Will They Or Won't They - Television Tropes & Idioms

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alt title(s): Will They Or Wont They

"Pam is very attractive, no question. If I didn't have an award show to host, I could easily see having two or three seasons of will they won't they sexual tension that ultimately goes nowhere."
— Conan O'Brien, Emmy 2006 opening skit, after crashing The Office

Janitor: For three years I've been watching you pine after Blonde Doctor, and I gotta tell you, everyone is sick of it! "Will they? Won't they? Looks like they're going to! Ooh, the last second, something might — ooh ooh ooh!" Come on! Enough already! I mean, you guys aren't exactly Ross and Rachel.
J.D.: Who?
Janitor: Dr. Ross, and Rachel from bookkeeping.
— Scrubs

Two characters, often combative but with obvious Unresolved Sexual Tension (or UST), resist going into a full blown relationship for a rather long time. Usually the two characters will be presented so that "they will" is the conclusion to root for; only rarely is the question of whether the writers think they should in any real doubt.

Actually ending the dance is a tricky business. It is difficult for shows to recover from the loss of a major source of dramatic tension represented by an unrequited relationship. Many shows Jump the Shark or suffer Shipping Bed Death when the two characters finally get together. A common problem is that the show suddenly becomes about the relationship rather than remaining true to its original premise. Sometimes an attempt is made to introduce a new source of dramatic tension, but it is frequently cheesy and lame. To avoid this, many shows choose to answer the question and end the show nearly simultaneously via a Last Minute Hookup.

Of course, the opposite can also occur. Shows can go out of their way to avoid resolving the relationship, making ever-more-desperate narrative leaps until, by the time they finally let the characters get together, the show has lost its viewership anyway. When A Jerk Loves A Tsundere is often a victim of this.

Sometimes a Love Epiphany can be used to have a character realize his/her feelings, but still not resolve the question, just add a new dynamic to it.

A fundamental Shipping strategy.

Compare Just Friends — They Do.

Contrast The Straight Will And Grace — they won't.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

This troper would argue that this applies to almost every Shoujo anime/manga in existence.
- And a great deal of Shonen too.
- Averted in Akazukin Cha Cha though... and maybe that's why nobody has heard of it.
Welcome to the NHK has the complex relationship between Satou and the girl acting as his "saving angel", Misaki.
Maison Ikkoku is all about the question whether Unlucky Everydude and the Landlady will get together — which takes 96 episodes in total. Phew.
In the same vein, Kimagure Orange Road, which took 48 episodes, 8 OVAs, and a movie before ever resolving it. The second movie tried to revive it.
Most of the plot in Lovely Complex revolves around the question whether the Huge Schoolgirl female lead can get a hold of the shorter guy she's in love with.
Hagino and Mari in Blue Drop get into a complex love/hate-relationship which leads to a lot of drama for most of the series. When they finally do declare their love for each other, their happiness doesn't last long though.
Quite possibly the entire point of Revolutionary Girl Utena. Only The Movie finally resolved it, but considering what an Mind Screw it was, confirmed Les Yay was the least of the audience's thoughts.
Ranma ½ has this between Ranma and Akane; in fact, it's what the entire manga is about aside from wacky martial arts.
- Lampshaded in The Abridged Chronicles:
  Ryōga: Quit wasting our valuable screentime with your will they/won't they antics!
Inu Yasha. I think Rumiko Takahashi just loves this trope.
Mahou Sensei Negima has two of them: Asuna and Negi & Setsuna and Konoka though the latter got kind of resolved recently, what's with the pactio and all that. Nagi and Eva was regarded as one for some time but it as it turns out it didn't have a chance from the start. Not only Nagi made it very obvious that he isn't interested but also it turned out that he was in love with Negi's mother. (OK, we should see that coming...)
- In fact, since Negima started as a started as a harem series, many of Negi's potential love interests could fall under this trope. After the series took a more serious turn, most if not all of them got reduced to Pretty Freeloaders / Nakama.
  - Negi friend/rival Kotaro seems to have something like that with his roommate Natsumi, though it appears to be a bit one-sided: she obviously developed a crush on him but he seems to think of her like annoying younger sister (event though she's older than him). Although since chapter 262 came around, it seems that Kotaro does indeed have feelings for her.
This applies to Hana Yori Dango in every adaption, mainly between Tsukushi and Tsukasa and Tsukushi and Rui. This is thanks largely to the huge difference in social class between Tsukushi and almost every possible love interest that shows his face — though Tsukasa's personality certainly doesn't help matters.
El Cazador De La Bruja appears to be the only series in Bee Train's "girls with guns"-trilogy where the two female leads wind up with each other in the end.
- Noir also seems to end this way, but Koichi Mashimo tacked on an Or Is It ending that wasn't real, which led to Internet Backdraft (and at least one troper's college having to permaban some of the members of its Anime Club).
Naruto and Sakura fall into this trope quite nicely. Or badly, depending on your point of view.
- And Hinata always had a Will She Tell Him or Not. She told him, but he hasn't had a chance to respond.
Shakugan No Shana Yuji and Shana should have probably been making out by the fifth episode. Two seasons later they're still making gooey eyes at each other and wondering how the other one feels.
- Also you got the fact the Yuji and Shana are almost like Louise and Saito, Minus the kickthedog parts.
Code Geass is full of this. The protagonist Lelouch is really popular with the ladies, even without anyone knowing that he's royalty, but he's too busy secretly leading a revolution to actively pursue romance. Nevertheless, he gets plenty of Will They Or Wont They with Shirley (a classmate with a borderline-obsessive crush on him), Kallen (a Tsundere terrorist who would do anything for Lelouch's charismatic Zero persona), and C.C. (the Kuudere witch he made a deal with in exchange for power).
The closest to this in Axis Powers Hetalia are the relationships between England and America, and then Germany and Italy. Oh god, the Ship Tease.
- And in the second case... it seems they do.
Toradora
Maria-sama ga Miteru is littered with hints that Yumi and Sachiko might get a relationship upgrade, which kept many yuri fans hooked. Nothing of the kind ever happens though, despite many opportunities.
- The basic premise of a girl wooing another girl into becoming her soeur also has something of this.
Ah My Goddess can be seen as one long Will They Or Won't They between Keiichi and Belldandy, even though it's a foregone conclusion that they will be together in the end. The number of times they've kissed can be counted on one or two hands and the manga is currently on volume 37 (more than a hundred chapters)! If you count in all the animated series, you'd only need to use fingers and toes to count.
The sneaky bastards behind Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha took a different approach to this regarding the Nanoha-related ships by jumping ten years forward then cranking the Ship Tease all the way to the max without saying anything definite. Suddenly, the question mutated from "Will They Or Won't They?" to "Did They Or Didn't They?"
Aoi Hana revolves around the growing relationship between childhood friends Fumi and Akira, although the issue is often obscured by Fumi's romantic entanglements with other girls.
Ai Yori Aoshi starts as if it will follow this trope and then takes a hard right turn into Perfectly Arranged Marriage. At the very end, finally, they do.
Digimon Adventure had Tai and Sora, who were "very close friends", and were always looking out for each other. The biggest moment of "Taiora" was when Tai actually cried because he might have killed Sora because he's an ass. Then there's the movie. Then there's the second season ending where she marries his best friend.

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Live Action TV

Dragged out to a ridiculous extent on Friends with Ross and Rachel.
- How ridiculous, you ask? It took from the first episode of the ten-year show til the very last episode for them to finally get over the Will They Or Wont They.
  - Well, they ended up together in the last episode. They first had sex in Season 2 (The One Where Ross and Rachel...You Know), then it was an on-again-off-again thing.
Cheers
Extras: Andy and Maggie. Particularly as Andy has no girlfriend (or even any other friends) while Maggie spends each episode in a failed attempt at finding a man.
- This is an only-in-the-fans'-heads example, as the creators always insisted that there was no chance they'd ever get together, and that they liked the platonic male-female friendship too much to mess it up. Andy and Maggie come out of the Christmas special closer than ever, but no more romantic.
The X Files
Moonlighting, a popular '80s action/comedy starring Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd, tanked immediately after Bruce and Cybil "did it". The lesson was probably not lost on The Powers That Be, with the result that fewer Will They Or Wont They questions will be answered with "They Will".
- One point often forgotten when discussing the Moonlighting debacle is that the last major Writers Guild of America strike torpedoed TV production pretty much right in the middle of this arc; a lot of Moonlighting's decline in quality came from the disruption this caused, and it's arguable that the change in relationship might have been handled considerably more successfully if the strike hadn't happened.
  - And also, the fact that they literally couldn't get Bruce and Cybill together at the same time to make the show for ages. Also, Cybill's real-life pregnancy with twins.
Niles and Daphne on Frasier.
Caroline and Richard on Caroline in the City. By the time they finally got around to it, no one cared.
Robert and Amy on Everybody Loves Raymond.
Lois and Clark (aka The New Adventures of Superman). They did, in a marriage storyline that crossed over with the comics.
- Clark and Lois on Smallville. They will, but perhaps not officially within the show's continuity.
  - No, they will.
Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter and General (eventually) Jack O'Neill on Stargate SG-1. They did, but only in Alternate Universes. In the normal continuity, the fact that military officers are forbidden to be romantically involved with their subordinates always prevented anything from happening.
- To a lesser extent, Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran. Vala flirted with most of the main male characters, but more with Daniel than anyone else. Towards the end of the series we even learn that this has apparently grown from light-hearted teasing to actual affection, but what held the relationship back was that Daniel thought she was just doing it all for a laugh. Also note that they did, but again only in an alternate reality.
Fran and Max on The Nanny, but surprisingly, the show stayed funny even after they got together.
Subverted in Newsradio, wherein Dave and Lisa DO immediately before the second episode. (Creator and head writer Paul Simms states in DVD audio commentary that he hates this trope.)
JAG, in which Captain Harmon Rabb and Lieutenant Colonel Sarah "Mac" Mackenzie finally hooked up at the end. JAG can be considered to be the example of the second kind of this trope. Most all of the fandom of the show was incredulous at the pathetic "reason" that they couldn't be together until the last five minutes of the series finale.
The new Battlestar Galactica has two of these: one between Lee "Apollo" Adama and Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (they tried, but it didn't work out and they were married to other people anyway) and one between Admiral Adama and President Roslin. (They have, but it's kind of been a detriment to them running the fleet.)
Firefly prominently placed two of these: one between Mal and Inara, another between Kaylee and Simon. As of the end of the Wrap It Up, Kaylee and Simon have, while Mal and Inara... actually, nobody's quite sure about them.
NUMB3RS: Charlie and Amita. They had to stay Just Friends as long as Charlie was Amita's thesis advisor, but after she graduated and became a fellow professor They Did.
The Office in both versions. The American one in particular has milked two seasons worth of cliffhangers out of Jim, Pam, and this trope.
- Also lampshaded/parodied by Andy, who describes himself as having a similar relationship with Karen in one of his first appearances, directly comparing their relationship to "[[Cheers Sam and Diane]]" and being full of [[UST]], although the two barely interact with each other especially after the branch merger.
Aaron Sorkin did this pretty damn well on The West Wing with Josh and Donna. Unsurprisingly, he was much more subtle about it than most writers. As a result, when the two finally got together in the final season (seven seasons after the show began, and three after Sorkin left) there was no, "Oh, thank god this is over" feeling.
- Your Mileage May Vary, but a lot of people did feel it dragged on after Sorkin left, largely because one of his last acts as writer was to crank up the Unresolved Sexual Tension about as high as it ever went on that show, in time for the season finale... and then when the next season began, presumably ready to pick up the baton, the new writers instead dropped it like a hot potato and left the story to percolate for another three years.
By contrast, Sorkin didn't do such a good job with the same trope on Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Or Sports Night, for that matter (notably the infamous "dating plan").
Arguably Harry and Murphy in The Dresden Files. Especially considering the infamous elevator scene in Proven Guilty and the kiss afterwards.
In Who's The Boss, Tony and Angela danced around the subject for so long (and in such increasingly ridiculous ways) that the supporting characters more or less hung a permanent Lampshade Hanging over it. It seemed they finally hooked up out of the desperation of the producers (they were an official couple only for half of the show's final season) than out of any real dramatic intent.
Farscape had John and Aeryn. Notable as perhaps the only time where officially getting the couple together actually improved the show, as the writers found numerous ways to keep the tension going that wouldn't have worked if they weren't sleeping together. (Also unusual in that they had sex well before they officially got together.) However, it's noteworthy that Ben Browder had suggested that Aeryn and John have sex immediately, only to spend the rest of the series denying it.
House, with Cameron in Season 1 and Stacy in Season 2. He also had a "Did They Or Didn't They" with Cuddy.
- The current season is playing with two of these, one between House and Cuddy and one between Foreman and Thirteen.
  - In fact the only two female characters House hasn't had this with are Cutthroat Bitch (who started dating his best friend, and then died) and Thirteen... yet.
  - He even seems to have some sexual tension with his best MALE friend...
  - Foreman and Thirteen did.
  - As did House and Cuddy, in the season's second-to-last episode. Or so it seemed at the time.
Picard and Crusher on Star Trek The Next Generation. It was there from Season 1 but didn't really become much of an issue until the last few seasons. Of course, they never did (except in an crazy alternate future) and, honestly, that never seemed strange or convoluted, making this a pretty unusual example of the trope.
- Actually, there is a vague very-late-80s subtext in those early episodes that Picard might have been Wesley's biological father, hence why his relationship with both Crushers seemed a little strained at times. Though this of course was completely dropped when Dr Crusher left the show for the second season, and wasn't picked up when she returned in season three.
- And again with Riker and Troi, they did a couple of times and broke up a couple of times too.
  - After settling into the "just very good friends" mold for most of the last couple of seasons of TNG and the movies, Riker and Troi finally get married immediately before Star Trek: Nemesis, with Picard as the best man.
- A couple things to consider is that Picard was a long time friend of Dr. Crusher and her dead husband. A later season episode combined Chained Heat and Applied Phlebotinum to make it very clear why it never happened.
  - In the post-Nemesis continuity in the books, Picard and Crusher marry and Crusher falls pregnant with their child. Though this is probably only because the Trek universe has rebooted and thus the books have been given more-or-less carte blanche when it comes to carrying on the TNG version of the universe, since it's highly unlikely we'll ever see it on screen again.
Subverted in The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.: it looks like Brisco and Dixie are being set up for it, then they immediately jump in the sack. However, it's still more than halfway through the season before Brisco actually confesses that he loves her.
Arguably, Gene and Alex in Ashes to Ashes; they're conscious of the mutual attraction, but have both backed out at least once when acting on it seems like a possibility.
How I Met Your Mother did this fairly believably for the first season with Ted and Robin, even though we know from the first episode that they won't, ultimately, end up together. Currently, the Will They Or Wont They torch has been passed to Barney and Robin.
Scrubs has wrung pretty much every last drop of acceptable Will They Or Wont They juice out of Elliot and J.D. Made more annoying by the fact that they did after two seasons of this, broke up in excruciating fashion, cooled off for a few years, then picked back up very briefly again then dropped it for quite some time. It appears they've finally made up their minds: the two are together. Hopefully for good.
- Word Of God was it was the final season (although no longer, despite an excellent 'My Finale', but the follow up won't feature all the characters), and the writers were sick of messing around with quite a few plots, and so had them hook up early and have them suffer no more than minor drama thereafter, and just did what they wanted with the pair. The Eight season has generally been regarded as the best in a long time as a result.
Spinelli and Maxie on General Hospital now have a year and a half of sexual tension that has only been broken twice for all the wrong reasons. The question here isn't really "Will they or won't they?", it's "Will they or won't they as an official couple?" A good portion of the fan base at this time would rather they stayed friends.
Booth and Brennan on Bones. According to Word Of God, they will eventually in the season finale.
Psych's Juliet and Shawn, for three seasons straight now.
- There's only been two seasons so far, silly. But something DID happen at the end of season 2...
  - Actually, there's now 4 seasons.
Dawsons Creek had two of these: Dawson and Joey, and Pacey and Joey. They dragged out that triangle until literally the last few minutes of the last episode.
The Avengers, between Steed and Mrs. Peel.
Mike and Catlin on Spin City. They did it in less than a year, then Michael J Fox had to leave the show.
Jeeves and Wooster has this in spades, although it's really more like They Should But Why Aren't They? What usually happens is that a couple will go in and out of engagements, seemingly to be made for each other in the end (a kind of episode-by-episode They Do), only to eventually wind up with someone completely different. If a pairing only appears in one episode or a two-parter, they are much more likely to stay together, such as with Biffy and Mabel in "Pearls Mean Tears."
- Most notable is the Gussie/Madeline relationship, which is probably the most on-again off-again engagement in the whole series. In the last 2 episodes, despite all the hoops that Bertie spends four seasons jumping through to keep them together (18-mile bike ride in the rain, anyone?), Gussie winds up with Pauline Stoker's sister Emerald, who elopes with him the same episode she shows up, and Madeline marries Spode, of all people, in the last episode. Although, in his defense, he was actually in love with her. She just married him for his title.
Torchwood initially tried to set this up between Jack and Gwen, but it unraveled when a good chunk of the viewers decided they preferred both of them with their original love interests. Jack and Ianto are an aversion of this trope, as they went from threatening to kill each other to sleeping together in four episodes with very little lead up.
- Since the first series was filmed in its entirety before any episode was shown, the viewer consensus on who Gwen should have ended up with is largely moot and certainly wouldn't have affected scripts. Jack's flirting with and obvious attraction to her early on is entirely in keeping with his character anyway.
Rigsby and Van Pelt in The Mentalist. Well, until They Do in the fifth episode of the second season. Which is good, since he confessed that he loved her and that might have been awkward.
Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl had a "will they/won't they" plot for a season and a half. The whole thing started with them having sex, then they were friends-with-benefits, they she ditched him and went back to his best friend. Cue half a season of will/won't that ended in the season one finally where they get together - and the episode ends with him standing her up for their trip to Europe. Season two had them in a constant struggle over pride and power, starting with who should say "I love you" to the other first. After a while Chuck pointed out they both know they love each other, but can't say it because they don't know if they can make it work as a couple at this point. A few episodes later they take the will/won't in a new direction when Blair tells Chuck she loves him, only to be blown off and mocked for it (his father had just died and he was too self-destructive to accept her love). The rest of the season then consists of Blair trying to move on and Chuck getting in the way, loving her deeply but not believing he can make her happy. The season two finally has her once again declaring her consuming love for him only to be rejected once more. He then returns in the last two minutes, finally telling her he loves her too, and all the hurt they've caused each other is forgiven and forgotten. Interestingly enough what kept these two apart was more about their own insecurities than about actual hurtful things they did to one another. For example when he learns that she slept with his uncle, whom Chuck loathes he was angry but it wasn't an obstacle between them as a couple.
- As of season three they are now together, happy and aware that they belong together.
Luke and Lorelai in Gilmore Girls.

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Lampshaded in this strip of Girly, while playing the trope straight (no pun intended).
- They do. BOY do they do.
Sluggy Freelance. Torg's been pining after Zoe for years. He even hooked up with the Zoe from an alternate dimension. However he never tells her how he feels, and even if he did Oasis might kill Zoe for stealing Torg's affection.
- To be fair, alternate dimension Zoe did die, and Torg still blames himself for failing to keep her safe. So he's developed his fear of Oasis killing Zoe into more then just an excuse and well into realistic territory.
- And it is realistic. Oasis's jealousy lead her to kill ice-cream after Torg said he loved chocolate ice-cream.
- In a recent arc, the question was answered. When Zoe was confronted by an old enemy, she was forced to come to terms with her relationship with Torg, and Zoe realized not only that Torg loves her, but she loves him back.
In Something Positive, Peejee and Davan have been like this for a while, now — but as it turns out, it's just the author messing with his reader's heads.
Punch An Pie plays with this by starting the two leads as a couple, breaking them up, and then leaving it deliberately unclear whether or not they will get back together.
Questionable Content has quite a few Faye and almost anyone (e.g. Marten, Sven and Angus), then also Dora and Marten started off is a short will they won't they
In The Order of the Stick, Elan and Haley. It goes between them for a very long time, until their lives depend on it.
Red String: If recent events say anything, Eiji and Reika will be dancing around the issue until eternity.
- Update: They Do. And there was much rejoicing.
Ellen and Nanase from El Goonish Shive.
Although it's far from a central plot element, the title characters of Penny And Aggie are an example, with speculation and shipping occuring both in-universe (Sara, from the early arc "The Ticket" to the present) and within the fandom (which also has many Penny/Aggie anti-shippers). Complicated by the attraction being entirely one-sided thus far; Penny has erotic dreams and occasional daytime "twinges" for Aggie, but not vice versa, although Aggie's dream in "The Lady and the Tiger" suggests she's subconsciously aware of the other's feelings. Also complicating matters is that, despite Word Of God confirming that both title characters have "bisexual leanings," their principal romantic plotlines thus far have all involved boys.