Pair the Spares

Tropes and genres
Synonym(s)	cleaning up romantic loose ends
Related tropes/genres	Everyone Is Gay
See also	Side Pairing, Junior Bridesmaids
Related articles on Fanlore.

Pair The Spares is the term for leftover characters getting hooked up with whoever is left in a specific cast, because fandom (or sometimes the canon itself) doesn't allow space for singletons. This is often the case when a fanworks author wants a Happily Ever After or Happy For Now ending and feels the need to tie up loose ends. It's also a typical solution for the losing rival in a love triangle. The term spans het, slash, and femslash pairings.

The general public's definition of the term has a rather negative connotation; however, in fandom, it tends to be more neutral, as many authors see Pair the Spares as an opportunity to explore relationships or characters left behind by canon itself.

Main Principles

In Canon

The trope is often used as a means to get a love interest out of the way in canon, like when Jacob Black imprinted on Renesmee Cullen at the end of Twilight.

It is also sometimes used to pair a character with obvious queer-coding with a spare female character, like the moment in the third High School Musical film where Ryan Evans is paired with Kelsi Nielsen seemingly to distract from the scene in the previous movie that launched the Chad/Ryan ship. This is becoming less common as LGBT couples become more accepted in media, however.

In Fandom

Pair the Spares can be an opportunity to explore secondary characters.

Captive Prince fandom uses the pair the spares pairing of Jord/Nikanros to explore two side characters that get little to no focus in canon.

The popularity of Darcy Lewis in the MCU has led to many stories focusing on pairing her with minor characters.

Some of these ships go on to be quite popular within a fandom, such as Phichit Chulanont/Christophe Giacometti in Yuri on Ice.

The connotation of the term can vary from fandom to fandom, however, as characters that suffer from Bruce Banner Syndrome are sometimes involved in a side pairing that has no relevance to a story but is still tagged.

The spare can be paired with OCs or other various RL friends or girlfriends. However, pairing up leftovers in a given cast may also mean that an author has to get creative and introduce a crackship.

Other Examples

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Canon

• At the end of Fruits Basket Yuki Sohma, the main competition to the official couple of Kyou Sohma/Tohru Honda, falls in love with a minor character at school. Any pairings that weren't the actual focus of story arcs (Akito/Shigure, Rin/Haru) or showcased throughout the series (Hiro/Kisa) could be seen as this, too.

Fanon

• Gundam Wing has five main male characters and the most popular yaoi pairings take care of the first four. This often leaves Chang Wufei to be the token heterosexual, paired off with Sally Po or Relena Peacecraft. If everyone is gay, Wufei will be paired with Zechs Marquise or Treize Khushrenada.

• The five members of One Direction don't split evenly, leaving one member single unless polyamory is involved. That member is usually Niall Horan, probably owing to a tabloid article that declare "and Niall went to the zoo by himself," which became a joke in the One Direction fandom.

• This was common practice in Ranma 1/2 fandom, where Ryoga Hibiki and Ukyo Kuonji, who were in love with Akane Tendo and Ranma Saotome respectively. The pairing never did become canon, as Rumiko Takashi pointedly added new love interests for Ryoga and Ukyo both.

• The pairing of Aang and Toph Beifong in Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom was common to Zutara shippers, who reasoned that Aang should be with someone his own age.

• The Anya/Raven pairing started out as Clarke/Lexa fic writers pairing the spares, and has grown into one of the most popular ships in the The 100 fandom.

• Ray/Mikey or Bob/Ray were common pair the spares ships in MCR fic, which focused heavily on Frank/Gerard.

• In The Old Guard, Andy/Nile or Nile/Booker are sometimes considered "pair the spares" pairings, as they exist in the shadow of juggernaut canon pairing Joe/Nicky.

• The Nephrite/Jadeite pairing in Sailor Moon fandom was seen as this in the Dark Kingdom yaoi corner, usually dismissed as just pairing up the two guys left over from Kunzite/Zoisite. There were, however, those who genuinely shipped it.

• This was initially the logic behind Shiro/Allura in Voltron: Legendary Defender's Klance fandom, until it gained an earnest following.

Discussion

Many fans find the trope annoying. For example:

does anyone find it annoying when everyone in a fic is being shipped with someone?

[infinitequails]: what i mean is it seems like all the side characters have some sort of relationship with someone else. often times these relationships feel forced and take away from the main ship in my eyes. like, damn, can someone just be single? i feel like it’s a dead giveaway that an authors an amateur and personally i find it really annoying. (to clarify i’m not talking about multiship with two or three, i’m talking about a fic marketed as a single ship where literally every relevant person in the story have a boyfriend/girlfriend)

[beckdawg19]: Yup, couldn't agree more. There are a lot of TV shows guilty of this as well, and it always drives me insane. Not everyone in the world is in a relationship all the time, regardless of age, time, place, etc.

[TheGreenBed]: Yeah, totally agree, just let some people be single! I also get annoyed when the side characters aren't just in a relationship but find their partner and start dating during the fic. If I'm reading a romance fic for one specific pairing I don't care about all the romantic stuff happening for anyone else in the story.

[deleted username]: Pair the Spares is my most hated trope.

[ChelseaDagger13]: I find this particularly annoying in the Harry Potter fandom cause it's not just that they're all in relationships, but that they are all in relationships with everyone from their year in school (+ Ginny and Luna cause they're special), as if there happened to be a perfect match for everyone within a group of 20 kids. Crazy unrealistic.

r/FanFiction discussion post, 2018

See Also

• Pair the Spares at TV Tropes
• Pair the Spares at Tropedia