Rule of Romantic

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The limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to how romantic it is.

There are many ways for how fiction deals with love. And just like Rule of Cool, Rule of Drama, Rule of Funny, and Rule of Scary, if something is considered romantic enough by the audience, it can be excused, no matter how unrealistic it is. This is entertainment, after all.

But unlike those tropes, this doesn't require things to be impossible, just implausible or highly improbable.

Values Dissonance can come into play here far more often than the other "Rule" tropes, varying not only across cultural lines, but across gender — men and woman can have very different ideas of what constitutes romance, and both of these may differ from what you'll see in a typical Romantic Comedy or Romance Novel (although the genre is generally assumed to cater more to women as a demographic). Then there's the issue of people of either gender taking romantic fantasy and reading it as real-life dating advice, which is not advised. Many times, a sweet show of devotion on the Silver Screen translates into real life as a delusional, obsessive, or just dangerous act.

This trope doesn't actually apply with Ship-to-Ship Combat. Those people usually just care about making their couples look good. You can tell because they often praise an unrealistic point if it supports a couple they favor, and slam that exact same point if it supports a couple they don't.

Not to be confused with anything about the 19th century artistic movement.

Compare Rule of Drama, Rule of Glamorous, Rule of Sexy, Flirting and Courtship.

Rule of Romantic

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Rule of Romantic

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