Like Glenmered, I view Illya and Napoleon through the lens of my childhood self watching the show when it was first run. I don't easily buy in to a sexual relationship between IK and NS, but good writing persuades me. And a lot of stories make a really good case--Illya having an extremely guarded personal life, and Napoleon having what seems to be a casual, recreational approach to women.
I think we give the show and the relationship a lot more thought than the producers and writers did! Shows from that period were fairly lightweight emotionally. MFU does seem to have robust emotional underpinning, but I suspect that's due to two exceptionally fine actors.
My first online fandom was X-Files, and my take on Mulder and Scully was that they loved each other and were interested romantically in each other, but driving a lot of that was the fact that they were so unbelievably isolated from anyone else. Danger kept them from connecting with their families and friends, and made romance with anyone else far too risky. That would lend itself very easily to the MFU world. IK and NS are also isolated from anyone out of the organization. Humans have the need for intimacy--a hunger, really. Whether that relationship is sexual or strictly platonic, they would be drawn to each other out of a need.
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Date: 2017-05-28 11:16 pm (UTC)I think we give the show and the relationship a lot more thought than the producers and writers did! Shows from that period were fairly lightweight emotionally. MFU does seem to have robust emotional underpinning, but I suspect that's due to two exceptionally fine actors.
My first online fandom was X-Files, and my take on Mulder and Scully was that they loved each other and were interested romantically in each other, but driving a lot of that was the fact that they were so unbelievably isolated from anyone else. Danger kept them from connecting with their families and friends, and made romance with anyone else far too risky. That would lend itself very easily to the MFU world. IK and NS are also isolated from anyone out of the organization. Humans have the need for intimacy--a hunger, really. Whether that relationship is sexual or strictly platonic, they would be drawn to each other out of a need.