Oblivious to Love/Literature

Examples of Oblivious to Love in Literature include:

• Edgar Rice Burroughs generally had oblivious heroes. Special mention must be made of Tan Hadron, the hero of A Fighting Man of Mars, who actually managed to not realize he was in love with Tavia instead of Sonoma after 1) he had seen beautiful women and the first comparison that had popped to mind was to Tavia, 2) he had been betrayed, and when he realized it was Sonoma and not Tavia, his first words were that he was glad it was not Tavia, and 3) he had taunted Sonoma for her cowardice by saying he had fallen in love with someone else, a slave girl, and someone else had pointed out he had obviously been talking about Tavia. Indeed, he denies it then — although admitting a few days later.
• In Sandy Mitchell's Warhammer 40,000 novel Scourge the Heretic, Mordechai is oblivious to the attraction that Keira, another character in the Inquisitor's retinue, feels for him. Partly because it is expressed in a rather truculent manner (until another woman points out to him that it could be attraction), partly because Keira, who was raised in a Sex Is Evil cult, does not realize it herself until she accuses Danuld of wanting to sin with her, and he tells her that he can tell that he doesn't have a chance because of Mordecai.
• In Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night, when Lord Peter Wimsey is being criticized for how he spends his life, Harriet Vane snaps back: perhaps he catches murderers for fun, but he does it, and he could be killed, and many innocent people have reason to thank him for it. She reflects afterward about what her reaction shows about her own attraction.
• In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel Fulgrim, Serena d'Angelus realizes that her Bad Dreams stem from murders she committed and forgot. She seeks out Ostian, thinking he could save her. She finds him murdered, weeps that he loved her and she hadn't seen it, and that she loved him. Then she commits suicide.
• The Star Wars Expanded Universe reveals that Typho, Padme's eyepatched bodyguard, was in love with her. Naturally, she had no idea.
• In the Warrior Cats series, Firestar somehow never notices Cinderpelt's obvious crush on him.
  • He wouldn't have noticed that Sandstorm was in love with him either if Cinderpelt hadn't pointed it out to him.
  • Firestar is in fact so oblivious concerning the opposite sex that the Warriors fandom has their own name for this trope: "Firestar Syndrome"
  • To quote the author: "Stooopid man-cat!"
  • Bluefur in Bluestar's Prophecy also evokes Firestar Syndrome throughout the book. It takes three different cats to get her to admit that Thrushpelt has feelings for her, despite the fact that he was frequently staring at her, inviting her on patrols, and cracking jokes that only seem to irk her.
    • Not to mention the fact that she didn't even realize her own not-so-subtle attraction to Oakheart until he confessed his love to her.
• One story in Mack Reynolds' Section G Spy Fiction In Space had Li Chang Chu abandon subtlety, pointing out to top agent Ronny Bronston that they were alone together in a stateroom with the door locked and no other demands on their time. Particularly funny in that he'd been hot for her about as long as she'd been for him, but didn't think he had a chance—despite being well aware that women found him very attractive. He just didn't realize this woman did, too.
• Robert A. Heinlein's Juvenile books often had young male protagonists that were oblivious to girls. They were otherwise intelligent, so either they were just blind to people or just not interested in females. However, one of his stories (The Menace From Earth) had a male only oblivious to the protagonist. She was rather upset when he noticed another woman.
  • This was a case of Executive Meddling—Alice Dalgleish, children's book editor for Charles Scribners & Sons, had very firm opinions on how much "suggestive" content was "proper" for juvenile novels (absolute zero), and ruthlessly quashed anything Heinlein wrote that even remotely hinted that teenaged males might possibly have a sex drive. Heinlein didn't even try to write romance into his stories until after he changed publishers and stopped writing juveniles. (The Menace From Earth was not first published by Scribners, note.) Also, even though Dalgliesh was an extreme case, virtually no editors in the 40s and 50s would approve anything but the most ultimately chaste romance material for young adult novels.
  • It may have been Executive Meddling, but the girls in the stories were practically ripping their clothes off and the guy was just utterly clueless. "Gee, why did she take my side against her own uncle and risk everything for me and spends time with me and is always ready to help me with anything I need?" "I guess she just wants to be my very good friend". HELLO?!
    • Heinlein's historical reaction to Executive Meddling was to push the limits as far as he could get away with, so that's intentional.
• In Harry Potter, Ron is totally oblivious to Hermione's feelings for him until the sixth book or so. This is especially apparent in the Fourth Book, when Ron is desperately trying to find a girl to go to the ball with and suddenly remembers that Hermione "is a girl too". Hermione is upset that Ron didn't think about her immediately and she goes with Victor Krum from the Bulgarian school instead. Ron is angered by this but doesn't realize the * real* reason for his anger, even though Harry does.
  • Also, in their childhood, Lily to Snape.
  • And of course, Ginny Weasley fancies Harry since the very first book (it's more obvious in the second one, though) but Potter doesn't even acknowledge her before way later.
    • Well, in book 2 he seems to realize she likes him, but by book 5 she's dating other people and he's bummed to be suffering from an Unrequited Love Switcheroo. It turns out she's still into him, though, and they eventually get together.
    • It's also that for the first four books Ginny was too shy to speak to Harry at all, so he had no chance to find out anything she might be feeling or thinking.
• In the Ravenloft novel Vampire of the Mists, young priest Sasha is oblivious to the huge crush the thief Liesl has on him. Partly because he was so in love with Katya (who's really The Mole), but after he realized that Katya is really a werewolf....
• In Child of the Hive Drew is oblivious to Rachel's crush on him for most of the first part of the book. This is mainly due to Rachel's nerves meaning she struggles to approach him.
• The whole point of Swedish youth novel "Det är så logiskt, alla fattar utom du." (Rough translation: "It's so logical, everyone gets it except you.") Nerdy boy and cute girl are best friends since always. The boy is in love with the girl, also since always, but the girl only dates sullen musicians and has no idea her best friend is in love with her.
• Despite the numerous things he does for her, Gone with the Wind's Scarlett is completely oblivious to Rhett's love and devotion, and she is similarly unaware and unappreciative of Melanie's friendly affection for her.
• One of the main points of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is that Elizabeth thinks Mr. Darcy dislikes her (and she is angry at him, mostly due to misunderstanding) until he bluntly confesses that he is in love with her.
  • Similarly, in Sense and Sensibility, Marianne Dashwood has no idea that Colonel Brandon has been quietly and deeply in love with her since almost the instant they met.
• In Josepha Sherman's The Shining Falcon, Ljuba intends to use Finist for her ambitions. She insists on this to herself whenever unpleasant thoughts such as it hurts not to be trusted by him.
• In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Daughter trilogy, Miranda. Although the one in love with her did explicitly tell her that love between her, a human, and him, an elf, is as impossible as love between a falcon and a dove.
• Anne of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series initially spends quite a bit of time hating Gilbert Blythe for his extraordinarily bad first impression, but even after they finally become friends, she remains completely oblivious to the feelings he's been holding for her from day one. When he asks her to marry him, it blindsides her completely. Never mind the fact that the entire town of Avonlea knew of Gilbert's feelings and were waiting with bated breath for them to get married.
  • Anne actually takes it one step further. Not only is she oblivious to Gilbert's feelings for her, she's also oblivious to her feelings for him. Not denial. She simply has no idea that she's fallen in love with him, thanks to the highly unrealistic ideas she has about what being in love is supposed to be like.
• Alec Lightwood from The Mortal Instruments is a rather... odd example. Despite the fact that he and Magnus were dating, he is caught completely by surprise by Magnus's Anguished Declaration of Love in City of Glass. In his defense, he was still hung up on Jace, and his relationship with Magnus was just supposed to be a casual thing. He gets over both Jace and his obliviousness by the end of the third book, though.
• Mutual obliviousness in Mort. Mort himself spends most of the book under the impression he's in love with Princess Keli, what with the Rescue Romance and everything. He's wrong. Ysabell spends most of it under the impression she wouldn't marry Mort if he was the last man on the Disc. She's wrong as well.
• In Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries, Amelia spends a whole book completely oblivious to the fact that the 'master criminal' she is tracking down is in love with her. Her husband Emerson, however, is not so clueless and gets increasingly annoyed at both the criminal and his oblivious wife. Hilarity Ensues.
  • It runs in the family, too. Their son, Ramses, spends a not inconsiderable amount of time pining after their adopted daughter, Nefret, who thinks they are Like Brother and Sister — even when she's starting to feel jealous about all the women throwing themselves at him.
• As a perpetual child, Peter Pan is literally unable to understand the concept of romantic love, and regards all female characters either with indifference or as potential mother figures. This wouldn't be much of a problem...except that every female character, be it fairy, mermaid, girl or mother, is attracted to him in some way.
• In P. G. Wodehouse's Hot Water, Packy sees Jane after his engagement is broken and realizes he's been in love with her all along.
• In the tenth book of The Dresden Files, Harry fails to realize that Lucio is flirting with him when she bathes herself topless in front of him, which leads to this immortal line:

Thomas: Moron. Thank God Nicodemus is a man.

• There's a bit in the Vorkosigan Saga when Ekaterin Vorsoisson not only doesn't realize that Miles is stealthily courting her; she also doesn't realize what it means that she becomes angry upon imagining some hypothetical Vor woman hurting Miles' feelings (which had happened often enough in reality).
  • Ekaterin is not so much oblivious as she is actively in denial during this sequence; she is still so traumatized from her first (and highly abusive) marriage that she is violently averse to the idea of being romanced at all, and actively flees any attempts to court her. But she likes hanging out with Miles, which she cannot do if she admits to herself that Miles is one of her suitors as opposed to being a platonic friend, therefore she keeps on telling herself that Miles' friendship is platonic even when he's sending the least subtle signals in the history of dating.

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