plot jealousy

me and Cat were talking today about how when a character falls in love, the object of their affection has to become their greatest weakness. I re-watched Hancock tonight, and that premise is so beautifully written into the film that I really, really wish I’d thought of it first.

*spoilers ahead, people!*

Hancock is the only superhero on earth, and he’s a lonely, drunken asshole. Until a PR guy takes him on, and dares him to face the fact that he’s running, and that he will never be happy until he accepts his role as hero and saviour.

That guy’s wife also just happens to be Hancock’s other half – his wife, before he had his head bashed in 80 years earlier and forgot everything.

They are angels, gods – superheroes. They are immortal until they are close to their other half. Then they are graced with mortality, with the ability to live, and love, and die. Dying being the operative part.

Unfortunately, the universe wants to keep Hancock alive, i.e. keep he and his wife apart, so any time they come close, she is wounded to get to him.

I think my favourite scene is after he’s been shot and admitted to hospital and his wife comes to see him and to explain. She shows him the scars on his own body – each a testament to his saving her throughout history. She knows his body intimately, and his scars are signs of a deep and selfless love, in a life where he thought he had no one.

Then he has to fly as far from her as he can go, to save her life.

It’s a tragic love story in the best possible way. The wife stays with her human husband – who is equally heroic in his quieter, more human way. She exercises her free will. But watching over her, and eternal with her, is her other half.

Ah sigh. Plot jealousy.