For me, love comes in many forms. It doesn't have to follow specific points in order to be considered love, real life doesn't work that way. However, there is a predominant "love" that is typical of Hollywood pop culture. You go to other film industries like Bollywood or eastern/African film industries and love is love regardless of how it began and even progresses. I think we are conditioned by what we read in books and watch on TV to expect certain things in relationships look and sound like "real" love. We grow up with idealised version of it and sometimes are met with great disappointment when our significant others don't act in the way we think they should because our expectations have been shaped and formed by third parties all our lives.
The difference between the law and love is that the one is clearly defined within society while the other can be very abstract depending on culture, era, and desires etc. A loving couple can either choose to marry or not. A loving couple can choose to have children or not. A loving couple can choose to climb the corporate ladder or become doomsday preppers. A loving couple can love at first sight or grow to love one another in arranged marriages. In some cultures, polygamy is still practiced and it's not a cultish environment but culture that spans centuries. In Hollywood we've seen love at first sight, best friends falling in love, enemies falling in love, people coming together for any number of reasons including children, some of those unions worked out others didn't.
I have zero problems with Nick and Adalind because I see the commonality in their relationship. I know Nick and Juliette loved one another but because I felt that they were two opposing forces at work between them once Nick became a Grimm, I believed that their relationship was not sustainable and it wasn't. This isn't the case with Nick and Adalind and they are together even after twenty years. They learnt fairly quickly to work together as a unit (and I'm not talking about cases of the week, that's a job not a relationship) and when they decided to explore their relationship in a more romantic sphere, they clicked. It wasn't easy for them and it shouldn't have been with their past but when faced with the option of being apart, even superficially with the whole Black Claw nonsense, it allowed them to face the truth about their situation, that they did love one another and couldn't stand being apart even for the short time it happened and when Adalind died, Nick was willing to do something completely stupid and wrong because he thought it would bring her back and he refused to be without her. It may not make sense to others because of any number of reasons people come up with to suit their views, but to me, I absolutely get it. I would never claim this had it been five years ago but after the lives these two individuals have lived, it's no wonder they gravitated towards each other as much as they did. They didn't have to but it happened anyway.
The difference between the law and love is that the one is clearly defined within society while the other can be very abstract depending on culture, era, and desires etc. A loving couple can either choose to marry or not. A loving couple can choose to have children or not. A loving couple can choose to climb the corporate ladder or become doomsday preppers. A loving couple can love at first sight or grow to love one another in arranged marriages. In some cultures, polygamy is still practiced and it's not a cultish environment but culture that spans centuries. In Hollywood we've seen love at first sight, best friends falling in love, enemies falling in love, people coming together for any number of reasons including children, some of those unions worked out others didn't.
I have zero problems with Nick and Adalind because I see the commonality in their relationship. I know Nick and Juliette loved one another but because I felt that they were two opposing forces at work between them once Nick became a Grimm, I believed that their relationship was not sustainable and it wasn't. This isn't the case with Nick and Adalind and they are together even after twenty years. They learnt fairly quickly to work together as a unit (and I'm not talking about cases of the week, that's a job not a relationship) and when they decided to explore their relationship in a more romantic sphere, they clicked. It wasn't easy for them and it shouldn't have been with their past but when faced with the option of being apart, even superficially with the whole Black Claw nonsense, it allowed them to face the truth about their situation, that they did love one another and couldn't stand being apart even for the short time it happened and when Adalind died, Nick was willing to do something completely stupid and wrong because he thought it would bring her back and he refused to be without her. It may not make sense to others because of any number of reasons people come up with to suit their views, but to me, I absolutely get it. I would never claim this had it been five years ago but after the lives these two individuals have lived, it's no wonder they gravitated towards each other as much as they did. They didn't have to but it happened anyway.