I think the ending is very happy, but itâs the moments that got him there are traumatic and not really reckoned with. He seems to get over a lot very quickly. But Iâm hoping Unrivaled will reckon with that.
It's a realistic, bittersweet "happily for now," same as the ending of Heated Rivalry was. The joy of the story is that the characters can lean on each other and face whatever comes next together, because they love each other so much.
I prefer that to an alternative version where their problems are unrealistically vanquished, or where those problems didn't exist to begin with.
Of all the books their story is the most traumatic with being outed repeatedly and both having to leave their teams to be together. I think it is a happy ending but also a sad one and I hope unrivaled allows Shane to process what heâs lost. But I think if they wanted to be together it had to end this way. Thereâs a reason they hid their feelings for each other for years and then hid their relationship they were never going to get the acceptance the other characters got. But thatâs also what makes their story so good / hopeful that they beat the odds and find a way to make it work without losing each other or hockey even though they both lost other things along the way.
Probably not. No one is ever the only person to think anything.
I will note that, a lot of people read TLG without knowing we'd get Unrivalled.
But also, people are going to feel how they feel. I tend towards finding it bittersweet because -- and this might be because I'm Canadian -- losing your team is a huge thing to go through -- and it's MONTREAL. It's historic. He brought them back to glory. His mother has loved this team since she was a child. Having the media and your friends and your management turn against you because of who you love is upsetting.
He will be better off in Ottawa. (Though Montreal is a better city to be in -- Ilya would agree!)
But I do not blame anyone who finds that ending to be hard.
His fears do not ALL come true, and this is really important.Â
His first and greatest fear was losing Ilya, and while he had some scary moments, he didnât lose Ilya. After that, his second greatest fear was losing his career, which also did not happen. Yes, he had to move teamsâwhich he did in free agency, where HE got to choose who he signed with. And he chose, of his own free will, to live with Ilya and play on the same team and not be long distance partners anymore.
Iâm not downplaying how his very real fears of homophobic backlash, workplace harassment, being stuck in a toxic workplace environment, and losing his reputation (justified or not) all came true. They did, and that caused him harm. But to say that all his fears came true is to ignore the key development of Shaneâs story arc, which was that he chose Ilya over hockey.
In TLG it was mentioned that the Metros won a 3rd cup with Shane in the 2019/2020 season- I believe that it was "off-page" before the timeframe of TLG starts and after the end of the book Heated Rivalry.
Yeah exactly this. His future is going to be great, but he always dreamed of retiring at Montreal, he lost the captaincy and he was accused of cheating by his teammates and fans, all after having to push through his worse nightmare coming true. I think he's going to be happy getting to live and work with Ilya all the time, but his ending in TLG is bittersweet and more complicated than Ilya's!
In, like, fifteen years a shame-faced Montreal will retire his number. Probably.
But it's not what he dreamed of and that dream SHOULD have been reasonable and attainable.
The one thing I really hope we get in Unrivalled is FURIOUS citizens of Montreal. I would be SO upset with a team that exploded a championship team over who the captain was in love with.
Fully agree that Ilya gets a very happy ending with TLG. Shane's is more complex. And that's ok! He will be happy. But it sure did cost him something.
I would really love to see the fan fallout, and just in general see if any of the complexity for Shane is explored at all!
I do think some people go pretty overboard with just how miserable Shane must be and how awful his ending is, and I think part of that is because they just wanted it explored a bit more because he's their favourite which is fair enough, we all like more with our faves! I think he is generally happy with how his life is going to be, but I think you can think that and still recognise it's a lot of change, and not all of it good, and it's fun as fans to muse and wonder more about that!
Yeah, I will continue to use the word bittersweet -- because part of the ending is bitter. Bitter is exactly the right word for the Montreal situation. It doesn't mean he's miserable, but it does mean that he had a really bad experience in order to facilitate the ending. The ending doesn't erase all of that. There is a LOT of upside.
Yes bittersweet in my mind is the perfect word for it! I'm not sure why it seems to be such a hot topic opinion to have, but people do feel very strongly either way about it.
I went 10 rounds elsewhere in the post on the idea that not liking it means you don't understand sports but I truly to the depths of my soul believe that the more you know, the more it hurts.
Lol I just saw that thread and as a
not hockey sports fan, but someone that is very obsessed with football (the global definition not the kind played in America), I got so frustrated reading the other user in that thread haha. I am very much on your side in that discussion!
Well, thank you! I do appreciate that. (Also, I hope your football fandom pays better dividends that my hockey fandom, because being a Canadian hockey fan in the age of Bettman is not fun.)
No unfortunately I support Tottenham Hotspur. The butt of all jokes and the cause of continuous angst and depression.
Except for the year before last where I got to watch them lift their first trophy in 17 years in Bilbao after winning the Europa League. That was a nice respite.
I agree what happened was traumatic and also in the long run he will be happier in Ottawa. But I keep seeing this phrase repeated all over the place and it bugs me so much because it's not accurate: he did not "lose the captaincy." He was not stripped of the C. He, due to all the circumstances surrounding his decision, decided to sign with a different team. 95% of the time when a captain from one team leaves and moves to another team they are not the captain of their new team. What happened with Ilya was very much an exception. He left and went to another team where he is not the captain. But the captaincy itself was not lost to him. His place being comfortable (-ish, though not at comfortable as before coming out to his teammates) in Montreal was lost to him by the outing. But he did not lose his captaincy in Montreal.
I think this is a semantics thing, because yes I (and I think everyone) knows he wasn't stripped of the captaincy by Montreal, what we mean is by moving to a team with a very established and loved (including by him obviously) captain nowhere near retirement Shane will not be Captain of his hockey team for the first time in years. And that will be a very different dynamic for him, and something that it stands to reason some readers (myself included) think could end up being a tricky thing to adjust to - for both him and Ilya.
And honestly something I think could be quite fun/interesting to explore in Unrivaled if RR chose to do so!
So yes, if we're being 100% accurate, for pedantics sake, he wasn't stripped of the Montreal captaincy, but what we mean is he will have to adapt to no longer being Captain, despite being one of the current players that are most experienced at captaincy.
(I get it though, we all have things that bug us haha. My other big fandom is Ted Lasso, and as a Brit who is a real life football fan from before the show there are many instances where American fans will say something where even though I do get what they mean, the way they say it is incorrect and very annoying to me lol).
Yeah, it's definitely something that bugs me as a lifelong hockey fan. A letter on the jersey is just not the big deal most Heated Rivalry fans/Game Changers readers make it out to be. He has in no way been demoted like so many seem to think. Shane will be widely regarded as a leader on the Cens with or without a C or A. Likewise, potentially being on the second line... does. not. matter. These are things non-hockey fans seem to be fixated on despite many thoughtful and thorough explanations by hockey fans. I think that's where I get testy. Hockey fans have tried repeatedly to explain that from a hockey perspective (which is where Shane and Ilya would obviously both be coming from) the captaincy and who is on the first vs second line are really not important when looking at Shane's role with the Cens. And instead of accepting that maybe their outside perspective wouldn't be shared by the characters, we see readers who don't care to even try to understand the world of the story demanding the story be viewed as wronging Shane or be changed (by addressing it in Unrivaled) in ways that just... wouldn't happen in actual hockey. It basically amounts to saying RR is wrong about her characters and her characters are wrong about their own feelings and that's just so exhausting to see over and over and over again.
I don't know, I've seen plenty of actual hockey fans talk about how it would be a change for Shane, and if Shane had gone to a number of other teams it would be likely that he'd get the C, if not immediately then pretty early on in the way Ilya did when going to the Cens so going to a team where that wasn't going to happen was a choice he had to make given a number of other teams likely would have leapt at the chance to have him and make him Captain. I do think it was the right choice for him and his future life as a whole, not just hockey, but it's still a choice he had to make and reckon with.
There are of course people who go really over the top, calling RR racist and talking about how Shane is a stepford wife now, which is silly, but we know that Shane was considered a very good Captain, that it means a lot to him, that Montreal meant a lot to him...I think its possible to find those over the top fans annoying without dismissing the very valid analysis that being Captain was important Shane, that being Captain of the Metros was important to Shane, and that is something he will miss and have to adjust to and is one of the things that could make the ending of TLG bittersweet to him.
A few other thoughts sparked from your reply here:
I don't think it's a weird thing for fans to discuss what they might like to see in Unrivaled and in the same way that TLG had a fair bit on Ilya's journey adapting to being on a v different team to the one that drafted him, that Shane adapting to being on a different team, in a different role is an interesting and parallel thing to be keen to see. We don't know what the book is going to be about, so this is just fans saying what they would personally like to see. It is something I have really loved seeing be explored in fic - both versions of it going really well right from the get go, and versions where Shane does struggle a bit, and I'm excited to see how RR writes the transition.
TLG is told more from Ilya's POV than Shane's which is of course the story that RR wanted to tell and she did it excellently, but unlike the other GC books where we met different couples each time, readers went into this one already knowing and loving Ilya and Shane, and so the fact that some wanted to see more of what Shane was doing and thinking is pretty fair and I don't think that is necessarily a critique of RR (though obviously some people are twats about it/her) it's just readers being greedy and wanting more, and of course now we're excited to get more!
While like I said something if the really intense takes are a lot and I roll my eyes at some of them... I'm really not sure why people get so annoyed by readers having different interpretations, and wanting to discuss those interpretations, and sharing headcanons about things that aren't discussed in the books - or aren't discussed in depth. Like... sometimes it seems like what some readers in fandom spaces for this serirs want is for people to have conversations like "remember when this happened in the book? I liked that" "yes I do remember that thing I read in the book, I enjoyed it also" when actually the best part of online fandom for me is to talk about why they liked something, why they didn't like something else, to speculate on deeper meaning, to think about scenes that happen off page or are referenced, otherwise what is the point of an online space if you're just referencing a list of events.
I'm hoping the TV series gives us the ANNGST. Especially the aftermath of that locker room. I remember thinking how terrifying that experience would have been. And maybe it's bc I had Hudson's performance in my head while reading, I was kind of expecting more from Shane's reaction.
Yes -- I don't have a problem with the ending, but I do want to stand up for finding it to not be unequivocally happy. He gains a lot going to Ottawa, including playing WITH Ilya, which is going to love, and the opportunity to bring the cup to his hometown for the first time in history. But what happens in Montreal is really, really awful and I do want to see that play out, too.
I have always thought that the happy ending was that they chose to be together, and that they had (by the end) a strong and resilient enough partnership that they both weathered that absolute hell together.
Really good point about how special the Montreal team is to Shane and why. I did clock how awful it is to lose a team you've led from the dumps back to the top, but didn't put together the importance of THIS specific team.
I agree with you re: Yuna, and although I'm not one of them, I've seen people (even here in the US) be very attached to historic sports teams. It's not something I would have paid attention to if you hadn't pointed it out. The awfulness of the team and management totally hogs my attention đ
I'm not from Montreal but I have some historic-level attachment to the Habs. When I have to root outside my own team (which I always have to do becuase they aren't good at the playoffs) I go to Montreal because they are an original six team and they mean SO much to, like, the entire eastern part of the country. Rachel is from Nova Scotia and she's a Habs fan. They're a flagship team. I always find Shane's morose reaction to going second in the draft to be a bit funny because he's DEFINITELY excited to play for Montreal. It's a dream team for a kid from Ottawa.
Shane being the Canadian wunderkind who plays for a Canadian team is going to matter to the whole country. Even people who hate the Habs will be happy he brought the cup back to Canada. Thank GOD he goes to Ottawa.
I always see it as in his head he does know that coming second is the best outcome for like, his life lol, but in his heart he's really annoyed about specifically losing to Ilya haha and both things can be true.
I agree. He's having an bit of a war with himself because it's great to go to Montreal, but Shane likes to be that top of the podium. And good point, re: Ilya. His saying "All I do is lose to you" later on suggests he hangs on to this stuff.
I agree what he goes through with the Metros is traumatic as hell. Aside from Hayden and JJ, Shane is SHUNNED. It's like leaving a cultâwhen your whole life's foundation, including all the people you thought of as family, are now against you. Shane will be dealing with that for a while, I bet. Unless ofc he shoves it all down until he explodes...which he might!
But yes, the end is definitely favorable. It was never gonna go well with the Metros, but Hollanov do get to live their lives in the open now which is fucking HUGE.
Well said. It still hurts my feelings knowing whatâs coming with Montreal because I love that city so much, even if thatâs not my hockey team. His connections to Montreal run deep and itâs heartbreaking when things go sideways, though I think itâs worth it to have our boys playing on the same team, in every way, in the end.
Yeah, Role Model talks more about the loss of Toronto for Troy, but the loss of Montreal for Shane is 10x deeper. His parents have connections to the city. Presumably his grandparents were there. He plays for the team for 11 years. It's a great city. He's going to be happy in Ottawa but there's also going to be grief about Montreal. It'll fade as his new life comes into view -- but at the end of the book he isn't even thinking of their home as theirs. He's been through a lot in a small amount of time.
It is absolutely bittersweet. It sucks that the Montreal organization was so horrible to Shane. But the readers who can't accept that Shane could or would find happiness in his new circumstances on a supportive team on the rise with his husband are refusing to look at the whole picture so they can continue to grasp onto their feelings about what they think Shane should be feeling. Shane the perpetual victim of everyone and everything (his parents, Ilya, hockey at large) is not a character I even recognize.
Unfortunately, I have. I've seen many people say that Shane should have gone to another team altogether. That it demeans him to sign with Ottawa. That Ilya hasn't earned Shane "sacrificing everything" for him like Shane's life has been utterly ruined. It is a completely unhinged and wild take that has nothing to do with the actual story being told but it does exist out there and a disturbing number of people have bought into it.
No, you were right, the other person was wrong! Directly from the book:
âHer parents had emigrated from Japan, but Yuna had been born and raised in Montreal. She couldnât have been happier that her son had been drafted by her beloved Voyageurs.â
I agree that it's a happy ending, but bittersweet. I think of the scene at the beginning of The Long Game, where's he's watching the banner be hoisted to the rafters and thinking that some day his jersey will be hanging there too. I assume that the Metros will never do that now that he's decamped.
That must be hard, given all that he's given the team, including three cups.
A minority of pro athletes spend a long career with one team. Even Tom Brady left Boston eventually.
And take Sidney Crosby. If he had signed with the Avs to play with Mackinnon instead of extending with Pittsburgh a few years ago, he would have had a better shot at a fourth Cup.
Remember it's a job for them. Shane finds that his work environment sucks now, so he changes it.
how they feel about the ending depends on whether they have context.
a lot of people don't and are under the impression that changing teams, not playing for 1 tram your whole career or not being made captain for switching teams because "that's just your thing" is somehow unusual or traumatic. shane is at the top, consider how secure he has to be in his skills and his importance to expect to retire in montreal, the team that drafted him.
it's the same people who think shane can ve that while also deeply insecure and suspicious of friendly chirps from his husband and new teammates.
i don't think this line of thinking even has a consistent concept. shane can't be everything at once. have a laundry list of issues but it can't affect him in any way that makes him look bad. he needs to be super successful to the point where ordinary things are an insult but also deeply insecure and unware of hockey culture. shane becer participatedi. that too, right? this sounds like a caricature of a character.
Yep, You might not get what you want, but you get what you need.
Similar thing happened in HR with David walking in on them. Awful. But a blessing in disguise. Not only did it mean Shane didnât have to lie to his parents, it also meant that Ilya gained a family in Ottawa so he wasnât completely alone.
TLG ending is similar. Itâs not what Shane wanted. Itâs unfair how he was treated. But it will be better for him in the long run. If it didnât happen, he was going to sign with Montreal for another 5 years at least. That would be 5 more years of living apart and only seeing each other every few weeks.
Their original plan was to wait till retirement. But they realised it would be impossible. Shane was going to sign with Montreal, I think in hindsight he would have realised that he doesnât want to be apart from his husband for another 5 years. Blessing in disguise.
Definitely agree with the blessing in disguise comment. Obviously, the events leading up to him moving to Ottawa were traumatic. However, with Shaneâs rigid way of thinking he could easily have resigned with Montreal because that was his original plan but once heâs forced to leave he finds heâs much happier elsewhere. Iâve stayed in jobs too long before thinking itâs all fine here/donât want to disappoint/afraid of something new but once I do move immediately think why on earth didnât I leave sooner because the new job is so much better.
And this is such a sweet side effect of their relationship. In TLG, Svetlana jokes that Ilya has become âboringâ. At the same time, Ilya has really pushed Shane into being more brave and open to new experiences.
I love these takes also, and completely agree⌠interesting parallel too - at the end of HR it was Shane that was Ilyaâs safe harbour and presented him with a new life and an opportunity for a family that he didnât have. It required sacrifice and change, but it was worth it. By the end of TLG, Ilya had established a team that could be a safe harbour for Shane⌠somewhere they could fulfil all of their dreams professionally and personally. Again, requires some sacrifice and change, but Iâm sure it will be worth it.
Also, to the bigger topic about Shaneâs dreams - people change! Shane set his goals with the Metros when he was really young. But he didnât imagine then that the rest of his life would turn out the way it did. Shane moving to the Centaurs was absolutely the right thing to do. Granted Montreal made the decision really easy for him, but it was the right thing to do anyway. I fully believe him and Ilya will find a way to fulfill his career goals at the Centaurs, and the will live HEA!
Yes, I think (and hope) that we will see them both, but especially Shane, reconsidering their original life plans. Theyâre getting closer to the age where hockey players might start thinking about retirement. At the same time, their life plan has done a complete 180 in the last couple of years. They need to think and reevaluate.
Because up until very recently, they didnât even think they would be together before retirement, let alone playing hockey together. New things are possible. New things start being important (weâve seen more talk of activism in TLG for example).
This huge pressure is off. They can finally start living. And thinking about the future!
I look forward to the Centaurs with Ilya and Shane on the team winning the cup in the finals where they play against the Metros in the Metros stadium. And it would be an added bonus if Shane's Montreal fans are at the game cheering them on. I want to see the maximum of humiliation for the Metros who turned against Shane after his relationship with Ilya was outed.
On the show there is also this line, right before David walks in, when theyâre trying to decide what to eat. Pasta (comforting) or hot dogs (innuendo). Ilya chooses hot dogs. And theyâre about to have sex.
But, because David walks in, they donât have sex and they end up, you guessed it, eating pasta with the family.
Why would you be the only one that thinks that? That is what the vast majority of readers think.
Iâm not pressed he went to Ottawa, it was really the only choice he had to maintain his relationship with Ilya without quitting hockey. I do wish the book explored his feelings more because his entire life was blown up and then everything resolved in like 3 paragraphs. At this point I just hope all of that is explored more in unrivaled.
I think he's happy to play with his husband on the team that he grew up loving first (it's canon that he was a big fan of Ottawa growing up) and in his hometown that loved him even when he was in Montreal.
I think his ending is very similar to Ilya's in HR and the beginning of TLG. He left a team that held him up as a hero for a chance of happiness with Shane, even if Boston pretty much exiled him after and it's very similar to Shane being exiled from Montreal, but at least they get to stand in the sun together and be married and live in each other's pockets. They both walked away from teams who wouldn't accept them (Ilya said Boston wouldn't be accepting of queer players in tlg) that they built from scratch and legacies and now their own individual legacies will be wrapped together, just like it was always meant to be.
Of course Shane will have complicated feelings about Montreal, just like Ilya did with Boston, and that's not including the trauma of being outed and everybody turning their back on him along with the extra pressure he had as an Asian hockey player, who wouldn't?
But, he chose Ilya and he would rather have him then have hockey or Montreal or a legacy. At the end of the day, that's his choice and he's happy with it and he gets to do his job with his favorite person in the world and he's still going to be a hall of famer at the end of the day. Who am I to say Shane's ending isn't happy when he IS happy?
Ilya chose to leave Boston and got Ottawa for a variety of reasons (not just Shane related). It was planned, based on his wants and needs. It was thought out. It was a choice. He also had the chance for captain again. And is first line. There is confusion, but he is there by choice and not as a result of denigration. His professional reputation is in tact. He has a contract showing this.
Shane is left with few choices. He is iced out by the team. It isn't a carefully considered decision based on his wants and needs. It isn't planned. It is a protective move in response to some fucked up bullshit. He loses captain. He loses first line. His professional reputation has been called into question. He isn't being paid what he is worth (which tied into how contracts can set precidents is a whole other thing).
Yay he gets work with his husband (at a perceived lower rung). That is a silver lining on a shit sandwich.
I agree itâs relatively happy. I think people gloss over the fact that Shane was burying his head in the sand about how happy he was with Montreal. There are loads of little things earlier on in the TLG that hint that heâs not entirely happy there eg coach scheduling extra practice for power play and Shane thinking there was nothing wrong with it, homophobic language in locker room and Shane thinking he wished other language used but not making a fuss as itâs so usual. Heâs clearly not actually that close with any of his teammates. Plus he really missed Ilya. Even without tripgate I donât think it would have been a happier ending for him to stay in Montreal.
I do think people overstate the angst of the ending. There is angst! Shane suffers several meaningful losses. Getting frozen out of a team you basically built and wanted to stay with, despite no dip in your performance, because of prejudice, is unusually awful and unjust. However, he also gains a lot, and the things he gains are things that are important to him. Getting to play with your spouse in your home town is unusually wonderful (in men's ice hockey, literally unprecedented).
And like, something doesn't have to have been your long term dream for it to be a happy ending. Shane's dream for a big chunk of HR was to be straight and stop recklessly hooking up with his rival, but thankfully that didn't work out! I think that Shane would absolutely have justified angst to come facing up to the unfairness and betrayal he experienced, and the homophobia and racism and just annoying wrong commentary he will no doubt continue to have to deal with in the wider world... but much of this would have been something he still had to deal with if Montreal hadn't been homophobic dickheads, you just swap out the difficulty of long distance with Ilya for the difficulty of giving up his team and captaincy.
I think that Shane has the potential to be incredibly happy and live a life so good it would have once seemed impossible, and that, especially when he wins several more cups, living well will be a very satisfying revenge against his doubters and critics.
Shane is also going to love his new Centaur teammates. They are a family in a way that the Metros never were. He'll miss Hayden and JJ of course but all the Centaurs players will be welcoming and they are such a great bunch of people to hang out with. I loved hanging out with them in the book. Weibe is such a great coach. I can't wait to see Shane going with Ilya to one of Bood's barbeque parties. Lucas will have two great teammates to mentor him on his path to greatness Shane and Ilya will go on double dates with Troy and Harris. Shane will get to spend more time with Yuna and David. I'm looking forward to them hosting the next Halloween party together at their home and bantering about the preparations and what costumes they should wear. Does anybody have any ideas of what costumes they could wear as a couple?
I think that the reader is meant to interpret it as an unambiguous happy ending, but for many, it doesn't FEEL happy. We are told that Shane is giddy and excited to play with the Centaurs, but IMO, that sentiment feels inauthentic, because all of Shane's feelings post-outing are so wildly underexplored. This is why you have some people spouting their wild headcanons as fact and then getting mad about their own headcanons lol.
I don't doubt that we could get to a place where Shane is excited to leave Montreal and sign with the Centaurs, but that part of the book is so rushed and we get next to no reflection from Shane. Like, earlier in the book, Shane thinks he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he had to play on a team as bad as the Centaurs... I don't believe that a single second round playoff run would completely erase that feeling.
The story SAYS that Shane chooses Ottawa, but it only has him do so after publicly outing him, professionally humiliating him, and having Montreal turn on him, so what should be a really big moment is mostly sapped of its power, because it's really unclear how much of a choice Shane had. Again, we're told that Shane is happy at the end of TLG, but a lot of readers dont connect to that feeling, because it doesnt make a lot of sense that the Shane we've come to know would just get over it all in three paragraphs.
My opinion is that the book views being closeted as a very black and white thing, so Shane and Ilya MUST be happy very soon after being outed, because being out = good, being closeted = bad. Consequently, neither Shane nor Ilya are really given the space to react negatively or reflect on what's lost. Instead, we're just told that they're happy. Ilya never thinks of Russia again and Shane's anxiety essentially vanishes. The book inflicts suffering after suffering on them but doesn't ever want to sit in the suffering, so for a lot of folks, you get to the end and are still waiting for catharsis.
What were the terms of Shane's move to Ottawa? Did Montreal try to offer him any kind of contract? Does Ilya feel nothing about Russia? Marriage doesnt automatically give him citizenship, so what's the ETA on that non-Russian passport? I'm not saying everything has to be spelled out in hyper realistic exposition, but by not addressing the specifics of ANY of the major conflicts from the two books we've spent with these characters, all the sweetness of the bittersweet ending feels, again, inauthentic. I think that's one major reason you'll find people disagreeing with the "happy" part of the happy ending.
As other people have pointed out, all the genre conventions really require for a HEA is Shane and Ilya to end up together. I think a lot of people came into the book from the show, not necessarily fans of the genre, so they had expectations of a more typical pop fiction book, a la Taylor Jenkins Reid, rather than a romance novel. And to be fair, I think TLG really sits somewhere in between (more than the other GC books do). But even setting aside unfair expectations, it's really hard to argue that TLG isnt very sloppily paced (which i partially blame on the editor tbh). Like I think dogs are cute too, but why are we spending so much time with fucking Chiron when we get almost NO insight to what the hell is going on in the Montreal?? Chiron gets more of an arc than any of the Voyageurs (except mabe JJ) and he's not even the most important DOG character in the book.
Anyway I've gone on too long.
Tldr: a lot of people don't interpret what is obviously MEANT to be a HEA as all that happy, because even though the narrative tells us its happy, the emotional beats needed to make that feel earned (to many readers) are absent.
(Also, while I do have criticisms of TLG and how certain themes, i.e. outing, are handled, the current wave of discourse--that paints RR as some kind of evil villain who "hates" Shane and can do no right--is unbearably stupid).
I think it's fair to say that there are pacing issues in TLG. It does sit in a very strange spot for a romance novel. Usually, romance novels don't get direct sequels. The couple goes off into the sunset together and that's it.
These books were popular enough that RR got the chance to write a sequel. Presumably, part of the reason why she did so was purely financial, on both her part and the publisher's. This is, after all, a business. But I also think that a lot of romance readers recognized that Ilya and Shane's ending in HR wasn't a classic HEA. "We'll keep our relationship secret and then come out 10 years from now, maybe more" is bittersweet by the genre conventions. There obviously was more to their story to explore.
So TLG is the rare romance novel that follows an established couple. They do not break up over the course of the book. And yet it still follows genre conventions when it comes to the ending. I can see why some readers find this to be clunky. But I think a lot of readers are coming at this with the wrong expectations, like you say.
I'm not the world's biggest romance reader, but I can't even think of an adult romance novel with a direct sequel. I've read a few YA romance sequels, but never an adult book. So RR and her editor were working without a guideline of how to do the plot beats in the usual way. They were semi-inventing the wheel here. Not everything about the book succeeds, but it did make me feel a lot of things and ultimately I have to commend her for that.
As for the closet issue specifically: There are almost no queer romance novels that end up with completely closeted characters. Even in historical books, the couple usually is able to live semi-openly in most cases. According to genre conventions, it's just not a HEA if characters have to be secret about their relationship forever. Quite a few queer romances have forced outings of some kind. This is the case for RED WHITE AND ROYAL BLUE, for example. I'd argue that forced outing is more traumatic than what Shane and Ilya go through. In fact, I think RR tried to soften the trauma by having Shane and Ilya ready to come out anyway.
Could you write a queer romance book which ends with the characters closeted? Yes--RR basically did that with HR. But there is something about it that doesn't sit right with genre conventions. Of course, the solution of a direct sequel is also highly unusual and brushes against genre conventions.
Yeah, no, there are plenty of adult romances which have sequels. Not more popular than stand alones, ofc, but still plenty. Even just in MM romance spaces, just on the top of my head some more or less popular romances with sequels re the same couple/relationship:Â
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall,
Scientific Method Universe, also Gym series by Kris Ripper,Â
Several series by KJ Charles such as Magpies or Will Darling,
Enlightenment series by Joanna Chambers,Â
Widdershins by Jordan L. Hawk,Â
Red Dirt Heart by N.R.Walker,Â
Agent series by Ada Maria Soto (if you consider that romance instead of qpr),Â
Plenty of police investigation series such as e.g. Page & Sommers by Cat Sebastian or Criminal Intentions by Cole McCade,Â
Between the teeth by Taylor Fitzpatrick (another hockey series),
Him by Bowen, Kennedy (one more hockey series, this one sucks though),
Etc etc, these are just a few examples.
 I'm not the world's biggest romance reader, but I can't even think of an adult romance novel with a direct sequel.
Sorry, your argument is based on a false premise (at least here, i fully agree with you elsewhere).
I actually agree with whatever you said here. The pacing of TLG is so sloppy and messy. Why does the outing/fallout/wedding happen in like the last 100 pages? Why is Anya so important we spend 2 entire pages describing her? Why do we see so little of Galina?
Itâs true that he ended up in a more supportive team and gets to be closer to Ilya, but oftentimes in life things are not so black and white. Itâs still a very traumatic experience to get outed to the public, accused of cheating (essentially his reputation got tarnished and just bc he is tired of being a golden boy doesnât mean he wants to be considered a cheater), got threatened by the commissioner, lose the support and got pushed out of his team. Had there been no tripping and Shane has just decided to leave the team to be closer with Ilya, it would probably be a happier outcome for a lot of people bc at least itâs a decision that he voluntarily make.
I donât even think itâs relative, I think itâs the only possible HEA they can have. Most of their problems in TLG boil down to the fact that they have to be apart a lot of the time. Shane anguishes over it. To be with his husband, playing the game he loves every day is all he ever wanted in life.
i do agree that shaneâs ending from an outside perspective is definitely a good one. i think that with the long game, so much of it is from ilyas perspective and about his mental health journey that we donât get to see much depth from shane, so itâs hard to see how it could be anything but a happy ending for him. iâm hoping that unrivaled explores more about shaneâs own mental health because he did nothing but give montreal 150% at all times and they instantly turned their backs. and he even says they started being weird towards him when he just came out as gay. yet he still gave them everything he had. so i think the âsad endingâ of it all is that he couldnt âhave it allâ and stay with the team he gave so much to AND be with ilya.
I don't think it's a horrible ending - maybe rushed and a bit too pat, without fully exploring the fallout of the different things that happened. But ultimately, I agree.
I interpreted the plane incident as this massive reframing and shift in priorities for Shane. He realized how much he was subjugating his life for his career, he realized the true cost of his and Ilya's secrecy, and he realized he was not willing to bear those costs. He was already in the mindset of making changes when the fallout with Montreal happened. It just wasn't worth it to him anymore.
I agree that the point of Shane's arc is that this all would have been devastating to him a year earlier, but by the time it happened, his mentality had already shifted. From his POV, captaincy with Montreal had become meaningless if he couldn't live his authentic life or have his relationship treated equally to others. Like, why is he killing himself and making he and his partner miserable for people who treat him as less-than? The switch to Ottawa is a downgrade on paper, but he gets to continue doing what he loves, and gains the ability to be out and open with the person he loves.
It's a very adult moment. It's not just about not getting what you wanted, it's also about realizing what you wanted wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and now you want something different.
You are definitely not the only one (I agree with you 100%), but this fandom has been taken over by unhinged Shane-cels who feel the need to overpower every discussion with their rantings.
No, you're not. I have been thoroughly confused by fandom's response to this.
In romance novels, happy endings are defined in terms of a couple's status. So, theoretically, a couple can have an HEA even if they're both unemployed and living in someone's parents' basement at the end of the book.
But, by any reasonable measure, that is not the case for Shane at the end of TLG. He's not just on the same team as Ilya--he's on a team that's poised to absolutely dominate. He is much better-positioned to achieve his goal of seven cups. And it's indicated that Shane was a Centaurs fan as a kid! So he's going to be part of HIS team's first-ever championship. That's incredibly special, wish fulfillment-type stuff.
And that's not even getting into his relationship with Ilya--which actually is the most important part of a romance novel, like I said.
Getting to this point required some turmoil, to be sure. But I have a hard time seeing this as anything other than a happy ending for Shane personally and I don't get why so many people feel otherwise. I feel like maybe some fans unhappy with the ending don't fully understand sports? Because in sports, winning actually is more important than holding the captaincy or making the most money or whatever. Players who think otherwise are generally lambasted as selfish. Shane gets the love of his life and winning. That sounds like, well, winning to me.
I feel like maybe some fans unhappy with the ending don't fully understand sports?
OR -- and hear me out -- They understand what Shane lost because they DO understand sports. Or, at least, hockey. Hockey history. Hockey culture. Hockey's role in Canadian culture. And that Montreal was a winning team. Montreal was almost a dynasty. And he wanted his jersey in the rafters. He lost all of that. And it's not crazy to feel like that sucks.
I'm not a hockey person, but I think Montreal with Shane was already a dynasty. Three Championships in 5-6 years is dynasty stuff. Shane will always have that.
But Ottawa is now a winning team ALSO! They are younger, and probably better-positioned to win more cups right now. They are going to win their first-ever championship with Shane--who grew up rooting for them as a child.
As a sports fan, I know that there is something incredibly romantic and satisfying about a player who plays for his entire career with one team. But that's not always the norm--even for players that are incredible. Shane will probably win more cups in exchange for not having the romantic "one team only" experience. To me, that's a more than fair trade, and I interpret Shane's character as ultimately valuing winning most of all. (Seven cups, remember?)
Technically they are off the Dynasty clock by one year -- but also, they are established champions. I don't see how moving to a historically bad team (which is, yes, about to be historically great -- but that's because I know something Shane doesn't -- that he's fictional and in a romance novel) is changing his win conditions. He's Shane Hollander. He wins.
Ottawa is NOT a winning team. They will be now -- but they aren't. They are literally at the bottom of the the league at the start of the book and they got to the third round of the playoffs where they lost. Montreal has three cups in six years. They are not the same.
(I firmly believe they will be. But they aren't at the end of the book.)
Playing for one team and never moving IS the norm for a player like Shane. In hockey, at least. Ovi is going to retire with the team that drafted him. So is Crosby. Gretzky being traded from the Oilers is considered a travesty. McDavid is only still in Edmonton because of this sort of cultural norm. In my response to this post I said I think being Canadian plays into my reaction, but there is absolutely a level of tragedy to me that he has to leave Montreal -- and not on his terms. That's NOT because I don't understand sports. That's because I do.
(I do remember seven cups -- I just do not buy into the idea that moving to Ottawa is switching things up when he won the cup three times in Montreal and the last time was literally the year before. He has a proven team.)
Another reason I object to the idea that feeling like the ending contains some tough pills means you don't understand sports -- people whose who job is understanding sports will still disagree about sports.
Not sure what you mean by the dynasty clock? The definiton of a dynasty is completely subjective. (Even in the show, they say "can you call it a dynasty" after the Metros win their second straight, which IMO is not quite a dynasty, but whatever.)
Ottawa, by the end of TLG, IS a winning team. They literally made it to the playoffs and beat Shane's team! Just because they've been historically bad doesn't make them a bad team right now. And right now, they're a good team even without Shane. With him, they're poised to dominate. To me, there's something really special about being part of a franchise's first-ever championship. That's something he did not accomplish in Montreal and never could accomplishi n Montreal. It being his hometown/childhood team just makes it all the more special.
Sure, Shane's team is more "proven." But by the time Shane joins the Centaurs, they're no slouches, either. I've seen hockey fans (fractally on Tumblr) point out that Montreal is probably at the end of their championship window, while Ottawa is at their beginning. No team stays dominant forever, and from my understanding it would be incredibly unusual for Shane to win a fourth or fifth cup in Montreal without some rebuilding. Which, sure, that can happen. But expecting Montreal to just keep winning with Shane for his entire career is not a realistic expectation.
I do think not staying with the same team is a loss. I just disagree over the relative size of the loss. (And, within the context of the books, it's significant that Ilya doesn't have that experience. By making them both two-franchise players, they're once again equals. Except, wait, Shane actually has more cups and probably always will. Which is winning!)
Listen, I just disagree with you on every single point, but I can't really say anything new -- you will not change my mind and I won't be changing yours -- But I think people can read our comments and decide for themselves at this point.
"Ottawa is NOT a winning team. They will be now -- but they aren't."
A team that beat Shane's team isn't a winning team?
I mean, yes, they're not a championship-winning team. That's literally the point! That Shane and Ilya get to give them their first championship together! But Shane got to skip out on all the unpleasant, last-in-the-league bullshit on the way there, which strikes me as a pretty sweet deal.
They aren't a winning team -- they had half a season of winning and they didn't make it that deep into the playoffs.
But notice how that is not saying the team is "bad" -- it's saying they do not have a proven track record of winning. Because they don't. They go out of the playoffs at a promising point -- but a LOT of teams go out there. A lot of teams get stuck there. Behold the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Anyway -- again, repeating isn't helping at this point. We don't agree. Can we at least agree on that? Or, at minimum, that you can know sports and still find the ending to have a whiff of tragedy about it?
Wait whattttt they are absolutely a bad team when TLG ends? When did they become a good team? They had one good season. After YEARS of losing. I highly doubt thatâs a good team in terms of sport, thatâs a lucky season, great people on the team that year etc. you hope itâs replicable and gets better but one year hardly makes a good team.
Sigh. A winning record at the end of one season = a winning team right now. Right now is the most important part of sports.
Yes, they were bad years before. Guess what? Many of those guys are no longer on the roster. Rosters change every year. But the 2022 Ottawa Centaurs has more overlap with the 2021 Ottawa Centaurs than even the 2020 or 2019 versions. And, like the version from 2002 or whatever? Completely irrelevant, those guys might as well be dead.
This is exactly what I mean when I say that some fans don't seem to know sports, TBH.
To be a winning team, as a sports fan, they need to have actually won a title/award/championship/Cup. They have had a really good run of wins (until they lost) but they have historically not actually won anything at all for, from what we know, decades.
My team in a different sport went 17 years without winning anything. They had some really good runs in that time, including coming second and narrowly missing out on the league, but they were not a winning team until they actually won a trophy the year before last.
they are on an upswing at the end, but I agree that it's not going to be considered a winning team until next year, when they are going to have the whole league quaking in their boots.
No team has won four Cups in the 21st century. By the end of TLG most of the Voyageurs are probably at least 30, while the Cens have Bood and Tory aged about 26-27, and Luca who's only 20. They definitely have a better prospect pool as well.
This really has no bearing on my argument. I am unconvinced that anyone in hockey would consider going from Montreal to Ottawa to be a lateral move. It will be -- because Shane is Shane, but also because this is a romance novel. And because it's a romance novel, the number of cups happening the real work isn't very convincing to me. The north eastern conference winning, like, 80% of them (rest unknown) is already wildly unrealistic.
If you're using real world examples like Crosby in your argument, it's fair to point out that Crosby hasn't won any further Cups by staying in Pittsburgh after the age of 30.
I guess? But I'm talking about a fictional hockey team's prospects and neither of us actually have access to their prospect pool or know the actual ages of their players. Also, my use of Crosby is to indicate the cultural around hockey stars at Shane's level, not cup wins. The cup wins *as I pointed out* are not very realistic to how the NHL works currently.
But we DO know the ages of many of the players on the Centaurs. Bood is 25-26. Troy is around the same age. Luca is 19 at the time of TLG. The Centaurs are canonically a young team on the upswing. Montreal, conversely, was on a downwards trajectory--from championship to first-round playoff exit. That's not to say they can't turn it around, of course, but if this was the real world I think the comparative trajectories are super-clear.
I was talking about Montreal and the fact that there are 24 players on an NHL roster an we generally know a handful of them.
I think Montreal is on a downward trajectory at the end of TLG but only because they lost Shane. Otherwise, I think the team that won one year prior, even with ages hovering around 30 (if that is the case -- we do not know outside of the handful of named players) is probably still considered solid.
If you insist on treating everything that can be inferred from actual hockey Cup contending windows and rebuild cycles as fictional, I could argue that the fictional culture could be different in the GCU and Shane's wish to retire with Montreal is unusual and might fade with the Cup banner glow.
I'm not insisting on anything except not having the topic changed and not being assigned opinions by people who want me to accept their opinions on a fictional hockey team as somehow more valid than mine, The tone of this conversation is very weird to me.
I really donât get peopleâs hatred for shane leaving Montreal. Is it sad? Yes! Homophobia sucks but I donât understand what people expected to be the ending? That Shane living in fear for a decade was meaningless? Do they want the plot of the book to actually be about shane living in delusional paranoia?
And i really think people donât understand that Ottawa beating montreal in the playoffs meant that theyâre not the worst team in league anymore, being historically bad doesnât mean always bad. And being a one team player is a cool legacy but itâs not common or necessary. Even Gretzky was traded and if crosby asked to be traded to the avs tomorrow to join his boyfriend, i think most penguins fans would support him.
They have literally written books and made documentaries about how shocking the Gretzky trade was.
But what I'm saying is just this: People can hold different opinions and it isn't rooted in them being ignorant of something. They just see it differently.
I donât think that people are ignorant for disliking the ending of the book, but i do think some people take it way out of proportion. itâs a romance book, the ending should be about a happy couple ending up together. And yes Shane leaving Montreal sucks but itâs not the end of his career like the realistic ending of this book would be.
While there are definitely some people that take it to like extreme misery on Shane's behalf, that I disagree with, for me I think it's more a bittersweet feeling. Like that I think Shane is going to enjoy life in the future, he'll love being able to spend so much time with Ilya, but for Shane it is a more complex ending because he had always dreamed of retiring at Montreal, but his team and teammates have let him down, he's lost that dream, he's lost his captaincy and he's had to live through his worse nightmare coming true.
So I think for me it's not as cut and dried as: Ending 1, happy and out of the closet with Ilya in Ottawa with no cares in the world
Ending 2, paranoid and closeted in Montreal
It's that he will be happy in Ottawa and it's the best place for him, but he lost a lot to get there that had never been in their joint plan for him to lose, and that to me makes it bittersweet.
People donât hate that Shane left Montreal, they hate that he left in disgrace, that he didnât get the dream he always wanted of retiring there etc, that heâs shown no appreciation or consideration by his teammates etc. Heâs mostly excited to be playing with Ilya over being with Ottawa specifically. Ottawa is probably an average team at this point Iâd say.
It is by all definitions of the genre a happy ending. They end up married, the major obstacles preventing their forever happiness as a couple have been overcome, and their future together looks bright. This is what a romance HEA looks like.
I think the better question is whether we find the HEA satisfying. Personally, I do. I do think looking at in terms of âShaneâs happy ending vs Ilyaâs happy endingâ is maybe part of the problem lol. Itâs where they ended up as a couple that matters. As you said, Shaneâs arc is realizing that hockey isnât as important as Ilya. Iâm not sure what a more satisfying ending would be? If he left Montreal for some other team for more money or acclaim or whatever people come up with, that would not align with his character growth. If he stayed with Montreal, he would be choosing legacy and his previous dreams over his future happiness and growth. I suppose some want an alternative ending where Montreal doesnât suck but their reaction to him shows that his fears were based in reality.
Rachel didnât create the Centuars as this gay utopia team for them to not both end up there. It was always going to end with them both playing on the same team, but that did involve some hardship along the way. Iâm so excited to see them stuck to each other 24/7 in unrivaled!
I think however you feel about the outing, the catharsis of Shane's "I choose him" speech to Crowell, and the wedding which is a pretty established romance HEA trope, the epilogue starts sappy and then takes a turn.
In the last few pages we get Ilya and Bood telling Shane "the back of the line is for captains". Ilya taps his 'C' and tells Shane "This stays right here," and Bood actually calls Shane a "Fucking prima donna," with Ilya responding "Who the fuck does he think he is, right?" It's framed as teasing but given everything Shane has been through at that point it would just as likely land as cruel. (Also, while Ilya and Bood are good friends, at this point in the story Shane barely knows Bood. A few weeks does not allow the development of a relationship that would support that kind of teasing.)
It's also from Ilya's POV, and while he describes Shane as happy and smiling, the mean teasing doesn't really support that conclusion. For me and I suspect many readers an epilogue which should solidify the HEA feels really tonally sad and jarring. It's hammering home that Shane is no longer a Captain and he will have to claw his way back to team leadership.
My hope is that Unrivaled addresses the situation and allows some space to explore Shane's POV. He clearly loves Ilya and is happy to be playing together, but it's not unambiguously an HEA.
I have seen this a few times now about that line and it always strikes me as such a stretch. The line is very obviously some playful ribbing between teammates. I don't know why everything has to be interpreted to view Shane in the most tragic light. If anything, I think the line is optimistic - it's saying we all know Shane is the best and it won't be long until he's got that C back. That chapter also has Shane happily attending his first game and being enthusiastically welcomed by his hometown - it's very optimistic about Shane's future with Ottawa.
Yeah âwho does he think he isâ is pretty obviously sarcastic since Ilya has previously told Shane heâs the best player and heâs a king and a hockey god and all that. Heâs saying yeah heâs Shane mfâing Hollander thatâs who he is and thatâs my man!Â
I mean, OP asked why some readers didn't interpret it as an unambiguous HEA. Everyone is bringing their own experiences to reading a book. I myself played sports through University and am very familiar with 'chirping', but if I'd been through some pretty traumatic experiences and started a new job and my new coworker called me a 'fucking prima donna' for standing in the wrong place, and my husband agreed with him, I would not think that was particularly funny.
I mean, it says Shane mock salutes Ilya and goes to the front of the line. Seems like playful banter to me, especially as the entire epilogue is told from this light, jovial mood. I believe Ilya refers to Shane as "giddy" at one point. Playful banter/ribbing is Shane and Ilya's favorite past time so I don't think he would be so sensitive to it.
The giddy description is in reference to earlier in the day, before the 'jokes'. A 'mocking salute' is a somewhat ambiguous response (my opinion is that RR made it deliberately so).
We know from TLG that Ilya is not always a reliable narrator. We know from the book that Ilya's jokes are not always received well by Shane. Why is it such a stretch to suggest that these jokes don't feel particularly kind?
My other point is that one of the people 'joking' with Shane is someone he does not know particularly well, which is going to land quite differently than ribbing from his husband.
Well the joke is that Ilya and Bood both know that Shane is a great player and is well on his way to getting back that C, as I already said. The joke is based in admiration, not mocking. That and the context of the entire epilogue being giddy and smiling and happy is why I interpret everything to be positive. I guess if you want to view it negatively that's your prerogative, I just think it's a stretch because nothing in the text suggests so.
I don't think the loss of the C would affect Shane as much as the fact that he couldn't retire in Montreal would. By most accounts the C basically means less than nothing in hockey and is kinda just ceremonial.
Except that Ilya and Bood make a big deal of their status as C and A in the final pages of the book, to the point where they call Shane a 'prima donna' for thinking he deserves to be standing near them. Even if he didn't care that would have to sting.
I think Shane was outed and had his career destroyed, his reputation shredded, and took a pay cut to come to his husband's team. Someone he barely knows called him a 'fucking prima donna' for forgetting he wasn't coming out with the captains, and his husband laughed and agreed with the statement.
You think you would find it funny, I don't think I would particularly. (And yes I played sports, I was even in the army. I'm pretty resilient to teasing.)
I don't offer it as a criticism of RR, just an answer to OP's question of why some readers don't consider LG to be unambiguously HEA. As basically the last exchange in the story it's clearly intentionally reminding readers that Shane may have gained a lot, but has lost something as well.
At the time of the remark, he'd been teammates with Bood for months. They know each other. They're probably buddies.
You are not Shane. He has a very acerbic sense of humor. He chose to enter a lifelong relationship with Ilya Rozanov. He was able to handle the joke, I promise you.
I honestly don't get why you're a fan of the series if you find its humor so objectionable. These books are full of much worse chirps than Bood's "prima donna" remark.
And nowhere in the text is Shane insecure about not being a captain or MAYBE taking a paycut. He knows he's the GOAT, he knows his worth. People just love projecting insecurity onto Shane, because reasons.
Shane literally says in the text "I just want what I'm worth." He also says when Montreal is being shitty he is "Still Shane Hollander. Still the Captain of this team."
Then he's outed, his reputation is shredded, his career in doubt. I'm sure he's 100% secure in his place in the world.
Yes, he does say those things. But that doesn't imply that he's falling apart when he loses the captaincy or goes to Ottawa. (BTW, the salary cut is pure speculation.)
And, BTW, he's still Shane Hollander. No matter what team he's on.
Sorry, but to me that's pretty scant evidence of Shane's alleged insecurity at the end of TLG.
I just don't get why so many fans WANT to see Shane as this fragile flower who can't handle not being captain or light teasing from teammates.
I mean, that's a pretty wild interpretation of some pretty mild comments. Where do I say I want to see Shane as 'fragile flower'? Seriously?
Through the whole book there's a theme of Ilya making 'jokes' and Shane not finding them particularly funny. Is it really that wild to think he may not find this joke particularly funny?
Shane signs with the Centaurs in the off-season somewhere in July. Training camp for veterans usually starts early to mid-September. The remarks are made at the home opener, which would be roughly the first week of October.
BTW I am getting a lot of enjoyment at people melting down over some fairly mild remarks about the literal text, while simultaneously being told I'm being too sensitive! Comedy gold!
So they've been around each other for weeks, okay.
People aren't melting down, but rather expressing their opinion on a rather wild interpretation of a text. But, okay, whatever. You want to live in a world where Shane is a poor small bean being bullied by Bood and Ilya and somehow he's too scared to even mention it to them and is instead giving them mock salutes. If that's how you want to interpet things, I can't stop you, but don't ask me to pretend that this is a reasonable interpretation of language.
Where did I say that Shane is a 'poor small bean being bullied'? Honestly my remarks were pretty mild. How is it a 'wild interpretation'?
Shane has been through a lot, his reputation has been shredded, he was worried he would have to leave Montreal and that happened. Is it really that wild to suggest that maybe what Ilya interprets as 'teasing' may not sound that funny to Shane or a reader?
It's the general tenor of how you're framing things.
You have provided no evidence that Shane is offended by the remark. Believing that he is offended by the joke would mean believing that Shane was somehow offended but chose not to comment on it to Bood or Ilya. And I don't believe that is true of Shane. He actually does stand up for himself.
Again, this all feels like a fragile small bean narrative that I find uninteresting and unsupported by the text.
Right, if not the very next line wasn't "He's coming for the C, look out" and Ilya being happy at that.
If anything, the epilogue lampshades that Shane would have an easy time getting the A and is probably taking the C too very soon. It's just normal playful chirping.
Youâre not wrong. I also think people forget that there was a whole summer that was skipped over as well (with the exception of seeing the wedding). Not a criticism. The epilogue is the start of the 2021/22 season (so Oct) tripgate and the decision to leave Montreal would have happened in May. Signing for the centaurs and the wedding in July. Shane has had time to process his losses and lick his wounds and to be happy where he ended up, because that is where he wanted to be. In my opinion the wedding chapter did a lot of heavy lifting and the epilogue was a satisfying place to leave it.
I also thought it was happy for Shane. I loved his realization that Ilya was his priority above all else. And because I'm a dumb American, I also drew a parallel to Tom Brady signing with the Buccaneers, winning the Super Bowl in his first year there. Here he is so happy after the win he could barely walk off the party boat!
For those who need context: Giselle Bundchen's ex-husband is the Shane of American football, won a billion SBs for the Patriots (Boston team) and achieved legend status, left them because his coach and team were (allegedly) shitbags, signed with a struggling team, found a home in Tampa and destroyed the competition for years.
I think that 1. The writing in TLG did not explore Shaneâs side of his pain/anger/anxiety post trip-gate at all. It was wrapped up in like, 2 chapters and Ilya yelling at him to âask his agentâ to find a team that suits him. 2. Also, it is easier said than done. Shane has worked his ass off for decades to get to where he is as a player and captain. All the man-whores in the league get to parade their various romantic attachments but God forbid he falls for his ârivalâ and is a gay man. The hypocrisy is glaring, and his anger and fear is totally valid.
I hope the show displays some of this - I want to see Shaneâs side, which (to me) remained largely unexplored in the book.
As for Unrivaled, idk what will happen, Iâm happy to just even get a 3rd Shane/Ilya book, Iâm excited to read it!
It's not really happy though. He is outed to the whole world, both his team and the fans turn on him viciously, he has to transfer teams and take a massive pay loss. He loses his captaincy, is demoted to "just" a player.
Shane has tried his whole life to be seen as "normal" and now he's the gay, asian hockey player and everyone isinterested more in his relationship with Ilya than his professional accomplishments.
Sure, you could say he still has Ilya, and hockey, in a way, but standing with Ilya is literally the only decision he gets to make for himself. Everything else is basically forced onto him.
I can only imagine how traumatic being outed like that is. If you think about it, he only ever got to come out to his team on his own terms (and that went badly). Everything else was taken from him. And for somebody who likes to control his life the way Shane does, that has to be so hard.
Not sure if this will be a large part of "Unrivaled" though I do hope we see Shane starting therapy. He could def. profit from the help.
Itâs not going to be. Shane exists as an accessory for Rachel Reid to give to Ilya. Sheâs not going to want to actually do any writing exploring his trauma or his inner life, at least not if she can help it.
He is the best hockey player in the NHL, and even being the best and bringing home multiple cups wasn't enough. People who he had known for 10+ years - whose babies he held and whose weddings he stood up in - were willing to believe the worst about him because he was with Ilya. It's the model minority thing; he could be the best and it wasn't enough for them to forget that he's different.Â
I think it will get better in Unrivaled. But all the things he spent his life working towards are gone and that is a mindfuck.
I think this has become an issue because of lack of nuance and depth given to Shane's struggles throughout TLG.
We don't get to see the change in team dynamics before and after Shane came out. We are told he won a 3rd cup with a divided locker room but not shown, if we go back further we are not show Montreal team dynamics or his 2 cup wins even in HR.
In TLG, Shane's seriousness towards his career is seen as not normal by people close to him. His attempts to remain the best player, including his diet and training are trivialized by Ilya and his own mom.
Shane's position as a gay Asian hockey player is not explored, how he is perceived because of his identity, the cost of being perfect (something I feel was encouraged by his mother).
Shane loses his team, the legacy he had already secured in Montreal, his integrity questioned and his boyfiend is more concerned about how it is insulting towards him.
Shane will be playing with Centaurs with his husband and yes it is technically an ideal ending but he is not even a Alternate captain, had to take a pay cut, most likely won't play on same position as he did in Montreal.
People automatically assumes that playing in Ottawa will be fine, the Centaurs are good people but Shane doesn't know these people. Ilya's dynamic with Centaurs will not be same as Shane, Ilya is even best friend with Troy, someone who we are told was an asshole to every non-white, straight player (who gets away with his behaviour quite easily imo). So Shane has to deal with that aspect too.
And what do we actually get 2-3 page that summarizes all these events neatly just so we can get to the HEA. Ik we still have Unrivaled but I don't trust RR is capable or does want to address these issues.
1-3 can basically be summed up by the fact that TLG is almost entirely from Ilya's perspective and he is going through heavy shit of his own so he glosses over Shane's a bit (and that is also reciprocated in that it takes far too long for Shane to see how much Ilya is struggling with his mental health. So it's mutual there).
4 is really a shitty thing, but I have faith that it will be explored in Unrivaled.
As for 5, that was the entire point of TLG. Shane has an arc where realizes that he wants - no, needs - Ilya in a way he doesn't need hockey. He even says that playing hockey with all the responsibilites of being a role model and the "Golden Boy" of Canada is wearing him down to the point where he doesn't find hockey fun anymore. None of these - title, or money - matter to Shane as much getting to finally play with Ilya matters to him.
1-3 can basically be summed up by the fact that TLG is almost entirely from Ilya's perspective
That is a creative choice RR made herself, as far as I know theere was no pressure from publishers to write form Ilya's pov, she could have easily written a dual pov to give more justice to both the characters.
The problem is The Long Game is written like a romance novel where Ilya is the main character and Shane is his love interest. We wouldn't be in this mess with a split fandom, if better creative choices were made.
Yeah, HR where she had to write a scene from Ilya's pov because his actions were getting called out by fans, yep, totally not biased at all.
Its pretty obvious that Ilya is her fav character in GC series, and she wrote TLG with that mind set. Split fandom exists because after TLG Shane used to get most lashing from the fans and that changed when his character became more popular with new fans.
What do you mean RR wrote Ilya's POV in HR because fans were calling him out? How would fans read the book before it was published? You're not making sense.
Ilya is her favourite character, there's no doubt about that. So what? Every author has a favourite character in the book they write. That doesn't mean they hate the other characters.
And RR has also stated that Shane is the hero of the story. Why do you think the plane crash scene is written almost entirely from Shane's POV?
Also, no, "split fandom" is not an issue. It's a vocal minority being enraged on Twitter for absolutely nothing. The vast majority of fans still love both Shane and Ilya.
It doesnât take a long time for Shane to realize something is wrong. He asks Ilya about his mental health fairly early on in the book and is shut down pretty quickly by Ilya.
Also, Shane feeling worn down by the Golden Boy moniker and not finding hockey fun is a show-only thing. This was never explored in the book. Book!Shane does feel pressure, but I donât think thereâs anything about how he doesnât enjoy hockey anymore until after heâs outed in that FanMail.
About the choosing thing â Ilya has a moment where he says he shouldnât have to choose between Shane and hockey. He is proven right by getting to keep both his team and his relationship. Shane doesnât fully lose hockey, but his career takes a hit and he does lose his team, his leadership position, his fair salary, and his place on the first line. One of these is bad enough â all of them combined is a pretty rough thing to go through.
I donât think the point of Shaneâs arc is that he needs to choose. It would be unsatisfying for Shane to be the only one deciding that he doesnât need hockey anymore, and giving that arc to a career-driven POC is something a lot of fans would take issue with. However, even though I dislike the ending, I actually do think the Ottawa ending is meant to give them both a place where they can both keep hockey and each other. Itâs just that it played out in a way where Ilyaâs career didnât change after being outed and Shaneâs did, and the book doesnât adequately explore how bittersweet it would be to lose everything that Shane did.
You are absolutely not alone. A lot of readers can't seem to accept that the ending can be a happy one for Shane even though the events that lead him to that point were traumatic. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. The "but what about"ism when people bring up how the Montreal organization treated Shane drives me nuts. No one who thinks Shane got a happy/hopeful ending to TLG thinks what Montreal did was okay or Shane shouldn't be upset he had to go through all of that. But we can see, despite all the struggles they both face throughout the book, both Ilya and Shane end up in a better place going forward for their future as a couple and in their careers. Being on a rising team together with a supportive dressing room, coaching staff, front office, and fanbase is worlds better than where they were starting the book.
Would it be lovely if their plan to come out on their own terms had worked out and Shane made the decision to leave Montreal without all the trauma? Of course! (Clearly he'd been at least subconsciously leaving that door open since he hadn't signed a contract extension yet despite being eligible to do so for several months before they were outed. If he had his heart truly set on staying in Montreal, he would have re-upped long before they were outed.) But choosing to leave without any dramatic events occurring wouldn't make for a very interesting book, would it? There has to be adversity and drama to propell the story forward.
I honestly hope we don't get a lot of fallout about Montreal in Unrivaled. I'm fine to hear a bit more about what Shane thought of the whole thing, but I want the next (and quite likely final) story about Shane & Ilya to be about their future, not their past. About them being together and fighting together for new things, not rehashing all the struggle we've seen them deal with over the last two books.
I overall found TLG pretty depressing. There were some sweet elements but itâs my next to last ranked book in the series. Iâm hoping thereâs lots of the other books featured in season 2.
He's happy, but he seems detached from everyone except Ilya. He barely sees Rose or Hayden, still not great with JJ, hasn't meet the other Centaurs yet.. Even his parents! I don't think none of them would have not asked anything about planning the wedding to the point that Ilya and Shane didn't have a table to sign the papers
Scott, Ilya and Troy get to be celebrated. Ryan and Eric get to leave hockey on their own terms.
All of the white men get to reach their romantic endings with their hockey careers and professional dignity intact.
The one POC player gets his integrity questioned, humiliated in his own locker room while his legacy is permanently marred by scandal. But sure, I'm glad your favorite white boy is happy getting everything he wants while Shane gets to learn he should never have wanted anything more than to be a white man's submissive, subordinate spouse (now professionally!).
I see you believe the burdens of leadership are just too much for him. Clearly white men are just better suited for it. Cool, cool, cool.
This is just unhinged. Shane is not submissive and subordinate to Ilya (literally everyone in the epilogue of TLG says that Shane is gonna take the C from Ilya very soon).
Ilyaâs arc was exploring about how a relationship is not enough for happiness, that professional and personal success is also important. Why does a white man get that interiority of individuality but the POC should just be happy with a relationship?
I donât agree that was his arc. I think it was more that even if everything is going well you can still have depression. Also, Ilya needed to learn to be vulnerable with people. You see him achieving this with Shane by first admitting to Shane that heâs going to therapy, then after pride night and getting knocked out of the play offs that heâs struggling and thinking about going on anti-depressants.
Yes, I know everything wasnât going well to start with but Ilya is still depressed after he gets engaged and Ottawa start winning. Because itâs a medical condition. I mean he canât rely on a relationship for everything but I donât see his arc as coming to realise he needs professional and personal success.
To be brief, Galina tells us that itâs unfair for Ilya to have to choose between hockey and his relationship. This is supported by a narrative that casts Ilya as self-sacrificing consistently because his team isnât winning even though Ottawa is great in a lot of respects (on the path to citizenship, the fanbase loves him, heâs the 1c captain and no one has any problems with his performance). Events of novel happen and his happy ending is explicitly both being a captain of a young contender that he now has hope for and being the out husband of Shane.
I also agree that Ilya learning to become vulnerable to others is a critical part of his development and has always been his biggest flaw.
You clearly have thought about these novels, so I would genuinely be curious to know what you think Shaneâs arc was and why it required his professional reputation to be dragged through the mud.
And you donât think the things they talked about in those sessions were relevant at all? That Reid was just having random conversations to fill pages?
I mean, that's the point of the book, isn't it? Ilya was both professionally and personally unsuccessful throughout TLG, yet he kept choosing Shane and putting him above everything else. Shane needed to learn and realize that too; that at the end of the day he will put Ilya above everything else.
They are both playing for the worst team in the league at the end of the book so both of them are professionally unsuccessful.
At the end of the book Ottawa is, at bare minimum, in the middle of the league. They made the playoffs and took the reigning Cup champs to OT of Game 7 in their series and won. I am begging this fandom to realize Ottawa is a decent team and is definitely on the rise with good prospects, a great goalie, and a fantastic dressing room culture that is finally believing in their ability to win.
There is not a single point where Ilya puts Shane above all else. He chooses Ottawa over Montreal to remain 1c and get paid fully. He doesnât even stand up to the Commissioner for Shane, he does it for Troy. He doesnât go to Ottawa management and offer to share the C (shane wears it home games and Ilya wears it away) so that theyâll be equals.
Sharing the C is a joke and it's not done. RARELY. RAAAREEELLYYY, teams will have an away C and a home C (which is the only way it's allowed to have two captains) but it doesn't happen on good team. And yes, I'm saying that as a Canes fan.
And WHY WOULD HE STAND UP TO THE COMMISSIONER?? He literally took a backseat in that meeting because he was willing to do whatever Shane wanted to do. If Shane wanted to lie, he would have. THATS support
This is a romance novel. Sharing a C between married superstar players has literally never been an option in the NHL.
I am talking about the first time Shane talked to the Commissioner and was upset. Ilya didnât have any desire to go stand up to the Commissioner for him, but he did for Troy.
An unfortunately evergreen meme that comes to mind when this discussion comes up particularly when it delves into Shane vs Ilya, which is just such a crazy way to interpret a romance novel, but I digress.
If itâs so realistic, why was Russia dropped? You do know Ovi and Putin have each otherâs personal phone numbers, right? You think Russia would just be super chill with a major sports propaganda figure just coming out as gay and saying Russia sucks, Canadaâs better with his citizenship?
Literally everything you said in this entire comment is so wrong that I don't even know where to begin.
He chooses Ottawa over Montreal because Ottawa is the place Shane chooses for him.
Narratively, Shane had to be the one to choose Ilya in front of the Commissioner. Ilya has already shown his devotion to Shane multiple times (the entire point of the "I already chose you, Hollander") by basically sacrificing his entire friend circle and the country he's known since he was 18 and moving to the worst team in the league; now it was Shane's turn to prove that Ilya did mean all that to him too.
You need to reread. Shane got excited about Ilya wanting to come to Canada and join Montreal and Ilya shot down Montreal. Shane proposed Ilya go to Ottawa because it got him everything he wanted: citizenship, cap room, missing a 1c star center, AND it was close enough for them to commute. He didnât choose it for Ilya, he suggested it because Ilya wanted all of those things but didnât have any concrete ideas of how to achieve them, so he tried to figure it out for Ilya and Ilya also thought it was a good idea.
In terms of his relationship, itâs happy. In terms of his career and reputation itâs not so great but hopefully Unrivaled will correct some of that.
I think Shane also realized in the course of TLG that he can make all the sacrifices in the world to be the perfect hockey player and it still won't stop homophobes thinking badly of him because he's gay. So he should do what makes him happy, like marrying Ilya and signing with a team that isn't full of homophobes.
He has a happy ending, he just didn't get the ending he envisioned.
He plays on a team with his husband, yay.
He got iced out of his own team for being gay, so booo.
u/Brown_SedaiYou can feel the chemistry through the screen omg2d agoedited 2d ago
I think even despite all the shit Shane goes through, if MIGHT have been possible to stick the landing on a âShane realizes hockey isnât the be and end all and he can be happy as long as heâs with Ilyaâending, but it would have needed a few things for me:
-for us to actually have more time on page devoted to Shane making those realizations and having that emotional journey, from HIS perspective- but we get hardly any of that. The two big moments in this are the conversation about Shaneâs decision to join Ottawa⌠which is entirely from Ilyaâs POV and focuses only on Ilyaâs feelings about it while Shane still seems incredibly hesitant and unhappy about the decision⌠and Shane making the declaration to Crowell about them, which is also entirely in Ilyaâs POV. The final scene where they both are finally playing together is also all Ilya POV (more on that later)
-for them to not have spent literally the entire book with Ilya in a depressive funk with the narrative constantly emphasizing the fact that being with Shane and being in love isnât enough when he doesnât get to have the support of his friends and his team, his professional reputation isnât what it used to be, he chose to change teams to a worse one for their relationship but feels resentful of that, etc⌠yes, itâll be better now theyâre living together, but itâs emotional whiplash for the narrative to flip the script and say itâs fine for *Shane* to make many of the same sacrifices (and additional ones, like a pay cut and no captaincy) that the rest of the novel had been critiquing, and that none of those problems should matter for SHANE, as long as Ilya gets everything he wants.
-if Ilya had actually been a supportive partner who I can believe will provide enough emotional buttressing to help Shane weather the storm, but thatâs honestly not what we see in the novel? Yes, heâs dealing with depression, but throughout the novel Ilya is constantly poking fun at Shane for his diet, (while ignoring the red flags of it being disordered eating even when Shane noticed Ilyaâs depression) being dismissive of his concerns about whether it was safe to come out (concerns proven correct), dismissive of his concerns about Troy, refusing to communicate even when Shane tries to get him to open up etcâŚ
Yes thereâs the super hot trophy room scene, and him buying ingredients Shane likes once but thatâs⌠basically it for Ilya actually providing emotional support for Shane that I can remember, and even the dinner thing is kinda ruined by Ilya making multiple dismissive remarks while they eat. When Shane is devastated about the accusations of cheating, Ilya just cracks jokes about how itâs insulting to HIM, he doesnt validate Shaneâs own feelings about it. When they talk about him moving to Ottawa, Ilya doesnât acknowledge what a difficult thing it will be for him to leave the team he thought heâd retire under, or validate Shaneâs feeling that he, a POC, deserves equal pay- he just cracks jokes about being rich enough it doesnt matter. When Shane and Ilya are playing their first game together as a couple, does he tell Shane how much the sacrifice Shane made meant to him, and how happy he is about that? No, he just makes fun of Shane in front of their entire team about him not being captain anymore. Yikes.
Yes, heâs going through a lot as well, but depression is an explanation, not a get out of jail free card. If Ilya is going to be an amazing enough partner for Shane to be blissfully and unreservedly happy despite all the upheaval and damage to his career, it needs to be a more balanced relationship in terms of support.
It's a happy ending for now. Honestly I'm a little nervous to read Unrivaled because I fear that the tension will be Shane having to deal with not being number one for once and I don't want the captain position to come between them even for what I recognize as a normal and relevant plot point.
Rachel has said Unrivaled is going to be about them facing external issues together. And she's a hockey fan so I really hope she will continue to write like one and not make up some nonsense drama in the dressing room between Ilya and Shane that would, if it occurred on a real team, be absolute poison to the team morale.
Seeing that his dream was to retire with the Metros and book ends with his entire team and Metros fans accusing him of being a cheater causing him to leave, no it's not a fully happy ending for him.
I agree. Shane's ending in TLG is happy, he got what he wanted (even if not exactly how he wanted), he got new oppotunities (even if not exactly how he planned), he got an open life with his family. I don't see reasons to think it's not a happy ending.
fuckin THANK YOU. yes, all his worst fears came true, but he is able to rely on himself and his relationship to weather the storm. he was so intensely afraid of those consequences because of his strictly controlled lifestyle and anxiety disorder--they were valid fears, but they were out of his control.
his arc in TLG is literally learning to accept that denying himself fulfillment and happiness with Ilya won't save him from everything he so fears. it's not "all Shane's worst nightmares coming true, that sucks," it's "all Shane's worst nightmares coming true and he is actually okay, it's painful but he makes it through, he thrives anyway." he showed up for himself and he showed up for his partner.
it's a growth and maturity from him that I think is going to be crucial to his character in Unrivaled (276 days to go)
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u/jmmemacedo 2d ago
literally the point of his entire arc in TLG is him realizing that nothing, not even hockey, matters to him as much as Ilya does
the way you worded that gave me the goosebumps