A Few Notes on Relationships in Delirium

The Delirium trilogy, set in a society that views love as a disease in need of curing, has some interesting things to say about love.  I’ve already looked at these a bit, particularly enjoying the fact that it explores different forms of love, not just romantic connections.  However, while the series gets at some neat ideas, it also takes what I feel is a fairly easy way out in a few areas (spoilers for Delirium and Requiem.)

When I find a dystopian story that views certain facets of life through a wildly different lens than we do, I always like to look for how this change affects the story’s society in everyday ways.  A police state moving at the behest of the combined medical/religious institution, complete with resistance movements, neighborhood informers, and people being “disappeared” is all well and good, but the details interest me too, the mechanics of how life works outside of the big plot stuff.  With Delirium, one question that immediately came to mind was, in a world without love, what do government-sanctioned relationships look like?

In this case, the nuts and bolts are what you’d expect.  Prior to their cure procedure, teenagers undergo an examination that “scores” them as members of society, and they are then assigned a pair that they will eventually marry and have a designated number of children with.  Naturally, the better their examination score (which generally seems to gauge levels of conformity and looks for signs of dissent,) the better their chances of getting an advantageous pair, and socioeconomic factors come into play as well, keeping most people in their assigned “lanes.”

Lena is assigned her pair, Brian Scharff, after she’s already met and fallen for Alex, so she obviously would have been against the match no matter who it was.  It bothers me, though, that Brian is such a blatant non-catch.  He’s described as a sickly asthmatic with numerous indoor, outdoor, and food allergies – none are which are actually criticisms against him as a person, but in fiction, asthma and allergies are usually “nerd” and/or “loser” markers, and they really pile it on Brian.  Lena repeatedly notices his wheezing breaths and seems grossed out by him in general, and that’s before he starts casually insulting her appearance when he thinks she’s out of earshot.  I don’t like this, because Brian doesn’t need to be unappealing or rude for Lena not to want to be with him.  The fact that he’s not Alex should be enough; he could have been a charismatic dreamboat and it wouldn’t have mattered, because Lena would’ve already been in love with Alex and known there was no point without love.  To give Lena additional non-Alex-related “reasons” to dislike him seems to flatten this plot thread, reduces it.

Similarly, while Fred Hargrove, Hana’s pair, seems perfect on paper – gorgeous, rich, Portland’s new mayor – he’s actually a dangerous control freak who is on his second go-around after having his previous pair committed for being “difficult.”  He’s totally sinister, has ruthless political ideas, and both verbally and physically threatens Hana behind closed doors.  Again, I wish the books didn’t go so far here.  I understand that it’s dramatic, and it’s true that a government-run pairing program like this would probably trap people with dangerous partners, but I don’t think it was necessary, really.  Given Hana’s fears that her cure hasn’t taken properly, she might have been paired with a perfectly good guy but still felt that the relationship was empty, that it was missing something that Fred couldn’t provide.  As in Lena’s case, adding these extreme circumstances makes the problem less about love and more about Fred specifically.