(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

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 :)

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

[justhuman.livejournal.com]

I've always used the UCSL definition that the two people needed to consider themselves in a relationship for it to be "canon". So, Cordilia and Xander presented themselves as couple, arranged dates even when they were secret ones. Faith and Xander never did anything beyond having sex... well and attempted murder, but since it's Faith, that's kinda like sex too ;-)

For instance by the UCSL definition, Wes/Lilah was considered unconventional until Wesley said the "R" word.

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

[fannishnej.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much the definition of "relationship" that I was thinking of. I should probably add that to my original post so that people will have a clearer understanding of what I mean.