I’d describe it as delicious because it’s so contradictory at first sight!
It’s canon and we agree that they truly admire each other. Normally, this makes men more prone to work together. What is weird is that it doesn’t work like that for them. And when you add the fact that they can work with other people, it seems even odder.
So there *must* be something else there.
Something that is actually very irrational.
Charles being a telepath and a psychiatrist and an intellectual is probably very aware of it. And yet, he cannot prevent this dynamic from happening. That shows you how this stuff must come from a really primitive, really instinctual part of the brain.
Now, you could say:
“thatÂ’s definitely a pent-up sexual tension”, but I find this explanation boring and reductive. IÂ’m a woman, but of all the males in my life I wouldnÂ’t pick a single one and say: “he’s motivated by sex and nothing else”. ‘Cause you know, attached to the testicles thereÂ’s a whole human being, who is also complex and who has a mind that works and process information and actions on multiple levels of awareness.
So how do I see this, really?
I think their admiration makes them recognise the ultimate mutant leader in the other. ThatÂ’s why they trigger each other.
They see the ultimate mutant leader and they disagree with his ideology on principle, so they can’t help each other because they know that if they do, such a leader would crystallize that ideology with tragic consequences.
They trigger in each other the primal instinct of protecting the tribe, which is very typical of the male brain (part of the male competitiveness BS I joked about before). And it’s not conscious and they can’t help it exactly because it actually comes from that most primitive part of their brains.
Does it make sense?