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OTPs, John and Rodney in Fandom.
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equuscentric asked a question over at sardonicsmiley's Unpopular Opinion Post:
how can you love McShep when you have so much hatred for one of the pairing? That sort of thing would totally yank me out of a pairing, so it doesn't make any sense to me.
It's a completely valid question. And I do think it would be hard to ship a pairing if you *hated* half of it, but still, I think a lot of people do it.
I know I don't care for John all that much, but I still ship John/Rodney. I think the reason why I can do it though, is because it's *canon* John I'm not crazy about. Once you get into fic though, it's like he's a different character. And author's have a chance to give us more history, and an inside view of his emotions. So I've come to love Fanon McShep, and I'll be totally honest here and say, especially this past season, I don't really see McShep in canon.
What about you guys?
And while we're on the topic,equsscentric also said: What starts to get my hackles up is that many people, for some reason,seem to feel that they have to praise Rodney at John's expense. Rodney being rude is "snarky" and fun, while John being rude makes him an asshole. Why is it more acceptable in Rodney but not in John? It's all in perception, and the fandom's perception is skewed toward Rodney at the other's expense.
While I can't disagree that fandom, especially the fics I search out, have that skewed perception, I don't know how out of line it is. I've spoken toparadise_city about this in the past (seriously, what aspect of SGA haven't we discussed :P) but part of the reason why I feel ok in doing this, is because of what we see in canon. Yes Rodney is rude, and sarcastic and has flaws and makes mistakes, but they call him on it in canon. They don't really do that with the other characters. The best example I can think of is, of course, Duranda.
John woke up the Wraith, and just got a "It's not your fault". Carson killed half a planets population, and got a pat on the back. One of the things that got me the *most* about it though, is that near the end of that ep, we see Teyla come through the gate into the control room, and we can hear Elizabeth losing it, and totally reaming Rodney where everyone can hear. Now, she's gotten angry with John in the past, but she has always taken him aside and made her displeasure known with stony words and raised eyebrows, but with Rodney, she totally loses it. Rodney is the Chief of Science, and she totally dressed him down in front of some of his people and where anyone could hear about it. Rodney is going to have enough troubles with his staff getting over what he did, but how are any of them going to respect him, when they saw his superior show so much disrespect?
I don't blame Weir for yelling at him, but I do blame her for doing it in a public manner. At least Sheppard kept it at a private level once they were out of the heat.
Same thing goes with Rodney being an ass. We all know he can be an ass, but it's mostly because he's sort of oblivious about people, and can get really wrapped up in himself. We all know he acts this way, and acknowledge it. It's been acknowledged on the show, both by other characters (Sam has said the most outright, but Weir has with raised eyebrows and disapproval, John has with looks and head slaps and I'm sure the others have indicated to Rodney when he's been out of line too) and by Rodney himself (confessions to Sam and Jeanie, and even himself in Grace Under Pressure).
John on the other hand, I think Elizabeth was the only one who really called John on his actions, and that had more to do with command issues than his behaviour. John can be outright mean to others, especially Rodney. I think it's made worse by the fact that John does know people, and knows Rodney, and he has to know as he's being an ass what he's doing, and it's effects on people. Or at the very least should recognize the fact soon after doing it. Also, they never acknowledge John as being an ass on the show. You never see the members of his team call him on it, like they will for McKay sometimes. You never see John react when he says things like that. And it's further aggravated to me, because John has the reputation of being all smooth and lovable, completely ignoring that aspect of his character. Fandom takes Rodney's flaws and makes them better, that's what we're supposed to do, but we seem to as a whole, ignore John's a lot more (granted I know there are fics out there, especially set after Trinity where John is a complete asshole, but those are just as bad, since they ignore John's other qualites).
I think the Rodney fans feel the need to pick on these points, not just with John, but with other characters, because Rodney is the only one who really gets picked on in canon. Carson and to some extent Elizabeth had some personal self doubt, and Carson called Elizabeth on the whole Allies with the Wraith thing, but other than that, I can't think of anything. But still, even when the others are being called on what they do, they seem to still get respect from those doing it, whereas I don't always get that feeling when they call Rodney on his shit.
Please feel free to disagree with me, and I'd love some examples, because it could totally be selective memory on my part. Andequsscentric I hope you realize I'm not trying to pick on you, but you just got me thinking, and said it in a really clear way for me to respond to.
ETA:equuscentric would like to add that she does love Rodney if anyone where to think that (although personally, I didn't get any Rodney hate vibes of what she said, and you'll certainly see that if you read the thread linked above), you can read her response here.
equuscentric asked a question over at sardonicsmiley's Unpopular Opinion Post:how can you love McShep when you have so much hatred for one of the pairing? That sort of thing would totally yank me out of a pairing, so it doesn't make any sense to me.
It's a completely valid question. And I do think it would be hard to ship a pairing if you *hated* half of it, but still, I think a lot of people do it.
I know I don't care for John all that much, but I still ship John/Rodney. I think the reason why I can do it though, is because it's *canon* John I'm not crazy about. Once you get into fic though, it's like he's a different character. And author's have a chance to give us more history, and an inside view of his emotions. So I've come to love Fanon McShep, and I'll be totally honest here and say, especially this past season, I don't really see McShep in canon.
What about you guys?
And while we're on the topic,
equsscentric also said: What starts to get my hackles up is that many people, for some reason,seem to feel that they have to praise Rodney at John's expense. Rodney being rude is "snarky" and fun, while John being rude makes him an asshole. Why is it more acceptable in Rodney but not in John? It's all in perception, and the fandom's perception is skewed toward Rodney at the other's expense.While I can't disagree that fandom, especially the fics I search out, have that skewed perception, I don't know how out of line it is. I've spoken to
paradise_city about this in the past (seriously, what aspect of SGA haven't we discussed :P) but part of the reason why I feel ok in doing this, is because of what we see in canon. Yes Rodney is rude, and sarcastic and has flaws and makes mistakes, but they call him on it in canon. They don't really do that with the other characters. The best example I can think of is, of course, Duranda.John woke up the Wraith, and just got a "It's not your fault". Carson killed half a planets population, and got a pat on the back. One of the things that got me the *most* about it though, is that near the end of that ep, we see Teyla come through the gate into the control room, and we can hear Elizabeth losing it, and totally reaming Rodney where everyone can hear. Now, she's gotten angry with John in the past, but she has always taken him aside and made her displeasure known with stony words and raised eyebrows, but with Rodney, she totally loses it. Rodney is the Chief of Science, and she totally dressed him down in front of some of his people and where anyone could hear about it. Rodney is going to have enough troubles with his staff getting over what he did, but how are any of them going to respect him, when they saw his superior show so much disrespect?
I don't blame Weir for yelling at him, but I do blame her for doing it in a public manner. At least Sheppard kept it at a private level once they were out of the heat.
Same thing goes with Rodney being an ass. We all know he can be an ass, but it's mostly because he's sort of oblivious about people, and can get really wrapped up in himself. We all know he acts this way, and acknowledge it. It's been acknowledged on the show, both by other characters (Sam has said the most outright, but Weir has with raised eyebrows and disapproval, John has with looks and head slaps and I'm sure the others have indicated to Rodney when he's been out of line too) and by Rodney himself (confessions to Sam and Jeanie, and even himself in Grace Under Pressure).
John on the other hand, I think Elizabeth was the only one who really called John on his actions, and that had more to do with command issues than his behaviour. John can be outright mean to others, especially Rodney. I think it's made worse by the fact that John does know people, and knows Rodney, and he has to know as he's being an ass what he's doing, and it's effects on people. Or at the very least should recognize the fact soon after doing it. Also, they never acknowledge John as being an ass on the show. You never see the members of his team call him on it, like they will for McKay sometimes. You never see John react when he says things like that. And it's further aggravated to me, because John has the reputation of being all smooth and lovable, completely ignoring that aspect of his character. Fandom takes Rodney's flaws and makes them better, that's what we're supposed to do, but we seem to as a whole, ignore John's a lot more (granted I know there are fics out there, especially set after Trinity where John is a complete asshole, but those are just as bad, since they ignore John's other qualites).
I think the Rodney fans feel the need to pick on these points, not just with John, but with other characters, because Rodney is the only one who really gets picked on in canon. Carson and to some extent Elizabeth had some personal self doubt, and Carson called Elizabeth on the whole Allies with the Wraith thing, but other than that, I can't think of anything. But still, even when the others are being called on what they do, they seem to still get respect from those doing it, whereas I don't always get that feeling when they call Rodney on his shit.
Please feel free to disagree with me, and I'd love some examples, because it could totally be selective memory on my part. And
equsscentric I hope you realize I'm not trying to pick on you, but you just got me thinking, and said it in a really clear way for me to respond to.ETA:
equuscentric would like to add that she does love Rodney if anyone where to think that (although personally, I didn't get any Rodney hate vibes of what she said, and you'll certainly see that if you read the thread linked above), you can read her response here.
Re: Oh, John
That said, even though JF has put a lot of the character into John, I still can't really congratulate the man on it, because I can't help but feel if it were a better actor playing the part, we would probably have of a character. A good actor can take the crumbs that a writer hands him, and turn it into something more. I think the writers draw inspiration for storylines from the actors. In SG-1, Jack was *full* of personality, it was actually Sam, to me at least, that was the flattest character in the group because that's just how AT acted her out. Rodney though, gets a lot of these juicy storylines, because they *know* that David Hewlett can pull the part off. Like, can you honestly see John being in a situation like Duet? When we kind of got a situation like that in Doppelganger, I totally feel he failed at pulling the second character off, and he didn't have to even interrupt himself! Or Grace Under Pressure? In Sanctuary, which is the closest situation, we see him losing his shit, and giving brooding stares a lot (OMG JF, please stop with the brooding stares! You can't pull them off! You look like a dork! Stop trying to be a serious character and go back to being a goofball one please! Because you're one either way, but at least one way is intentional) not really any emotional punch to us, the viewers, not like what we got from Rodney. In fact the only real episodes that are "John-centric" that I felt had emotional punch are Common Ground and The Last Man, and the emotion from those episodes were coming from people other than John. Hell, in The Toa of Rodney, they basically skipped John's chance to be emotional one-on-one, and I have to wonder if JFs acting came into play there.
Part of what makes canon!John work for me is that he can be viewed in nearly any light because at some point, all those lights have been shown to be valid in canon.
And here, I have to wonder if maybe John fans are more likely to sweep his imperfections under the rug. Rodney fans tend to love him for his imperfections, but I wonder what a hardcore John fan would say to your statement. TPTB certainly try to paint John in a good light, and I have to wonder if maybe the fans do the same, only choosing to play with them when it suites them, and covering up, or outright ignoring them the rest of the time.
I think that if John had known what he was getting into, he'd likely have done the same thing. John takes ridiculous risks, often not only to his detriment but that of others, and I think killing the queen is exactly the kind of thing he'd do, so the theory that John doesn't deserve to be blamed for waking the Wraith doesn't hold a lot of water with me.
*nods*
And while you can make the argument that he didn't *know* I call bullshit on that, because Weir wanted him to wait for a minute and mentioned that these might be the badguys that chased away the Ancients. And John, didn't care. Also, on the other side of the balcony door, there was a gateroom full of Athosians who *do* know the Wraith, who have had to live under their threat their entire lives, and have generations worth of knowledge and stories about them. They could have taken a moment to get information from them. They could have brought some of the Athosians with them for help and guidance. They could have done some kind of research on the Wraith before barging in!
You know how much I love listening to you talk about John. :)
You know, for all we both love Rodney more, we do spend most of our time talking about John. :P