If there’s one thing I have always deterred myself away when it comes to my favorite video games, it’s generally the fandom. I’m not saying I dislike fandom in general, because I’ve met some of my best friends through social communities. Still, there is a good reason why I only dabble a bit in fandom and if you know a thing or two about fandom, you completely understand why. Basically, it’s because people tend to become very defensive about their beliefs, especially their favorite pairings.

One True Pairing wars are always the strongest and ignorant arguments you will ever witness online. The term derived from “shipping,” which loosely means any relationship involved in a fandom. This can go for the canon relationships (the ones displayed in a fandom) to the very unlikely to the blatantly impossible. Shipping wars have been active online for several years, the most commonly heard of being anything Harry Potter related, where even the own series writer was involved in a fight over pairings.

I have tried to understand how everyone in fandom thinks, but sometimes I still see a pairing that makes absolutely no sense. You can always use a search engine for your favorite character and see several different images of them paired with another individual. I’ve thought hard about it and come to the belief that there are three different scenarios as to why these pairings have come up.

The first is the assumed role. In a lot of video games, you play a character and get to interact with other characters. Well, you start to feel the emotion your character feels; this is especially true of roleplaying games. A perfect example would be the second game in the Growlanser series, Growlanser: The Sense of Justice. You play as a young male who is surrounded by three contrasting female characters which you can unlock endings with based on who has the highest relationship with the character. Naturally, you can unlock ALL the endings (there are eight total), but you must first acquire the three prominent female character endings. The more you play the game, the more you want your character to be with one of those characters, so you focus more on using them in battle or giving them gifts. After doing all that hard work, you feel proud to have them together at the end of the game. A lot of roleplaying games work like this, so I can see several pairings being built and growing a strong fan base due to it.

However, the characters aren’t you. You find yourself identifying a lot with Claire Redfield from the Resident Evil series, but find yourself enjoying Albert Wesker’s character. This does not mean the two should get married and live happily ever after. That leads me to the next romantic pairing situation…

The second common set up I see is rivals. Any time one character hates or is a rival to another character, people will always pair them. Each romantic pairing will always have it’s different story and how it supposedly works out, but the basic gist of it is that the desire of hate is strong within them, it’s only natural they would grow fond of each other. So much focus in what the other individual is doing will lead up to love. Despite all the obvious pairings I can go with this, I’ve decided to talk a bit about Iori Yagami and Kyo Kusanagi from the King of Fighters. The two started off as enemies and eventually grew into rivals, yet they are the MOST common pairing when it comes to King of Fighters. It was only in recent times (2003) that the two have started to work together, but the couple has been around for years before that. This is the most difficult set up for me to comprehend just because when I think of rivals, the last thing I can imagine is the two being in love. It has happened though and that is what sparks shippers into fueling the fires. Rival x Rival pairings are commonly accepted in every fandom and usually are the most revered, even taking priority over canon couples.

As popular of a choice this is among fans, I sit here and wonder how hate ends up becoming love. With the exception of Bill and the Bride from Kill Bill, there’s very few couples that are moving to hurt the other. Most characters have very strong negative feelings towards their enemies. Could you really imagine Chun-Li forgetting what Bison did to her father just for sex?

Still… as little sense as the first two pairing ideas, personalization and rivalry, the third will always remain the baffling one. Random pairings. These are the couples that you would never think possible ever, but someone out there will fight you tooth and nail over the OTP being legit. This is common in Internet circles and I think it’s due to people taking their two favorite characters in a fandom and put them together in a romantic sense for no reason other than “Why not?” Most often than not, the answer to this why not is because it simplymakes no sense at all, but the focus is for fun and ‘ what if’s ’. Another purpose for these pairings are just two favorite characters thrown into a situation just to see how they would work out. My example for this will be Squall x Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII. Two very contrasting characters - one is a loner who closes themselves in and the other is a bubbly, ball of cheer. Would Squall ever like Selphie? It’s possible, but there’s no proof of that shown anywhere in the actual video game. These are always peculiar and generally unacceptable pairings, which are often the source of most shipwars.

In other words, it’s like fandom circles decided they wanted to have some drama and decided to put two completely contrasted characters together. Just to pick the pairings apart and flame each other for months.

In the end, I’m glad to say I enjoy my canon pairings fine as it is. Sometimes I do like to imagine what it would be like if two characters I enjoy would work out, but without the concrete proof of a relationship in game, I can never see it happening without a lot of drama. All I know is when a crazed fan girl comes screaming at me about her favorite pairing, I hide. That’s one fight I am not a fan of at all.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Gamer Culture, Rants, Fandom. 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.