Ray Doyle

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Character
Name: Raymond Doyle
Ray Doyle or Doyle
Occupation: government agent for CI5
Relationships: partnered with Bodie
Fandom: The Professionals
Other:
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back cover of Exile, Lorraine Brevig

Ray Doyle is a character from The Professionals. He is a CI5 agent, partnered with William Bodie.

Canon Overview

Fandom Overview

Tropes and Fanon

Common fanon and tropes in fanworks and discussion.

  • Doyle is moody.
  • Doyle cries a lot.
  • Doyle the vegetarian.
  • Doyle's previously broken cheekbone.
  • Doyle the former art student.
  • Doyle's "cat-like green eyes."
  • Doyle the elf.

Doyle's Relationships

  • by far, the most prevalent is Bodie/Doyle
  • Ray/female character
  • Ray/Murphy
  • Ray/Cowley

Ray Doyle: Elf

Doyle has been a popular, and seminal, elf AU subject.

The earliest media elf AU story is El'Endu'il. It is a Professionals fic that was published in zine form in 1983, but circulated privately for a number of years before that date. Another very early Doyle-as-elf story is the Descent to Humanity, a 1980s circuit story series by Anne Carr.

Ray Doyle also co-stars in of the most famous early elf AUs from the mid-1980s: The Hunting by Jane of Australia, a multi-volume zine epic that cast Ray as a captured elf and Bodie as a human who frees him; they run away together and have five zines' worth of adventures.

  • a fan's custom zine cover for The Hunting, artist is digitalwave

    a fan's custom zine cover for The Hunting, artist is digitalwave

  • "The Swing" by Suzan Lovett (1992), used as a frontispiece for Elvensongs #1

    "The Swing" by Suzan Lovett (1992), used as a frontispiece for Elvensongs #1

  • from the The Hatstand Express #3, art by Jean, "For all of us who are getting tired of see Doyle getting elfed-out, all the time..." -- a commentary that, as early as 1984, there were enough Doyle-as-elf stories to have become, to some fans, a very tiresome trope

    from the The Hatstand Express #3, art by Jean, "For all of us who are getting tired of see Doyle getting elfed-out, all the time..." -- a commentary that, as early as 1984, there were enough Doyle-as-elf stories to have become, to some fans, a very tiresome trope

The Feminization of Doyle

Some fans enjoy the characterization of Ray Doyle as the more "feminine" of the duo. Others, not so much -- one common complaint is that Doyle is often portrayed as fragile and needy.

One fan in 1987 writes: "I am becoming increasingly aggravated by the portrayal of Doyle as childlike, female, fragile, too beautiful for his own good. I'm guilty in that I cannot depict him in my writing.as the tough man I see him to be in the series, but I hope I haven't yet turned him into the equivalent of a Barbara Cartland heroine. I certainly don't recognise the waiflike creature who is loaded down with jewellery and weeps every five minutes and who is into organic food/vegetarianism that I keep reading about. I agree ... Bodie is tough, probably tougher than Doyle in terms of physical strength but Doyle is the dominant half of the partnership. When it comes to character, he can run rings round his partner." [1]

From 1997: "It's not necessarily A/U stories that girlify Doyle. There are more than enough CIS-based stories that have Doyle as a fragile flower who weeps down big butch Bodie's shirt front at the slightest opportunity. I don't recognise that view of Doyle at all." [2]

In 1998: "...I cannot understand the feminisation of characters. Why do writers do that? Is it because they identify most strongly with that character and, being female, see him as feminine also? Or maybe they really fancy the other half of the partnership and feel they are wasted on a 'real' man? Maybe they're ashamed of their liking for slash so they .. er .. hetero-ize it? You ask how the individual is chosen. I think the character to be feminised is the smaller of the two - simple as that. Daft, really." [3]

Another view in 1998: "[The feminization]... by which I mean writers creating 'nice' versions of Bodie and Doyle, The two men talk, think, and behave in ways that women do, perhaps because the writers (invariably women) are putting their own attitudes into their characters. Such writers seem unable to get beyond this to present the characters in a way that is masculine but will still appeal to a feminine readership." [4]

From a fan in 2002: "...the switching of the difference in their ages in fanfic)... there goes another of my personal alarm bells. This happens a lot in fanfic, but it always seems to be an excuse to wussify Doyle. Make him younger, "androgynous" and (if the reader is particularly unlucky) "slighter" but "feisty" and the next thing you know he's being called "kitten". [5]

Doyle in Fanworks

Stories Featuring Doyle in Alternate or Fantasy Universes

(more here)

Stories Featuring Doyle in Crossovers to Other Fandoms

When Doyle crosses over to meet characters from another fandom, he's usually in the company of Bodie, and quite often the two men meet other crime fighters like themselves.

One unusual series of stories, the Quanta Leap series by Jane Mailander, featured Bodie and Doyle as time travelers who shifted involuntarily between fairy tales, novels, and the future with each installment. She based the series on the television series Quantum Leap, but none of the characters from that show appeared in her fanworks.

In one particularly unusual crossover, Doyle met himself (or rather, another incarnation of Martin Shaw) at the end of a story in which Don DeMarco became Bodie's lover. [9]

If Doyle is by himself in a crossover, he's less likely to meet Lewis Collins in one of his alternate roles. Instead, Ray tends to meet:

(more here)

Stories Featuring an Older Doyle

If Ray Doyle lives to a ripe old age, he may end up gardening, painting, or lazing in the sun. Most stories that feature the "Older Lads" have Doyle and Bodie together in retirement. Here's an overview of the storylines that seem to recur for an older Doyle in these stories:

If CI5 exists, then Ray may be part of it as

  • part of the recruitment for new agents
  • replacement for Jack Crane or Brian Macklin, running the training center for agents
  • Controller (by himself), with Bodie, or with someone other than Bodie

Or Ray may not be part of CI5, and he's

  • running/part of a security firm

(more here)

Gallery

Notes & References

Notes

References

  1. ^ from The Hatstand Express #14
  2. ^ from Discovered In A Letterbox #3
  3. ^ from Discovered In A Letterbox #6
  4. ^ from Discovered In A Letterbox #7
  5. ^ from CI5 Mailing List, quoted anonymously (July 7, 2002)
  6. ^ For example, "Interplanetary Outing," by Maiden Wyoming, in the zine Nothing to Hide
  7. ^ See I Can Still Dance With a Drink in My Hand by Rebelcat, Thru With the Two Step by Fanny Adams, and Crying for the Moon by Fanny Adams.
  8. ^ See Mouseketeers by Debra Hicks.
  9. ^ The full-length novel Czardas by Jane of Australia, in which both a het Doyle and a gay DeMarco know Bodie. Published by NutHatch.
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