More fanficcy Njála ramblings

So, talk of Njál’s saga fanfiction led lnhammer to ask me who my OTP (One True Pairing) for the saga would be. 🙂

It was amusing to realize I don’t have one. Njáll/Bergþóra do little for me (dying tragically for love is easy; living in spite of tragedy for love is hard). I sort of have a soft spot for both Hallgerður’s second and third marriages, both of which I think had more love to them than folks assume–but as OTPs? Not quite. Maybe Hildigunnur/Höskulður–but again I find myself thinking, it’s more complicated than that.

Which really is the reason the saga doesn’t lend itself to OTPs, for me at least–it’s always more complicated with that. That’s how the sagas work. They’re about how things are always more complicated. So I’m hard-pressed to find a clear-cut OTP in any of the ones I’ve read. Even Guðrún/Kjartan (“though I loved him best, I treated him worst”) has me not quite convinced–because it seems to me she genuinely loved two at least two of her actual husbands, too.

Maybe Gísli/Auður, with her hiding him through the many years of his being outlawed. And I’m fond of the tragic Sigurður/Brynhildur, too. (lnhammer suggests–Gunnar/Hillside. Hee!)

But mostly, looking for OTPs in the sagas feels like it’s missing the point. Which is kind of a fascinating thing to realize.

I guess I’ll just have to stick to sighing happily over the thought of Eowyn/Faramir and Meg Murray/Calvin O’Keefe, my own personal favorite forever OTPs.