 at 06:06 PM.

  15. #15
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    It would be funny to find out in some flashback that they spent a lifetime or two, over the hundreds of lifetimes, 'exploring other options,' but kept finding that they really weren't happy with anyone else. Have some story set ten centuries back and the Hawkpeep of that era is flying solo and when asked about the other by some time traveler says, "Oh, we're on a break. Every ten lives or so we try and mix it up. Never seems to take, though..."

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