Talk:List of fictional polyamorous characters/Archive 1

Additions

Suggest adding Fluorite from Steven Universe, as confirmed by Rebecca Sugar here. Raymond1922 (talk)

Suggesting adding back Siren though better sourced, as well as Leverage (though this is technically word-of-god confirmation, three characters are explicitly in a relationship with each other).Sockamommy (talk) 06:47, 24 March 2021 (UTC)User:Sockamommy

@Raymond1922, we already have Fluorite in the "Animation and anime" section. @Sockamommy, I don't see Siren or Leverage, but if they were ever on the list (I don't remember them being there), they were removed because of a lack of sources. That's usually why I remove entries from the list. Historyday01 (talk) 16:12, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Fiction or television?

This article is titled "list of polyamorous characters in fiction", but it only lists characters from TV shows and made-for-TV movies. And the description says it's specifically for television characters. So which is it? Is this for fiction in general, or just the medium of television? Maximajorian Viridio (talk) 00:04, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Now its improved well beyond that, which is good. Historyday01 (talk) 00:27, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

lists? well... no

Some doubts about "lists of poly people."

• Merely because one person acts in a polyamorous manner DOES NOT mean that all that person's sexual/emotional connections (however deep) are "poly," and further DOES NOT mean that it's somehow "a poly relationship," and DOES NOT mean that everyone connected to a nonmonogamous person is therefore nonmonogamous, let alone "poly." For instance, one person could have two dozen recurrent intimate partners, NONE of whom wants/claims to be poly, and are each therefore fundamentally monogamous in belief and practice, simply non-possessive.
  • There's no indication that everyone who acts in a clearly polyamorous manner WANTS to "join the club," so foisting the label on them is not only highly questionable, but (if they are living) is a clear BLP violation.
• It's basically impossible for someone to have "been polyamorous" before the invention of the concept. As such creation was a sort of on-the-fly situation, an approximation of the concept's birth would substitute, so 1990. (I've never seen the argument made that "polyamory" was at all intended in some evolutionary manner, though I would truly enjoy reading any contemporaneous account.) Dragging up some corpse in order to paste on a label is clearly synthesis and probably original research.
  • An analogy: Nobody could have "been a Scientologist" before 1952, even if she had been around Hubbard since he created Dianetics (1930s, maybe earlier) and remained highly placed in CoS for the rest of her life.
  • The argument will likely be made that previous terminology such as responsible nonmonogamy somehow weasels this in. If so, then the instant that claim is made, the article's name will become List of responsibly nonmonogamous people; lacking that, please don't even make the claim.
• In order for someone to be (or have been) polyamorous, they must at some point have figuratively stood up and said "I am polyamorous." Lacking that, they must have claimed to accept (if not willingly and actively perform) the tenets and practices that define the concept polyamory. Lacking even that, the individual IS NOT polyamorous.
• An open relationship IS NOT THE SAME AS a polyamorous relationship. A couple can be "open" with one or both actively cheating, and an agreement (tacit or explicit) to "ignore" it so long as the home situation continues along satisfactorily, what is sometimes called a DADT (don't ask, don't tell) agreement; there is no commitment to mention their encoupled status to their hookups, therefore (FFI see below) it's not polyamory, Q.E.D..
  • Per the stated premise of List of polyamorists, in casual hookups there's no "strong, deep, close and true loving, romantic, and/or intimate relationship," and in DADT there's no inherent "full knowledge and consent of all involved.
• In like manner, being inarguably polyamorous DOES NOT mean that the relationship is open. Since there is absolutely no verifiable evidence, we're stuck with popular conceptions and media reports, which heavily spread the belief that MOST polyamorous people are involved in a three-person CLOSED triad (almost always FMF). Portrayals are more marriage with more people (extending the premises of monogamy and marriage, as polygamy/polyandry), a highly circumscribed form of non-monogamy.

As with so many W'pedia List pages, the best argument for the continued existence of this is that it's an excellent means to keep fanboy trivia and ephemera from clogging up the actual, useful, credible information — here, Polyamory.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 14:31, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't see a problem for the page to exist, as long as every character on the list is shown to be polyamorous, and it is stated specifically for those characters.Historyday01 (talk) 00:28, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

a few suggestions

for improvement.

• Many of the examples presented come across as loaded either with fanboy raving (Faking It) or marketing hype (Siren), sometimes both. This ought to be pruned. Simple guideline: If you believe a book/film/comic/series is worth describing in detail here, then that content SHOULD INSTEAD go in the relevant article… and if it doesn't have an article, then it shouldn't be discussed in depth here because it's not noteworthy.

• As others have noted, the claim to "characters in fiction" is a major fail. There is not even one example taken from literature — as in someone who was first described in an actual printed-on-paper book (or at least in a magazine or newspaper or comic book). If it doesn't stray in that direction, the title ought to be something like "fictional characters in media."

• Strictly speaking, a name should not exist on this page unless the character is EXPLICITLY DESCRIBED as being polyamorous; without that, it might be acceptable (barely) to cite some credible reviewer that calls the character polyamorous. Any editor who says "well, it's obvious, isn't it?" is admitting synthesis and any such entries should be removed.
  • So "in an open relationship" or (ugh) "CNM" IS NOT "polyamorous."

• Despite the trendiness of polyamory as an attention-getting trope, the list is maybe too short to properly subdivide, but breaking it up a bit is advisable.
  • For instance, there's a big difference between a character who flits in for two minutes of screentime in an entire long-running series and one who is a central character. How much presence does a character actually have?
  • There's no sane way to compare one who appears in (say) an NBC series and one who appears on short-lived decade-old podcast with five-minute runtime.
  • There's a HUGE gap between an example that is set in some sort of fantasy world, and one that is supposed to be here-and-now real-world could-be-living-right-next-door-to-you. Compare BoJack Horseman and Lost Girl to House of Cards.

All in all, I am eager to see how the "poly fans" handle this, because I will not be gentle if it's left much longer.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 15:44, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

@Weeb Dingle, your comments are good ones. I'm planning to go through this page and improve it soon, and get sourcing for all those listed. So, that will obviously involve some pruning, of course. I may just start from scratch and build it up from there. Haven't decided yet. Historyday01 (talk) 19:04, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Hey, @Weeb Dingle, I made some changes to article. If you'd like to take a good look, go ahead. I did prune it a bit. If you have any suggestions, feel free to add them, because I'm planning to add in some more entries tomorrow. I've heard the same about Siren, and even a showrunner saying Lisa Simpson is "possibly polyamorous," but I wouldn't include either one. Historyday01 (talk) 04:11, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Found one article which says there are poly relationships in House of Cards, I Love Dick, Girls, Orphan Black, Transparent, The Magicians, Sister Wives, Brother Husbands, Big Love, and more... Another says that Wolverine, Cyclops & Jean are poly. I'll have to look into those later. Historyday01 (talk) 17:31, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Entries removed which need better sourcing

For the anime and animation section:

Characters	Title	Duration	Notes	Country
Yukari Sendou	Rosario + Vampire	2008	Yukari (a witchling) has a crush on both Moka (a female vampire) and Tsukune (a male human). Yukari openly wants to have a three-way relationship with them, but Moka and Tsukune don't return her feelings. When Yukari is introduced in both the manga and the anime, she only likes Moka, not Tsukune. Once Moka saves Yukari from being bullied by their monster schoolmates, Yukari confesses her love to her. At this point, Yukari tries to drive Moka and Tsukune apart, out of jealousy. Only after Tsukune puts himself in harm's way to save Yukari from monsters too, Yukari starts to like him as well and confesses her love to him.	Japan

For the live action television section section:

Characters	Actors	Title	Duration	Notes
Emma Hill	Valorie Curry	The Following	2013-2015	Originally annoyed by Paul's infatuation with her boyfriend Jacob, she soon decides that sharing him would work to her advantage, and they all enter into a short lived relationship.
Judy King	Blair Brown	Orange is the New Black	2013-2019	Judy King has both a husband and boyfriend outside of prison, and engages in casual sex with another inmate and a guard inside.
Frank Underwood	Kevin Spacey	House of Cards	2013-2018	Though Frank is married to Claire Underwood, their relationship is open. Frank has a relationship with the reporter Zoe Barnes in Season 1, and he is open with his wife about this. Furthermore, both he and his wife have sex with their security guard in season two.
Ryn	Eline Powell	Siren	2018-Present	Siren focuses on a fictitious town called Bristol Cove, in the Washington state. A colony of mermaids live in the nearby waters. Ryn is a mermaid who comes onto land and befriends the human couple Ben and Maddie, both of whom also become more romantically entranced with her. Initially, this is partly due to Ryn's "siren song" though the pair are later cured of its effects. In season two the trio become physically intimate.
Alvin Bernard Murphy	Keith Allan	Z Nation	2014-2018	In season 5, episode 6, Murphy mentions ze is polyamorous, and we see zir interact with 2 partners.
Christina 'Chris' Alonso	Lina Esco	S.W.A.T.	2017-Present	Christina Alonso, simply known as : "Chris", she's the only female S.W.A.T teammate on Hondo's team. Chris has been portrayed as romantically involved with both men and women as well as Polyamorous as she was dating / living with a soon to be married couple Ty and Kira.
Maggie Naird	Lisa Kudrow	Space Force	2020-Present	In season 1, episode 8, around 17:20, Maggie proposes to her husband, Mark Naird, to open up the marriage given that she's going to be in jail for 40 years.

For web series section:

Characters	Actors	Title	Duration	Notes	Country
Annabelle	Erika Ishii	LA By Night	x	While not often shown on the show itself, Annabelle is struggling to maintain her long-term polyamorous relationship with her girlfriend Ellenore and her boyfriend Mark after becoming a vampire.

For the literature section:

Characters	Work	Year	Author	Notes
Innon	The Fifth Season	N. K. Jemisin	2015	Explicitly stated to both be interested and then be in a serious relationship with two of the main characters.
Rand al'Thor	The Wheel of Time	Robert Jordan Brandon Sanderson	1990	Rand is explicitly stated to both be romantically attracted to and eventually intimate with Min Farshaw, Elayne Trakand, and Aviendha.
Honor Harrington	Honorverse	David Weber	2005	In the eleventh Book In the series, At All Costs, Honor enters a romantic and sexual relationship with her friend, Hamish Alexander, with the blessing of Hamish’s wife, Emily whom also shares a close affection with Honor. Emily admitted to Honor’s mother she would have attempted to seduce Honor if not for her disabilities. After Honor becomes pregnant, she marries the couple; this is legal on the planet Grayson where Honor has acquired dual citizenship. Honor considers Emily her wife and both view themselves as the mothers of both their children.

Webcomics

Characters	Title	Duration	Authors	Notes	Country
Nisa	Always Human	2015-2017	Ari North	The parents of Sunati (Nisa and Prav) are shown to be in a polyamorous relationship with a man named Vish, who Nisa calls "our boyfriend," helping Sunati's girlfriend, Austen, meet Sunati before her mission off-planet.
Prav
Vish

Added in webcomics. Historyday01 (talk) 20:18, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

References