Guybrush and Elaine's relationship

[ThunderPeel2001]

After playing through ReMI a few times, I've begun to wonder about Guybrush and Elaine's relationship and I'd be keen to hear other thoughts.

 

Is Elaine:

• A supporting, loving, equal partner?
• An enabler to her fantasist husband?
• A mothering partner to a childish husband?

 

Sometimes they seem madly in love. At other times she seems to be tolerating, or even patronising, him. And what about her own fantasy (given the reveal): Yes, she's fighting scurvy in the Caribbean... but also spending her spare time clearing up Guybrush's messes, and having to rescue him. Is it a refreshing twist on the "man saves woman" trope (showing how capable she is) or something else?

 

Is their relationship healthy? (Note: I'm only talking about its portrayal in ReMI.)

 

 

[JacquesSparkyTail]

Remi definitely seemed like the most loving portrayal so far but it was sort of problematic. 
 

I was sure all of the little cutscenes of elaine finding out about the stuff guybrush does on his adventures while she’s not around was going to lead to some sort of conflict between the two. Then they meet up and discover that elaine obviously already knows what guybrush is like and loves and accepts him for it. That’s sort of sweet but guybrush really is a monster in this one, possibly more so than ever before. So maybe her love and acceptance isn’t healthy. Maybe enabler is the exact right word to be using here. But she’s a very sweet enabler and it’s a super cute unhealthy codependency. 

[BaronGrackle]

From the perspective of playing in an amusement park, it was sort of like Elaine and Guybrush would have been playing two separate games. Elaine growing limes to end scurvy would be just as childish as Guybrush hunting for the Secret. There were no pirates and there was no scurvy, right?

Edited October 9, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[ThunderPeel2001]

1 hour ago, BaronGrackle said:

From the perspective of playing in an amusement park, it was sort of like Elaine and Guybrush would have been playing two separate games. Elaine growing limes to end scurvy would be just as childish as Guybrush hunting for the Secret. There were no pirates and there was no scurvy, right?

 

Yep, but then she does also spend time talking to other characters... and in her fantasy she's cleaning up the mess GB has left behind and rescuing him. 

[Garystu]

Elaine has been a mothering partner to a childish husband in the past and that was tedious (insert EMI bashing here)! Elaine is just as in fantasy as her fantasist husband. And right now, in RTMI, she's a supporting, loving, and equal partner.

 

RTMI is a narrative half-coming from a guy who never wanted Guybrush and Elaine to even get together in the first place, and its the best romance the couple has ever had. It's put all past depictions of their relationship to shame. Its completely changed my view on their romance in the past, and I even liked the couple before. I do wonder how people who didn't like the couple are parsing this.

 

Guybrush and Elaine could have been broken up or on the rocks in RTMI, but instead Ron and Dave knocked their romance out of the fucking part. Damn.

 

PS: Jesus christ I am glad Elaine didn't have a Damsel in Distress™ moment in RTMI. It stopped being cute after the first one in SOMI. I hope she never has another one again. i'm serious, i will be so mad if

[ThunderPeel2001]

7 hours ago, Garystu said:

It stopped being cute after the first one in SOMI.

 

Well, the twist was, of course, that she wasn't a damsel in distress in SOMI. 

[Garystu]

43 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

Well, the twist was, of course, that she wasn't a damsel in distress in SOMI. 

 

Yes, it was! And that's part of why it sucked to have that trope echoed in Elaine again and again. It stopped feeling like a subversive twist, and like she was actually just a frequent damsel in distress who sometimes happened to sneak in a girlboss moment before endgame. Because in order to subvert the trope over and over, the writers had to put her in the damsel position over and over!

 

And Elaine shouldn't be a damsel in distress. Like you said, she wasn't to begin with. And its why I really hope we don't ever see her in that role again, if we see any more new entries in the Monkey Island series.

[BaronGrackle]

Of course, my belief is that Elaine was only the damsel in distress in the very beginning of Tales. (And the way that opening scene was set up, she likely would've escaped on her own with a little more time.)

 

Curse gets a lot of flak for copying Secret. And I think this carries over to Elaine, who is only put in danger by Guybrush. Once Guybrush fixes his mistake by the end, Elaine only needs a little time off-screen to escape herself and sabotage the hellcoaster to save Guybrush's life and make LeChuck's defeat possible.

 

In Escape, she does her own thing most if the game. She's captured toward the end but never really "tied up" and she gets free when LeChuck is distracted by his fight.

 

In MOST of Tales (everything except the intro), she does her own thing. Chapter 5 has her going deep dive into a demon form because she trusts Guybrush, and she's 1/3 of the required heroes during the finale.

Edited October 10, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[FaNaTiC]

I loved the direction of Elaine in RtMI. 

One of my favorite lines in the entire game is when you run into her on the street of Mêlée - if you select the line "I was hoping you'd be in this story" she responds "aw, I was hoping you'd be in mine." 

This absolutely sold it for me. In the story Guybrush is telling - Elaine is a cameo, but from her perspective he's the cameo. They're both glad to see each other - but then they're off to having their own great adventures. She's having her own type of fun. Sure she's curing scurvy, but she's also travelling to the other islands, learning to re-build a ship, having coffee with old friends. 

 

Somehow her adventures all felt...lighthearted particularly compared to many of the other games. While she's been shown to be capable, many of the other games have her "doing her own thing" - only to be interrupted by LeChuck / Guybrush. [SMI -  kidnapped; LCR - party interrupted?; CMI - invaded, turned to gold, kidnapped; EMI - deal with an election (that she doesn't really even want to win?); ToMI - poxed]. It was nice this time that she wasn't actually interrupted by them. Sure she did go help Guybrush, but it didn't stop her from doing her own activities - and Guybrush even helped with her scurvy prevention crusade. 

 

I also think the fact that they're older and more established in RtMI helped them feel more solid as a couple who have found their footings together.

[KestrelPi]

The way I read Elaine in RMI is similar to how Ronzo described it in that recent interview.

 

She used to be more into Guybrush's flights of fancy and more willing to indulge in her own but she's moved on a bit. She has her own agenda and tolerates whatever Guybrush is doing, maybe even finds it a little endearing but is keen to point out to him when he might be getting carried away.

 

She's also not above enabling it, as we see at the end. Maybe she even recognises that it's something Guybrush needs. Maybe a bit of her still enjoys it herself.

[Skinkie]

On 10/11/2022 at 11:45 PM, FaNaTiC said:

I loved the direction of Elaine in RtMI. 

One of my favorite lines in the entire game is when you run into her on the street of Mêlée - if you select the line "I was hoping you'd be in this story" she responds "aw, I was hoping you'd be in mine." 

This absolutely sold it for me. In the story Guybrush is telling - Elaine is a cameo, but from her perspective he's the cameo. They're both glad to see each other - but then they're off to having their own great adventures. She's having her own type of fun. Sure she's curing scurvy, but she's also travelling to the other islands, learning to re-build a ship, having coffee with old friends. 

 

 

I love this about it. They feel like two people who very much have their own interests and goals. They both spend as much time together as they can, but also leave each other room to do their own thing. Very realistic adult approach to a relationship. One of my favorite bits is on Scurvy Island where Guybrush describes the fun they've had at various places, like the waterfall. It's like that's their new home and you're getting a personal view of it