Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You
If I wanted to continue the tension I’d created in the first three stories, I had to pony up to what I’d been threatening for three books. The first three books, on one level, are all about this issue: everyone on earth thinks Azazel and Jason shouldn’t date, and they insist on doing so anyway. I had to put umph behind their warnings, or those warnings would have been meaningless. In many ways, this is what was coming since the beginning, when Azazel learned that her family wanted her to kill Jason.
Azazel’s Character Arc
Azazel was raised in a perfect family. At least it looked perfect. She was loved unconditionally by her parents and brothers. And they betrayed her. First her parents betrayed her. Then her brothers betrayed her.
Azazel didn’t kill her parents, but she contributed to their deaths. She did kill her brothers. She killed her best friend. And in the end, she trusted Jason implicitly, in much the same way she’d trusted her parents.
And then Jason, too, betrayed her.
When Jason isn’t in Azazel’s life, things seem to go slightly better for her. The minute he shows up again, all hell breaks loose. So I think it makes sense, from her perspective, why she wouldn’t want to date him anymore.
The Perfect Love, or They’re Made For Each Other
I guess the first thing that I should say as an author is that I don’t believe in crap like that in real life. When I originally wrote Breathless, I meant it to kind of thumb its nose at the entire idea of love being fated and all that junk. It was supposed to be creepy that Jason and Azazel stayed together when they could, quite possibly, destroy the world.
Over time, the saga of the two of them evolved. I do believe in unconditional love, but not because it’s fated or meant to be. I believe it’s a choice. While I think that Azazel has been in a position to make that choice about Jason, I feel like Jason has never had to make that choice about Azazel. In other words, he’s destroyed her life by simply existing, but she’s never done the same thing to him–at least not until she kicked him out after he hurt Chance. What this means, however, is simply that it’s a bigger deal for Azazel to love Jason than it is for Jason to love Azazel.
The question, however, remains: Are they meant to be together? Is it fate? Do they belong together?
If the answer is yes, should they be together? Do people like Jason and Azazel deserve to be happy? Lots of times, they are not particularly nice people.
Which, of course, begs the question why am I still writing about them? I guess they still interest me. That’s why.
I Worship at the Shrine of Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon said: “It’s Sam and Diane. That’s why we had Angel go bad when he and Buffy got together. Because — and I’ve gotten into so much trouble for this phrase — what people want is not what they need. In narrative, nobody wants to see fat, married Romeo and Juliet, even if fat, married Romeo and Juliet happen to be Nick and Nora Charles and they’re really cool and having a great time in their lovely relationship and really care about each other and have nice, well-adjusted children. Guess what? People don’t want to see it.
“That was the problem we ran into with Riley. We said, ‘Let’s give Buffy a healthy relationship,’ and people didn’t want it. They did some great work together. But at the same time, when they were happy, it made people crazy. We found this with Willow and Tara, we found it with Gunn and Fred. It’s fine for a while, but ultimately the course of true love is not allowed to run smooth.”
(First thing to note is, of course, that if Kieran and Azazel are actually happy, you can bet your ass that’s not going to last very long.)
Do you think it’s true? Is it boring when people are happy and in love? I guess I do. And that’s why Jason and Azazel are currently not together.
