[1] I was using hubris as an example of hamartia, not suggesting the two were the same.
[2] Any examples?
[3] I wouldn't have necessarily thought so either, except that Palmer does imply it to be the one saving grace of their love and romance:
[4a] Sure, if I were in full control of the MC I'd be asking a lot more questions. Unfortunately, I can only ask what the story allows me to ask. Even so, the MC can only ask questions after Amanda has started giving him the cold shoulder, once he realises something is wrong. There was plenty of time before that when Amanda could have come to him first.
[4b] All writing exists to provoke a reaction. Even purely erotic fiction exists to provoke a sexual reaction. By it's very nature writing gets people invested because they have to get invested logically and emotionally to interact with it. You can't write a story then complain that people are taking it too seriously. It's like driving a car through a red light then getting upset at the people you caused to crash for taking driving too seriously.
I've added numbers to your response, to make a further reply easier to decipher! (And so I don't have to cite/upload/link things.)
[1] and [3] - fair enough, I'll leave it there!
[2] Now you're putting me on the spot. I'm talking of impressions. And because we're talking of small tweaks in some cases, minutiae of differences in expressions/actions/reactions, I'd have to replay the whole game to fish out very specific examples ...!
So, vague as this may be (and my impressions may be mistaken):
a) Amanda shows more clouded, blank or troubled facial expressions than previously - ok, some might call that "the end of the age of innocence/innocent youth", but still!
b) And not just less ready warmth in (most) dealings with the MC (true, some shafts of light w momentarily relieved grins, as well as shafts of penis w temporarily relieved exhilarations - but the former seem no longer so common): also more silences, or what appears deliberate avoidance of his presence altogether.
> If it's simple hostility, hate, or one basic accusation, wouldn't she maybe, wouldn't most people - with other company asked to be present, if afraid it might get nasty/violent - tend to confront, have it out, demand explanations, rather than .... avoid? Avoidance, in the context of Mandy's changed behavior, looks like extreme awkwardness, rather than sudden deep antagonism.
c) The way Amanda is rapt;y watching porn before sex with MC (Ch10?), looks like part of that, a pattern of troubled distance: a handy objectification* of sex with our MC (*if I throw in a scary word - I mean, rather than with her previous wholehearted love affection & desire, - or girlish infatuation if you prefer). Ok, we could lecture about damaging effects of porn or something, but that's not the *heart* of Amanda's issues, I guess.
d) Amanda's regrets after sex with MC could have other reasons, motives of course. But added to a)-c) .... well, I dunno. She seems a troubled young woman. Who's not as smart at hiding it as Kathy, or as "generally-upbeat-in-spite-of-it-all" as Kathy, about where the hell she is swirling around now in life.
... Maybe she's just fallen in love with Mortelli, and for some reason deeply conflicted? (That was a joke.)
[4a] See [3]. But also, if there's wrong done, offense caused, whose responsibility is it to take the initiative?
[4b] Oh, I agree. And i think you underdo it when you say "Even purely erotic fiction exists to provoke a sexual reaction." If that erotic fiction is any good - actually even if it's NOT much good, but has an impact - that reaction is not going to be merely sexual, as if it were a physiological process transacted, but psychological, emotional, sometimes with deep roots ... whatever the causes, whatever consequences, and I suppose both may be quite deeply mixed.
But who said people are taking it too seriously? I thought the question was more on the lines of why are some so phenomenally angry? Or maybe I misread that, too!
Anyway, I'll shut up now. With apologies to anyone I may have bored the socks off, or annoyed the hell out of. It's just a set of views, no better than anyone else's.
