Everyone is Single - TV Tropes challenge
Jul. 19th, 2008 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212I was given Everyone is Single as part of the TV tropes challenge, to write something in response to the trope.
So, I bounced back and forth on this, between whether I should write fic or meta. Ultimately, what decided me is that I really wanted to write Narnia for this, but the characters refused to cooperate. So I guess we're all stuck with meta, then.
Ironically, my first response to this trope was to deny it. Most of the fandoms I've ever visited do actually include married couples. Off the top of my head, the two main shows that I've watched which haven't included at least one couple in the main cast are NCIS and Doctor Who. NCIS fits this trope quite closely, actually, with all of the main cast remaining single for the most part. Gibbs is the only one we know of who has ever been married. (Although, one might point out that the man marrying four different times means that on average the show has more than enough serious romantic relationships, it's just that they're not evenly dispersed.) Everyone else pretty much has plot device relationships of the week (or longer, in the case of Jeanne, but she still mostly counts as a plot device for a large portion of the fandom, in my experience), or in the case of Abby and McGee, an on-again, off-again relationship that conveniently is never on whenever a possible outside flirtation comes up.
Considering that these characters are in their early thirties and up, it does seem likely that some of them would be married if they weren't a tv show. So yes, NCIS would be a perfect example of everyone being single.
Doctor Who, specifically in my case, New Who, also has very few long-term committed romances among the characters. This makes a decent amount of sense within the context of the show, though, as the Doctor is not human and has historically ignored romantic relationships. The current Doctor has even provided an in-canon reason for never doing anything with his companions, with his comments in "School Reunion":
I don't age; I regenerate. But you humans, you wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone you.... You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of my life with you. I have to move on. Alone.
I'm not even going to get into the other issues involved in the complicated canon for Doctor Who, but depending on which sources you go by, the Doctor can be read as being aesexual by nature, all Galifreyans may well have been created by genetic engineering, woven on genetic looms (I am not making this up), or do have marriages and families but the Doctor's has died (New Who canon tends to go with this interpretation). Plus, you know, last one of his kind and all the attendant difficulties that come with that.
As for the companions, well, the ones most likely to dump their old lives and run off for adventures in time and space tend to be somewhat alone or in non-serious relationships. It's a bit frowned upon to drop the husband and the kids behind you because an alien who just nearly got you killed offered to take you on more shiny and dangerous field trips. It's also become a bit of a New Who trope for the companions to fall in love with the Doctor, who alternately seems to flirt back or be oblivious. Donna was the one who most subverted this, in that she was originally getting married to someone and was quite annoyed with the Doctor for interrupting. (Although, considering the fact that the guy she was going to marry turned out to be the baddie of the week and was planning on feeding her to a giant spider, it was probably for the best that that relationship ended where it did.) Even afterwards, when she began traveling with the Doctor, she had no romantic feelings for him. Loved the lifestyle he gave her, and the new experiences, but definitely no interest in him as a guy.
The majority of my other current fandoms actually do subvert this trope by having characters be married or in serious relationships. Firefly has Zoe and Wash, Torchwood has both Gwen's relationship with Rhys and Jack's relationship with Ianto (and backstory relationships for Jack, Ianto, and Owen). Narnia shows a serious courtship for Susan, though it backfires, and has two successful romances in seven children's stories, which is pretty high given the genre Lewis was writing.
And if I went into the canonical relationships in my old fandoms, I'd be here all night, especially with Star Trek.
So, I bounced back and forth on this, between whether I should write fic or meta. Ultimately, what decided me is that I really wanted to write Narnia for this, but the characters refused to cooperate. So I guess we're all stuck with meta, then.
Ironically, my first response to this trope was to deny it. Most of the fandoms I've ever visited do actually include married couples. Off the top of my head, the two main shows that I've watched which haven't included at least one couple in the main cast are NCIS and Doctor Who. NCIS fits this trope quite closely, actually, with all of the main cast remaining single for the most part. Gibbs is the only one we know of who has ever been married. (Although, one might point out that the man marrying four different times means that on average the show has more than enough serious romantic relationships, it's just that they're not evenly dispersed.) Everyone else pretty much has plot device relationships of the week (or longer, in the case of Jeanne, but she still mostly counts as a plot device for a large portion of the fandom, in my experience), or in the case of Abby and McGee, an on-again, off-again relationship that conveniently is never on whenever a possible outside flirtation comes up.
Considering that these characters are in their early thirties and up, it does seem likely that some of them would be married if they weren't a tv show. So yes, NCIS would be a perfect example of everyone being single.
Doctor Who, specifically in my case, New Who, also has very few long-term committed romances among the characters. This makes a decent amount of sense within the context of the show, though, as the Doctor is not human and has historically ignored romantic relationships. The current Doctor has even provided an in-canon reason for never doing anything with his companions, with his comments in "School Reunion":
I don't age; I regenerate. But you humans, you wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone you.... You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of my life with you. I have to move on. Alone.
I'm not even going to get into the other issues involved in the complicated canon for Doctor Who, but depending on which sources you go by, the Doctor can be read as being aesexual by nature, all Galifreyans may well have been created by genetic engineering, woven on genetic looms (I am not making this up), or do have marriages and families but the Doctor's has died (New Who canon tends to go with this interpretation). Plus, you know, last one of his kind and all the attendant difficulties that come with that.
As for the companions, well, the ones most likely to dump their old lives and run off for adventures in time and space tend to be somewhat alone or in non-serious relationships. It's a bit frowned upon to drop the husband and the kids behind you because an alien who just nearly got you killed offered to take you on more shiny and dangerous field trips. It's also become a bit of a New Who trope for the companions to fall in love with the Doctor, who alternately seems to flirt back or be oblivious. Donna was the one who most subverted this, in that she was originally getting married to someone and was quite annoyed with the Doctor for interrupting. (Although, considering the fact that the guy she was going to marry turned out to be the baddie of the week and was planning on feeding her to a giant spider, it was probably for the best that that relationship ended where it did.) Even afterwards, when she began traveling with the Doctor, she had no romantic feelings for him. Loved the lifestyle he gave her, and the new experiences, but definitely no interest in him as a guy.
The majority of my other current fandoms actually do subvert this trope by having characters be married or in serious relationships. Firefly has Zoe and Wash, Torchwood has both Gwen's relationship with Rhys and Jack's relationship with Ianto (and backstory relationships for Jack, Ianto, and Owen). Narnia shows a serious courtship for Susan, though it backfires, and has two successful romances in seven children's stories, which is pretty high given the genre Lewis was writing.
And if I went into the canonical relationships in my old fandoms, I'd be here all night, especially with Star Trek.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-20 04:42 am (UTC)I'm not sure I'd count Jack and Ianto as averting the trope, just because I think Jack is kind of incapable of monogamy (besides the fact that he is a shameless flirt, that whole not-dying business means he has pretty much the same problem as the Doctor). It's interesting; because of the way they've established his character, he gets to be in an ongoing relationship, but still gets to be available for the occasional dalliance with other lust objects. I suppose, though, now I've typed all that out, that it's still a sort of subversion--just a subversion that still allows them to have John Barrowman kiss as many people as they can think of.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-20 05:19 pm (UTC)As for Torchwood, I'm divided on them. On the one hand, before the end of the first season, I'd absolutely say that Jack wasn't fully committed to whatever was going on between him and Ianto. It was fun, they both enjoyed it, and they did like each other, but I doubt he was looking for much more than what they had, and if someone else had wanted to do something with him, he would have been up for it, no problems.
Once he came back, though, he does seem much more committed to them as a pair. And while Jack would have no problems being part of an emotionally committed pairing and still not being monogamous, I don't think Ianto would be nearly as comfortable with it, given what we do see of his personality. And Jack cares now about how what he would do would affect Ianto. So while he still flirts and kisses, because that's part of his nature, I personally don't thing he'd do any more than that without making sure that Ianto would not object. He might not exactly want to be monogamous for his own sake, but he'd do it for Ianto's sake if that's what would be best for their relationship. So that's what makes their relationship feel like an aversion of this trope for me, because I do think Jack is now acting like he's not available for the most part. (Now, if Ianto were up for threesomes with whoever caught Jack's eye, Jack would definitely be all over that in a heartbeat. And then some.)