A Side Effect Of The Drugs.

we are showed time and time again why the closet sucks but IS necessary, and yet shane is the one who is punished for his alleged selfishness by being forced off the team he dreamed of retiring with, stripped of his captaincy, forced to take a pay cut, and moved onto second line where he’s subordinate to his white, strong, manly captain. BUT it’s all fine because shane is happy with it! actually he’s relieved to only focus on hockey for once :) those three (THREE (3)) stanley cups he won while captaining his team just fell into his lap and he didn’t actually like being captain. he’s happy to let his white husband take the reins and it’s fine that shane had to take a pay cut because his sexy big strong white husband is rich so he’ll be taken care of :)

everything shane was afraid of happening did happen, stripped him of his agency and left him underpaid and undervalued, but he’s playing on the same team as his husband now so all those fears were just silly and proves to us how inconsiderate and selfish shane really is. and btw his diet is stupid too so he’ll eat a snickers bar.

and this is supposed to be a happy ending? this is supposed to be an acceptable and GOOD outcome of a situation that queer people are genuinely terrified of experiencing?

shane in tlg feels like an extension of ilya’s happiness and nothing more, and when shane can’t provide ilya with the happiness he feels entitled to, he’s ridiculed and disrespected. ilya gets his happy ending at the expense of shane’s professional career, and shane has no thoughts about it. he’s just fine with it.

How? Why?

Let’s face it, human beings’ sense of self-worth is always tied to something external to ourselves. It’s essential to our nature as social creatures. It’s what made our society into what it is today. The art we look at, the books we read, the technology we use and the relationships that are formed are all related to our need to be seen and recognized by others.

Why is it wrong for Shane to tie his self worth to a sport he loves and the sense of achievement he gets from it? If you argue that he needs to learn to value personal relationships and the people around him (ie. Ilya basically), why would this lesson even be necessary? Throughout history, there are countless examples of people who dedicated their lives to career achievement, be it sports, sciences, arts or philosophy and sacrificed their interpersonal relationships along the way. How can we say there is anything wrong with their value systems when they are the ones who are responsible for for the very world we live in today? Moreover, Shane already values things other than hockey. He loves his parents, he was “Uncle Shane”, he was a groomsman at his teammate’s wedding, and he was willing to place everything at risk for a potential future with Ilya. What more was he meant to learn?

If you argue that hockey careers are short and that Shane needs to shift his value system because of that because “where would he be when hockey ends”. Well, ALL athletic careers have a time limit. Should all athletes abandon their careers for their personal relationships? Currently, there are actual queer athletes who are enduring homophobia and giving up relationships (or potential relationships) because their sports are important to them. Should they all just retire or risk their careers to “live as their authentic selves” because YOU think that’s the lesson they need to learn? ALL athletes players are risking longterm health and facing potential relationship difficulties for achievement and legacy. Should they all just quit?

I have ranted about how it handles queer themes of the closet and homophobic spaces and being outed poorly but even if we set it aside for a moment (which we should not its a queer romance its appeal is the queer relationship but fine. fine.) it still does not hold itself up to the standards of romance itself.

(Necessary caveats : the 2 requirements of romance genre i.e. HEA and the primary plot is romance was put forward by the Romance Writers of America and they have been mired in controversy because of them being racist. so. food for thought. Also the genre conventions is not a gun being held at a writer's head. It is, at best, a pattern. That being said, if we are going to say TLG is the way it is because this is what the romance genre demands then we are going to see if it holds to this standard. )

So why do I think TLG is not good at being a Romance? So glad you asked welcome to my Ted Talk.

The Romance genre demands an HEA. And for me and probably many other readers this is a comforting fact. We know that after all the turmoil and the horrors we will see our two protagonists happy and in love.

The reason the ending of TLG does not feel like a happy ending to many readers like myself, is because the narrative spends a good part of the story telling us it is not a happy ending.

The central conceit of this is how the emotional arcs of our two main characters are resolved. From the start of the story, as we read Ilya's POV and his struggles with depression, the sentiment is this. True Love cannot Conquer All and it cannot be the only thing in your life. You deserve community and your own ambitions. You cannot be happy just because you are in love. And Ilya's arc is him chasing after and then achieving these things.

And then. We flip this to Shane, and his emotional arc is in fact the opposite. At the end of the story, we the readers are told that for him True Love Can Conquer All and community and ambitions are irrelevant. He is happy because he is in love. His arc is him losing his community and sacrificing career ambitions to move to his husband's team.

You can see the glaring imbalance here as it is, but when you add the racialized element of Shane being an Asian man you really do have to wonder. Why is the happy ending of your queer POC main character dependent on absolutely destroying his legacy as a professional athlete. Why is his ambition so easily disposable. Why must he be content with just 'oh he still gets to play hockey and he gets to play with his husband :) he shouldn't worry about pesky things like salary or his captaincy'? (Do not get me started with the 'hockey will be fun for him again without worrying about captaincy' pls pls at least try to engage with these characters as the high achieving top of the league athletes they are.)

So the issue is that HEA we are promised by the genre is explicitly shown to be not an HEA from the start of this book. So which is it? See it depends. It's Schrodinger's HEA. so we are sat there going. You're telling me he's happy but the circumstances he is in are not happy circumstances. You told me these are not happy circumstances. What is going on. Are we in the mirrorverse.

(The only meaningful difference between the start and the end is that they are in the same team. So is the takeaway that the HEA is achieved by being on the same team and no longer being long distance? Because if so it is fundamentally undermined by how it comes about. If their primary conflict is long distance (its not but for the sake of the argument) then it being solved by a series of looney-tunes ass plot points is fundamentally unsatisfying. Shane does not move to Ottawa of his own choosing. They are outed, he trips in a hockey game and his teammates of ten years take this as betrayal apparently and then there is a smear campaign that makes him feel like he can't represent Montreal anymore. Pouring kerosene on one of your main character's entire life and setting it on fire sure is a way to go about solving long distance.)

‘Your situationship ghosted you for 6 months and then was mean to you when you next met up?’ - ‘No! Shane is just a bit uh oh they didn’t kiss, and he totally understands something was up with Ilya. He was protecting him in Russia and the ghosting after that was because ilya was struggling with his feelings for Shane and because his family are meanies. 😔 Why would be Shane be hurt?! Hahahaha! They aren’t serious, I mean look at poor Ilya, he really cares about Shane and it pained him to be cruel- no not cruel cause my baby Ilya is never cruel lol! 🥹 He is just sad and hurting! Shane is whatever. He gets over it. All the people going on about how nasty Ilya is here or how sad Shane was after are media illiterate! Have you read rr’s version on her website?🥰’

‘Your partner shoved you against a wall during an argument that literally came out of the blue about introducing you as his boyfriend to his hockey team and all their partners!’ - ‘sorry but Shane shoved Ilya in the wall once before too in an entirely different context and the text says Shane wasn’t scared or Ilya would never hurt him so stfu!!besides look at all the horrible hellish things Shane has said to Ilya!!! Ilya has sacrificed everything for Shane and he’s too selfish to realise it. 💔 in fact he should grovel at Ilya’s feet (here are 1038382 fic recommendations where he does just that 💅🏻) because Ilya deserves better.’

I know it’s relatively uncommon for the super star to come into a team and displace the leader who’s been there for longer. That’s why it was weird for Ilya to be made captain when Bood was still there. I’m assuming it had something to do with his history of leading his team to great results, skills as a player and star power. If those were the criteria, they should apply them to Shane as well.

You can’t be like……well despite Bood having great leadership qualities, being well liked, loyal, a great player and on the team for longer and know everyone better, Ilya got the captaincy because he was the better player and bigger star, THEN totally ignore all that when it comes to Shane. If you look at one guy and think about who’s loyal and well liked, and then look at another guy and think about who’s a bigger star and more experienced at leading a team towards better results.

Shane managed to lead a group of homophobes who hated him to a Cup. That’s exceptional leadership skills. If I had the chance to get a guy like that on my team, I’d seriously be thinking about what he could accomplish here if given the chance. It’s weird for him to be automatically moved to the “back of the line” literally and symbolically.