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Ship Sinking is weird

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TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#1: Oct 15th 2021 at 8:35:46 AM

Ship Sinking defines itself as "an event that seems to kill any reasonable chance of a romantic relationship occurring between two characters in the canon of the work", but several examples don't seem to fit this. Take the examples used in the page image, Zuko and Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender. There isn't a "moment" that shows the characters won't get together they just…don't. I fact, neither of them ever even consider it, and it's never brought up as a possibility in the show. So what's the moment when the ship sinks? Just the fact that the show ends and they're not together? Looking at the pairings entry on the Western Animation subpage, it refers to a statement made by the creators, not a moment in the series at all.

More broadly, shipping is something that happens in fandom, often with little relation to the actual work. But this trope, which is about shipping, is a main page trope, when it should be Trivia or YMMV, but I can't think of a good definition for it that isn't just Abandon Shipping.

Am I missing something or is this trope really poorly defined?

Eiryu Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#3: Oct 15th 2021 at 8:54:44 AM

I think it's on Main for the same reason Ship Tease is, because it's supposed to trope events that are objectively in the work. Now both have been brought up as potential YMMV candidates before and they probably should be, but that's the ostensible reason.

That said, the other concerns raised are valid, as I've never seen shippers be stopped by pesky plot developments. Ship Alice and Bob but Bob dies? There will be fanfics preventing/reversing his death. Bob marries Carol? There will be fanfics depicting him divorcing her or cheating on her with Alice or killing Carol. Bob and Alice declare they're Just Friends? There will absolutely be fanfics saying "nah, they're in love, now kiss".

Plus there's the fact that sometimes writers appear to sink a ship and then I guess...unsink it, eg. the end of How I Met Your Mother. You would think Ted meeting his future wife and the titular mother of his children at Robin's wedding would sink Ted/Robin, but they are put together in the last episode.

Limiting it to a finished work to prevent cases like the latter seems like a reasonable first step if we want to keep it objective, but OTOH I said the same for Fan-Preferred Couple and that was shot down, so maybe not.

Edited by Synchronicity on Oct 15th 2021 at 10:56:22 AM

TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#4: Oct 15th 2021 at 9:01:58 AM

[up] An objective trope can't take fan reaction into account at all. Taking into account how popular a ship is or how fans react to something would make it YMMV. "An event that makes fans stop shipping a pairing" is just Abandon Shipping.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2021 at 12:02:59 PM

Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#5: Oct 15th 2021 at 9:42:13 AM

Yes. The trope is intended to trope the "Bob marries Carol/Bob dies/Bob and Alice declare Just Friends" examples I brought up regardless of how the shippers react.

TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#6: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:15:40 AM

[up] Does every instance of a character dying count as this, because it kills every pairing they could hypothetically have? Does every moment when a couple gets together count for the same reason?

Maybe it could be restricted to instances when the characters actually consider getting together at some point (which would invalidate a good number of examples, including the page image), but even that would just be "characters consider getting together but don't" and "characters break up", which seem pointless.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2021 at 1:16:43 PM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#7: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:19:07 AM

I don't see the point of getting into hypothetical pairings. If a character dies with no love interest and was never teased with anyone, it's not Ship Sinking, the creators didn't sink a ship. Maybe the fans had a ship, but that doesn't alter what was objectively in the work itself.

If there was no ship afloat in the actual story, there was no ship to be sunk in the actual story.

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Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#8: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:19:34 AM

Does every instance of a character dying count as this, because it kills every pairing they could hypothetically have? Does every moment when a couple gets together count for the same reason?

As defined, assuming the ships are reasonable? Probably.

Edited by Synchronicity on Oct 15th 2021 at 12:19:49 PM

TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#9: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:24:07 AM

[up][up] As the trope is, it is applied to hypothetical couples, like Zuko and Katara. We could define it so that those don't count. I'm worried both that that makes the trope just "characters break up", and that what counts as a ship being "teased" is very loose.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2021 at 1:25:27 PM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#10: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:25:50 AM

No, Zuko and Katara counts, they were teased very heavily. A pairing like, idk... Aang and Suki? Not so much.

Anything that could count as legitimate Ship Tease probably counts here. If you wouldn't call it Ship Tease, then the pairing wasn't teased and can't be sunk.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 15th 2021 at 1:26:32 PM

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TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#11: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:45:32 AM

[up] Zuko and Katara do not have romantic feelings for each other in the show. The idea of them being together romantically is never raised, except in the play in the pentultimate episode, in which both treat the idea as bizarre and which exists in order to make fun of people who shipped them. They have entries for Ship Tease because Ship Tease is a horribly defined trope that's basically YMMV. A Zuko x Katara romance was never actually a part of the text of the show.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2021 at 1:46:37 PM

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#12: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:47:02 AM

The creators of ATLA were fully aware of Zutara and teased the ship at every possible opportunity. If shutting that down isn't Ship Sinking, then I'm not sure what would qualify for the trope.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#13: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:48:17 AM

[up] Right. It's not about how the character's feel so much as how the narrative portrayed their relationship. Theoretically, two characters could hate each-other's guts and still get teased by the story, and they count as Ship Tease.

Plus, Zutara was originally meant to be endgame.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 15th 2021 at 1:48:40 PM

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TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#14: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:49:03 AM

[up][up]What was the specific moment when they "shut it down"? The one currently on the page is extratextual Word of God statement.

[up] The narrative did not portray their relationship as romantic. Fans read it that way. Also, Zutara was not originally endgame, I didn't even realize people still believed that rumor.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2021 at 1:50:44 PM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#15: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:50:58 AM

Edit: NVM, you were replying to Fighteer there.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 15th 2021 at 1:51:28 PM

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Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#16: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:52:36 AM

Zutara being the original plan is...complicated, but it definitely was claimed in extratextual material, and the likely answer is that some writers liked it more than the actual showrunners. Anyway...

When The Big Damn Kiss is the ending that is implicitly the romance for the kissers.

One could also point to Korra and how Katara evidently had a long and fulfilling marriage with someone who was not Zuko, perhaps.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#17: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:53:42 AM

[up][up][up] The story keeps putting Zuko and Katara into situations where one could easily read romantic potential between them. It's not even subtle.

But the Ship Sinking moment is clearly Aang and Katara's Big Damn Kiss, plus the tie-in comics where they are shown as a couple. Plus, you know, Korra, in which they had children.

As far as I know, the rumor that the creators intended to have Zuko and Katara be together at the end was invented by disgruntled shippers.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 15th 2021 at 1:54:36 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#18: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:54:19 AM

Yeah, here's the blurb on WhatCouldHaveBeen.Avatar The Last Air Bender:

Episode writer Joshua Hamilton wrote in the Avatar Extras that the writers toyed with a Zuko/Katara romance and that Zuko was originally going to be Katara's love interest. Another writer for the series, John O'Bryan further confirmed this in the Braving the Elements podcast when he said that Katara ending up with Zuko was brought up a lot in the writer's room. Even M. Night Shyamalan said that in his conversations with Bryke during the production of Book Three, the two had not yet decided "who Katara was going to end up with". Bryke themselves deny this, claiming that that Zuko and Katara getting together was never considered and that Katara/Aang was "planned from the start". This conflicting information has generated quite a lot of controversy within the fandom, particularly when it comes to Ship-to-Ship Combat with rival sides coming up with their own interpretations of these statements. It is possible that there were Creative Differences among the staff. Although it does seem like Bryke's claim about Kataang being something "planned from the start" is not true, because the initial proposal in the I.P. Bible outlined that the original ending of the series did not have any of the characters enter romantic relationships.

Some people say it was endgame, other people deny it, but it is at least confirmed that Aang and Katara weren't meant to be together. And the Zutara was strong enough to count as Ship Tease anyway.

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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#19: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:57:34 AM

I take it back. If it's true that the writers didn't agree among themselves who would end up with whom, then there may have been some intent to the Zutara teasing, but what matters is the final product, not What Could Have Been.

Seriously, though, Aang is clearly interested in Katara from the very first episode and their potential as a couple is smacked into our faces with a clue-by-four during "The Fortuneteller". I don't know how anyone could watch those scenes and not pick up on it. So anyone who says that the "original intent" was for everyone to remain single must be taken with a shovelful of salt.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 15th 2021 at 2:10:50 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#20: Oct 15th 2021 at 10:59:00 AM

[up][up][up] There's one piece of extratextual evidence:Avatar Extras made the claim, which the creators said was a joke to mess with fans. Every other exclaim that some writers supported Zutara I have ever seen has been an unsourced rumor.

[up][up] That requires us to assume the creator's intent with those scenes, that they were deliberately teasing fans and not just…telling a story that wasn't a romance.

[up] Yes, thank you so much. Aang and Katara being love interests is set up so obviously in season one that the idea that the season was made with the plan being for them not to get together genuinely hurts my brain.

The idea of Zuko and Katara being interested in each other or being in a relationship is not in the show. The ship was never floating.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2021 at 2:08:46 PM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#21: Oct 15th 2021 at 11:03:42 AM

Look, the line between legitimate Ship Tease and accidental moments are blurry enough to make cleaning Ho Yay damn near impossible... but that doesn't mean there still isn't a line.

I didn't watch the entirely of ATLA. So I can't remember specific Zutara moments off the top of my head. But my not being able to doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Ship Tease doesn't need to end in the pairing getting together. The creators can just intend to screw with the shippers. Dan Schneider was infamous for that (now he's more infamous for some other things, but let's ignore that). He knew the fans of iCarly were insane and dedicated to their Shipping Goggles, so later episodes were chock-full of intentional hints and teases just to get the reaction of the shippers (especially the Seddie shippers). He went with Creddie in the end, but that doesn't mean the Seddie teasing never happened.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 15th 2021 at 2:04:34 PM

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TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#22: Oct 15th 2021 at 11:06:56 AM

[up] But that all requires us to assume intent. Maybe the creators were messing with shippers, or maybe they wanted to tell a story about a relationship that wasn't romantic. We don't know. What we do know is that the show, as it exists, does not paint their relationship as romantic. I would also argue that, at least for Herero couples, as it stands the line of functionally nonexistent on this website.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2021 at 2:09:25 PM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#23: Oct 15th 2021 at 11:09:27 AM

See, the thing about Ship Teasing is that it's almost always very blatant. They'll blush, or hold hands, or kiss, or dance, or go out for dinner together. It's rarely ever subtle enough to be unintentional. There's no real intention-assuming here. If you see two characters put into a romantic scenario or having their potential feelings for each other brought to light, then it's probably Ship Tease.

Dan Schneider might've been a bad example because some of his teases were more in the background (some of it just involved spamming the color purple everywhere, because that was the Seddie color). But his intentions were extremely transparent, so that's not a big deal.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 15th 2021 at 2:10:47 PM

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TheMountainKing Since: Jul, 2016
#24: Oct 15th 2021 at 11:12:27 AM

[up] Zuko and Katara don't do any of that, presumably because their relationship is never treated as romantic. The show never brings their romantic feels to the surface, because in the text of the show those feelings don't exist.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2021 at 2:13:45 PM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#25: Oct 15th 2021 at 11:14:03 AM

I mean, okay, maybe they didn't. Like I said, didn't watch the full series, I'm not the person to tell you whether or not they did or didn't. I sincerely don't know either way.

But this is becoming less of a Ship Sinking debate and more of a Zutara debate. If they don't count, fine, whatever, but that doesn't really make any of the actual points less true in regards to pairings that are teased.

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