The Quarreling Couple

To the alchemists, they are Mercury and Sulphur, to the Regency Era, they are Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, and to a lot of people today, they are Ron and Hermione.

Ok, I'm veering a little off track from the Disney love here because the Quarreling Couple is one of my FAVORITES! And for some reason, Disney doesn't seem to know this about me. But Anastasia does...

....and so does a little movie called Quest for Camelot (and well, about 1,000 other romantic comedies).










Here is what I LOVE about this sort of couple. They not only find true love and live happily ever after, they also have...CHEMISTRY! And lots and lots of sexual tension. Ooooh! It takes an entire movie's worth of fighting and veiled flirting to get to the big kiss at the end.

Let's look at Anastasia and Dimitri. The minute these two meet, sparks are flying and so are the insults. What's even better....Dimitri is a con-artist, so not only is he lying to Anya, but he's using her and this gives him a nice cozy seat in the club of bad boys (no he's not quite so evil as Patch or as hungry as Edward or as snarky as Jace....but I'll take him!). While Dimitri is annoying the crap out of Anya, she is throwing every insult she can fling in his direction. It's typical kindergarten love. But how does this heighten the story? Well we all know that when a main character lies to another main character, at some point...the truth comes out! And when that truthful shitteth doth hit the fanneth, even more sparks are going to fly! But more importantly, it leads to a HEAP LOAD of character development, my favorite thing!

Dimitri plans to bring Anya to the grand duchess of Russia who is willing to pay a HUGE sum of money for the return of her granddaughter, missing since Rasputin (in a very interesting interpretation of history) destroyed all the Romanovs. Dimitri doesn't believe Anya is the real thing (but she is!). However, everything changes when he realizes he loves her and that she truly is the missing Anastasia.

Does he continue with his course? Does he take the reward money? And what happens when the love of his life is restored to her place amongst the royals and he remains a dirty con-artist? Should he forget the money and lie to Anya to stay with her? Or sacrifice his happiness for hers? He has some big choices to make, and they're not easy. Plus when he is exposed as a con...Anya is none too happy.

But then, as if things couldn't get steamy and intriguing enough, we're given a little icing on the cupcake. It turns out that Dimitri saved Anya's life as a little boy, and took a pretty bad beating for it too.

So what do we have? A sympathetic bad boy who is not just the prince that will offer a kiss at the end, but a guy with a head on his shoulders, a big heart and his own journey to complete.

Let's look at Anya, she has no memory of her past. All she wants is to find her family, but then when she starts to remember being the grand duchess Anastasia, she realizes her life is in danger. Oh and she is in love with Dimitri.

Can she resume her role as grand duchess? Will her grandmother believe it's her? Will her life be in danger? Will she ever see Dimitri again? Did he ever even love her or was he just helping her for the reward money?

But of course in the end...BIG KISS, true love, happily every after and a lifetime of fighting and flirtation to always keep them on their toes:-)

So I thought I'd count down my top ten favorite quarreling couples (in no real particular order)! The ones who really go at it, fight to the end and never ever let the other one-up them.

10.  Luke and Lorelai from Gilmore Girls

9. Henry and Danielle from Ever After

8. Katniss and Peeta from The Hunger Games who are technically not a quarreling couple but an actual FIGHTING couple

7. Kat and Patrick from 10 Things I Hate About You

6. Cher and Josh from Clueless

5. Dimitri and Anya from Anastasia

4. Kaylee and Garrett from Quest for Camelot

3. Ron and Hermione from Harry Potter

2. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice

1. Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy from Becoming Jane

Jane Austen really knew what she was doing!

Honorable mention: Westley and Buttercup, Clary and Jace, Buffy and Spike.

So who are your favorite quarreling, fighting, sparring, teasing couples?