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." 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)
 * 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.
 * 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."

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)
 * 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.


 * @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:

For the live action television section section:

For web series section:

For the literature section:

Webcomics

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