Check Mate

Term 2: Play or Be Played; Module 4

Thesis: No matter how carefully we try to manipulate romantic relationships, we are ultimately powerless in controlling their outcomes—much like setting up a row of dominoes, where despite our best efforts, we cannot predict or dictate how the universe will knock them down.

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Born to be the Pawn In Every Lover’s Game

Imagine you’re both the playwright and the director of a romantic play (I’ll let you decide if it’s a drama or comedy). You have carefully scripted the lines your actors will recite and moved them into the places to do so, trying your best to coax out the emotions that will drive the scene and give the characters motivation. You have couples you want to fall in love and maybe some you hope will fall out. Every night the show will play out the same way and every night the right people will fall in love and the right people will fall out of it in equal measure.

Now imagine you try to do this in life.

You may have already. Those texts behind-the-scenes in eighth or ninth grade. Entire relationships built in iChat rooms with a gaggle of girls or guys hiding behind a singular screen name. Do you like so and so? Who do you think is prettiest in our grade? You try to manipulate the emotions of others to work in your favor or that of a beloved friend with a crush. But how often did those work out in earnest?

You might try to control as much as you can in your life. You can do all the “right” things on dating apps or follow the hacks to get you the most attractive matches. You can text back at the “right” time or ignore someone when you’re “supposed” to as well. But, inevitably, if it is meant to be, it will just work. And if it isn’t, you’ll probably wake up on a random Tuesday to a text about how great you are but it isn’t going to pan out because insert reason here. That is, if they don’t ghost.

The affairs of the heart have pulsed throughout culture for centuries. Shakespeare manipulated and coerced his characters in Much Ado About Nothing. Helen of Troy was so beautiful and desired in love that she is known as “the face that launched a thousand ships.” (Imagine Sydney Sweeney trying that on for size.) The heart is confusing and moves almost of its own accord - it’s why the romantic stories that counter those of economic proposition stand out in Austen or Brontë’s novels. We are constantly surprised by the way we act in love (and the way others do too - think Hinckley Jr. in pursuit of Jodie Foster).

Dangerously in Love

The reason Dangerous Liaisons, the 1782 French novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, has been so successful in permeating the culture when it comes to the manipulation-based love tropes is because it is so outlandish and yet grounded in something we all know well: the desire to be loved by people we deem worthy of receiving our love right back. There is a sort of removal you can have from the characters as they scheme while still remaining connected to the motives at hand (even if you don’t want to hook up with your step-sibling, cough cough Cruel Intentions).

It’s almost unnerving how relevant Choderlos de Laclos’ epistolary novel feels when you pick it up today. The translation I read (the Penguin Classics tackled by Helen Constantine) could be stripped of any defining characteristics of the time period it takes place in - 18th century France - and feel like a drama that might appear on the CW or play out on the set of Don’t Worry Darling. (Let’s call a spade a spade - that entire press tour felt like a poorly played game of romantic chess.) Cécile could be any teenage girl on iMessage when she writes to a friend, “Simply because he wrote yesterday does not mean I have to reply today.” (Choderlos de Laclos, p. 40)

Dangerous Liaisons is a novel of power and ambition and at it’s core it asks the question we ask today more than we may realize: is it possible to bend love to your will?

The game is born out of vengeance. The Marquise de Merteuil wants to use her pen pal the Vicomte de Valmont as a pawn in her quest to ruin the young Cécile de Volanges. The young nun-to-be Cécile has been taken from the convent Maria von Trapp style to marry the Marequise’s ex-lover. Honestly, better than the alternative of a lifetime of seven kids singing at you, if you ask me, but it’s still an arrangement Cécile is not too pleased with as she has found love elsewhere in the Chevalier Danceny. Finding Cécile too easy a target, the Vicomte sets his sights on Madame Tourvel, a virtuous, married woman staying with him and his aunt. To convince him to ruin Cécile instead, the Marquise offers her own virtues as a reward.

The entire novel is scheming and missed messages and interceptions and high stakes drama when the webs the Marquise has woven cross too tightly and twist. Naturally, things fall apart and the end of the novel leaves you wondering whose intentions may ever have been pure if any. There is not a character in the novel who does not stick their nose in the business of another in the quest for their own heart’s desire. The Marquise may have set the pieces up, but by inviting in others (and playing a game that ultimately requires others as love so often does,) she expedited the process to which she realized she was never in control to begin with. Love will do what it does.

If you’re thinking, surely the miscommunications and dramas of that day stem from the inaccessibility and letter writing, or any of the other traits you may prescribe to 18th century France, then I have two words for you: Cruel Intentions.

Dangerous Liaisons and it’s Completely Different But Also Still Dangerous Liaisons

Cruel Intentions has now been adapted nearly as many times as its source material Dangerous Liaisons. It’s a cult-classic film, a London stage musical, and now an Amazon Prime show. It is the same story of betrayal, seduction, and plotting but younger and with more plaid. The story is the same except the fact that the Marquise is a young woman named Kathryn Merteuil and the Viscount is her step-brother, Sebastian Valmont (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar in a cocaine-filled rosary and Ryan Phillippe respectively).

Though the players of Cruel Intentions see each other almost everyday and can carry out all of their conversations either in person or on the phone, the story must end the same way. Stronger communication and proximity can only aid the process in moving along, not change its outcome. Like the Marquise, Kathryn could be the catalyst for the beginnings and endings of romantic journeys for others, but she could not be the determiner of their fate. But are the downfalls of the men and women tangled in this flowchart of sex and ambition due to the ill intentions it was created with? Or can love be controlled if it comes from a kinder space?

Cruel to Be Kind

Dolly Alderton is the world’s foremost leading archaeologist in love. Or a writer and journalist from London depending on who you ask. Her novels and memoir have long explored romantic and platonic relationships, but in early 2024 she approached her studies from a new perspective: the male.

Good Material is the aftermath of a long-term relationship ending as told by Andy, a male comedian living (and bemoaning) in London. His girlfriend of many years, Jen, has broken up with him and moved out, leaving him adrift in both his emotions and the real estate market. Alderton explores the ways in which Andy tries to express himself to male friends and married friends with kids who can only walk with him so far on his road to healing. Andy tries to follow the rules of heartbreak the same way he feels he followed the rules of a relationship and being a good partner. The blame is entirely cast on Jen’s new therapist because it could simply never be Andy at fault!

Andy gives himself “tokens” for every time he speaks about Jen or asks about her to friends. as not to express himself too much. He tries to spend them wisely as he gets piss-drunk as many times as he can. He rallies his male friends until soon they cannot keep wallowing with him anymore. He sleeps with a much younger woman but still thinks constantly about Jen and what his life was supposed to look like.

As a woman reading this book I could sense that Andy had only half of his own story. Surely he was not a perfect man if Jen, in her thirties, decided she needed to do something different. While there is no timeline for a woman and I am loath to encourage that line of thinking, it is an age where I applaud Jen for making a choice to choose something better for herself if Andy wasn’t adding to her life.

As annoying as Andy can be in his breakup games and his attempts to quietly win Jen back with the perfect text or the perfect run-in, you feel for him. He thought he played all his cards correctly and kindly. He had every intention of being in the relationship for life. But then Alderton hits you with one final chapter. From Jen’s perspective.

Andy could control his own emotions and his actions, but he could not change Jen’s. The reader learns that Jen wasn’t always sure of a relationship. She recalls of her life before meeting Andy, “I don’t know what made me decide I wanted to be in a relationship. I don’t know whether it was something I actually wanted, or whether it was something I got frustrated with myself for not wanting.” (Alderton, p. 282) Jen sets out to find a boyfriend despite her hesitations. “I dated all the men I was supposed to date - doctors, lawyers, men in finance. Men called Tom and James and Charlie.” (Alderton, p. 283) She worries about her timeline even when she sees men in their early forties saying they want kids someday but aren’t ready to settle down. She chooses Andy.

We aren’t privy to Jen’s thinking until we’ve endeared ourselves to a healing Andy. There were games being played behind the scenes without nefarious purpose and yet they hurt everyone in the end (including Jen) the same way they destroyed and wounded the parties in Dangerous Liaisons or Cruel Intentions. Neither party was aware they were letting down or playing the other, and in the end Jen even played herself in a way by not following her gut for so long.

I’m Just a Girl!

“I have been told that it is wicked to fall in love with someone…or is it only wicked if you are a young girl?” (Choderlos de Laclos, p. 61)

The Worst Person in the World is a 2021 film by Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier with a title that suggests you should hate its protagonist, Julie. But Julie in many ways is all of us in dating. She hops from person to person the way she flip-flops her major at university or the color and style of her hair. Eventually she finds herself in a long term relationship with an older cartoonist named Axel. But for someone trying to discover herself, a domestic life where one partner is eager for children and the other is working in a bookstore until she finds her calling, can feel suffocating.

The film’s title is interesting because it implies that not knowing what you want or changing your mind can make you the villain in someone else’s story. And true, there are things you will do that annoy or hurt others whether on purpose or by accident. But Julie is the counter to Alderton’s Jen. She will not allow herself to stay in a place that isn’t serving her because that is what she is told she should want at her age. She comes dangerously close to settling until one night shakes everything up and sets her off on the course forward, allowing her the freedom to accept a lack of control in matters of the heart and follow love where it can be found. I won’t spoil the ending because I won’t deny you the chance to weep, but I will tell you I think Julie is nowhere near the worst person in the world let alone in Oslo.

All’s Fair in Love and War

Dangerous Liaisons is a malicious game that ends in despair. Good Material and The Worst Person in the World see our protagonists playing a game against time and the patriarchy that ends in what a person accustomed to a HEA might see as heartbreak but really is freedom. And then there is the final part. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days has Andie and Ben begin a game with indifferent romantic ambitions and wind up steaming up a Staten Island bathroom (and giving us one of Kate Hudson’s best hair looks).

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is the missing piece of the puzzle that allows us both a small joy and a firm understanding that there is no way a person can truly manipulate the will of another. Neither Ben nor Andie set out to actually fall in love with the target of the key to their workplace promotion, and yet. Part of why the film ends with a little more levity than the somewhat grimmer end pages of Dangerous Liaisons is because the goal was never to truly use someone to harm another, but merely to gain advantage for oneself outside of dating (Ben wants a big ad account, Andie wants to write about politics.) Ben represents the do’s of dating and Andie the don’ts. The film proves that, however, there are no rules in dating or successful games you can play if two people are meant to be.

In the end, the stories we’ve explored—from the ruthless games of Dangerous Liaisons to the comedic manipulations of How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days—reveal a universal truth: despite our best efforts, we cannot fully control the course of romantic relationships, wish as we may. Whether it’s the desire for power, validation, or simply finding connection, each character’s attempts to manipulate the outcome ultimately fall short. These tales, set in different times and contexts, remind us that love—like life—remains unpredictable. What starts as a carefully planned strategy often gives way to the randomness of human emotion, proving that, in matters of the heart, no one can truly control the game.