Result Discussion: Favorite Ships (part 2)
Results for Favorite Ships · Results for Total Ships · Discussion Part 1 · Discussion Part 3 · Ship list
CW: This discussion contains mentions of three ships which some people might not be comfortable with (sibling incest and adult/teen relationships). Only their shipnames are mentioned - the nature of these relationships is not discussed in any way.
I will refer to the Total Ships as TS and Favorite Ships as FS.
The method I decided to use
So here’s a method, which, albeit less intuitive, is still more accurate.
My boyfriend suggested normalizing the ranks, i.e. making the ranks of both lists proportionally equivalent.
This means that there is no need to manually group anything together and it doesn’t matter if we have two lists of 14 vs 40 ranks or 14 vs 40 000 ranks.
This method still has issues of its own:
not as straightforward to interpret;
ships appear to have fallen in rank even though they didn’t (esp. for Janaya and Ruthari).
This is the formula that we used:
r is the current rank of a given ship;
R is the lowest possible rank of a list.
So, for example, if we normalize Gremaya’s rank in the FS list, it’ll be:
5 is Gremaya’s current rank in the FS table;
14 is the lowest possible rank for FS.
Just like with a regular rank, the normalized rank is highest when its numerical value is lowest.
bigger table, comparing different stats
You can see that the very first place (Rayllum) remains the same for both lists, as well as the very last place (everything ranked 100). My boyfriend also suggested adding a color scale - the darker the color, the higher the ship’s rank.
I also colored some of the ships:
light blue means the relative rank of the ship has not changed;
green means the ship has risen in rank;
white means the ship has dropped in rank;
yellow means the ship has massively dropped in rank (by at least 40 points).
I felt that it was important to point out the very huge falls, because many of them nicely correspond with some of my conclusions from the TS results (I’ll get to that in a sec).
I wouldn’t be myself if I hadn’t made a graph :D
bigger version (interactive)
I think this is the most intuitive visual representation of how different ships changed in rank:
the red dots are the ranks the ships had on the TS list;
the blue dots are the ranks they have on the FS list.
red done above blue? - The ship fell in rank;
red dot only - the rank hasn’t changed;
red dot below blue? - The ship climbed up in rank.
Interestingly enough, only two ships actually improved their position!
Ships that haven’t changed rank and those that went up in rank
It is no surprise that Rayllum remained at rank #1 considering how much this ship is loved by the fans. Janaya and Ruthari didn’t move their position either, but the "weight” of their ranks slightly reduced in a smaller list of options.
Virex, Aarathari and Aaravum are the other ships that retained their position, but I think it’s more of a coincidence than something systematic.
Because the FS list is so much shorter than the TS list, most ships appear to have dropped in position, even if they didn’t (such as Janaya and Ruthari). And that makes the two ships that went up even more interesting!
Sordia went up by 17.8 points and Raydium - by 2.5. Both are small ships with not many voters:
Sordia - 10 TS votes, 6 FS votes;
Raydium - 3 TS votes, 2 FS votes,
yet the voters are pretty consistent - the majority of people who voted for these ships in TS chose them as their favorite ships. Sordia is particularly impressive in this regard, seeing how incredibly loyal its shippers are!
Ships which fell in rank the most
I chose the ships that fell by at least 40 points. The list is arranged from the biggest fall to the smallest:
Laidrin fell by 74 points
Grenvus fell by 51 points
Corpeli fell by 48 points
We can immediately see that the top three ships were in the top 10 on the Total Ships list and they fell the most. It makes sense when you think about why these ships got so high in the first place. In addition to my vague word choice in the original questionnaire, these ships are either canon (Harrai, Laidrin) or include side characters that are not part of any popular ships (Sabos, Corpeli).
Sabos is especially fascinating, as it’s not only a non-canon ship, it’s a ship involving characters that got their names from fans! They do have a scene together that could be seen as “shippy”, which explains why so many people jumped on that wagon as opposed to, say, Sorcos.
The same goes for Corpeli. Gren and Corvus are canonically friends, but they don’t have any significant scenes together, while Corvus literally holds Opeli’s hand.
Speaking of Grenvus (and also - Kaudia and Kasren), they weren’t as high on the Total Ships list as the aforementioned ships, but all of them seem to have fallen from roughly the middle to the bottom of the list. I guess they just don’t have large fanbases.
That’s it for part 2 - stay tuned for part 3!
