Comments | selenak: Best Friends For... a rather limited time-span? (Spoilers for West Wing, BtVS, AtS and DS9)

selenak

Best Friends For... a rather limited time-span? (Spoilers for West Wing, BtVS, AtS and DS9)

Sep 01, 2009 09:17

Recently I rewatched some West Wing episodes (from early s3, and the one where the Republicans call a tax for millionaires "the death tax" to lobby against it made me go "zomg, Sorkin and friends really were prescient sometimes!"), and aside from revelling in dialogue, character affection etc., it reminded me of a suspension of disbelief problem of ( Read more... )

ds9, west wing, meta, buffy, disney, marvel, angel, star trek

Comments 18

gehayi September 1 2009, 16:10:00 UTC

What do you do, oh flist? When characters are portrayed as good friends in canon (doesn't matter whether or not you also ship them in a romantic sense or see the relationship as platonic or the family type of bond; there just has to be an on screen closeness that awoke your interest), and then these characters cease to have scenes together, and don't reference each other in dialogue anymore, either. Do you go the denial route - "they're still friends, we just don't see a lot of scenes"/"they're still friends, I reject on screen canon" - or do you accomodate for the changed on screen circumstances in your perception of the relationship(s)?I think it depends on the characters. Sometimes you can handwave that they're still friends offscreen. Other times, the circumstances make that impossible ( ... )

selenak September 2 2009, 08:24:43 UTC

I figured, in the case of Spike and Dawn, that Dawn chose to spend less time with Spike after nearly resurrecting her mother as a zombie

Hm, but until and including Bargaining, they still have scenes together indicating a close relationship. Otherwise I could see your reasoning.

violaswamp September 1 2009, 19:36:35 UTC

Do you go the denial route - "they're still friends, we just don't see a lot of scenes"/

This is what I did for TWW--otherwise it doesn't make sense. Sam's exit was very, very jarring for me, especially coming right after Toby said he wanted to stand beside Sam while the Orange County voters threw rocks at him. To go from that to never mentioning Sam...well, it didn't make sense. So I think the more logical course would be, esp. given the show's habit of "disappearing" characters, to assume that they're still friends but we just don't see them interact.

For other shows that don't have a history of making characters vanish in a puff of smoke, I'd probably just go with the changed on-screen circumstances as they are.

violaswamp September 1 2009, 19:37:14 UTC

Ack, bad tags. Sorry.

selenak September 2 2009, 08:27:59 UTC

Well, in the later half of s4 I had the distinct impression that Toby was projecting his "missing Sam" issues on Will and that the show wanted me to assume that. It's the non-mentioning from s5 onwards that makes me have to choose either "they drifted apart" or "they remained friends, we just weren't privy to their conversations anymore".

If you picked the later, though, does that man that in s7, in your head Sam is still in contact with Toby. lending moral support, and neither Josh or Toby mention this because Toby likes his secrets?

violaswamp September 3 2009, 02:57:27 UTC

Toby was projecting his "missing Sam" issues on Will and that the show wanted me to assume that.

I can definitely see that. It's been a while since I've seen the latter half of S4, but that makes sense.

If you picked the later, though, does that man that in s7, in your head Sam is still in contact with Toby. lending moral support, and neither Josh or Toby mention this because Toby likes his secrets?

Something like that, yes. I don't think they're in as close contact as they were in S1-S4, just because of geography, but I imagine them exchanging e-mails (always very well-written, in an unspoken friendly competition to outdo each other with elegant turns of phrase) regularly and the occasional phone call.

likeadeuce September 1 2009, 21:46:56 UTC

I understand where you're coming from, and I do think there are times when canon gives us a reason to think these people *stopped* being friends, so stories that ignore tend toward OOC. But for the most part I generally assume it's a Doylist issue of there not being time and space to explore all the possible relationships out there. In fact, I think that reinforcing the fact that these friendships still exist, even if they don't get the screentime, is a vital function of fanfic ( ... )