Wow! Interesting topic - exploratory, judgment-free <3 I assiduously avoid posting in here though I love reading things but this one made me de-lurk :)
I have little knowledge of psychology or sociology but as someone who really enjoys relationship dynamics in stories this question appeals to me. I think every relationship you develop has a different texture - it may have an official name "lover" "parent" "sibling" "child" "friend".
On average us humans fall into conforming to the expectations of those labels - perhaps its conditioning, perhaps its physiological. Even animals on some level conform to such tags - though maybe the meaning and expectations of those tags are different for them from humans.
Where things get interesting in a story for me is when the relationships are more than their tags - when there are so many complex, conflicting emotions spilling over that a label is not enough to contain them. When people undergo shared experiences that are more than their tag. When sometimes there's a bond even though there is no tag. Layers of history, layers of reciprocity of each other on different levels. Or perhaps even just a ephemeral passing moment of complete understanding between two people never to return again - but in that one moment you understood this other person completely inside out. That's the most beautiful kind of writing.
As an emotion I don't think the kind of love you feel for one person can ever be the same as the kind you feel for someone else. The romantic love of one person cannot ever be the same as the romantic love of another person. The sibling love you feel for one person cannot have the same texture as sibling love for another. And like you guys discussed - maternal love is also not just of a standard cookie-cutout template. I think love shouldn't be compared - I don't believe in judging "whose love is better?" - is romantic love more fulfilling than platonic? Is familial love purer and more selfless?... to me it doesn't work that way.
Every individual is shaped from their own personal experiences and can only offer themselves in love, in whatever flawed manner they can. And it is the choice of the other person how they respond or reciprocate to it. Sometimes you need to receive love of one kind more than the other. Sometimes you are driven to provide one kind of love more than the other. Ultimately as someone said love is a very basic desire in our "hierarchy of needs" and we all reach out for it, we all radiate it. These different bonds of love we develop - one cannot encroach on the other. Each makes its space and you can never really fully articulate to someone else what kind of space it occupies. It's only there for you to know...
BTW when I'm talking about love I do mean a mutual, reciprocal feeling of attachment where both parties have agency...so for me Kailash's controlling manner was not love. But JNDSD has so many other engaging levels of love to explore... we've seen the heights and depths of Atharva-Vividha's romantic love but I really want there to be nuanced explorations of the meaning of love between Atharva-Ravish, Ravish-Vividha, Suman-Atharva, Sujata-Ravish, Vividha-Sujata, Vividha-Suman, Suman-Sujata... so many possibilities of different relationship dynamics... there's so much that could be written because the 'tags' these relationships fall under and the experiences they have undergone are complex things.
Thanks for this topic :) I don't think I answered your original question but it sparked something in me I felt I had to share!
Naagin 7
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