One Degree of Separation: Difference between revisions

[[File:onedegree1.gif|link=Doonesbury|thumb|right|Might as well [[lampshade]] the trope.]]

{{quote|''"Wanting connections, we found connections -- always, everywhere, and between everything. The world exploded in a whirling network of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained everything else..."''|'''Umberto Eco''', '''''Foucault's Pendulum'''''}}

And then she comes up to you and reveals that she's met ''your'' whole family before as well. In fact, you are her [[Spaceballs (Film)|father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate]]. It seems there's only One Degree of Separation.

This is where every character is tangentially connected to almost every other character. It doesn't matter if it's an [[Easter Egg]] or important to the [[Myth Arc]]. Everyone's connected. In film this is known as "hyperlink cinema". This concept is also used by actors with a [[Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon|Bacon number]] (how many degrees away an actor is from [[Kevin Bacon]]) and by mathematicians with an Erdos number (how many degrees away from you is the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos). There's even a Bacon-Erdos for those rare few who've happened to both act in a film ''and'' written a mathematical/scientific paper. (e.g. Natalie Portman, who has an Erdos number of 5 and a Bacon number of 1, for a B-E number 6. [[The Wonder Years|Danica McKellar]] is also 6 (4 and 2). The late [[Stephen Hawking]] iswas a 7, BTW.)

Often part of a [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]]. Sometimes just a lot of [[Contrived Coincidence]]. See also [[Generation Xerox]] and [[Ah, You Know Him]]. Gets much more complicated when you have [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] who all seem to know each other. Or if they don't they quickly do thanks to [[You ALL Share My Story]]. Can be seriously aggravated by the presence of immortals.

* ''[[Gundam Seed]]'': In the first episode, Kira finds himself opposing Athrun, his best friend from the colonies. But before that, he runs into an unknown girl who later joins the crew of the Archangel -- CagalliArchangel—Cagalli. {{spoiler|And she turns out to be his sister.}} Later on, the Archangel comes across an escape pod from a destroyed ZAFT vessel, containing none other than Lacus Clyne, Athrun's fiancee. {{spoiler|By the end of the first season, [[Gundam Seed Destiny]] [[Fanon Discontinuity|be damned]], Kira is romantically attached to Lacus, and Athrun to Cagalli.}} And their [[Ace Pilot]], Mwu la Fllaga, has an ongoing feud with Athrun's commanding officer, Rau le Creuset, {{spoiler|who turns out to be Mwu's father's clone. And the guy who ran the project? The one who eventually genetically modified Kira to be the Ultimate Coordinator.}}

* It seems that in ''[[Ef: aA Fairy Tale of Thethe Two.]]'', everyone is tied to each other through their past and present. Episode 10 of ''a tale of melodies'' best emphasizes this, as nearly the entire cast comes up in name or on screen.

* The characters in ''[[Bakuman｡ (Manga)|Bakuman｡]]'' are getting this way around Kawaguchi Taro.

* In ''[[Ichinensei Nini Nacchattara]]'', the main character Iori just happens to have his life saved by the sister of his oblivious crush, at the cost of being turned into [[Fountain of Youth|a seven-year-old]] [[Gender Bender|girl]], which causes him to be sent to the same school as the kid whom he risked ''his'' life to save. By pure coincidence, his younger sister attends that school as well. He winds up living with his crush (who happens to bear a strong resemblance to {{spoiler|the woman Iori's father cheated on his mother with}}) and her sister, and after {{spoiler|their house blows up}} his real family takes them in out of the goodness of their hearts, still completely oblivious to Iori's true identity. Also, [[And Zoidberg|a minor character that Iori and his friends encountered once lives in the same apartment complex.]]

* The [[Black Jack (Manga)|Black Jack]] anime suffers from this. Kumiko is the daughter of Jack's mentor Dr. Honma, and she works for a man named Tetsu who {{spoiler|was a pickpocket until he lost his fingers and then had them sewn back on by Jack.}} In the manga none of these characters are related.

* [[Durarara!!]]: Everyone--noEveryone—no, really, ''everyone''--knows—knows Mikado somehow. Leader of the Yellow Scarves? {{spoiler|his best friend.}} Saika? {{spoiler|the girl he has a crush on.}} Urban legend Dullahan on a motorcycle? {{spoiler|one of his chatroom friends}}; the other is [[Chessmaster|Orihara]] [[Manipulative Bastard|Izaya]]. And Harima Mika, {{spoiler|the girl made to look like Celty's head}}, sits behind him in class.

== ComicsComic Books ==

*** Quite frankly, anything and everything Bendis established in ''Ultimate Marvel Team-Up'' was either [[Retcon|retconnedretcon]]ned away or blatantly ignored almost as soon as the series was published. Even Bendis ''himself'' pretty much ignored everything.

* The [[Marvel Comics]] universe includes a concept called the "Nexus-Being" or some such, which describes the person who is the focus of their universe. That role is filled by the Scarlet Witch: her father's a mutant [[Super Villain]], her ex-husband is a robot superhero, her brother married into the royal family of a secret city that was [[Touched Byby Vorlons]], and she got [[Witch Species|inbuilt magic powers]] from a Chaos demon. Combine her family tree with the Summers' [[Tangled Family Tree]] and you've half the goddamn 'verse.

* Jenny Sparks from ''[[The Authority]]'' was the spirit of the 20th Century, and as a result is somehow connected to every mover and shaker of the century, both good and bad -- frombad—from being raised by Einstein to persuading Hitler to give up painting, and met or worked with pretty much every superhero on the planet. Her successor, Jenny Quantum, will presumably be the same for the 21st century.

** In addition, it turned out that R2-D2 was owned by Queen Amidala and C-3PO was ''built'' by Anakin Skywalker. Boba Fett, as well, is the clone-son of Jango Fett, who is the original model for the entire [[Send in Thethe Clones|Clone Army]].

* The 1989 ''[[Batman (Filmfilm)|Batman]]'' movie decided that having [[The Joker]] threatening everyone in Gotham City wasn't enough of a reason for Batman to hate him, so {{spoiler|it turns out that he was the one who killed Bruce Wayne's parents}}.

** They did the same thing with the Kingpin in the ''[[Daredevil]]'' movie. And Quill in ''[[The Phantom (Filmfilm)|The Phantom]]'' movie (although he was only [[The Dragon]]). And Sandman in ''[[Spider-Man (Filmfilm)|Spider-Man 3]]''.

* ''[[Clue (Filmfilm)|Clue]]'' uses this, with characters turning out to be increasingly connected as the plot unfolds; the precise nature of some of these connections, however, depends on [[Multiple Endings|which ending]] you go with.

* ''[[Crash (Film2004 film)|Crash]]'', which drew some criticism for it.

* In ''[[Babel (Film)|Babel]]'', connections are pretty one-way, and flimsy, but they're there, dammit, and it's meaningful. [[Oscar Bait|Oscar, please.]]

{{quote| "Also, they all seem to be sleeping with one another."}}

* In ''Playing By Heart'', this is [[The Reveal]] -- except—except for some [[Arc Words]], there's no hint of any connections other than the obvious ones, until the end.

* ''[[Gosford Park]]'' -- it—it's the motive for the murder.

* Also happens in ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Literaturenovel)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]''. Victor Hugo liked this trope!

* ''[[Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Literature)|Tess of the D'Urbervilles]]'' (this was very popular around Hardy's time period.)

** In ''[[The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (Literature)|The Cat Who Walks Through Walls]]'', it turns out that the guy needed to save the multiverse just happens to be {{spoiler|Lazarus Long's son}}.

* The [[Larry Niven|Niven]] & Pournelle novels ''Lucifer's Hammer'' & ''[[Footfall (Literature)|Footfall]]''. The later one was particularly egregious in this regard. Justified in Niven, Pournelle, & Flynn's ''Fallen Angels'' as many of the characters are connected through science fiction fandom.

** That's just scratching the surface. In this series, [[You ALL Share My Story|They All Share The Story]]. The mariner Bayle Domon, for example, helped Rand and Mat escape monsters in book one, helped Elayne and Nynaeve hunt the Black Ajah in book four, and traveled with Mat in books eight through 12 or so. None of their meetings were planned, and were barely even voluntary. [[The Mole]] who threatened Moiraine in book two also spied on Elayne and Nynaeve in later books. Verin mentored Elayne, Nynaeve, Egwene, Mat, Perrin and Rand, but each in different ways and for different reasons. Character histories like that are completely typical in this series.

* The focus of ''[[Dirk GentlysGently's Holistic Detective Agency]]'', hence the "holistic" in the title -- everyonetitle—everyone is connected through the main character Richard. Which only goes to prove that Dirk's ideas about the interconnectedness of all things are not crackpot theories, despite the cynical use he makes of them.

* Near the beginning of ''[[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy]]'' (notice [[Douglas Adams|the pattern?]]), Ford and Arthur end up on the [[Cool Starship|Heart of Gold]] and meet Trillian and Zaphod. Despite being, respectively, the only three survivors of {{spoiler|the Earth's vaporization}} and the President of the Galaxy, they ''all'' know each other already: Ford and Zaphod are old friends from the same star system, Trillian (originally Trisha) recently dumped Arthur for Zaphod at a party, and Ford [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|knew about Trillian through Arthur]].

{{quote| '''Zaphod:''' Is this going to happen every time we use the Improbability Drive?<br />

* ''[[GravitysGravity's Rainbow]]'' has a cast of several hundred characters, and at least for the 40 or so main ones it seems they are all interconnected in multiple ways. (Mapping it all out can be [[Mind Screw|pretty difficult]]).

*** Dickens is the master of coincidence though. The titular character in [[Oliver Twist]] is saved from going to prison by the man who turns out to be the friend of Oliver's real father and an admirer of Oliver's mother, who died giving birth to him, though in the musical they simplified it and made him Oliver's grandfather.

* ''[[Murder Onon the Orient Express]]''. Almost everybody on the train knew each other by {{spoiler|working together, but it's not a coincidence; it's been very carefully set up.}}

** And of course, it's a bit of a coincidence that the first person he targets is Lucy, that lawyer's fiance's friend, which is how Van Helsing actually gets involved.

** All the character connections are shown on [httphttps://lostpedia.wikiafandom.com/wiki/Connections this page], with [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/6/6c/Lostconnections.gif this]two rather impressive graphicgraphics (go on, zoom them).

* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' is a user of this trope as well, though to a lesser extent than ''[[Lost]]'', with even some characters saying, "We're all connected."

{{quote| ''(Nathan and Matt arrive at Primatech Paper)''<br />

'''Hiro:''' ''(seeing Nathan)'' Flying man!<br />

{{quote| Could it be that she was the sister of the boy in Kansas who loved the girl with the tattered shawl who was the daughter of the maid who had escaped from the pirates?}}

** Linus then asks "[[What Happened to Thethe Mouse?|What about the king?]]" and gets beaned with a typewriter.

* [[Lampshaded]] in [https://web.archive.org/web/20090326040554/http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20090321 this] ''[[Doonesbury]]'' strip, as shown in the page image.

* Played straight in ''[[Wicked (Theatretheatre)|Wicked]]'' where every single character of relevance in the play can be tied to Elphaba. Not unreasonably so since she's the Wicked Witch, but let's sum up. Her teacher is the Wizard's Dragon, her sister is the Wicked Witch of the West, her manservant is a school chum, she saved the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow is her transformed boyfriend, the Wizard is her father, and so on and so forth.

* ''[[Charleys Aunt]]'': Jack is Sir Francis' son, Kitty's suitor, and Charley and Babbs' friend. Charley is Amy's suitor, Dona Lucia's nephew, and Jack and Babbs' friend. Babbs is Jack and Charley's friend, and turns out to be the young man who deliberately lost money to Ela's father playing cards when he was penniless and dying, and who loved and was loved by Ela. Sir Francis (Jack's father) turns out to also be Dona Lucia's old suitor. Dona Lucia is Charley's aunt, and Ela's guardian. Kitty is Sir Spettigue's niece; she and Amy are both under his legal guardianship, and are best friends. Sir Spettique wants to marry Dona Lucia. The ''only'' character who isn't related to, or in love with ,<ref>or at least trying to marry, in the case of Sir Spettique</ref>, at least one of the others is Brassett, Jack's valet.

* ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]'' uses this to an extreme in the third and fourth games, particularly the third.

* In ''[[Planescape Torment|Planescape: Torment]]'', you come across a rather staggering array of people with one degree of separation from one or another of The Nameless One before he got amnesia, including all your party members {{spoiler|except Nordom and Fall-From-Grace}}. Mainly [[Justified]] in that the game is about a personal quest for identity and therefore you will logically be hunting down people with a prior connection to you, but many of the more incidental side-quests show a rather astounding array of this either way.

* The freeware RPG ''[[Last Scenario (Video Game)|Last Scenario]]'' absolutely ''loves'' this trope, gradually revealing connections to a certain flashback of seemingly mild importance. At first we simply learn that {{spoiler|Thorve grew up with Felgorn and a guy named Wolfram, the latter of whom was killed by a child in a burned-down village. Then we meet Randolph, who was Wolfram's father.}} Okay, given their current situations, they were bound to meet up again. But then we find out that {{spoiler|amnesiac party member Ethan was the boy who stabbed Wolfram, trying to protect his older brother from the soldiers. Oh, and that older brother is now the [[Big Bad]]. And the random soldier who chased Thorve and Felgorn off after Wolfram was stabbed is [[Mysterious Informant|Zawu]].}}

* In ''[[Hotel Dusk: Room 215]]'', the main character (an ex-NYPD detective) stays at a dingy hotel in the middle of nowhere for one night. By morning, he's discovered that every single guest staying there that night is connected to either his former partner Bradley or to another guest in the hotel (and frequently both). This also goes for staff members.

*** Another example is that Dermott the only kid that Hank ever befriends is his and Dean's half-brother.

* This occurs throughout ''[[Robotech]]'' as a way of tying together the different groups of characters in the different sub-series. Max Sterling and Miriya Parina, of the ''Macross'' cycle, eventually have two daughers: Dana and Maia Sterling, who star in the ''Robotech Masters'' cycle and ''[[Robotech: theThe Shadow Chronicles|The Shadow Chronicles]]'' movie, respectively. Likewise, Claudia Grant of ''Macross'' is eventually revealed to have a brother, Vince Grant, who is one of the stars of ''The Sentinels'' and who appears in ''The Shadow Chronicles'' along with his wife, and whose son, Bowie Grant, stars in the ''Robotech Masters'' cycle. Marcus Rush, another of the stars of ''The Shadow Chronicles'', is the younger brother of Marlene Rush, a bit character in the ''New Generation'' cycle.

* [[The Roman Empire]] in the first century (AD or BC). ''[[Rome]]'' and ''[[I, Claudius]]'' get this down to a T. Not only are the entire aristocracy of Rome related six different ways, but they know, grew up with, nearly married, killed the brothers of (etc.) the rest of the important people in the ancient world.

* Try playing the handshake game - pick a person, and work out how many people whose hand you have shaken, or had similar interactions with, that it would take to connect you to that person. It's usually not a great deal more than [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation:Six degrees of separation|six]].

* The professional sports version of this is a [https://web.archive.org/web/20090114202608/http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=512065 Sillinger number], after journeyman ice hockey player Mike Sillinger. No player in the National Hockey League's more than 90 year history is more than six degrees from Sillinger, and at one point in the 2007-08 season, every single player in the 30 team league had either played with Sillinger or had a teammate who had played with Sillinger. It's commonly believed that you can connect Sillinger to [http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Two-degrees-of-Mike-Sillinger-addiction-strikes-?urn=nhl,134080 Kevin Bacon] (here's how it works: Bacon was in "Sleepers" with Ron Eldard, who was in "Mystery, Alaska" with Tie Domi, who was on the Toronto Maple Leafs with Petr Svoboda, who was on the 1997-98 Philadelphia Flyers with Mike Sillinger), but in fact, the Petr Svoboda who played with Domi and the Petr Svoboda who played with Sillinger are [http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=5272 different] [http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=36981 people.] However, Domi was on the Toronto Maple Leafs with [http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=3158 Eric Lindros] in 2005-06, and Lindros played with Sillinger on the 1997-98 and 1998-99 Flyers. Sillinger's Bacon number is 4.

{{quote| I was friends with Stan Getz, and Lionel Bart, who wrote Oliver! The painter Francis Bacon lived next door. He always tried to get me into his studio to paint me, but he was very gay and I thought, “I’m not going up there.” An actor called David Baron said he was going to write a play, and I said I’d act in it. He called it The Room and he did it under his real name, Harold Pinter. In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal Sassoon. David Hockney did the menu in a restaurant I went to. I didn’t know anyone unknown who didn’t become famous.}}

[[Category:One Degree Ofof Separation]]

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