Meta: Why I don't like the Peter/Susan pairing

[caramelsilver]

Some of you (and when I say some of you I guess I only mean be_themoon) might remember a while back when I said I'd written down why I didn't like the Peter/Susan ship, but was unsure of posting it cause I didn't want to offend anybody. Well, it's a few months later and I've continued to think about it and I now completely know the reason why I don't like that ship (AKA: I can explain it in a way that makes sense!)

Surprisingly it has nothing to do with the incest (which should worry me a bit more). It has to do with group dynamic. The Pevensies are four siblings. Two boys and two girls. And in every fic I read and write this is never forgotten,- even though I might focus a bit more on the boys,- the relationship between the four of them is never forgotten or overlooked. What I feel happens in Peter/Susan fics is that the two others are forgotten and that makes me very uncomfortable.

But of course, I'm a hypocrite because I don't mind this as much when it's Susan and Lucy who's forgotten when I read Peter and Edmund brotherfic. And maybe this is because I'm truly cemented in this part of fandom and maybe my dislike of the P/S ship is simply that there's so many of my favorite people on LJ who likes this ship and I kind of feel left out?

I was really happy when I found out that it wasn't the incest that squicked me, but the fact that pairing off two characters in a set of four is just all wrong to me. Because to me, the Pevensies is a unit that works together and when you disrupt that it becomes all wrong to me. (Which is also why fics post-Narnia and the Problem of Susan is so interesting because without Susan they are wrong.)

In fandoms like Supernatural I don't mind the incest at all, because Sam and Dean have always been just the two of them. (If that makes sense?)

On a side note, it might also be that I just don't see them as characters hooking up either. Like, had they not been siblings I don't think I would ship it, because I see no spark and there needs to be sparks.

God, I hope this was clear and not offensive.

Please discuss in the comments. Tell me why you like it, or why you don't. I'm really interested, since I'll freely admit that I know next to nothing about the ship, except a few fics and people talking about it on my flist. Educate me! But don't be rude.

Comments

[notoriousreign.livejournal.com]

I don't like it either. I don't like to ship any of the Pevensies together and usually it's because of the incest. But from what I've learned from my Wincest friends, I can accept the pairing. It's like you said though, with Peter and Susan, it just doesn't seem right to break up a four-person group dynamic. =P

[lizzie-marie-23.livejournal.com]

I love the four of them as a group because they're all just so human if that makes any sense. And while I would never write Susan/Peter fic myself, I don't mind reading it.

But I can totally see where you're coming from with them not clicking with each other. I mostly like the stories where they all go off on a grand adventure together, or the ones where Susan grows apart from the rest of them. I guess I'm an angster at heart. ;)

[katakokk.livejournal.com]

I like Peter/Susan to a degree, like, I'm not a huge, huge, huge fan of it but I like it well enough. I get what you're saying about the pairing sort of leaving out Edmund and Lucy, but I feel like I can explain why I still like it and how I feel it doesn't exclude the younger two.

I like Peter/Susan by themselves as a stand alone pairing, but I also like it (squick warning: discussion of polyamorous relationships ahead) sort of layered wih Pevencest in general. Obviously not explicit orgies because I just can't do that, but in the subtextual kind of way, brushing hands and such. To me, Peter/Susan is a part of the more all-encompassing Pevencest relationship, but they also have a bit of a special connection because of them being forbidden from Narnia earlier than their youger siblings.