I’ve blogged about favorite fictional couples before, so I thought I’d share another — Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann from the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

I’ve been listening the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End soundtrack a lot while doing revisions the past several days, and I always perk up at the songs that evoke parts of the movie devoted to Will (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth’s (Keira Knightly) love story. They’re great characters, each willing to do put their own lives in jeopardy and dive into a life (that of pirates) largely foreign to them at the beginning of their story in order to save and protect and be with each other. They are different people at the end of the trilogy, but their love is stronger than ever for all the trials they’ve been through. Ah, dreamy sigh.

Here’s a fun fan video on YouTube devoted to Will and Elizabeth. The song is a good choice, and I like the video editing job.

I’ve been SO busy the past few days on freelance editing that I decided to just see how many comments my previous post about Superman/Clark/Lois would generate. I too grew up with Christopher Reeve as Superman and was so saddened when he was first paralyzed and later died. It was fun recently, while watching older Smallville episodes, to see him guest star in a few before his death. Margot Kidder also has guest starred a couple of times.

I know Meankitty doesn’t like Erica Durance’s Lois, but I actually do. I think she’s funny, and she can kick butt. I agree that Chloe is more like how we’ve all grown up with Lois in our minds, but Smallville is set in the teen years, back before even Clark had any idea he’d be a reporter. We see glimpses of who Lois will become as she helps out Chloe when she sneaks into LutherCorp or when they go undercover at a strip club. I hate to even think it because I love Chloe’s character, but there is the possibility that Chloe won’t survive at the end of the Smallville run. If that’s so, I can see this Lois honoring her cousin by stepping into her shoes. That would seem appropriate since Chloe has loved Clark all these years, and we all know that Clark and Lois will end up together.

I went into watching Superman Returns wondering how Brandon Routh would do in the role. I must say I really like this new Superman, and I’m glad they’re making a sequel, Man of Steel, due out in 2009. And I like Kate Bosworth’s Lois, though I really hope Bosworth adds a little weight before the next movie. I must say in the movie she didn’t look as painfully thin as she does in most shots I see of her. I’m very curious how they will resolve a major obstacle to Lois and Superman’s relationship in the next movie.

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As I mentioned, I have been the queen of editing since Friday. I freelance for a publishing company, and I have edited roughly 700 pages for them since Friday, plus two shorter projects for another firm. I think my brain is smoking out my ears. In the midst of all this editing, however, my toasty brain actually produced a new story idea. I’m going to break out the laptop tomorrow and get started on a partial. It’ll feel good to write something new.

Several actors have played Clark Kent (aka Superman) and his love, Lois Lane, through the years. Which pairing is your favorite, and why?

Noel Neill and George Reeves (Adventures of Superman)

Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve (the Superman movies)

Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain (Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman)

Kate Bosworth and Brandon Routh (Superman Returns)

Tom Welling and Erica Durance (Smallville)

While having an e-mail discussion with a friend earlier today, I happened upon an interesting blog topic — the reluctant hero. In the midst of our conversation, I compared Clark Kent in Smallville and Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are teens dealing with normal teen issues — friends, school, dating, parents. But they also have that extra burden of knowing they have this bigger destiny of fighting evil and saving people from the baddies, and they’re not always happy to have that burden. Both often long to just be normal with no super abilities, but whenever that wish is fleetingly granted it doesn’t turn out how they had hoped. (The same can be said of Angel in the episode “I Will Remember You”, a real tearjerker from season 1 of Angel.) They realize that you can’t escape big destinies, no matter how much you wish you could. They are reluctant heroes, and I think we love them more for it. We admire how they long for what we all long for — normalcy, safety and love — but they put their own desires aside when the greater good has to be served. Buffy sacrifices Angel, her true love.

When Clark loses his powers as a result of defying Jor-El, he quickly realizes that he can’t protect the people he loves as effectively if he is mortal and superpower-less. Angel sacrifices mortality and life so that Buffy doesn’t put herself in danger while worrying about protecting him.

The reluctant hero is actually part of the Hero’s Journey, a concept made famous (at least in writers’ circles) by mythologist Joseph Campbell. The third and fourth steps in the hero’s journey are the Call to Adventure and the Refusal of the Call. I’ve seen the movie Star Wars and the character of Luke Skywalker used many times to illustrate the hero’s journey. To me, Han Solo is more of a classic reluctant hero as is Indiana Jones and Wolverine in the X-Men movies.

Who are some of your favorite reluctant heroes/heroines? Why do you think we love them so much?