#glenya shipping intensifies

[vampyrekat]

oh my god yes for glenya on that last post about good girl/bad guy ships????? bc anya totally makes gleb want to be better than the role he’s in. he never knew why his life didn’t quite fit right and anya comes along and just personifies what could change for the better. she’s an utter rejection of everything he’s been raised to think was good- she’s irreverent, brave, proud, and hot headed. not to mention a total snack. and anya herself, well, she just has a thing for a guy in uniform.

[in reference to this post by @qqueenofhades who’s opinions and fic-writing I admire greatly.]

The good girl/bad boy character dynamic is truly a tale as old as time, and like qqueenofhades said, it’s hard to get right, but when it’s right it’s very right. Gleb’s on the lighter end of the spectrum for these ships, but the elements show up anyway, and it’s so interesting. Though I disagree with the idea that Anya’s just into the uniform - in fact I’d say she’s very not into the uniform - but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Something mentioned that very much applies to glenya is that Anya never asks or tells Gleb to change; he does it all on his own. She’s his catalyst, true, and what pushes him from someone who’s questioning his place in the new order (the “sword and shield of the revolution”) to someone who completely rejects it (”not [his] father’s son after all”), but she doesn’t force him. She doesn’t try to. The closest she comes to actually telling him to change is challenging him to put himself in her shoes in the confrontation, when - as is obvious to the audience - he’s already unable to go through with hurting her. This final defiance is simply yet another nail in the coffin, but Gleb’s already changed by that point.

Another great point qqueenofhades brought up: that these ships can’t ever cross a boundary that has to be handwaved because ~Romance~, which a lot of these types of ship do. Gleb doesn’t cross those lines; he’s aware of their positions and never even tells her he cares about her, despite reworking his entire identity because of her. I love a subtle jealousy plot as much as the next woman but there is no “but she should be with me!” to any of Gleb’s lines. It’s all genuine concern for Anya’s well-being mixed in with a well-meaning crush, even if Gleb is truly crap at communicating that.

(One interesting thing to me is that Gleb is a lot more subtle in how he expresses things than Anya is. Max von Essen annotated his script on the line “They would kill you without hesitation” by underlining “they” and pointing out that Gleb doesn’t say “I” there; he’s not telling her what he’ll do, just what will naturally happen as a consequence of her actions. It’s an interesting nuance to have picked up on, and makes their interactions more interesting, because Anya wouldn’t know subtlety if it bought her dinner.)

And everything you said is correct, though I think something I adore about the dynamic that isn’t talked about enough is that Anya is not only the antithesis of his worldview but also the epitome of it. Gleb believes in a future for Russia that’s filled with people like this determined, hard-working street sweeper, and he’s absolutely not wrong about her having those traits, it’s just that she is also the symbol of the old Russia by birth and those two things can coexist, as he learns. Speaking of learning….

[The ship] has to stimulate real and compelling character growth on both their parts. The GG learns that the world is more complicated than simple Good and Evil and that people can do things for a variety of objectively noble reasons but with bad methods. The BB, of course, has to have a come to Jesus moment and substantially atone for his past shit.

Like, exactly. Just, exactly. This isn’t so much in canon but in the subtext and potential, but Anya’s a terribly naive character when it comes to consequences and big-picture thinking. Gleb pushes her to realize that her actions have consequences beyond herself and even for herself, and Anya pushes him to realize that not everything can be heroes triumphant and villains slaughtered. He has to realize that his father and, by extension, his entire worldview were incorrect, and he does. They both push each other to move beyond their old childhood selves and view the world as a messy, complex thing, and it’s so interesting to watch characters do that, and that’s why I think so many of us got attached. Like qqueenofhades said,

…most people don’t read/watch fiction for bleak, hopeless, cynical narratives where everyone dies and evil wins and nobody is possible/capable of change. We like fiction because it explores these ideas in encapsulated arcs with themes and tropes and recognizable points of development, and we like it to have a fulfilling or at least somewhat happy ending. We want to see characters move along a spectrum to become better people, and to feel represented in that struggle.

As for Anya, why wouldn’t she like someone who’s open and honest and changes his opinions based on her actions? Someone who tells her the simple truth and doesn’t play games or hold it over her head? Yes, the situation surrounding it all is complex, and that’s why she isn’t interested at first - but especially as she grows more confident in who she is and he grows more shaken, there’s a sense of mutual respect and almost kindred spirits there. Especially when they’re parting, because so much goes unsaid and yet understood. She’d be intrigued by it, at the very least.

[GG/BB ships] transfer the power and agency to the woman, enable substantial character development for the man in a way that real-life men are unfortunately almost never pushed to do, and are a subversion of the still-prevalent idea that controlling someone’s life is any kind of expression of real or functional adult love.Maybe the BB tries (characters are human and flawed, they should be allowed to make mistakes) and the GG shoots that shit down super quick…

I’m … not sure I need to say much more about that quote. I think it speaks for itself in regards to Anastasia. Gleb listens and knows he can’t control her, and for a character that’s playing into Galatea tropes as hard as Anya, that’s good and healthy for her. He tries to control her actions, and she proceeds to do exactly what she was planning anyway, and he finds himself unable to even carry out the consequences he warned her about. As qqueenofhades said, it’s a bit of a power-inversion too; a tiny street-sweeper-turned-princess completely undoes the officer and has him crying on his knees while she stands there, confident in her identity and self, completely flipped from their first meeting? It’s a powerful image and a powerful dynamic.

So, in summary, they’re both total snacks with emotional depth who push each other to develop and rethink their worldviews. They both make the other person reassess things they’ve always thought, and as Gleb revises his past and Anya realizes her simple dream to have a family is going to have collateral damage, there’s a lot of potential for them to connect and relate to each other while adding depth.

And that’s why we’re all in shipper hell.