(no subject)

[doyle]

There's been discussion on bookworm_jen's journal about canon and unconventional relationships. She proposed 4 rankings of relationships:

1) Canon: We saw an actual relationship on screen or there was a clear reference to a past relationship.

2) Near-Canon: We saw flirting or a one time fling on screen, or there was the implication of a past relationship. I would put relationships that are only refered to in commentary or interviews into this category.

3) Non-Canon: There was no relationship on screen, but there was a significant amount of sub-text or build-up and the writers could easily have worked it into the series without distorting the characters too badly.

4) Unconventional: There was no relationship, and it's highly unlikely that the writers could or would have worked it into the series without drastically changing who the characters are.

I'm interested in how subjective these are, or how much we agree on what counts as canon or almost-canon, so I present a poll. I randomly picked 15 m/f, m/m and f/f pairings, some of which happened on the show, some of which didn't. To play, pick which of the categories above you think each one falls into.


[Poll #480215]


[Poll #480216]


[Poll #480217]

Comments

[gloss]

These categories are really bugging me. Why is a one-time fling, like F/X, in the same category with flirting, like Cordy/Doyle or (I'd venture) Gunn/Wesley? Apples, oranges.

Also, I am all for distortion apparently. All my favorite ships are 4s. Except G/X and O/X, which are 3, thanks to Xander's Ever-Helpful Commentary and Appreciation for Other Men.

Still, yay for data!

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I'm the same, reluctantly handing a 4 to Connor/Wesley and taking Fred/Tara off the poll altogether seeing as they've never met...

[raskazzptitsa.livejournal.com]

Dude, you forgot our lone canon femmeslash pairing, Darla/Dru! Tsk.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

D'oh!

Canon, schmanon

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

Really, who the heck cares? My favorite fics have canon pairings, subtext pairings, arguable pairings, and where the heck did that come from pairings, although G/B (or practically anyone/Dawn) for instance, is a hell of a hard sell and I honestly can't remember ever reading a Xander/Joyce- rather think those latter have to do with being the very attatched mother to teenagers, one of each sort.

A good writer can make me like pairings between two characters I don't care for (Connor/Harmony, for instance) and the load of really inferior writers who deal in S/B, A/B, S/A, and S/X have dulled my taste for those pairings.

Julia, wishing, at the moment for a lot more post NFA gen...

Re: Canon, schmanon

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I have never thought of Connor/Harmony. Hmm, intriguing...

[justhuman.livejournal.com]

I'm already finding the results interesting. I think a lot of this will come down to how people define "relationship". For instance, to me S/A or G/E were more strongly defined relationships than say Faith/Xan, who we actually saw have sex.

By the way, I didn't have it in me to mark Fred and Wesley with the 1, lol.

There's a monkey wrench or two -- which is about making the data interesting, as opposed to a complaint. There's a huge 1 response to Connor/Cordelia, but as far as I'm concerned, what we saw on screen wasn't Cordy because she was being possessed by Jasmine.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

That's a good point - I wonder would that also skew the Angel/Cordelia results?

[kben.livejournal.com]

Huh. I don't think there's such thing as a 4 in the Jossverse.

[writingpathways.livejournal.com]

Two things.

First off. House/Wilson Wallpaper. Rules!!!!! Sigh, they are soinlove. :-)

Second. Just wanted to explain my Cordelia/Connor vote. To me everything we saw on screen Season Four between those two was Connor/Jasmine!Cordelia. Meaning that it was not Cordelia, so there is nothing Canon that supports it in my eyes.

[wisdomeagle]

Good point. I was thinking of that just the other day with regards to Cordelia's half of that experience, and yet totally forgot when I voted!

I know they're awfully subjective...

[fannishnej.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping to clarify the definitions to make them less so, but that's going to take input from lots of other people, hopefully ones who have a better grasp of the series as a whole than I do.

Re: I know they're awfully subjective...

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I'm tabulating the results, which should give some kind of insight into what people see as canon, I hope... (one thing that really interests me is that I've previously seen people define relationships as being canon only if there's sex - which of course means Spike/Anya and Faith/Xander are canon but Angel/Cordelia, Cordelia/Xander and Xander/Willow aren't. Going by the results so far, it looks like that's not how most people see it, since at the moment C/X is the only ship to have 100% #1 votes)

Thanks for starting the discussion :)

[wisdomeagle]

I was so peeved by the 3-4 distinction I finally decided that I'd use 4 incredibly subjectively for "pairings I think are impossible." Spike/Xander and Spike/Willow, I think, were the only ones that got this distinction.

I rated everything with canonical subtext, canonical unrequited, or a one-time fling a 2.

ps:

[wisdomeagle]

Angel/Doyle is canon in the Birthdayverse!

Re: ps:

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

*nods* We've seen the visions transferred, what, three times? (Doyle to Cordy in Hero, Angel to Cordelia in Birthday, Cordelia to Angel in You're Welcome) And all by kisses.

...wait, the Birthdayverse was all set up by Jasmine via Skip, right? Jasmine ships Angel/Doyle!

[jennyo.livejournal.com]

I...don't know if I see the point of the middle two categories. Ultimately, no matter how implied one's pet non-canon ship of choice is implied (even into DVD commentary or script notes), the minute you stray into this "it's practically CANON!" nonsense, you're ignoring a very simple fact. No matter how close it came? It didn't happen in canon. And by pretending otherwise, it leaves us without any way to have a shared source text because my practically canon diverges radically with a number of people's. Now, given I already feel that way most of the time, I don't know if that's a useful thing, because the only thing that determines PRACTICALLY canon is, well, fashion and individual taste, and ignores the other simple fact that even canon relationships can be written by people who don't really do a good job with canon characterization, or that by "distorting" the characters and going from point A to point X with some logical connections, you can make some pretty "unbelievable" things work in fic.

So I can see kind of what you're trying to gauge, but I'm not sure there's a useful point in it, given how fashion changes. That's...problematic and I also think it moves the burden of work on the reader (you don't GET Spander? OMG, but they're PRACTICALLY CANON!) than on the writer (Spander wasn't canon. But I like the idea, and I can see how it would work. Here you go, with some connection between the Spike and Xander of actual canon and the Spike and Xander of my story.)

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

the minute you stray into this "it's practically CANON!" nonsense, you're ignoring a very simple fact. No matter how close it came? It didn't happen in canon.

But Angel/Cordelia and Wes/Fred - both of which I'd count as happening onscreen - are getting votes in the 'practically canon' category. That's what I'm mostly interested in, seeing what people don't count as canon as much as what they do.

*rereads sentence* Damn, my grammar sucks at this time of night.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Interesting poll. My problem is what about pairings that seemed one sided. For example, a case can easily be made for Doyle lusting after Angel but I personally never saw any interest on Angel's part.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had that problem too. Not specifically with Doyle, but with such things as Xander/Buffy. It's canon that he wanted her and that she didn't want him. That means it's not a 1, but as I see it it could range anywhere from 2 (he's flirting with her) to 4 (she explicitly said it wouldn't happen).

[ros-fod.livejournal.com]

Wow. I find it *facinating* that people actually will count couples that we've seen consummate their relationships ON SCREEN as being 2/3/and even 4s.

Huh.

Really cool, Doyle. Although I weep for the lack of Angel/Connor as a choice. *G*

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

It was there! Right until posting, when I bumped it for Connor/Wesley *g*

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Damn, it's funny how canonically slutty the characters seem in the M/F pairings. All those spell episodes. (I'm thinking of Buffy/Xander, Joyce/Xander...)

[nothingbutfic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I too have a problem with the categorisations, because how do we use one sided ness? We know, for example, that Xander carried a torch for Buffy (and may have had a thing for Joyce) canonically, so does that torch make it a '1'? (For it was a canonical feeling, but as it takes two to make a ship, do we bump it down to a 3?)

And argh, no Angel/Connor?

Also, the thing about Connor/Cordy is for my money, we never know exactly when the possession happened. You could make the argument it happened after she got turned into a demon and the self in the mirror in Tomorrow is really Jasmine, too; that Cordy has a split personality from half way through S3, in which case Angel/Cordy also is problematic. For me, I see Cordy as only really being taken over well and good probably around the time the sun goes out; previously Jasmine-as-subconscious steered her into things, but they weren't anything she wouldn't have done normally.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Possessed!Cordy killed Manny to get one of the tokens the Beast needed to put the sun out, and that's not something you can easily explain as subconscious steering. As far as I'm concerned Cordy is not there at all from the end of "The House Always Wins" (except when High School Cordelia is running the body in "Spin the Bottle") and "You're Welcome".

[(Anonymous)]

Delurking to say that this is really interesting!!

Lots of good points regarding how people approach the issues (ie relationship vs. sex, slasher vs. non-slasher). I'm just curious - any particular reason you used definite categories instead of a scale (ie "Canon" on one end, and "so totally not" on the other)??

phy

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't make up the categories, the discussion that prompted the poll was about defining ships in this way... I wonder if the results would be different with a canon-to-not scale? Hmm.

[skipthedemon.livejournal.com]

Personally, if we don't see anything on the screen, but it's heavily implied, like S/A or if the "relationship" consists of a few kisses over an episode or two, then I'm putting it under "2". However, I did put Connor/Cordy under 1, and Fred/Wes under 2, so maybe I'm not as consistent as I thought.

[fannishnej.livejournal.com]

if we don't see anything on the screen, but it's heavily implied, like S/A or if the "relationship" consists of a few kisses over an episode or two, then I'm putting it under "2".

That's pretty much what I was thinking when I made my original post. If you can think of a way I could re-phrase it that would make that clearer, please let me know.

[xanphibian.livejournal.com]

pardon me for not actually reading what the poll was actually FOR before answering it. I kinda just answered what, um, I like. *hides away again*

[katemonkey.livejournal.com]

Oh, how much did it pain me to admit that there was absolutely no on-screen relationship between Giles and Oz?

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

*shares your pain*

[metalphoenix.livejournal.com]

I guess I never really thought about this. Hmm. I don't like the difference between categories three and four because you can find significant subtext between a lot of these pairings, but the writers would NEVER have written it in. For instance, Buffy and Faith literally pooled with the subtext, even a few jokes about it on-screen. But to actually give them a relationship.. not happening. Or Angel and Wesley. Etc.

[romanyg.livejournal.com]

How much did it pain me to give my own OTP a 2? My eyeballs are bleeding from the scratchmarks. It pained me just as much as it did to give Spillow a 2. Because, even though he was hocking out the big ol' loogie of disgust while he was saying it, David Fury did say that ME had initially planned to get Spike and Willow together in S4. So yeah, the subtext, she be there. And I had to give S/A a 2 because of the "one time" comment. *tears hair out* And I had to think long and hard before giving the B/X the 2. But I had to acknowledge the JW comment that he had planned for them to end up together in the end.

And then I struggled with Giles/Anya...2 or 3. Sure the kiss in Tabula Rasa, but hey, memory spell. And then I adore some of the Giles/Wes fic out there, but with the way Giles treated Wesley on screen? Not so much with the tension. And I had to give Anya/Willow a 4 because of their personal dislike of one another that didn't translate into sexual tension for me either.

But this is an interesting exercise in fandom and interpretation of text. I can't wait to see what the final results will be.

[sangpassionne.livejournal.com]

My biggest arguement was the use of 'relationship' as a defining term. Would/could have had sex is very different to a relationship. For example Faith/Xander is a canonical sexual encounter but there's no hint of a relationship there, whereas Giles/Ethan is only subtext and yet I, and I'm sure a lot of others, would definitely describe what they have as a relationship.

Ah, the vagaries of language. :-)

You put in Std. Dev? I throw worshipful sigmas at you.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Anyway, I had difficulties with the poll, especially when it came to deciding between 3 and 4. Eventually I went with 'significant subtext' as the criterion for 3, and thus threw out a lot a lot a lot of ships which have subtext, and which could have been achieved without distorting the characters at all.

Magical interference was also a problem. Trying to decide between a 2 and a 4 for Angel/Eve, I gave them a 3, and I gave ConCord a 1 despite believing it to be a 4 because I was sick of handing out so many 4s and I knew many people would consider that C/C rather than C/J!C anyway.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Huh. Thank you so much for doing this, because I'm finding the results (ie, the discussion about what consitutes relationship, canon, sex, etc) fascinating. Very cool.

And to those who have issues with the semantics -- you gotta draw the line somewhere, otherwise you're explaining and defining yourself for pages and pages and pages *shrug*

[theferretgirl.livejournal.com]

Errrr. watcher_pryce is I. I forgot to log out. Heh. ::Looks sheepish:: Other then that I have no meaningful, insightful comments.

[writingpathways.livejournal.com]

I just realized something, which is very odd considering this is your poll. You didn't put Nina/Angel on the list. Yet you have Angel/Eve? LOL.