(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

[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.

[jennyo.livejournal.com]

Well...to clarify, I think using the word "canon" in this context is really the sticker. Do I think Angel/Cordy and Willow/Xander were near misses, and I would rate them probably a 3? Yeah, sure. Like, I do agree some ships are subtextier than others. It's just that when you say the "c" word, you are guaranteed to come into a question of the weight of authority. And "practically canon" is a useful thing in favor of any ship.

I dunno. I can see it being about drawing lines, because what do you do with Cordy/Wes and Willow/Xander where the "relationship" was a kiss or two? But the canon part is...a hard one.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

*nods* I'm interested to see where people draw those lines and whether there's any kind of clear consensus on most of these, though I suspect there won't be.

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

And "practically canon" is a useful thing in favor of any ship.

Reading your first post, I found myself in the slightly unusual position of agreeing wholeheartedly with what you said. I have been rather fed up with the "X/Y IS canon, deal with it" from writers and proponents of ships which did not in fact occur on screen (G/Ethan, for example) and the rather heavy-handed implication that most of their work is therefore done for them as far as believability is concerned, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just a bit dim. But in the midst of all that, I also got to wondering in what way it was a "good thing" to be 'canon', and your comment made me think some more.

For example, just because a ship is 'canon' does not IMO make a fic featuring it necessarily more likely to be well-written, well-characterised or attractive to a non-committed reader. I can barely stand to read any B/Angel or B/Spike fics, and they are about as canon as you can get. If one just dislikes certain characters/combos, even in their onscreen manifestations, what's to be done? And it's quite clear from responses here that people are quite willing to slide pairings up or down the scale simply because for whatever reasons, they float their boat or not.

It may be more in people's safety zones to stick to canon ships, but then a lot of the creativity of fic is straying out of said zones and taking your readers with you... Plus, for me, who ended up loathing a lot of what JW and Co sent us by the end of s7, 'canon' is a very ambiguous term of praise in any case.