I love a possessive man.
In fiction, that is. Try that in real life and see what happens.
There’s just a certain delicious quality to reading about (or watching) a main character in a romance, one who might not have fully admitted their feelings for the other main character, or who might be in denial about said feelings, suddenly get this “they’re mine” energy. It’s their way of showing love before they’re ready to actually show that love, a way of conveying that they cannot live without this other person, that they don’t even want to contemplate that scenario.
This possessiveness can play out in a variety of ways and to a variety of extremities, each relevant to the story at hand. Most recently, for romance lovers, the topic of conversation has circled one particular instance of possessiveness: the so-called “Campus-Wide Hands-Off Law” in Elle Kennedy’s The Deal, which has been adapted into the Prime Video series Off Campus.
For those who haven’t read the book, Hannah and Garrett’s third-act breakup plays out differently than it does on screen. For starters, Hannah is the one who instigates the breakup after Garrett’s father, Phil Graham, threatens to financially ruin Garrett if she doesn’t break up with him. The move, in Phil’s mind, will force his son back onto a singular hockey-minded track, free of the distraction Hannah provides. Scared for Garrett’s ability to stay enrolled at Briar U, Hannah agrees and breaks up with Garrett, lying and telling him that their relationship is too much too fast, and she would like the chance to gain some experience with other people. For his part, Garrett doesn’t fully believe her reasoning, but calls her bluff and tells her to go ahead.
Related Content: Relationship Deep Dive: Hannah Wells and Garrett Graham
However, for his part, Garrett worries that Hannah is going to find herself in a potentially dangerous situation just to prove a point, and he instigates the Campus-Wide Hands-Off Law, which is exactly what it sounds like: All men across the Briar University campus are to keep their hands off of Hannah Wells, or else suffer a beating at the hands of Garrett Graham.
I’m not here to criticize the way things play out in the book. I think it works for the way Kennedy set up her story: having Hannah be the one to instigate the breakup, and Garrett’s concerns about Hannah trying to power through healing from her trauma. Even the fact that this book was published in 2015, and the series was released in 2026, and somewhere in the 11 intervening years, the conversations we have around overstepping boundaries—even with good intentions, and just what constitutes autonomy—have evolved. A change in mediums and the necessity of changing plot details for the sake of adaptation also means that plot points, however beloved, might need to change as well. And in the case of the series, they are changed, in my opinion, for the better.
In the series, Garrett is the one to break up with Hannah. The decision isn’t brought on by external pressure, but rather because, in a moment of anger, Garrett lashed out during a hockey game and—deservedly, in my opinion—beat the ever-loving sh— out of Aaron Delaney, a hockey player from a rival college who, Garrett learns mid-game, is also the person who assaulted Hannah in high school. The move gets him suspended for four games, and breaks Hannah’s heart. She is already carrying enough trauma from believing she ruined her parents’ lives, and now she believes she’s contributing to the destruction of Garrett’s life as well. Though she tells him that it’s his disregard for consequences that scares her, Garrett, already worried that he’s turning into his physically abusive father, only hears that he is scaring her, and ends things so as not to make her healing worse.
I love this particular story change because it’s motivated not by misunderstandings or miscommunication, but instead entirely from the fact that these two love each other so much, and only want the best for one another to such a degree that they think they’re the only ones standing between the other person and their happiness. It’s “if you love something, let it go” to the most heartbreaking extent.
Which takes us back to that Campus-Wide Hands-Off Law.
Rather than learning that this is a thing Garrett instituted behind her back while she’s trying to flirt with someone else, and having Garrett himself confirm it, instead, Hannah learns about the law when four freshman hockey players are too scared to even talk to her, lest they face the wrath of one Garrett Graham. When Hannah calls him out on it, after Allie confirms that yes, making this kind of campus-wide proclamation is actually very problematic, Garrett assures her he had nothing to do with it, and we learn it was actually the four freshmen taking Dean’s general threats about not messing with Hannah to their most terrifying extent, and spreading the word across campus.
This is, in my mind, absolutely the right way to both nod at this original book plot point, while also updating it not only for the present day, but also to the version of the story being told on screen. Garrett understands, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what Hannah needs in her relationship with him is a degree of control—to retain that control and autonomy that was taken forcefully from her when she was assaulted. He demonstrates this understanding in every aspect of their relationship. Their first time together, he slows down and stops when he can tell Hannah is tensing up and in her head. He ensures they’re on the same page about being a couple before making it official. He even has her on top in certain positions that, typically, on screen with M/F relationships anyway, have the female partner on her knees and in a far less obvious degree of control. Her consent matters to him. Her autonomy matters to him.
Why then, especially when he was the one to break up with her, would he go and tell every man on campus they’re not to have anything to do with her? That’s not respecting her body or her autonomy; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a violation of Hannah’s trust when Garrett has taken great pains to make sure she trusts him implicitly.
The series doesn’t suffer from losing the Campus-Wide Hands-Off Law. If anything, it’s served by its removal. We still get a nod to it, in a joking manner, while keeping the narrative thematically consistent. A show that places so much emphasis on the male characters’ understanding consent to the extent that not only is Garrett aware of it, but Dean makes a big point about it during his pep talk with Garrett, and even Logan intuits that Hannah’s issues with drinking at parties have to do with roofies and suggests Garrett offer her a closed drink instead. It would be such a jarring tonal shift to go from all that to “by the way, you can’t date Hannah, even if she wants to, because I, Garrett, said so.”
I understand why it’s in the book. But modern stories require modern solutions, and the story is no less swoony for having made this adaptational change. If anything, it’s swoonier. We love a man who respects boundaries, even when he is no longer “obligated” by the bounds of a romantic relationship to do so.
Off Campus Season 1 is now streaming on Prime. What are your thoughts on the “Campus-Wide Hands Off Law?” Let us know in the comments below.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Liane Hentscher/Prime