CI5 hq

Well it wasn't so much that I was misunderstanding you as potentially disagreeing with you - or perhaps coming at the issue from a slightly different angle! What I was saying was that something like Arabian Nights could perfectly well be done with Doyle as the sheik and Bodie as the prisoner (because you seemed to say that it couldn't!). Just because writers have been less likely to write the pair that way around (as regards - what? Sub/dom, basically?) doesn't really mean that there's any canon basis for it - in fact I'd almost say the other way around - and so the roles could just as believably be reversed in an AU.

In canon, in fact, Doyle is generally portrayed as the one who understands the bigger picture before Bodie does, Bodie as the one who's less bothered or worried about the bigger picture anyway - and therefore less aware. He's not portrayed as stupid - in fact he himself plays on the idea that he comes across as a "neanderthal" - but Doyle is portrayed as overtly sharp and enquiring. So kind of the opposite to the way he's portrayed in the AUs you've mentioned. But then I'd also argue that just because Bodie looks "brooding" and "austere" doesn't necessarily make him the only "dom" choice either - to take the term I've borrowed to its extreme, there's always MFae's "Grievous Bodily Harm" series, where Bodie is perfectly believable as an actual sub.

What I was trying to say in my comment above, is that just because something isn't commonly done, doesn't mean it couldn't - or perhaps shouldn't - be done. *g*