The due SOUTH Meme

Obviously, like most memes, this meme isn't always going to give you the right answer. It's also not vague enough for me to hide this fact from you, so the best I can do is write up the various reasons why you might not get what you expected.

• Confounding variables: The thing I like most about this meme is that there aren't any psychologically suave questions at all. All you've got to do is pick your favorite episodes, and while you might have found a strategic quiz easier to answer, that means the input is very straightforward and easy to interpret.

  Unfortunately, each episode has many different facets -- if they didn't, we probably wouldn't like them so much -- and you could, therefore, consider it your favorite for any number of reasons. For instance, if you pick "Victoria's Secret", there are a couple of things that could mean. It might be because your favorite character is Fraser, and this is a key episode for him. On the other hand, you might just like Victoria. Then again, you might like messed-up love stories. And yet again, you might just be fond of Vecchio's numerous shows of loyalty to Fraser.

  I've tried to accomodate for that by asking for six episodes instead of one; if you show a trend towards liking Fraser, you probably like "Victoria's Secret" for Fraser's sake. Still, six episodes isn't that large a sample, and the total number of episodes isn't all that large either, so I've still got error here.

• Skew: Personally, I'd have to say that my favorite character is Fraser. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure that this meme won't tell me that. The reason is this: Fraser appears a lot in the show. He's the main character, so you'd expect that, but that means it's very difficult to separate the Fraser-fans from the regular fans. Pretty much the only way the meme will give you Fraser is if you pick exclusively episodes that focus on Fraser and nothing else. You'll see some of the same effect with the Minor characters, too, but you'll see it the most with Fraser.

  Of course, if Fraser does come up for you, you must really be raving over him. Which is just as it should be.

  As you might suspect, it also works in reverse. If you pick an episode that contains a rare character or pairing, that rare option will probably overshadow everything else. This was a problem in earlier stages of this meme. I used to have a bunch of the more popular minor characters and associated pairings up (Victoria, Mark, Angie, Irene, Stella, Fraser/Victoria, Vecchio/Angie, etc.). I ended up eliminating them -- if you look at the code, you'll see where I did it -- because they were throwing off the readings way too much. At some point I hope to eliminate the skew, or introduce a separate category of favorite minor character. If I figure it out, I'll let you know, no question.

• Human subjectivity: So I really do my best to be a robot, but...it doesn't really work all that well most of the time. It's a shame, really. Who knows what I could have accomplished?

  I went through all of these episodes as carefully as I could, and I tried to rate them on the same rubric. However, it wasn't a terribly specific rubric, so there will be some discrepancies in the ratings. I've changed quite a few of them in the course of testing, and it's probably not the last time that's going to happen. (Incidentally, if your meme results are really off, send me an email with the following information and I'll try to oblige.)

  Your expected results:
  Your selected episodes:
  Your actual results:
  

• Canon vs. Fandom: There are a lot of pairings and characters who are really overrepresented in fanfiction, in comparison to how often they show up in canon. For instance, I haven't included Fraser/Smithbauer or Ray/Ray, despite the fact that a significant number of people will consider them their favorite pairings. Since there's only subtext for them in maybe one episode, it's impossible to find a trend. Sorry about that.