I've been in one fandom or another (occasionally more than one at the same time, in a sort of Internet version of polygamy) since about 1995, when the Internet seemed glorious and open and full of unlimited possibilities. (Technically it is still full of unlimited possibilities, but one would rather not know what these possibilities are.) It came as a surprise, a thrilling shock to me, that in terms of really liking a show or a book or a game, I was not alone, and like-minded people banded together via the easy communications online. After being used to the concept of being surrounded by those who simply Do Not Get It, who treat passion for a fictional universe as an aberration to be shunned, this was an overwhelming discovery; I had to have a quiet lie-down.

Since then, though, an interesting trend has long since made itself quite obvious to me, and I am sure to a great many other people as well, most of whom are probably more intelligent than I am and have created reams of thesis papers about the matter. Countless rainforests have been sacrificed and oceans of ink spilled (or if you're using a laser printer, almost enough toner dust to replicate the classic atmosphere of Los Angeles) to explore the question of why is it that fandoms tend to gravitate towards romantic pairings.

I, personally, cannot even pretend to be able to explain this phenomenon. It's simply not in my realm of academic experience, which tends to focus more on the elements of a story, rather than the reaction of a story's consumers towards what may well be a pair of minor bit characters. I suspect that this may be more a case for sociologists, or psychologists. There may be something about the human condition, or at least modern day human nature, that almost requires a given group of us to start discussing which character would be best when paired romantically with another. This group may well be as small as two, although I have witnessed someone carry out a heated debate on the subject all by herself, before finally agreeing to disgree.

The debates can get somewhat violent, in a verbal sense: we call these "shipping wars". Far from any nautical definitions, the term comes from "shipping", the fandom shorthand for "championing a given relationship". With this, the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha fans may divide themselves between those who wish to see Nanoha and Fate (both girls) get together, or Nanoha and Yuuno (girl and guy respectively) start seriously dating, or any one (or more) of a countless other combinations and possibilities. Each faction is invariably inimical to another which contradicts it; a Nanoha/Fate shipper may honour a truce with a Suzuka/Arisa shipper, but woe betide any Nanoha/Yuuno shipper who finds him/herself in enemy territory. (Threesomes and above are occasionally considered, but seldom with any serious intentions. Some, however, do exist, and are celebrated by their proponents.)

A tangent: before anyone mentions anything, I am aware that there are a huge number of possible variations in meaning covering just about every symbol in the universe of character sets displayable on a computer screen, plus quite a few more besides. I recall bookmarking a handy little guide… ah, here it is. Basically, we have the slash, the "x", the less-than and greater-than signs (presumably used as arrows), the minus and plus signs, and the whole thing begins to look like the sort of mathematical equation that can only be deciphered with abstract calculus as applied to Bertrand's postulate or some such. (We shall not speak of Gundam Wing.) Overall, this seems to delve just that bit too far into fancruft, and I've resigned myself to simply using the slash notation for every single pairing shorthand label, accuracy be damned. I have enough trouble trying to work out the intricacies of Chekhov's Gun, dammit.

Sometimes the series in question resolves the Canon Pairing; Card Captor Sakura is the primary example of this. Starting from the quite obvious crush Tomoyo has on Sakura, as well as Sakura's fangirling of Yukito, the story unfolded quite predictably the moment Syaoran entered the picture, resulting in a Sakura/Syaoran pairing, with a side order of Touya/Yukito (and, to be complete, Chiharu/Yamazaki and Rika/Terada). This is canon; this is what the creators have proclaimed ex cathedra. The results of this varies greatly: in the case of CCS, the canon pairings are simultaneously accepted and denied. We still have Tomoyo/Sakura shippers (of which I might count myself in their number), as well as Syaoran/Meiling shippers, but we have accepted that canon is canon. Fanfics of these sorts invariably place the story in an Alternate Continuity, or provide for some dramatic breakup or other such removal of the offending party. This tends to result in character-bashing, which is a whole other discussion in itself, although tied to this one quite deeply.

It does provide for an interesting tension in writing fanfics, at least personally speaking: on the one hand, I understand and accept that Sakura/Syaoran will not change, and embrace it as a fact of canon. On the other hand, I still harbour an immense amount of sympathy for Tomoyo, and this tends to bleed into the story inadvertantly; one could say that I could not accept that Tomoyo had let Sakura go so cleanly. Never bashing any character, but still filled with the longing looks that make up soap operas and chick flicks.

Well, that, or I simply avoid pairings in stories, focusing on "gen". "Gen", short for "general", sometimes feels like a rather minor genre compared to the legions of "het" ("heterosexual") or "slash"/"yaoi" (same-sex pairings, most commonly male/male; "yaoi" is specifically male/male) or "femmeslash"/"yuri" (same-sex pairings, female/female only) stories that permeate fanfiction and fandom discussions. Again, this ties in to the propensity of fandoms to concentrate on pairings, for some reason as yet unknown to me.

I'm choosing not to explore the scenarios when the fans reject the canon pairings with some vitriol. That would turn this post into a flamefest of epic proportions should word get out.

Personally, I suppose I'm rather an oddity in terms of shipping debates; often I don't care who ends up with whom romantically, but I do care, sometimes quite deeply, about who ends up in a friendship with whom. Pair Tomoyo off with Eriol, and I really don't care that much. But even breathe word one of this resulting in a distance between Tomoyo and Sakura, a distance born of broken friendship, and I will lead a crusade against the unbelievers. I will call a plague upon all their houses; I will raze their cities, ravish their livestock, salt their lands, and generally be a tremendously unpleasant person to be around.

And after all this text, I shall, as I am wont to do when what was intended as a short post gets out of hand, provide a short summary of the entire rambling, entirely for those who live their undoubtedly busy lives according to the principle of Too Long; Didn't Read:

Fandoms like to talk a lot about romantic pairings. I find this interesting, don't you?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 6:08 pm and is filed under anime, ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.