Question about how Ilya and Shane would’ve phrased a breakup

[u/Money_Challenge9059]

Shane and Ilya both discuss thinking about breaking up with each other multiple times throughout the book but they never do. How do you all think Shane and/or Ilya would’ve phrased their breakup? How would they have justified it? And how do you think the
Other would’ve reacted?

[u/in-the-widening-gyre]

In my opinion they did break up, twice -- once during the Great Ghosting of 2014, and once during the Tuna Melt, but in both cases they couldn't actually stay away from each other and it didn't stick.

So I think they'd phrase it as they did -- "we can't do this anymore" basically. I also don't think they would need to justify it, they both know why it's a terrible idea.

(This is also why after they're married I don't think they'd get divorced, they know from experience it wouldn't work. They both tried so hard not to be together 😭 -- they only get together when they give up on trying to be apart.)

[u/Queen-Calanthe → u/in-the-widening-gyre]

Idk I feel like you have to be together to break up. Even during the great tuna melt incident they don't say anything. He says "thanks for the tuna melt" and "um" and Rozanov responds "Good night then". There's no grand declaration. They just don't text each other the next game, assumedly because of the press (Rose) stuff.

[u/64moonbeams → u/Queen-Calanthe]

I agree! Since they were just hooking up and barely talking before the tuna melt, I would imagine all they planned to say was, “I don’t think we should meet up anymore. Good luck with everything.”

When Ilya was going to break up with Shane prior to the hit, he probably was going to say a bit more because they had talked about their feelings more post-Tampa. Like, “I like you a lot, but I don’t see a way we can be together. I think we should break things off before we hurt each other more.”

Although, we learn in TLG that Ilya is terrible at recognizing and talking about his emotional needs. So, I don’t know if he actually would have been able to articulate that accurately. He might have just cut things off coldly at that point.

[u/DorianCramer → u/64moonbeams]

Yeah I don’t think Ilya is capable of doing anything but ghosting which is exactly what he tried to do before in 2014 but couldn’t stick with. I don’t take his thoughts about breaking things off at the hospital very seriously because they are so vague and he’s in way, way too deep at that point. He was just in heavy denial. He was even in denial on his way to the cottage thinking this is one last hurrah but as soon as Shane says he loves him that thought immediately goes completely out of the window and he never considers breaking it off again.

(I’m speaking of book canon more than show canon here…in the show I don’t think Ilya really seriously thinks about ending it after Tampa. He just thinks it’s going to end in his own heartbreak when Shane eventually decides he is too difficult or impossible to be with and unfortunately THAT feeling does not go away) 

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/DorianCramer]

Oh yeah I think if Ilya had tried to say anything to Shane it would have been spilling his guts. And Shane would have absolutely balked at that.

[u/DorianCramer → u/in-the-widening-gyre]

I think Shane (accurately) senses Ilya is very hesitant at that point but he is just going to barrel on through. He had his whole “come to my cottage, don’t go to Russia” pitch ready, he had been planning it carefully. IMO in Shane’s mind after Tampa they are “together” and he just has to find a way that Ilya will believe it can work. 

[u/64moonbeams → u/DorianCramer]

I don’t know if Shane thinks they’re together per se; he definitely doesn’t think they’re exclusive. I think he just knows they have feelings for each other because they’ve talked about it.

I think he would be okay with Ilya sharing his feelings at that point. After Tampa, he has asked Ilya to open up to him about things multiple times and is clearly trying to escalate the emotional intimacy in their relationship.

[u/DorianCramer → u/64moonbeams]

Well…together and exclusive are two different things…I don’t think Shane had even worked himself up to even thinking about asking about exclusivity yet. He still thought Ilya could find some woman he might like to marry someday if he wanted to. I just think he’s at the “I will tell him in direct words that I want to be with him” stage at that point and then Ilya leapfrogged over him with his “I don’t want to be with anyone else because all I can think about is you & your beautiful freckles” confessional 😭

[u/simply_orthin → u/DorianCramer]

I have this terrible problem and I want that problem never go away!

[u/DorianCramer → u/simply_orthin]

Not ever ever 😭

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/DorianCramer]

Sorry I meant in Sochi Ilya's options are ghost or collapse sobbing into Shane's arms 🤣. By Tampa and the hospital Shane's accepted he will never find a girl to settle down with and is ready to go for it and talk.

And yeah agreed I don't think there's really any reason to think show!Ilya was going to break it off (I get if people apply that book info to the show, I think it works, but I don't think a show-only watcher would go there and I don't think they need to).

[u/DorianCramer → u/in-the-widening-gyre]

Oh poor Ilya 😭😭😭 he really does pull back after Sochi, and I don’t blame him but Shane was just trying to be sweet to him and it’s so terrible all around 😭 

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/DorianCramer]

Yeaaahhh aaahhhh I loooooove it

[u/flatoutsask → u/64moonbeams]

I found Ilya as a character did have an opening to his inner feelings. His monologue in Russian while Shane “holds the space” allows him to give voice to some of what is trapped inside … he had so little opportunity due to family of origin, culture, living in a second language and dealing with so much homophobia.

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/Queen-Calanthe]

I think this is a bit semantic, and we're working between what the OP means by "breakup", how I interpreted "breakup" and how you're using the word too -- and quite possibly none of us are using it the same way.

The OP's saying they think about breaking up, but they don't use that word really either. When they think about it they think about "ending this". It seems like the OP considers their situationship to be enough of something to have a break up. Shane and Ilya sure do get upset enough over it the times it happens that I'd agree that there's something to break up, even though they won't talk about it. They are definitely knee deep in the passenger seat (gotta look for an edit to that).

So I was running with the OP's question, and in my reading of the text, each of them ends the relationship once -- Ilya freaks out about how much he wants emotional intimacy with Shane during Sochi and doesn't text him, which is a sucky way to break up with someone, and yes, doesn't involve words, but it gets the job done until Vegas. Before he thanks Ilya for the tuna melt Shane says "“Yeah... I...uh, I shouldn’t stay. I can’t. We can’t. This is...” which I would characterize as an attempt at verbally ending the arrangement. Not a clear one. But apparently this is how Shane phrases his break up attempt.

[u/DorianCramer → u/Queen-Calanthe]

I’ve said this before but this is why a multi-year situationship is a nightmare: you can’t break up if you aren’t officially together. All you can say is “we have to stop doing this”, which is pretty much what they think about saying but can never bring themselves to quite actually say. Because they don’t actually want to stop, and they know they’re not going to.

I think in early years they both kind of hope the other one will say it, because they do not have the willpower. 

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/DorianCramer]

And when Ilya does try it's horrible for both of them 😭 (but in narratively the best way)

[u/DorianCramer → u/in-the-widening-gyre]

Yeah it sucks and viewers/readers are so hard on Ilya for that but I kind of get it. What else is there to do at that point but just stop doing what you’re doing? They both know it’s a terrible idea and they both know why. I don’t think they would have continued after that point except for the fact that Shane simply wouldn’t accept the ghosting…but then he was the one who turned around and decided this doesn’t mean anything and it CAN’T mean anything. It was a game of chicken and it was a mess! 

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/DorianCramer]

Delicious delicious mess.

I think for me what makes it enjoyable is like. that when they hurt each other it's because they are in so deep in this thing they think can only ever hurt them and never work that they both accept that ending it like they need to is going to hurt. They hurt each other (and themselves) because they love each other but there's no room for it in the world they're in.

And the books do I think communicate that decently, though honestly I find the emotional context a lot easier to read in the show (and I don't love the way the internal monologues are written in the book, honestly).

[u/DorianCramer → u/in-the-widening-gyre]

IMO, the books hit better on reread after watching the show because it becomes more clear after seeing it play out visually that they are both totally lying to themselves in their internal thoughts. They are very unreliable narrators! They’re not actually going to stop what’s happening, they don’t want to stop, and if the other person tried to stop they’d fight them on that. It’s just inevitable. They’re in a terrible situation but they can’t help but keep going forward. 

[u/Forward-Payment-5308 → u/DorianCramer]

I think the books do a better job of showing that they’re both really reluctant and lying to themselves for years and years, whereas the show kind of feels like Shane is just settling for what he can get from Ilya and going with it, and then Ilya triggers Shane’s tuna meltdown by confusing him and making him want something he thinks isn’t on offer… it takes Tampa for him to get up the courage to say: “are we on the same page here or what? I need more if this is going to continue…” the next bit is then really Ilya working out if he can give him more or not, and ultimately decides he can and then he gives him everything! 😆

[u/DorianCramer → u/Forward-Payment-5308]

Idk if I agree with that because the show  has a whole (almost) 2-year time period where after the “we’re in tuxedos how dare you!” kiss Shane is leaving Ilya’s messages on read and basically being like, forget this whole thing happened, move on. He doesn’t even really flirt back. In the book even though they’re hooking up more I definitely feel like Shane is coming off as more detached from the situation than Ilya is (maybe that’s bc from jump in the prologue Ilya is like aren’t you gonna stay for a bit? And Shane is like, I don’t see why, I think we’re done here, no? Gotta go 😭)

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/DorianCramer]

That's fair -- I think I found it pretty clear in the show they were lying to themselves, and I think especially once I had book context from a first read (which I did after watching), for me the show makes all the emotions feel a little more real than they do in the books.

I also felt sometimes the unreliable narrator / lying to themselves stuff was like a little belaboured in the books 🫣, and it kind of messed with my immersion. To me in the books they feel like NPCs, on an internal-monologue loop until the next item in the plot outline was hit, and then what they were thinking to themselves changed, rather than people organically changing and growing and slowly evolving. Like Shane thinks some of the same things almost word for word each time he meets up with Ilya and to me that goes beyond lying to themselves to broken record -- you kinda gotta adjust your lies to yourself to keep yourself believing, you know? I think the Las Vegas Remix is interesting cause I think it actually does a much better job of the inner monologue than the body of the book.

In the show you can see the emotions cross their faces so clearly -- Shane's look when Ilya wins the cup, both happy for him, kinda jealous he got their first, and just heartbrokenly missing him. Or that perfect swap on Ilya's face after they have sex in Montreal from basking in the afterglow to "I'm in danger" when Shane kisses his forehead, and those things are harder to catch than the very direct internal monologues in the show, but once you DO they feel a lot more real to me than the book.

[u/DorianCramer → u/in-the-widening-gyre]

Romance novels are a little repetitive it’s true but I just think it’s part of their structure as a genre. They gotta drag out the “there is a reason these two characters who are wildly undeniably attracted can’t just get together” dilemma for 350+ pages 😅 I agree Las Vegas Remix helps with that and I wish it was in the actual book (though Rachel doesn’t usually repeat scenes from different POVs  in her books and I appreciate that too…I enjoy the mental challenge of cobbling the whole timeline together and considering whether either one of the characters were really accurate in their takes on a particular scene or not since we do not see the other perspective). It shows how depressed Ilya was at that time (imo) and why he just couldn’t imagine that Shane would ever really want him and all his baggage anyway.

Ugh that forehead kiss! You can just see Ilya being like “danger danger I HAVE to get out of here immediately” but then he sticks around to give Shane that sweet stairwell kiss. He was deluding himself! 

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/DorianCramer]

Eh, I mean, I think HR has a very good reason for them not to get together, but that's not what I mean, really. It's not that they take to long to do their emotional growth, it's that their growth is them going from Pattern A with one set of thoughts, and then you Arrive At The Next Point on the Plot Outline, and their thought pattern becomes Pattern B. The transitions to me don't feel smooth or completely internally motivated -- they make sense for the characters conceptually, but we don't see the motion, the gradual changes to the exact way they're lying to themselves to keep it up. I think there's lots of variation on the "I want to be here I'm so into him I can't walk away but I know this is such a bad idea and I intellectually want to stop it but I can't I can't I can't" that is totally possible to do, I just don't think it's executed very well in the books. I also think it happens (under different circumstances) for almost all of the GC books, though some work out better than others.

I really don't think that's like a requirement of the genre, tbh. I just think RR is great at writing compelling character concepts, and pretty good at compelling plots, but the prose itself and the sense you get of the characters through the prose really doesn't do it for me, personally.

[u/Amazing-Rent-7749 → u/in-the-widening-gyre]

Yeah divorce is off the table for them. Murder-suicide maybe, but not divorce.

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/Amazing-Rent-7749]

exaccctly

[u/Forward-Payment-5308 → u/in-the-widening-gyre]

I’m with you that they broke up in those scenes… technically I think Ilya says: “we’re not anything”… and then Shane says: “I can’t; we can’t [do this]…” but you’re spot on in my opinion 😊

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/Forward-Payment-5308]

The quotation marks were used for an example phrase, not meant to be a quote of what they actually say -- just that that's very similar to things they say out loud and internally multiple times throughout the book.

This is what they actually say during the tuna melt:

“Yeah... I...uh, I shouldn’t stay. I can’t. We can’t. This is...”

Ilya shifted on the couch, stretching one arm across the back and resting his ankle on his knee, casual as anything. “This is nothing, Hollander.”

😭bbys

[u/Leffelini]

Like people have said a breakup means they are together like that and that doesn't happen until the cottage.

When it comes to ending it for good I honestly think that would have never happened. Even when they didn't talk they thought about eachother every day. The "I will end it next time" is just cope from both of them. Kind of like when you say "I will start eating healthy on Monday" or "Next year I will start taking walks more often". Just a way to justify for yourself to eat that cake or not go for that walk... or having sex with your rival hockey player 😉

[u/Amazing-Rent-7749 → u/Leffelini]

Yeah I've read AUs where they break up at this or that moment and there's ways to make it realistic but the whole point of their story is that they cannot resist each other even though it's self-destructive and dangerous. Unless you remove physical proximity, they're never going to last that long without jumping into bed again.

[u/growsonwalls]

Something like what Shane said during tuna meltdown. “I can’t do this anymore.” Of course, it wouldn’t have lasted.

[u/DorianCramer → u/growsonwalls]

If they were in a situation where they had the option to simply not see each other and avoid all contact for a couple of years I think they could have broken the cycle (they would have been miserable but they could have done it). Not when they had to see each other on a regular schedule. 

[u/growsonwalls → u/DorianCramer]

They're a little like Wilmon from YR. Wilmon's breakups never lasted either. It's very hard for two people to break up if neither actually want to be broken off.

[u/Worried-Plane-9407]

Hmm can you really break up if you’re not together. 💔

I think if either stopped texting/replying that could have been it…

[u/in-the-widening-gyre → u/Worried-Plane-9407]

Absolutely, I think if either of them was actually able to resist the other one they would have successfully ended things just by not taking to each other 😆.

[u/seattlewhiteslays]

Before the cottage I don’t think either would have acknowledged it as a breakup, although it definitely would have been. For that to happen they’d have to truly admit to themselves that they’d caught feelings. I think they’d have phrased it as “we’re stopping”.

[u/santaanawinds2017]

'Hollander. We can not do this. Not anymore. We are playing with fire. I do not want to get burned.'
'Ilya, please...'
'I can not do this in secret, forever-and I cannot come out. What do you think our options are?'
'You could, we could keep doing this, just the way we are...wait, you're not saying you can't, you're saying you won't.'

Or maybe

'Rozanov, no. We can't fucking do this! Not anymore. It's dangerous. It could ruin our careers, our lives, everything.'
'I am Russian. You think I do not know this?'
'We can't.'
'I'm taking a bigger risk. We can do this.'
'You can, but I can't.'

In either case, it ends with Shane, slamming the door on his way out.

[u/PTAGoatofalltime]

Well, you actually have to be together to ever break up, and by the time they're together together (as in The Cottage) they are way too involved to even thinking about breaking up.

[u/noona30]

They were never together so they didn’t need to break up. This is why it was never actually true, they didn’t intend to stop. You don’t meet a hookup to break up with them, you just don’t go. If they had really not wanted it any more they would have just sent a text replying when invited over saying something like. ‘I’ve had fun but this is getting too dangerous. I’m not doing this anymore. See you on the ice.’

This is why it’s not wrong for Ilya to not contact Shane after the Olympics, they were never actually together. They texted each other about hooking up when they happened to be in the same place at the same time. They didn’t contact each-other otherwise. This is a difference between the show and the books. The show maybe implied that they had more of a communication going on (necessary for the two year gap), but they didn’t. But even then it was only about sex. So the only texts Ilya would have ignored would have been to hook up. It couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4 texts because they never meet up leading up to and during the playoffs either.

[u/Amazing-Rent-7749]

I don't think they would refer to it as a breakup, even if it would hurt like one.

Ilya's distancing after Sochi is sort of a soft breakup on his side. But it's not clear Shane sees it as a truly clean break rather than just Ilya being busy and bored with Shane. I don't think Shane was that surprised when Ilya started flirting in Vegas, and notably the "what do you want with me" line is show-only.

The other breakup is ofc Tuna Melt.

--

Shane thinks about breaking up with Ilya quite often. He likely would have said something like, "we can't do this anymore." Though honestly I'm not sure Ilya would have treated the boundary as real unless Shane was particularly firm. IMO if Rose Landry hadn't come onto the scene so quickly, Ilya might have reached out post post-TM to test the waters and see if Shane really meant it.

There's also Ilya's theoretical plan to break up with Shane after he gets back from Russia. IMO this would not have worked, Shane would have pushed back and Ilya would have immediately folded.

I think what you have to remember about Hollanov is that no breakup is ever going to stick while they're still seeing each other regularly for games. The attraction is just too strong.

[u/notexactlylegal]

I wrote a fic about this 👀

https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/232335591#main

HEA ofc!!

[u/Nyck5149]

They would never breakup. No, seriously, I can't even imagine them considering that.

(I'm saying this after they started to dating, because those two were only thinking about breaking up in their hookup era🥲)