As much I love Hector x Andromache, I hope Andromache still had something inside her to love Helenus too after so much suffering (the death of her family, the death of her husband, the death of her son, the enslavement, the abuses of both Neoptolemus and Hermione). With both Helenus and Andromache surviving the tragedy, I genuinely hope that they were able to heal together and that their marriage was an opportunity for Andromache to once again experience the healthy relationship she deserves. Epirus will never be Thebe Hypoplakia or Troy, but I genuinely hope it will be immensely better than Phthia was to her. No abusive owners or aggressive jealous wives.
At the same time, I can't even imagine what it was like for her to learn the fate of her loved ones. Maybe she hadn't heard about what happened to Hecuba, for example, but I imagine she certainly knew about what happened to Cassandra considering how much Agamemnon's death seems to have been a well-known topic. What is it like to look at Helenus, knowing that his twin sister had a fate that could have been Andromache's? Taken as a sex slave by an Achaean and threatened with death by that Achaean's legitimate wife. Hermione didn't get what she wanted, but Clytemnestra did. Andromache could have had the same fate as Cassandra. Does she think about that when she looks at Helenus and sees such a familiar face?
At the same time, did Helenus deal with survivor's guilt? He was taken as a slave, but he didn't stay that way for long, as Neoptolemus left him in Epirus to rule the place. He remained alive and in a position of leader, without further threats. He wasn't murdered, he wasn't given manual labor, he wasn't continuously abused. Looking at Andromache, his abused sister-in-law who suffered a fate so similar to his sister, his dead brother's wife, the mother of the nephew who was brutally murdered… I wonder, did he ever feel guilty about this, even though he was obviously not to blame? Did he ever see in her the sister he couldn't protect? Did he ever see in her the brother who couldn't be there to defend his wife? Did he ever blame himself for having uttered the prophecy about Philoctetes and Neoptolemus, even though he hadn't even done so of his own free will but because Odysseus had forced him? Did he ever think that if he had resisted longer, Neoptolemus wouldn't have been sought after? Troy wouldn't have fallen then, Andromache wouldn't have been enslaved, Astyanax might perhaps have been alive. Of course, in the end Troy was destined to fall anyway, but did Helenus ever entertain that fanciful possibility?
I don't know… Helenus and Andromache's marriage has genuine potential...
Yeah, I think I ship them...
