The Everlasting Trope: Battle Couple

When I was younger (a teen or so) and someone asked me what sort of things I find to be “romantic”, this was roughly my answer:

“Sitting together, shoulder-to-shoulder before some great battle, drinking coffee next to a fire in the dark. Preparing for the danger to come, knowing what the other was thinking or feeling without a word having to be said.”

And frankly, for me, that is one of the fundamental appeals of the “Battle Couple” trope.

Now, usually, when I do an ‘Everlasting Trope’ I talk about when the trope works and when it doesn’t. But with this trope I think the times it doesn’t work simply have to do with characterization. The characters are either well-written, or they aren’t. They jive with you or they don’t. They feel real, or they don’t. That’s it.

So, instead, I’m going to talk about what this trope looks like, and examine some different versions of it. Full disclosure: I unabashedly love this trope, and I don’t see it nearly as often as I would like. I literally wrote my book for myself, because I wanted to read this trope in the particular style I longed for, even if no one else ever read it.

So What is a “Battle Couple”? (I know, I know it says right there on the tin):

Simple description? A romantic pair that go into battle together. Delving into it a little more, it’s basically a romantic version of buddy cops or brothers-in-arms.

A common description of the difference between friends and lovers is that friends stand side-by-side, whereas lovers stand face-to-face. Obviously both can be true of lovers, but here you imagine them also back-to-back, fighting an onslaught. You get the camaraderie of friendship, the emotional tension of romance, and the wordless intuition of a partnership forged under life-and-death circumstances.

This isn’t just two characters who are in love who also happened to have swords in their hands (these days, that’s everybody in Fantasy novels, right?). These two have a system. They have a plan. They’re a team.

Maybe they’ve been together since before the story began, or maybe they come together over course of the conflict, maybe they started out as friends, maybe as enemies, but at some point they become a Battle Couple, and here are some thoughts on what that looks like.

Types and Characteristics

Complementing skills: She’s stealth, he’s a brawler. She’s the sharpshooter, he’s the strategist. One hotwires the car, the other drives. You love to see it. Thus the Battle Couple becomes a bit of a metaphor for marriage (and parenthood). Each person has their strengths and weaknesses, and those interact and play off of each other.

For instance, in my marriage, I’m good at keeping the kids’ schedule, getting food on the table, reading out loud to the kids, and sensing their needs. My husband far excels me in doing fun activities, teaching practical life skills, and getting the kids engaged in chores. We attack the battle that is raising five small children less that six years apart (including newborn twins) with our respective skill sets in hand.

You get the idea.

When one character is limping, the other steps in to shoulder them. When one of them has a blindspot, the other points it out to them, or covers down for them. Designated areas of operation! Interlocking fields of fire! Look, this may not be romantic to everyone, but to me it is *chef’s kiss* beautiful.

Common cause: This may seem obvious, but in order to fight side-by-side, you need to be looking at something. You need to have a common objective, a shared purpose. There are exceptions to this, yes, but this is the general idea. And this also means that the “Battle Couple” trope can live outside a literal battle. Any couple sharing strenuous difficulty to accomplish a shared objective can have the flavor–the tensions and pains and aches–of the “Battle Couple” trope.

There is this higher, greater, other thing binding them together. Something beyond their personal feelings for one another. And that greater objective increases their intimacy, because they love what they are fighting for, and they love each other and one or the other of those loves may be in danger of being sacrificed to the other.

Something about having an ideal/conviction/purpose other than just *each other* is also striking to me and more resonant with reality while still retaining the excitement we often crave in our fiction. It makes the romance deeper, fuller, and richer in the same way that real life romance is more than just “feels” and “moments” and “unresolved sexual tension.” It is work and strain and struggle and moving forward at a pace dictated not only by yourself, but by another.

Back-to-back fighting: Side by side fighting, of course, yes please…but also back-to-back. I don’t just mean in the literal, action-scene sense, (though that too). This goes glove in hand with the ‘common cause’ and the ‘complementing strengths’ element. You don’t always get to stare into each others’ eyes, or walk arm-in-arm. You have to take your eyes off the beloved and do the task.

It’s the both-and of it. The lover is ruthlessly set to the task, utterly engaged in the fight, facing the enemy…yet aware of the beloved who is doing the same thing at their back. Covering for each other while yet unable to see one another. Confident in one another in a situation of blinding danger, which leads me to:

Trust: Unlike the trope where one character says to the other “you can’t go, it’s too dangerous!” this trope implies a trust between the lovers. They may be afraid for the other’s life, but they implicitly trust their counterpart’s competence. They know, gut-deep, what they are made of and trust that they ‘got this,‘ so to speak. They may want to protect each other, sure, but neither thinks the other can’t handle it. Nobody here is too delicate for danger.

But don’t they still fear for each other? Why YES. Yes they do. Which brings us to the why-do-we-even-like-this-trope of this whole operation. Romance needs tension, does it not? And whither shall we go regarding this hyper-competent, already-united battle couple to retrieve our much-needed tension?

Lemme tell you.

The Why of the Thing

A Different Flavor of Tension:

We know that romance generally necessitate a form of tension, such as “will-they-won’t-they,” a love triangle, “enemies-to-lovers,” or star-crossed lovers. These types of tension hold the lovers apart either by their own internal conflict, or by others keeping them apart. But the tension of the Battle Couple needn’t have anything to do with whether or not they will get together, or what other people think about them. It has to do with the knowledge that the one you love is in danger, and you fear for them–yet you need them there.

Each person in the pair is taking that which is most precious to them and bringing it directly into the line of fire. There is fear and pain and doubt in that, which has nothing to do with if they love each other. You know they do and, often, so do they. That is precisely what breeds the tension. Now it may or may not be an unspoken love, but that is beside the point. You feel the thing in the back of their mind that aches, that says “you may lose the one you love today. And you may be the one to allow it to happen.” That’s where the whole trust thing comes in, as well as the common cause. What will be sacrificed? The one they love, or the purpose on which both are fervently fixed?

In addition to this particular brand of tension, there are a few classic scenes that the Battle Couple trope tends to produce which I rather like.

The Survival Reunion (or lack thereof):

The battle is over. The dwindled army reaches the rally point one-by-one.

“Where is she?” he says, under his breath.

And either she comes limping through the fog, blood-stained…or she doesn’t. You get the tender, strained, collapsing-in-exhausted-relief reunion, or you get the gut-punch of tragedy, the disbelief, the miserable trek to go retrieve the body, because that’s the only thing that can be done for them now.

If the characters are well-rendered, then either of these options will be compelling.

Unspoken Knowledge:

This is that moment where you have two characters who both know each other so well, and who also know what needs to be done, that they work together wordlessly and seamlessly.

They hear the battle trumpet. They both rise and go in opposite directions, one to put the tack on the horses, the other to rouse the troops. One gestures toward their intended trajectory, the other nods and plans accordingly.

This doesn’t happen ALL the time. No two people are always perfectly in sync. I don’t think it would be very interesting if they were. But when it does happen it beautifully displays the knowledge, competence, intimacy, and the shared burden, all at once.

There are also a few classic Battle Couple scenes that I do NOT like, such as:

-Cupping face in hands right before a teary send-off. This may appeal to some (that’s more than fine) but I like something a bit more gruff and practical.

-A mid-battle kiss. I think this is nigh unforgiveable. Maybe it’s because of mine and my husband’s military background, but I just can’t justify this, no matter how much of a romantic I may be. No kisses until the thing is done, one way or the other.

-Symbolic weapon activities. This applies to ALL battle characters. Cocking a weapon that supposedly already had a round chambered. I picture a Mr. and Mrs. Smith sort of scenario, where one character hands a weapon to the other that is NOT out of ammo, but has no round chambered (?!?!) and so the other person has to rack it back? This makes no sense.

(I get that cocking a gun is cinema short-hand for “I’m serious business. NOW I’m gonna shoot you” but it remains very, very silly.)

Or tossing a knife to someone who is already wielding a sword and doesn’t have any clear NEED for the knife? It just looks cool?

I don’t like “sounds cool” action except rarely. Because, often, the “cooler” it sounds, the less realistic it is and, eventually, the less interesting it becomes. Only so much whirling and spinning and Matrix moves can be tolerated in any non-Wuxia setting (Wuxia is its own thing, and allows amply for such things).

EXAMPLES:

I only have a few because I am extremely picky. I adore the battle couple trope, but I am rarely satisfied by its execution. Some of those below scarcely even meet the definition, but they evoke some of the emotions and atmosphere I associate with a Battle Couple.

The Blue Sword:

In The Blue Sword, Harry and Corlath train together (sort of) and go through the battle games together and then, when the enemy comes, they technically go to battle together. I love all the rigors of training, and the romantic element here is subtle, certainly not the focus. The only problem is that Harry goes off on her own to do some random thing which, of course, ends up saving everyone, but kind of reduces the whole ‘working together’ angle that I love so much.

Mara Daughter of the Nile:

In this Ancient Egypt historical fiction, which I read in 7th grade and have read a dozen times since, Mara is a double-agent due to her linguistic capabilities, spying on behalf of Thutmos’s right hand man, Sheftu, and on behalf of Hatshepsut’s right hand man.

Sheftu and Mara develop a romantic relationship fraught with tension because neither of them can trust the other, and each would easily sacrifice the other for ‘the cause’…his cause being to put Thutmose on the throne, and her cause being freedom and wealth. But when they begin to share a cause and Mara suffers mightily for it, the story achieves a lovely Battle Couple flavor.

The Horse and his Boy

My favorite of the Narnia books, largely because I find the setting in Calormen to be more appealing: desert environment, a different culture from Narnia, etc.

Shasta, the slave boy from Archenland, and Aravis, a noble Tarkheena of Calormen, share a journey and a purpose, if not a battle, and must work together to save a country. Her wounds may come from the claws of a lion, and his from sheer exhaustion, but for a kid’s book written so many decades ago, there’s little to none of this “Oh, you can’t handle this, because you’re a girl, I must do it for you.”

Aravis does what she can do, Shasta does what he can do, they save the threatened country, and later rule Archenland together.

Uprooted

Yet another story that does not include any actual military-style battles, but rather has a magical battle. A battle against a deeply rooted evil.

The two main characters have complementing magical skills and personalities and it is when they work together that amazing things happen.

Agnieszka has a visceral, emotional, messy, intuitive magic, whereas the Dragon has a disciplined, structured, formal magic. Both are needed to fight the evil.

So, perhaps there are no bows and arrows and battle-shields in this story, but that side-by-side, compensating for each others’ strengths and weakness thing is definitely in play.

Now the truth is, I actually do prefer Battle Couples to be literal. I want them to gear up and go to war. I’m sure there are many more stories out there that do this nowadays but, like I said, I’m picky. So when I couldn’t find the precise flavor that I wanted, I made up stories that did. And then I wrote one of them. And even though it looks very little like the fun tropey ideas I started out with, this particular trope was one of the things that inspired me to write at all. It holds a special place in my heart.