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My extra credits cannon is that the whole channel and it's history was all made by one single being, it was walpole as a servent of the immortal queen for she is the queen to rule them all, the queen to find them and in yorkshire tea fabrics bind them
As opposed to games I feel like Batman might be one of the most interesting examples of the intricasies of canon. Particularly in highlighting that consistency is key in some aspects of the characters and the world, but that getting too bogged down with certain aspects of the story being the same or consistant does limit creativity. The Gotham TV series definitely misplaced some things from the usual Batman canon but it also managed to do that in what was often a very compelling and interesting new take. The Zasz in Gotham in particular was extremely different from the usual cannon Zasz but ended up being one of my favourite characters in the show. Similarly in The Batman (the 2004 animated series not the recent movie) there was a lot of difference in the usual representations of the characters but in a way that they were still identifiably the same characters just had a more interesting potential that fit with the world. And in a lot of ways knowing there is a specific cannon can really help with this specific type of creativity providing a framework for the writers to start with, while also giving a framework for the fans to note the interesting changes and differences and antipate potential future uses of common canon traits. And this does of course apply differently to something that is not being constantly rebooted however I think it still covers and highlights a lot of interesting angles.
Yes, because it shows how much the creators actually care and consider the work they are making. Breaking canon too much or blatantly disregarding it breaks all illusions of emersion into a story instantly. It’s why so many people hate the Disney Star Wars trilogy and that god awful lord of the rings trash Amazon series before it even came out... they put right said they’re disregarding canon cause “canon bad”.
Sanderson's "Laws of Magic" comes to mind. When a fiction has a "hard" Magic system, debates about canon make sense since the writer intentionally sets rules for his/her fictional world. This allows an approach by logical deduction. A "soft" magic system does not allow such an approach. It is based on the author's feelings (like "Lord of the Rings" or "Narnia"). It's like trying to interpret an abstract painting.
For me, canon is fairly important because it creates consistency, and consistency in a world makes it feel more cohesive and easier to get lost in and enjoy. That enjoyment gets brought to a screeching halt if I'm forcibly reminded that this is just a work of fiction, and few things do that faster than the internal consistency being thrown out the window because the real-life author(s) just felt like it.
I agree 100% I'm a HUGE lore nerd and a hobby-author, so stories/consistency are some of my favourite things. And when I'm consuming media that has a story and notice contradictions it RIPS ME OUT of my immersion. Makes me annoyed more than it does otherwise.
Agreed 100%. however i have found some of the best works are good at either intentional or just by building design space, can provide “cannon” info that is contradicted later, but still within the continuity and the cannon. For example the use of an “unreliable narrator” who is informing the reader/player/etc. of “facts” that might not be true. or by leaving info out. Cosmere/ Mistborn Spoilers so stop reading here if you care. Like Mistborn secret history for books 1-3 we all know the events of the books. and nothing in secret history contradicts retcons or breaks the cannon of that (mainly because brandon was witting the trilogy with SH in mind) but once you know about the events of SH it changes the frame of the cannon. Heck even knowing the secret with the earring we learn in book3 reframes everything we thought we knew about it originally. so we can get a lot of room to expand and play with cannon without breaking it, simply by being thoughtful in our original design to give ourselves room.
My main issue with the modern value of canon is in its curation. Historically canon was largely attached to an authority figure, often the creative themselves. These days, canon is largely curated by corporations deciding what media they think ought to be consumed; Often canon works involve entirely different creatives, entirely different quality, and actively contradict each other. I'm not saying people can't enjoy these things, but the idea of canon as sacrosanct is farcical.
I mean it's rose colored glasses about the past anyway because...canon continuity wasn't really a thing in media before the internet age anyway. Details shifted and got dropped all the time in comics, book series, tv. Theatre productions shift scenes drop songs add new stuff, video games could drop lore from earlier versions and make the fourth outing the official canon for the series. Collaboration and retroactive continuity is necessary or else the storytelling potential for a series dies. Look no further than corporate franchises unwilling to noodle with their properties in anyway that's appealing
for me the canon of a fiction universe is similar to the history of our real world. It's times, places, people and events the are important to the development of the world and the people in it. Some details may be unclear and fuzzy but so is actual history in some places. Canon brings a fictional reality to life by having a consistent path to follow and lets fans see how events can shape characters both in the current story and future stories in the same universe.
I think the flip side of that is that the reason why the first story told in a particular setting is often the best is because the author gets to craft the setting to whatever would make the story the most dramatically pleasing. Subsequent stories told within that setting are then restricted by whatever was stated in the original setting, regardless if the story more dramatically pleasing if some details were a bit different. For example, if the original story in a setting said "There was peace in the land for 1,000 years before the Dynasty fell" and its about the massive war of these different factions that had been kept in check all going at it for a few years before a new king was placed on the throne and you have to write the follow-up to that about a story about something causing serious problems in a kingdom with a new king who hasn't yet been tested-- well that whole "1,000 years of peace" kind of screws you over. Any threat now has to be something that was borne out of that short war despite all major faction leader's stories resolving or something that had laid dormant for 1,000 years or something that comes entirely from outside the lands explored in the first story and thus introduce a whole host of foreign elements rather than further exploring the lands that readers are most interested in. And if you want to tell many stories in that world, particularly if they are going to take place in the past, it's probably going to come to having to say that "1,000 years of peace" was very much a gross exaggeration and simplification.
and pretty much like nowadays history canon will be used/unused by unsavory and uncaring individuals to push their agendas, cof, cof rings of power, cof
Consistency of events and places is a pillar that serves and supports the story. So is theme, so is film/text language and style. Defending one is well and good, but defending it at the cost of weakening the others means eventually they will fall, and consistency of world can't carry a series by itself. Is a new episode that gets the details of past events exactly right but outright contradicts the basic themes of the series and uses an entirely different visual style a good episode? I doubt anyone would say yes.
@@UnreasonableOpinions Which is why you don't do that divergence of themes in the main series without setting it up properly. And the "entirely different visual style" bit _must_ be saved for a side series unless you *really* play your cards right, like how Gravity Falls did in Weirdmageddon.
The importance of canon needs to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis; it's important, yes, but some stories can breathe better when it's relaxed. That being said, I believe that while some stories are well suited for sticking with canon all the way (like One Piece or Sanderson's Cosmere), few are bettered by tossing everything out the window. People often fixate on the world-building aspect of canon, but keeping your characters consistent is usually much more vital to an ongoing story.
One interesting idea for a "loose" canon is having events portrayed differently depending on what the story needs. For instance in the modern Star Wars canon, there's an event in the comics and the animated shows which is different depending on the version. The comic has it at night as everyone is around a campfire a while after a battle while the show has it in the day immediately after the battle. There were a few more differences, but those were some of the big ones. Fans got in a minor uproar over which was canon only for the guys who Lucasfilm hires to keep track of that sort of thing to say both were "from a certain point of view" as a certain Jedi would say. Both were canonical, but the story needs came first over portraying it exactly as the other one.
It makes me wonder how people feel about things like Rashomon which ultimately cannot have a true canon, or the accepted "True" canon is unreliable at best.
You can get away with that kind of thing if you build for it. Loose canon is usually the result of giving an unreliable source for the story the audience is getting. The original "from a certain point of view" line was establishing Obi-wan as an unreliable source of information so that it made the story make sense for audiences. (Of course, if audiences were that upset, I'm guessing that's not what they did and they just latched onto the classic line as a half-assed excuse.)
At the same time, Star Wars actually had canon hierarchy before Disney purchased the IP. And to make it worse, they added self-contradictory canon. If hyperspace ramming is a thing, why didn't they use it in the entirety of the Galactic Civil War that the OT depicts? Once you weaponize FTL travel itself with relativistic kill-missiles, space battles become merely a matter of who manages to land the first hit on the other guy's base. Starkiller Base, the Death Stars, and the Exegol Fleet were all highly vulnerable to the Holdo Maneuver. And since Droids are simply highly-advanced robots that can be mass-produced as demonstrated in how widespread they are, the Falcon's computer actually being smart enough to do those calculations on its' own, and how the clone wars was a war of an army of droids against an army of clones, that means that the excuse of "it was a one-in-a-million shot" is null and void, and simply bad writing to explain away why we weren't going to see RKVs in Star Wars.
@@kennyholmes5196 hyperspace ramming damages hyperspace, making it more difficult and dangerous to navigate in the area, blah blah mass shadows or something. Easy handwave.
For me canon must be respected for continuity, especially when the author went above and beyond to concretely define (Tolkien comes to mind here). Anything that is tangent is open to be explored in a creative way. Also, canon is a way to have the fans anticipate events that may come based on what has been established before, and it's a great way to reference stuff fans love and interact with. What I personally don't like is tampering with lore just because is fits the current narrative (Fallout 76 destroying the brotherhood of steel story by making the faction exist before the events Maxon in California, just so we could have BoS power armor in that area). So yeah, middle of the way rigid stance on canon.
I think respecting canon for continuity also matters if they’re relying on it for foreshadowing and addressing narrative promises and payoffs in a way that feels satisfying.
@@hkfifty871 Except when a creator simply has a better idea now or a way to improve things, but doesn't want to be trapped by something he did years ago.
It always bothers me when people hold up Tolkien as an example of an inviolate canon that must be respected, since he was so careful to publish his stories under the framing device of translated historical documents, that may contain translation errors or simply in-character biases that the "translator" would unwittingly pass on to his audience. Not only was this deliberately constructed with the intention that other authors might expand his new mythology later (though the Tolkien estate had been reluctant to let anyone do so, until the film trilogy money started rolling in), without having to rigorously cross-check every detail against his works and each other, but he used it himself when he wanted to retcon the Riddles in the Dark chapter of The Hobbit, to paint Bilbo and The Ring in a less flattering light. The story goes that the second publication of The Hobbit was based on a second manuscript of The Red Book of Westmarch, which Bilbo wrote after moving to Rivendell, and likely contained a more honest portrayal of events. On the one hand, it give that world it's verisimilitude, in that even the retcons are just part of the story, but it also reveals how these tools are intended to be used.
Cannon is very important, it helps to maintain consistency and context within stories. Just changing things without an in-universe reason robs the story of it's stakes and purpose. In my opinion its a similar issue to the "it was all a dream" twist in many stories, if used carelessly it will ruin the tale.
It makes sense that Eddy, well known for writing adaptations and new editions of existing series (his original worlds are also cool!), would feel constrained by canon, while the EC foil, commentators who delight in cross-referencing works, would feel positively toward tight canon!
Canon becomes an interesting concept when talking about company owned vs. creator owned intellectual property. Creator owned IP has a great amount of internal consistency but little quantity on account of it all being created by the same person (with exceptions being works overseen and approved by the creator or the creator being a group instead of a single person). Canon, regarding creator owned property, is basically what the creator created. Company owned IP, on the other hand, can have a lot of people working on creating new works based on the same IP, leading to a great quantity of product, but with much less internal consistency. An example of this is Batman, which started out as a masked noir detective stereotype, but changed as new writers wrote their own version of the character, taking what they liked from previous versions, until we ended up with the current, but most definitely not last, version. Basically fan fiction building on fan fiction with... mixed results, quality wise.
I grew up readin comic books, until I was in my thirties. Since I am in my sixties, that means I started in the late sixties, went through the seventies and eighties, and into the ninties. Given that I followed DC and Marvel, you can see much change, or retconing. But there are core things that stay. But the line gets blurry. What makes canon is often what is accepted by the vast majority of the fans. Read that again. The. Vast Majority. Believe me, the Hive Mind carries weight and wisdom. The creator should have the defining vote, but... Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had to bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead due to public pressure.
I like when stories treat canon as a mythology: not everything is one definitive narrative, but a collection of related stories that may or may not be completely consistent and focus on consistent themes over lore specifics
How I view canon has been shaped by being an avid fanfiction reader/writer for most of my life. Namely, I view canon as a template and/or a set of guidelines for creating fan-works: I cherry-pick the aspects of a work that I like, and anything I don't like gets mentally written off as literary scraps to leave on the cutting room floor. It boils a work down to it's pure potential, and makes room for amazing stories without any of the original drawbacks.
My personal take is that it depends a fair amount on how much the property itself leverages those connecting threads and whether those connections help or hurt the overall story. Some series place enough emphasis on the continuity to make it a central part of the story itself, making it more important for everything to fit into a single canon. Other series only use enough connections to ease the telling of a new story, making a single canon series of events less important. There's no "one size fits all" solution to canon.
This is a great point! And a good comparison would be One Piece and Lupin III. One Piece has an extremely specific canon that the author rigidly adheres to, with times, places, characters, and even minor lines from much earlier coming back to be INCREDIBLY important later, such that NOTHING can be ignored or dismissed within the series. Lupin III on the other hand, thrives on negative continuity, with every movie and heist taking place at an unspecified point in the timeline, multiple different explanations for how characters meet or interact, etc. Even the characters' ages are unspecified, with the art making it possible for the majority to be anywhere from late 20s to mid-40s believable (the exception being Zenigata, who is somewhere between 15-20 years older than the rest of the cast). There is a whole movie dedicated to the subject: First Contact, in which the ending makes it clear that even a 'first-hand' account from one of the characters is completely unreliable.
These days, this kind of topic makes me think of World of Warcraft, for reasons anyone who's been following it can probably guess. Short version is that the latest expansion, Shadowlands, did a lot of things that retconned - or just undermined, since retcon implies more actual intent and care than some of what happened - a lot of previously established stuff about the setting. For example, it was 'revealed' that 'all along' the army of undead known as the Scourge, instead of deriving its power and knowledge from cool stuff like evil necromancer geniuses and the conquest of spider people, had merely been copying the notes from stuff that existed in the afterlife, thereby making previous beloved villain characters like Kel'Thuzad significantly less cool. Another example is how the Titans, who were previously established as cosmic entities of immense of power who brought order to the universe, were put in a box two expansions ago, and in shadowlands it was revealed that there were 'First Ones' who also 'ordered the cosmos' before the Titans and were more ancient and did more of all the same things the Titans did, but were never previously referred to or foreshadowed in any way and are kept vague and mysterious to the point of being nonentities. Effectively the Titans, who had style, personality and a presence built up over more than a decade of the players' investigations and interactions with their personal character, were thrown out and replaced with something to do the same narrative job but had no appeal apart from the WoW art team's usual job making some pretty environments. These are only two of a lot of potential examples, all of which plus a lot of other things contributed to the general bad feeling, but for relation to this video this sort of thing is relevant. These things don't actually contradict previous canon in technical fact, but they were a contradiction of what the players felt - feelings that the game had been deliberately trying to instill in them up until then, and which had been deepened by the even deeper than usual personal relationship to the world that comes with 'living in' it as a long-running MMO. When people are upset by canon divergence, they're usually upset about feeling abandoned, betrayed or manipulated by being told that what they had become emotionally invested in wasn't 'real'. Sometimes that reaction is unreasonable, but often - sometimes it feels like increasingly, as properties get acquired as market investments and pressured to become more profitable - it's entirely justified. Some canon divergence is ok and some isn't because what's important is whether that particular piece of canon was key to respecting people's feelings. Authors and their managers generally like having people be invested in a work - it means a guaranteed audience, and one who talks about the work more, which means more reliable return and publicity meaning more money. But there's a basic transaction there, an implicit promise that that emotional investment will be rewarded. It earns you money, after all, so you should give something back for getting more money. There's no formal contract, and not even usually a consciousness of an informal contract, but still, when the creators don't live up to their end of things, the audience will feel like they were cheated. That's when you have a problem. In short: if you change something that wasn't important, you're usually fine (if you do it egregiously then people will find it harder to suspend disbelief and etc. but that's not quite the same problem), but if you change something that was important, then that's not fine. What was important? Anything that contributed to the audience's feelings about the work or its parts, basically.
I totally get you. But lets not forget that Blizzard would do anything in order to just make more money. Thats why the lore is crap now and why the game is dead.
"When people are upset by canon divergence, they're usually upset about feeling abandoned, betrayed or manipulated by being told that what they had become emotionally invested in wasn't 'real'." Basically how most Danganronpa fans felt after V3
Best way to sum up the value of canon is to look at the show PICARD and say DS9. the value of DS9 comes from a number of factors, like great characters and compelling conflicts, but its referential nature to the greater Star Trek lore is what really helps sell me the setting as a real place that I want to witness. In Picard, the loosey goosey writing and lack of real foundational recognition of the series' past developments leave me as a Trekkie hollow after watching. Again, not that canon must always be obeyed, but when we pervert or change it, it should be meaningful and create interesting scenarios for the world that's been built over decades and decades.
For me, making the flowcharts I needed to make to understand Kingdom Hearts was actually part of the fun, and I genuinely enjoyed the feeling of putting the plot threads together. Sometimes, the creators get it wrong, but I genuinely feel like there is value in, for instance, trying to craft a Zelda timeline that is fully consistent.
To quote someone I watch (reviewing Marville issue 6): "Emotional investment is necessary for us to care about the outcome of a story. You can't have it both ways. It's either pretty artwork for the sake of pretty artwork or a story where the outcome is relevant to us. Or, at the very least, you can't have ongoing continuity. Actions either have consequences or they don't" Edit: Also, from personal experience, I have found that when people use "continuity shouldn't matter" or a variation of such, it is often used to justify a bad writing decision, like in the comic book Spider-Man: one more day, or Terminator Genisys. I do however agree with your assessment at the end.
I find the idea that "having ongoing continuity" is somehow incompatible with actions having consequences and/or emotional investment disturbing, and a mindset like that seems to say more about the audience than the piece. I'm someone who CAN get invested to a degree when there is no continuity, but WILL probably get invested if there is- the world feels more alive when it's relatively internally consistent, and less so if that consistency is ditched for pure fleeting emotional highs.
I just watch someone play stanley parable 2, and he played it from the very start (the first stanley parable stuffs). There is this fern, that the narrator told us is at utmost importance. Long story short, in the new stuffs, the fern keeps popping up, but is not that important. For those who remembers it's a delight to keep seeing our most lovable fern from time to time, but for those who forgot doesn't really bothered with them since the narrator never mention the fern ever again. I think that whole situation really encapsulate what a canon is.
I agree, I only care about canons when it's clear that the writer(s) respect it and want to make a consistent, coherent story, even if some contradictions might fall through. It's just harder to care when a story shift tones, genres, themes around randomly every few years because either the same author just doesn't care(Rowling), a new writer is constantly introduced who will immediately retcon what the previous writer wrote(DC comics), storytelling is sacrificed for the sake of pushing agendas(Star Wars), or the authors feel some compulsion to always carelessly introduce new elements in every new installment without caring for any of its implications and effects(Kingdom Hearts and Fate). Big contradictions are forgivable if it's an honest mistake, while it's much less forgivable when it's outright disrespectful to what was established in the past.
I think that The Elder Scrolls series has an interesting way of dealing with canon. The fact that there is no single absolute source for the events that take place in the in-game world makes sense considering most games are RPGs with varied possibilities for the player to choose
Yes, thank you, I was hoping someone would bring up The Elder Scrolls as an example of more modern ways of handling what's 'canon.' History is written by the winners. If it's not documented, it didn't happen. What I'm trying to say is, we don't always know our own history, so why would game lore be any different? IMHO it's more realistic to be uncertain, to have contradictions, with no clear answers. :)
For me, Canon is just the events that happen in a story. Canon only matters inside the story. Derivative works (fanart, fan fiction) should be 100% free to ignore Canon. Works made by the author, unless they explicitly say they're ignoring Canon at the beginning, should follow the Canon as much as they can.
The problem arrises when an author dies and someone else buys the IP of the world they created. Tolkein, for example, obsessed over Middle Earth to a level that nearly rises to insanity. He spent decades creating an entire imaginary language and thousands of years of imaginary history for his world. He engaged with his imaginary world more than the real one sometimes. He clearly felt those details were important. But he's dead now. And Bezos owns his world, so Bezos can change whatever he wants to make a TV show. And he can justify if by saying all the details Tolkein obsessed over weren't actually published. I don't think the author would have wanted that.
Cannon is important in any long running series it makes investment worth while. If I get invested in a story and then the story’s sequel tells me those events never happened it ruins the previous story’s enjoyment and makes it harder to get invested in the current story’s plot because the writers have already told me these events likely won’t matter. This draws attention to the hand of the author and can harpoon investment in a story. This is not absolute but story’s should flow smoothly from one to the next and not undo themselves.
One choice that disney made that I actually REALLY like is instead of calling it "non-canon" they called it "Legends" which means anything in the EU, etc. meaning it MAY have happened its just unconfirmed. Means nothing is truly off the table.
@@موسى_7 but do you know the story of American president George Washington chopping down the apple tree? What about the story of Russian Empress Catherine the Great dying after having intercourse with a horse? Or the story that English Queen Anne Boleyn had a 6th finger and a mole on her neck? None of these are true, but the stories are considered by a ton of people as such. That's kind of how I look at it.
Canon matters, it develops a coherent and widely agreed story that develops a wide fan base. also allows future fans get the basic knowledge and storyline summarized so they can keep up. If Canon doesn't matter that's how we get Star Wars Episodes 7,8, and 9...
I’m never sure why fans get angry at Disney for decanonising a bunch of stuff. Like it was already implicit that such a thing could (and would) happen due to the tier system of canon Star Wars had
I like canon, and I find it interesting learning about certain deeper lore etc. But there really are very few things I care about enough to properly argue about. IP isn't one of them. TBH even Tolkien changed his mind about canon in LOTR; it's really dealers choice if you want to think Middle-Earth ends in the Dagor Dagorath- a climactic final battle with Morgoth, or if it slowly changes into our world (team Dagor Dagorath ftw though).
I like Doctor Whos "Fixpoint in Time", where there are events in time and space that always need to happen in one form or another. For me that also applies to the canon of a series/franchise. The more memorable and impactfull an event or aspect the more likely it is that it is a fixpoint (same for beloved characters). For games fixpoints can also be gameplay aspects. But a fixpoint can also be a ruleset or the presents of certain characters. Small changes to fixpoints can be needed and will happen after enough entrys/reboots/reimaginings. If a new entry disregards too many fixpoints or makes the changes to big, a lot of the fandom will dislike/hate it and it won't feel like part of the series/franchise.
Canon is incredibly important. A story is damaged immensely with obvious lore inconsistencies so going farther and farther off of canon only damages the story further
I tend to take a three tier approach to the subject of canon. First, you have the work itself. Everything contained in the work itself is Canon. Second, you have supplemental works, like novelizations, media adaptations and "Word of God", that sort of thing. Anything official or semi official that isnt the work itself. Finally, you have Fanon, which itself can be split into two tiers, Good and Bad, that are mostly defined by the quality and how well liked rhey are by the fandom.
I love that this channel isn’t scared of getting a little childish like with the cannon sounds. They really crack me up but they don’t keep it long and quickly move on bc well then it wouldn’t be so funny or good.
For me 'Non-Canon' is 'What-If" experiment. It's branch away from what's considered 'canon'. It might be fun to engage, or if you do not like it, just ignore. 'Canon' estabilishes what's fact and real events in the world building - It base for my judgement either I like it or not. Or from other side i might like specific branch of 'non-canon' assumptions and events, more than actual canon. Like I prefer to read book series in order, I like to get world building facts stright when engage with media - is it canon, or which non-canon branch we talk about. Is it "ruining" tone of entire title, or it's just funny exercise.
I think that really the whole of Sherlock Holmes sums it up completely. Many want to be the Great Detective, to find some hidden meaning be it a n Easter Egg or some unexplored detailed of a universe we love. People by nature are curious and want explanations, we also like good stories, and often great meta-narratives. But much like a good recipe, following canon faithfully will always bring you to a particular conclusion, but sometimes experimenting and deviating will bring you to something tasty, wonderful, and new. A more interesting view might be to look at franchises that eventually strayed from the original canon and were all the better for it versus the ones that really should not have left the playbook behind.
I think of "canon" as a banyan tree. Always growing larger as new trunks (stories) are added to the tree, and every bit of it intertwining with the mass as a whole. Everyone has their own idea of which trunk is the main trunk (primary canon) and can see the interweaving trunks that start from other bases (non-canon) and limbs that split, weave, and merge into each other (semi-canon) of those around them. It is all a matter of perspective and freely up to each person to decide from where they wish to enjoy the story. Only way you can really be wrong is to take an ax to it and cut away all other trunks and branches to attempt to eliminate those perspectives, as eventually, you will kill the tree as a whole and lose the story you tried to protect.
I mostly dwell in the DC fandom nowadays, and as a fanfic writer I've definitely had my fun with canon. But I think it really highlights for me what parts of canon I consider necessary versus not, and made me realize I prioritize emotional continuity. Sure, writers can't remember where in Europe Markovia is supposed to be, but if they remember the character's arcs related to that and the general feel of the country and culture, it's more hilarious than anything. Also consider people's biggest complaints for adaptations: It doesn't "feel" like Superman, or Batman, or all these other characters. Elseworlds and the like really highlight it. Superman in Superman Red Son still feels like Superman despite the premise of the AU. The same is true of the Injustice comics. So if an addition to canon changes the core feeling, or emotional continuity of the series it will be rejected. But anything that adds to that will be accepted.
The use of canon is essential, and at least needs to be acknowledged and respected. I’m still reading fanfiction (as writing it finally got me out of the gutter for schooling-induced writer’s block [seriously, don’t do anything other than a simple outline]), and some of the stories I’ve seen that get negative reviews usually come from violations of canon that either make no sense (non sequiter), or are poorly executed. Violation of canon can work, but a writer needs to show their work on how they can do it, especially if it drifts towards deus ex machina. That’s why the older Star Wars fans will accept Raddus’ ramming tactic in the Rogue One film, but not Holdo’s in The Last Jedi.
There's also the matter of cost/balance. Holdo took out an entire fleet of capital ships by sacrificing a single life on a single capital ship (and wouldn't have needed even that if a 'lifeless' droid could have pushed a button). Raddus sacrificed a single corvette explicitly designed for ramming to push an already compromised destroyer into a shield, creating a brief opening for the rebels. With Holdo, all battle strategy is thrown into chaos. With Raddus, it's a very specific tactic that requires lots of setup and circumstance, and that would normally not be worth the cost. There's a very clear divide between the two in not just planning, but in avoiding the creation of OP strategies or characters.
@@r3dp9 the tactical debate isn’t what’s wrong. It’s how the execution of the rammings in universe are performed. Raddus’ idea works because it’s essentially using a disabled, floundering ship and a stand-in tug at sublight speeds. More importantly, Raddus comes up with it on the fly, showing why he’s far more bullish than other members of the Alliance council. Holdo’s doesn’t because it overrides years of canon on how hyper drives work. Even without Disney’s hand wave of the EU, audience expectations assume that hyperdrive ramming simply doesn’t work, because if it did, it would be far more economical for galactic factions in Star Wars to go around slinging asteroids with sublight and hyperdrives than building actual warships. Audiences can follow continuity much better than randomness not done ironically or in humor.
From my perspective, the importance of canon is that which developers, authors, etc. give it within a work. The more narratively driven a work is, and the more connected the works, the more canon matters. On the other side, you tell me that games like Sonic the Hedgehog or (nonconsecutive) Fire Emblem actually need a consistent overarching storyline, and I’ll laugh at you for few seconds before realizing you’re serious.
My search for a fully thought-out, totally realistic and contradiction-less fantasy world eventually got me into studying real-life history and drew me to Extra History in the first place.
Canon is good because it establishes the baseline “truth” to discuss things on. Just like science in the real world. It’s a waste to spend time bickering over that, but without it we lack the common ground to advance debate with
Canon is just what the average person accepts as true about the series. For example Harry Potter has 2 main canons, Movies and Books. These canons are developed by whoever is creating the work with the legal rights to it. But there is another canon called Fan Canon or Fanon that is formed through common perceptions shared between fans that either don't exist in or are not obviously construed from canon works. An example of Fanon in Star Wars is the Existence of Gray Force Users.
Coming from the SCP fandom, I find this episode hilarious. For those looking on in confusion, there are as many canons to the SCP Foundation as there are collected works, articles, tales, and individual PAGES in the fandom. Personally, I think a major view got left out of this discussion: literary agent hypothesis. This posits that the "author" is trying to tell a story as they envision it. And it is our job, as readers, to decide what is from the "original source" and what is interpretation by the storyteller.
I once heard the suggestion that the road warrior became a myth beyond a certain point. Was the night rider real? Did Max drive an interceptor? Was there a dog? Was the dog God? We dont know. Just know there was a man, and a family, and now he is alone, the road warrior
Or at least rarely change it if changing it allows for better media. Such as Magneto being a Holocaust survivor, giving him a far deeper motivations with a more nuance personality.
I think the problem with canon is that when you have one canon, fans want every adaptation to revolve around that canon. One example is fnaf. The main games focus on one canon but when the books came out everyone complained how it did not fit the main story but it was never the point. Scott Cawthon said that the books were a reimagining of the main story used to explain things never explained in the main canon. Scott wanted to tell a story but his games limited his ability to tell a story so he he wrote a reimagined story. Another case is the Archie Sonic Comics. I have seen many reviews on these complain how the characters are out of character when they keep forgetting it is supposed to be a reimagining of Sonic story. Whenever I look at an adaptation of something I don't look into how close it is to the canon I look at how good it is on its own merit and be cause of that I am able to appreciate all kinds of adaptations.
while i do think internal consistency improves the value of any fiction, i think fandoms often live out these satirical illustrations of why canon is a limited tool without any appreciation of the irony. For me it's the fullness of the characters and the richness of the stories/themes that gives meaning, and internal consistency is only one tool to support that. I think western people often forget that for most of history storytelling was about remaining true to traditions surrounding characters and themes and that measurable mechanics of plot stability are a relatively modern phenomenon. Like the whole point of figures like Arjuna, Artemis, Freya, Hercules, Moses, Jesus, etc. was that their stories could be localized and personalized while remaining true to the character and the overarching themes of their stories. Try reading the canonical gospels, they are all radically different stories describing the same character that were produced by communities with different values and thus have different themes. Mark's Jesus is a secret messiah, Matthew's is a Jewish messiah, Luke's is a prophet in the tradition of the Nev'im, and John's is an avatar of G-d who has existed since the dawn of time and has no qualms about telling everyone. Very different stories and takes on the character, but sharing related ideas and many of the same story beats. As Extra History has demonstrated, these fandom debates shaped our civilization and gave birth to Catholic Orthodoxy. So we as modern fans should maybe embrace plurality.
Personally, Canon is an important aspect because it reminds player, watcher or reader important factor from their respective medium, such as Iron Man and his traits and Narnia and Its Magical Story. Yes some part might be different than their original form, but it has something that sticks that we can't just forget and I think that's what makes canon beautiful in its form.
A good example of how not being TOO invested in canon can be seen in the Castlevania Netflix series. It had a lot of homages to the games added to the visuals by the animators, but the writer Warren Ellis just looked at a bunch of wikis and info about Castlevania the games and put together a coherent plot lightly based on them, and brought out one of the greatest video game adaptations of all time.
Cannon is obviously important but using it as a conversation stopping shield for perpetuating problematic stories, tropes, etc. is not acceptable. No storyline or character trait is immutable, no matter how many times it's been told that way. I think some things get so ingrained they feel like truths rather than creations and people defend them like truths when others point out that they really should be altered or replaced.
Constantly shifting/changing cannon is one of my biggest issues with comics and I am saying that as a person who loves comics. As annoying as it can be, I get having the sliding timeline to keeps comics always in the current time. However, if you are constantly changing a character's origins or major events in their past every time there is a new story or with every new writer, then it makes me feel like keeping up with the story doesn't matter. Or why should I care about a major event if it won't even have happened a few years later. It can also feel like lazy story writing, like the writers didn't actually bother to research the character/topic they are writing about, or like a new writer feels that they are superior to the previous when and know better how the plot should have gone. Anyway's, that's my rant for the day.
this is one of the main reasons I will never be able to get into comics. The constant shifting of backgrounds and past events by new writers strikes me as incredibly lazy and completely takes me out of the story.
@@DarthNicky It is meant to be lazy because they're taking advantage of an already existing franchise, instead of putting effort into new stories with different characters. Comic series were reboots and remakes before they were a thing in film media.
As long as it's written well, I guess you can make an argument for any side of this issue. Just look at Spider-Man, we all love the established Canon from all of those versions and we got to see them together without having to dismantle anything that was previously established. But Miles Morales challenge the status quo and came out the better Spider-Man.
I'd say that the main problem people have with the question of canon is when changes in corporate management on certain properties leads to people being put in charge of characters and storylines that they have never read/experienced and that they have no interest in learning about. They lack a fundamental understanding of what made the character/story popular and change the character/story to meet their own personal tastes in story telling which usually means making it more "mature" so people will know they are serious auteurs and not just some genre hack writing kid's stuff. So we end up with an angsty Superman pondering his role as a god descended from the heavens to an ungrateful population instead of the kid from Kansas that gets cats out trees for little kids and punches earthquakes in the face. Seriously, just give Kohei Horikoshei the Superman franchise as he's the only one that seems to understand that kind of character.
I understand your point, but is that really an issue of canon? I would say it's less an issue of making factual inconsistencies and more a lack of understanding/respecting the spirit of prior works.
The short answer to the Antsy Superman issue is two folded. There is are still shows and comic book that that small time paragon of good Superman today. The second is that Superman was so OP by 1978 he could sneeze away galaxies.
My friends and I expanded on this. Broadcast canon which is the Film, director cut of film, tv cut of film. Tv Show canon which is loose or tight depending on how many writers the tv show had. Adapted works canon these are the scripts or adapted novels. Then comic book canon which is great if they even keep the names correct when new writers and artists come on to series. We try to keep theses canons in their own lane as we the longer the 'Fiction" exists the greater chance of changes occuring.
One of my favorite comic writers of all time is Grant Morrison and they famously don’t give a single crap about continuity or canon. If it makes the story better, put it in, if it doesn’t, then don’t.
As are many thing you are both right. Cannon is important to keep things straight, but we shouldn't be so hard set in the cannon of something that we keep ourselves from enjoying something that isn't cannon but is nonetheless good.
Whenever some new author argues against cannon, what it really means is that author thinks they know better then the original creator and wants to rewrite history within that world, typically to push an agenda or political philosophy. Instead of the story revolving largely around a central male protagonist, they can just write that person as incompetent while converting a female side character in the real main character / protagonist. Yeah figure out which recently releases series did something like that.
I feel canon should be viewed as a "within the current run" sort of view. If you're writing a brand new Batman, you should be able to do whatever you want within the rules of the copyright(or whatever it is that makes LOTR bloody difficult to work with). If you want Bruce to openly kill cause that's what your Batman does, go right ahead. You're making your new canon. But, if you're writing a new sequal to Tim Burton's Batman, then you need to follow the rules of the world established within that canon. Otherwise, it won't fit the story. I get the argument of "if you change the canon too much, you may aswell create a new world and charater and world" is a strong one, but end of the day, that's what creative license is for. And if you really don't like it, then don't play/ watch/ follow it. That's fine. You won't lose your fan card. (Yes, there are caveats for characters that are small or don't have many works out. I appreciate that there are some cases where you just want to see the characters from the page brought to life in the big screen. That's a different and harder issue.)
So what if i wanted to make a batman story where his parents never died, but they lost all their money. Bruce grew up to be a weak and simple man that likes to dress up in a chuahaha costume and rob places. Is it still a batman story? As for the dont watch it narrative, if I wanted to make a story of a terrible criminal, why did I need to destroy a beloved character to make the story so different? It's one thing to make a different view point, its another to take something that has been cherished and loved for decades and change it totally. I love Star Trek, i hate the new ones, they have the same names but the designs and stories are totally different. I don't watch them, but now I will never get new shows or movies while i watch what i loved become a cheap knockoff of itself. Where do you set the line? If Kurtsman wants to have the new threat be space wizard with magic swords and moon bases that blow up earth, is that ok? What happens when the Borg and taken over by Bylons who shout extermination! and shoot lazers at people. At which point does it loose what it means to be Star Trek? The whole point of Star Trek was optimism and a brighter future for humanity where we evolved past hatred and bigtory, New Trek seems to be modern day us in space.
I don't think that either a strict canon and loose canon approach is wrong but like everything it comes with tradeoffs. A strict canon can make a franchise feel real and interconnected but sometimes you end up painting yourself into a corner. Individual stories in a franchise can sometimes be made worse by having to strictly adhere to established canon rather than being allowed to stand on their own. On the flip side loose canon can allow individual works much more creative freedom but at the expense of not feeling as grounded in their universe as stricter canons.
I think fandoms care too much about canon to the detriment of their own enjoyment. I have had way too many conversations where non-canon or retconned stories, which had comparable or were arguably better experiences than the canonical material, were completely dismissed as meaningless. What if "Kingdom Hearts 3 GUITAR BY BIRTH" had electric guitars instead of keyblades but was ten steps above in quality over every other game in the series in every other aspect, would you refuse to play? What if the real KH3 wasn't penned by Nomura but this one was? Would it change things? Does it gain more validity? Ultimately people enjoy what they enjoy, but I'd argue you shouldn't take non-canon to mean "worse".
That is true. Sometimes sticking to the canon can be so tight and rigid that there is nothing new to explore anymore. At times, if done well, challenging the ideas in the canon can be add a new experience that brings depth to a story.
I used to be obsessed with Canon and then I almost got into a fight with my brother ever wonder woman two and the new Star Wars mess me up and I realize I need to stop caring about Canon so much And I haven’t looked back it makes my view an experience better now I was overthinking everything and raising my expectations
This was interesting! I think I like the idea of creators maintaining canons (though I don't mind thoughtfully-executed retcons), but I'm also in favor of IP law being opened up so that different creators can make their own canons of an IP, kind of like what has happened with Sherlock Holmes (see: CBS's Elementary vs. the BBC's Sherlock vs. the Robert Downey Jr. movies, for some examples).
canon provides a framework to answer the question "what would the outcome be if that thing actually happened in that fictional universe, or at least involving those particular aspects in question" and whether or not it matters or is useful depends on what kind of question you ask and answer you're looking for. It's a great starting point if you want to expand on the already established stories in a way that would believably fit with the original works, but if that's not a high priority canon doesn't really matter.
Shoji Kawamori has an interesting take on Canon. Macross Do You Remember Love is a reimagined retelling of SDF Macross. Later sequels like Macross 7 hint to both continuities. You know his response when asked about Canon? Macross is a docudrama. Meaning it is a Metafiction.
Not really taking a side here but I will say i'm currently playing through the entire "Trails of" series from game 1 on the PSP all the way up to the current game which unlike games like Final Fantasy is actually an ongoing story. I'm now on game 8 of 9 English releases and whilst theres certain new releases begging for my attention (ie. i'm going to play triangle strategy once im done Cold Steel 4) I'm really loving the strong canon/continuity despite putting hundreds of hours into the series by now. More specifically Beaten Trails in the Sky 1 - PSP Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter - PSP Trails in the Sky the 3rd - PC Trails from Zero - PSP Trails to Azure - PSP Trails of Cold Steel 1 - PC Trails of Cold Steel 2 - PC Current Trails of Cold Steel 3 - Switch To Play Trails of Cold Steel 4 - Switch Not Yet in English Trails of Reverie - ??? Trails of Calvard 1 - ??? Trails of Calvard 2 - ??? Note: I also played the first 3 Legend of Heroes games (NOT dragon slayer) on the PSP not knowing they were separate form this series, they were fun too :)
I think that like in theology, canon is the officially sanctioned collection of texts, not necessarily the original or the most coherent. But like in theology, fans can have a very different idea of what should and should not be canon. For example, many Star Wars fans believe the Thrawn books should be canon, but Disney doesn't.
...than actual rules." Which I 100 percent agreed. Any works of art, whether games, movies, books, or a tv show will have interpretations and reinterpretation. There will be good ones, bad ones, and one for the LOL's. Overall, it is part of the fandom experience. The best fiction is not all about what was established, but what it can grow into.
A strange but useful tool to change canon is the unreliable narrator. Take for instance Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, multiple times in both games and other media he's seen to have gaps in his memory, a fabricated background, loss of control, and hallucinations. Only one of which could be a gateway if you wanted to mess with canon
I always loved canon. Strong canon lets you re-live your favorite stories rather than slashing and burning them. Spotting small details and making connections is super rewarding.
Something that's interesting to think about since Persona was mentioned, is that Persona actually is the result of a non-canon branch. Its a spiritual sequel to "Shin Megami Tensei: If" (and may or may not actually be in the same continuity as that game) and "If" was seen as an alternate timeline to the SMT series - and in this situation, the break from canon resulted in an even more popular franchise that eclipsed the original canon in popularity.
I think that the importance of canon will vary from fandom to fandom, usually based on how long the franchise has been going. You call to Dr Who for a sec there, and it's a great example of a franchise where canon pretty much doesn't matter. Part of that might also be how it is so heavily into time-travel (which can easily be used to hand-wave a lot of inconsistencies as off-screen butterfly effects) and that a lot of the sci-fi elements are always left so vague as to feel more like magic. But also the fact that it's been going so long in so many different media formats with official stories, it's likely noone has knowledge of *all* of it. Personally, I usually can't stand a franchise that doesn't show at least a strong effort to maintain their own canon. However, I also love when part of the franchise splashes in a narrative device that allows for a lot of canon wiggleroom: the unreliable narrator!
I never saw the need for a Zelda canon. To me, I guess I always just saw the games as what would be retellings of a similar story over time. I am not a fan of the need to link them all together. (Take the pun there if you want)
I think that we as community need to learn one important lesson: canon is not automatically better than non-canon. At least, I feel that a lot of the debate around canon stems from the fact that people feel like something is worth less or of less quality simply because it is non-canon. And obviously, you won't sit by and watch quietly as somebody else says this sidestory/arc/spinoff or whatever you particularly like is worth less. You would rise up against this challange and defend the authenticity of whatever you like. But that shouldn't be the case. Even if something is non-canon it still can have a deep story with lots of hidden details, homages and and meaningful character growth. In a way, I think we should treat canon and non-canon as a sort of multiverse. Canon is the main universe in which most stories tie into and reach the most fans. But it does not mean that the stories in other universes are automatically less important or worthy of attention.
It's not less quality, but it's less... credibility, maybe? X maybe a fine and interesting story, but ultimately it just didn't happen in the main universe of Y, which makes it kinda... consequenceless?
@@DarthBiomech Consequenceless for universe Y, yeah. But this shouldn't diminish the story. Though, I understand it's frustrating to live with the thought that the story you like so much will just end in nothingness since their likely will be no follow up. But if it were canon, then everything that is to come would depend on it.
As a Zelda theorist, this topic comes up all the time. There is rarely a clear cut definition of what is canonical, and there always seems to be someone who is ready to knock some long held belief off the canon shelf. Personally, that's what actually draws me to the theorist community; the ongoing examination, and reexamination of all the different pieces, and rearranging them to see what other ideas can come of it.
Canon must be maintained at all times, after all we all know that Batman, shoots people, does not kill people, loves Robin as a foster son, loves Robin as a hetero-life-partner, locks Robin in caves and makes him eat rats, and let’s not forget his rampant hatred of the ultimate menace - *rock-and-roll* !
I think videogames, comics and animation (western and eastern) have already proved that there are already many options to introduce variety to the same IP without sacrificing the cannon: reboots, remakes, reimaginations and change of media. Cannon definitely has value, that's evident. I think these options allow for a broader perspective on the IP while keeping cannon value. IPs can even branch in continuity! There is a world of possibilities.
As regards whimsically changing your canon, I'd recommend looking at Warhammer 40k. As regards some generally thought to be good changes to continuity, ie., Good changes to official canon... Well, also Warhammer 40k 🤷🏻♂️
Coming at this more from a fiction writing background, a canon-related comern of mine is when writers declare something canon that one couldn't reasonably conclude from the source material alone, particularly when it all but contradicts the source material. That- just feels really off to me. As someone who dabbles in writing, I feel my work should stand alone, and the author's additional expert knowledge is fun behind-the-scenes details people can take or leave.
Canon is important. If writers don’t care enough to string together a coherent canon which fits with the world they’re trying to build, why should the readers care about it? Each contradictory left turn just hurls us out of the experience and we become aware just how throwaway this information is and therefore not worth internalising and and investing in. Imagine game of thrones where the status quo is restored at the beginning of each episode and how it would cheapen the feeling of all the canonical deaths that happen. Just wouldn’t be the same.
Sanderson's "Laws of Magic" comes to mind. When a fiction has a "hard" Magic system, debates about canon make sense since the writer intentionally sets rules for his/her fictional world. This allows an approach by logical deduction. A "soft" magic system does not allow such an approach. It is based on the author's feelings (like "Lord of the Rings" or "Narnia"). It's like trying to interpret an abstract painting.
One advantage to giving canon a little bit of looseness is to undo terrible ideas. I'm not talking about just bad stories but ideas that were racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. This kind of retconning is particularly common in superhero comics. You can find many stories of new writers undo things a previous writer had done or just taking a character in a new direction, esp. with the industry becoming more diverse.
Makes me think of SHIELD from marvel, how they were working on an acronym through iron man 1, but then later movies/shorts/shows Peggy Carter is a founding member of Shield, and people call it SHIELD. An early throw a away joke that they just ignore later, (in the MCU, not necessarily earlier material)
As someone who loves worldbuilding and thinking about what else is or could be going on in the world, it's important to me to have a consistent canon so that these questions have meaning and possibly even answers. That said, I don't mind the existence of divergent or "What If . . . ?" stories, as they can be fun ways to explore alternate possibilities when done well. And I don't really care which branch of the timeline my _Zelda_ game takes place in because it's not really trying to build that shared universe in the same way, although I'm sure others feel differently (and that's fine).
I'm a bit surprised that you didn't mention the Mythos as an example for the fanbase to expand the original universe. And I really loved some of the images like the 40K one.
Canon in the Elder Scrolls lore community remains a hugely divisive topic that rarely fails to get people's blood boiling. As it is, the developers of the Elder Scrolls games seem to have a very relaxed approach when it comes to canon. Not only is information about the universe delivered almost entirely through fallible narrators, but devs like Todd Howard have come out and said that carrying over established lore from prior games takes a back seat to what the devs want to do with the story and setting. They've also reiterated that canon in some aspects is up to each individual player and the choices they make. Despite this approach from the developers, major problems arise as irreconcilable contradictions arise between games - and sometimes within games themselves - as the result of story events experienced first hand by its players, conflicting lore that can't be merely the result of differing perspectives or interpretations, and lore that is just poorly conceived or badly implemented by developers. With this come fan theories attempting to explain things from game mechanics to metaphysics, some which are popular enough to get passed around as truth and are irreconcilable with the "canon" established by the games. Its an impossibly twisted rabbit hole to crawl down into, and debates over the role of canon in the Elder Scrolls (more so than what is and isn't canon) still inspires impassioned arguments today. So put your TES lore and canon takes in the reply section below!!
Canon tends to make things more consistent and cohesive from what I've seen, for example the legends/extended universe of Star Wars actively conflicted with MANY pieces of established lore such as the existence of things like the Star Crusher (Starkiller but tiny and made out of literal plot armor) as well as the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong and would immediately conflict with the upcoming sequel trilogy. What doesn't help however are dogmatic fanboys blindly sticking to already established information and refusing to allow any change such as the amount of people angered over force healing and the Holdo Maneuver. The way I explain that is simply that force healing might have been seen as impossible or otherwise miraculous with barely anyone able to do it and the Holdo Maneuver simply wasn't done due to the fact that its suicidal, requires perfect conditions to execute and requires a fairly big and expensive ship to pull off.
One interesting spin on how a canon is handled is Kirby Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot. Both games have a bonus mode where you play through the game as King Dedede in Triple Deluxe and Meta-Knight in Planet Robobot. Not only do you have to contend with stronger bosses, but the final battle changes drastically which adds more lore to the Kirby series. Though the events are not canonical, the events that transpires confirms these developments … which is a shame because that means Meta-Knight canonically never fights Dark Matter.
I like the moderated view at the end. Canon should be mindfully followed, not mindlessly obeyed or mindlessly thrown out. It's generally important to honor, but sometimes it creates a prison that the intellectual property can only benefit from breaking past. If you're going to break canon, do so mindfully and with measured purpose. If you're going to follow it, know what you're giving up and how to work around that.
This is the best explanation n definition for Canon I've ever seen. Plenty of things have been added to a particular story's Canon info thru pop culture osmosis. I submit that so long as it's adding an interesting layer of depth that's internally consistent without retroactively tarnishing what was established its good (provided what was previously established wasn't terrible)
I think an interesting question that games specifically have to deal with is potentially having to deal with previous entries having events play out differently for each player. Some games elect to pick a true ending to follow up on. But that can leave players who went down different routes feel like they played the last game wrong. Other games try to keep the cannon loose so that no matter what the player did last game then it could still fit. But that kinda limits how detailed the lore can get in the new game. Dark souls probably does this the most effectively. The lore is already vague enough that how you want to connect the games is subjective. Some games even do both. There are a few elements in fallout lore that are basically written in stone. But there are other events that, because of the significant time and distance between games, don't have a cannon resolution. The third option is to import the players previous save file and adjust the game based on that. But that either ends up being a lot of work, and you still have to restrict things to having most of the game work regardless of previous choices and have only fairly superficial elements change. It gets even more messy the longer running the series is.
There is also a term people in fandoms use that's "Headcanon", as in the canon inside your head, or your interpretation of the implicit canon of stories. Things that are never stated explicitly but you want to imagine because it fills up the gaps and builds up the story or characters. Headcanons usually are based off indirect relations to things that _are_ explicit, but it can also not be the case if it feels coherent enough on it's own. People in fandoms like to discuss their own headcanons and how they arrived at those conclusions, which I think it's pretty good as long as it's kept respectful
Who doesn't like canons? Without them, there is no discussion, for example in Finland the most common canon discussion is about which Disney comics are in canon with Donald Duck comics by Don Rosa and Carl Barks because there are so many artists and stories. Such a discussion maintains interest and involves comparing, analyzing, and justifying individuals' personal canons that they have created.
I think once a franchise has grown big enough, zealous attention to established continuity and granular lore details leads to new stories and their themes drowning under a sea of "wow I remember that thing!" and discussions about whether they used the right carburetor for a spaceship (cough Star Wars cough)
Never knew that there was a history to fandom such this. Felt the same amazement when I found out the term Mary Sue supposedly came from a 1900s Star Trek fan fiction.
Canon is important to me because story investment is a huge part of what can make me obsess over a game, but I also hold the stance that canon should be flexible to a point. Rule of Cool is in full effect. With that said, there are some series (Legend of Zelda for example) that benefit from an extremely loose canon that leaves it up to fans to figure it out.
I feel like this topic needs to be discussed further. There are a lot of pros and cons to cannonizing media. I think some concepts work better with canon than others. I think a lot of that has to do with the level of consistency achieved by the production.
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My extra credits cannon is that the whole channel and it's history was all made by one single being, it was walpole as a servent of the immortal queen for she is the queen to rule them all, the queen to find them and in yorkshire tea fabrics bind them
As opposed to games I feel like Batman might be one of the most interesting examples of the intricasies of canon.
Particularly in highlighting that consistency is key in some aspects of the characters and the world, but that getting too bogged down with certain aspects of the story being the same or consistant does limit creativity.
The Gotham TV series definitely misplaced some things from the usual Batman canon but it also managed to do that in what was often a very compelling and interesting new take.
The Zasz in Gotham in particular was extremely different from the usual cannon Zasz but ended up being one of my favourite characters in the show.
Similarly in The Batman (the 2004 animated series not the recent movie) there was a lot of difference in the usual representations of the characters but in a way that they were still identifiably the same characters just had a more interesting potential that fit with the world.
And in a lot of ways knowing there is a specific cannon can really help with this specific type of creativity providing a framework for the writers to start with, while also giving a framework for the fans to note the interesting changes and differences and antipate potential future uses of common canon traits.
And this does of course apply differently to something that is not being constantly rebooted however I think it still covers and highlights a lot of interesting angles.
Yes, because it shows how much the creators actually care and consider the work they are making. Breaking canon too much or blatantly disregarding it breaks all illusions of emersion into a story instantly.
It’s why so many people hate the Disney Star Wars trilogy and that god awful lord of the rings trash Amazon series before it even came out... they put right said they’re disregarding canon cause “canon bad”.
Yo... I think Eddie might be a bit slow on the uptake if he’s against canon.
Sanderson's "Laws of Magic" comes to mind. When a fiction has a "hard" Magic system, debates about canon make sense since the writer intentionally sets rules for his/her fictional world.
This allows an approach by logical deduction.
A "soft" magic system does not allow such an approach.
It is based on the author's feelings (like "Lord of the Rings" or "Narnia").
It's like trying to interpret an abstract painting.
For me, canon is fairly important because it creates consistency, and consistency in a world makes it feel more cohesive and easier to get lost in and enjoy. That enjoyment gets brought to a screeching halt if I'm forcibly reminded that this is just a work of fiction, and few things do that faster than the internal consistency being thrown out the window because the real-life author(s) just felt like it.
For me they make ok cameras
@@chinesesparrows Nice
I agree 100% I'm a HUGE lore nerd and a hobby-author, so stories/consistency are some of my favourite things. And when I'm consuming media that has a story and notice contradictions it RIPS ME OUT of my immersion. Makes me annoyed more than it does otherwise.
Agreed 100%. however i have found some of the best works are good at either intentional or just by building design space, can provide “cannon” info that is contradicted later, but still within the continuity and the cannon.
For example the use of an “unreliable narrator” who is informing the reader/player/etc. of “facts” that might not be true.
or by leaving info out.
Cosmere/ Mistborn Spoilers so stop reading here if you care.
Like Mistborn secret history for books 1-3 we all know the events of the books. and nothing in secret history contradicts retcons or breaks the cannon of that (mainly because brandon was witting the trilogy with SH in mind) but once you know about the events of SH it changes the frame of the cannon.
Heck even knowing the secret with the earring we learn in book3 reframes everything we thought we knew about it originally.
so we can get a lot of room to expand and play with cannon without breaking it, simply by being thoughtful in our original design to give ourselves room.
@@chinesesparrows that's truly somewhat amusing
My main issue with the modern value of canon is in its curation. Historically canon was largely attached to an authority figure, often the creative themselves. These days, canon is largely curated by corporations deciding what media they think ought to be consumed; Often canon works involve entirely different creatives, entirely different quality, and actively contradict each other. I'm not saying people can't enjoy these things, but the idea of canon as sacrosanct is farcical.
I mean it's rose colored glasses about the past anyway because...canon continuity wasn't really a thing in media before the internet age anyway. Details shifted and got dropped all the time in comics, book series, tv. Theatre productions shift scenes drop songs add new stuff, video games could drop lore from earlier versions and make the fourth outing the official canon for the series. Collaboration and retroactive continuity is necessary or else the storytelling potential for a series dies. Look no further than corporate franchises unwilling to noodle with their properties in anyway that's appealing
for me the canon of a fiction universe is similar to the history of our real world. It's times, places, people and events the are important to the development of the world and the people in it. Some details may be unclear and fuzzy but so is actual history in some places. Canon brings a fictional reality to life by having a consistent path to follow and lets fans see how events can shape characters both in the current story and future stories in the same universe.
I think the flip side of that is that the reason why the first story told in a particular setting is often the best is because the author gets to craft the setting to whatever would make the story the most dramatically pleasing. Subsequent stories told within that setting are then restricted by whatever was stated in the original setting, regardless if the story more dramatically pleasing if some details were a bit different.
For example, if the original story in a setting said "There was peace in the land for 1,000 years before the Dynasty fell" and its about the massive war of these different factions that had been kept in check all going at it for a few years before a new king was placed on the throne and you have to write the follow-up to that about a story about something causing serious problems in a kingdom with a new king who hasn't yet been tested-- well that whole "1,000 years of peace" kind of screws you over. Any threat now has to be something that was borne out of that short war despite all major faction leader's stories resolving or something that had laid dormant for 1,000 years or something that comes entirely from outside the lands explored in the first story and thus introduce a whole host of foreign elements rather than further exploring the lands that readers are most interested in.
And if you want to tell many stories in that world, particularly if they are going to take place in the past, it's probably going to come to having to say that "1,000 years of peace" was very much a gross exaggeration and simplification.
Canon of a fictional universe is ALSO like the laws of physics of that universe when it comes to that world's technology.
and pretty much like nowadays history canon will be used/unused by unsavory and uncaring individuals to push their agendas, cof, cof rings of power, cof
Consistency of events and places is a pillar that serves and supports the story. So is theme, so is film/text language and style. Defending one is well and good, but defending it at the cost of weakening the others means eventually they will fall, and consistency of world can't carry a series by itself. Is a new episode that gets the details of past events exactly right but outright contradicts the basic themes of the series and uses an entirely different visual style a good episode? I doubt anyone would say yes.
@@UnreasonableOpinions Which is why you don't do that divergence of themes in the main series without setting it up properly. And the "entirely different visual style" bit _must_ be saved for a side series unless you *really* play your cards right, like how Gravity Falls did in Weirdmageddon.
The importance of canon needs to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis; it's important, yes, but some stories can breathe better when it's relaxed.
That being said, I believe that while some stories are well suited for sticking with canon all the way (like One Piece or Sanderson's Cosmere), few are bettered by tossing everything out the window. People often fixate on the world-building aspect of canon, but keeping your characters consistent is usually much more vital to an ongoing story.
One interesting idea for a "loose" canon is having events portrayed differently depending on what the story needs. For instance in the modern Star Wars canon, there's an event in the comics and the animated shows which is different depending on the version. The comic has it at night as everyone is around a campfire a while after a battle while the show has it in the day immediately after the battle. There were a few more differences, but those were some of the big ones. Fans got in a minor uproar over which was canon only for the guys who Lucasfilm hires to keep track of that sort of thing to say both were "from a certain point of view" as a certain Jedi would say. Both were canonical, but the story needs came first over portraying it exactly as the other one.
It makes me wonder how people feel about things like Rashomon which ultimately cannot have a true canon, or the accepted "True" canon is unreliable at best.
Ah yes, because that "certain point of view" argument is well received in the Star Wars fan community.
You can get away with that kind of thing if you build for it. Loose canon is usually the result of giving an unreliable source for the story the audience is getting. The original "from a certain point of view" line was establishing Obi-wan as an unreliable source of information so that it made the story make sense for audiences.
(Of course, if audiences were that upset, I'm guessing that's not what they did and they just latched onto the classic line as a half-assed excuse.)
At the same time, Star Wars actually had canon hierarchy before Disney purchased the IP. And to make it worse, they added self-contradictory canon. If hyperspace ramming is a thing, why didn't they use it in the entirety of the Galactic Civil War that the OT depicts? Once you weaponize FTL travel itself with relativistic kill-missiles, space battles become merely a matter of who manages to land the first hit on the other guy's base. Starkiller Base, the Death Stars, and the Exegol Fleet were all highly vulnerable to the Holdo Maneuver. And since Droids are simply highly-advanced robots that can be mass-produced as demonstrated in how widespread they are, the Falcon's computer actually being smart enough to do those calculations on its' own, and how the clone wars was a war of an army of droids against an army of clones, that means that the excuse of "it was a one-in-a-million shot" is null and void, and simply bad writing to explain away why we weren't going to see RKVs in Star Wars.
@@kennyholmes5196 hyperspace ramming damages hyperspace, making it more difficult and dangerous to navigate in the area, blah blah mass shadows or something. Easy handwave.
For me canon must be respected for continuity, especially when the author went above and beyond to concretely define (Tolkien comes to mind here). Anything that is tangent is open to be explored in a creative way.
Also, canon is a way to have the fans anticipate events that may come based on what has been established before, and it's a great way to reference stuff fans love and interact with.
What I personally don't like is tampering with lore just because is fits the current narrative (Fallout 76 destroying the brotherhood of steel story by making the faction exist before the events Maxon in California, just so we could have BoS power armor in that area).
So yeah, middle of the way rigid stance on canon.
I think respecting canon for continuity also matters if they’re relying on it for foreshadowing and addressing narrative promises and payoffs in a way that feels satisfying.
@@hkfifty871 Except when a creator simply has a better idea now or a way to improve things, but doesn't want to be trapped by something he did years ago.
It always bothers me when people hold up Tolkien as an example of an inviolate canon that must be respected, since he was so careful to publish his stories under the framing device of translated historical documents, that may contain translation errors or simply in-character biases that the "translator" would unwittingly pass on to his audience.
Not only was this deliberately constructed with the intention that other authors might expand his new mythology later (though the Tolkien estate had been reluctant to let anyone do so, until the film trilogy money started rolling in), without having to rigorously cross-check every detail against his works and each other, but he used it himself when he wanted to retcon the Riddles in the Dark chapter of The Hobbit, to paint Bilbo and The Ring in a less flattering light.
The story goes that the second publication of The Hobbit was based on a second manuscript of The Red Book of Westmarch, which Bilbo wrote after moving to Rivendell, and likely contained a more honest portrayal of events. On the one hand, it give that world it's verisimilitude, in that even the retcons are just part of the story, but it also reveals how these tools are intended to be used.
Cannon is very important, it helps to maintain consistency and context within stories. Just changing things without an in-universe reason robs the story of it's stakes and purpose. In my opinion its a similar issue to the "it was all a dream" twist in many stories, if used carelessly it will ruin the tale.
The intro dealing with ships and cannons was worth it just for the wonderful illustrations
Thanks a lot , it was lots of fun to draw!
It makes sense that Eddy, well known for writing adaptations and new editions of existing series (his original worlds are also cool!), would feel constrained by canon, while the EC foil, commentators who delight in cross-referencing works, would feel positively toward tight canon!
Canon becomes an interesting concept when talking about company owned vs. creator owned intellectual property. Creator owned IP has a great amount of internal consistency but little quantity on account of it all being created by the same person (with exceptions being works overseen and approved by the creator or the creator being a group instead of a single person). Canon, regarding creator owned property, is basically what the creator created.
Company owned IP, on the other hand, can have a lot of people working on creating new works based on the same IP, leading to a great quantity of product, but with much less internal consistency.
An example of this is Batman, which started out as a masked noir detective stereotype, but changed as new writers wrote their own version of the character, taking what they liked from previous versions, until we ended up with the current, but most definitely not last, version. Basically fan fiction building on fan fiction with... mixed results, quality wise.
I grew up readin comic books, until I was in my thirties. Since I am in my sixties, that means I started in the late sixties, went through the seventies and eighties, and into the ninties. Given that I followed DC and Marvel, you can see much change, or retconing. But there are core things that stay. But the line gets blurry. What makes canon is often what is accepted by the vast majority of the fans. Read that again. The. Vast Majority. Believe me, the Hive Mind carries weight and wisdom. The creator should have the defining vote, but... Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had to bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead due to public pressure.
I like when stories treat canon as a mythology: not everything is one definitive narrative, but a collection of related stories that may or may not be completely consistent and focus on consistent themes over lore specifics
How I view canon has been shaped by being an avid fanfiction reader/writer for most of my life. Namely, I view canon as a template and/or a set of guidelines for creating fan-works: I cherry-pick the aspects of a work that I like, and anything I don't like gets mentally written off as literary scraps to leave on the cutting room floor. It boils a work down to it's pure potential, and makes room for amazing stories without any of the original drawbacks.
My personal take is that it depends a fair amount on how much the property itself leverages those connecting threads and whether those connections help or hurt the overall story. Some series place enough emphasis on the continuity to make it a central part of the story itself, making it more important for everything to fit into a single canon. Other series only use enough connections to ease the telling of a new story, making a single canon series of events less important. There's no "one size fits all" solution to canon.
This is a great point! And a good comparison would be One Piece and Lupin III. One Piece has an extremely specific canon that the author rigidly adheres to, with times, places, characters, and even minor lines from much earlier coming back to be INCREDIBLY important later, such that NOTHING can be ignored or dismissed within the series. Lupin III on the other hand, thrives on negative continuity, with every movie and heist taking place at an unspecified point in the timeline, multiple different explanations for how characters meet or interact, etc. Even the characters' ages are unspecified, with the art making it possible for the majority to be anywhere from late 20s to mid-40s believable (the exception being Zenigata, who is somewhere between 15-20 years older than the rest of the cast). There is a whole movie dedicated to the subject: First Contact, in which the ending makes it clear that even a 'first-hand' account from one of the characters is completely unreliable.
These days, this kind of topic makes me think of World of Warcraft, for reasons anyone who's been following it can probably guess. Short version is that the latest expansion, Shadowlands, did a lot of things that retconned - or just undermined, since retcon implies more actual intent and care than some of what happened - a lot of previously established stuff about the setting.
For example, it was 'revealed' that 'all along' the army of undead known as the Scourge, instead of deriving its power and knowledge from cool stuff like evil necromancer geniuses and the conquest of spider people, had merely been copying the notes from stuff that existed in the afterlife, thereby making previous beloved villain characters like Kel'Thuzad significantly less cool. Another example is how the Titans, who were previously established as cosmic entities of immense of power who brought order to the universe, were put in a box two expansions ago, and in shadowlands it was revealed that there were 'First Ones' who also 'ordered the cosmos' before the Titans and were more ancient and did more of all the same things the Titans did, but were never previously referred to or foreshadowed in any way and are kept vague and mysterious to the point of being nonentities. Effectively the Titans, who had style, personality and a presence built up over more than a decade of the players' investigations and interactions with their personal character, were thrown out and replaced with something to do the same narrative job but had no appeal apart from the WoW art team's usual job making some pretty environments. These are only two of a lot of potential examples, all of which plus a lot of other things contributed to the general bad feeling, but for relation to this video this sort of thing is relevant.
These things don't actually contradict previous canon in technical fact, but they were a contradiction of what the players felt - feelings that the game had been deliberately trying to instill in them up until then, and which had been deepened by the even deeper than usual personal relationship to the world that comes with 'living in' it as a long-running MMO. When people are upset by canon divergence, they're usually upset about feeling abandoned, betrayed or manipulated by being told that what they had become emotionally invested in wasn't 'real'. Sometimes that reaction is unreasonable, but often - sometimes it feels like increasingly, as properties get acquired as market investments and pressured to become more profitable - it's entirely justified. Some canon divergence is ok and some isn't because what's important is whether that particular piece of canon was key to respecting people's feelings.
Authors and their managers generally like having people be invested in a work - it means a guaranteed audience, and one who talks about the work more, which means more reliable return and publicity meaning more money. But there's a basic transaction there, an implicit promise that that emotional investment will be rewarded. It earns you money, after all, so you should give something back for getting more money. There's no formal contract, and not even usually a consciousness of an informal contract, but still, when the creators don't live up to their end of things, the audience will feel like they were cheated. That's when you have a problem. In short: if you change something that wasn't important, you're usually fine (if you do it egregiously then people will find it harder to suspend disbelief and etc. but that's not quite the same problem), but if you change something that was important, then that's not fine. What was important? Anything that contributed to the audience's feelings about the work or its parts, basically.
I totally get you. But lets not forget that Blizzard would do anything in order to just make more money. Thats why the lore is crap now and why the game is dead.
"When people are upset by canon divergence, they're usually upset about feeling abandoned, betrayed or manipulated by being told that what they had become emotionally invested in wasn't 'real'."
Basically how most Danganronpa fans felt after V3
Best way to sum up the value of canon is to look at the show PICARD and say DS9. the value of DS9 comes from a number of factors, like great characters and compelling conflicts, but its referential nature to the greater Star Trek lore is what really helps sell me the setting as a real place that I want to witness. In Picard, the loosey goosey writing and lack of real foundational recognition of the series' past developments leave me as a Trekkie hollow after watching. Again, not that canon must always be obeyed, but when we pervert or change it, it should be meaningful and create interesting scenarios for the world that's been built over decades and decades.
For me, making the flowcharts I needed to make to understand Kingdom Hearts was actually part of the fun, and I genuinely enjoyed the feeling of putting the plot threads together.
Sometimes, the creators get it wrong, but I genuinely feel like there is value in, for instance, trying to craft a Zelda timeline that is fully consistent.
In my opinion each Zelda game is a different reality. Outside of the linked games most are completely new takes on the ip.
To quote someone I watch (reviewing Marville issue 6): "Emotional investment is necessary for us to care about the outcome of a story. You can't have it both ways. It's either pretty artwork for the sake of pretty artwork or a story where the outcome is relevant to us. Or, at the very least, you can't have ongoing continuity. Actions either have consequences or they don't"
Edit: Also, from personal experience, I have found that when people use "continuity shouldn't matter" or a variation of such, it is often used to justify a bad writing decision, like in the comic book Spider-Man: one more day, or Terminator Genisys. I do however agree with your assessment at the end.
This pretty much sums it up
Cinema Sins: the books do not matter.
A movie is an interpretation of the source material.
I find the idea that "having ongoing continuity" is somehow incompatible with actions having consequences and/or emotional investment disturbing, and a mindset like that seems to say more about the audience than the piece.
I'm someone who CAN get invested to a degree when there is no continuity, but WILL probably get invested if there is- the world feels more alive when it's relatively internally consistent, and less so if that consistency is ditched for pure fleeting emotional highs.
Ah, Linkara. I remember that review. And he's totally right.
I just watch someone play stanley parable 2, and he played it from the very start (the first stanley parable stuffs). There is this fern, that the narrator told us is at utmost importance. Long story short, in the new stuffs, the fern keeps popping up, but is not that important. For those who remembers it's a delight to keep seeing our most lovable fern from time to time, but for those who forgot doesn't really bothered with them since the narrator never mention the fern ever again. I think that whole situation really encapsulate what a canon is.
I agree, I only care about canons when it's clear that the writer(s) respect it and want to make a consistent, coherent story, even if some contradictions might fall through.
It's just harder to care when a story shift tones, genres, themes around randomly every few years because either the same author just doesn't care(Rowling), a new writer is constantly introduced who will immediately retcon what the previous writer wrote(DC comics), storytelling is sacrificed for the sake of pushing agendas(Star Wars), or the authors feel some compulsion to always carelessly introduce new elements in every new installment without caring for any of its implications and effects(Kingdom Hearts and Fate).
Big contradictions are forgivable if it's an honest mistake, while it's much less forgivable when it's outright disrespectful to what was established in the past.
I would like to add Sonic to either the 2nd or last examples if not both.
I think that The Elder Scrolls series has an interesting way of dealing with canon. The fact that there is no single absolute source for the events that take place in the in-game world makes sense considering most games are RPGs with varied possibilities for the player to choose
Yes, thank you, I was hoping someone would bring up The Elder Scrolls as an example of more modern ways of handling what's 'canon.'
History is written by the winners.
If it's not documented, it didn't happen.
What I'm trying to say is, we don't always know our own history, so why would game lore be any different? IMHO it's more realistic to be uncertain, to have contradictions, with no clear answers. :)
For me, Canon is just the events that happen in a story. Canon only matters inside the story. Derivative works (fanart, fan fiction) should be 100% free to ignore Canon. Works made by the author, unless they explicitly say they're ignoring Canon at the beginning, should follow the Canon as much as they can.
I see canon the same way, I don't understand how anyone could even write something without canon.
The problem arrises when an author dies and someone else buys the IP of the world they created.
Tolkein, for example, obsessed over Middle Earth to a level that nearly rises to insanity. He spent decades creating an entire imaginary language and thousands of years of imaginary history for his world. He engaged with his imaginary world more than the real one sometimes. He clearly felt those details were important.
But he's dead now. And Bezos owns his world, so Bezos can change whatever he wants to make a TV show. And he can justify if by saying all the details Tolkein obsessed over weren't actually published. I don't think the author would have wanted that.
Cannon is important in any long running series it makes investment worth while. If I get invested in a story and then the story’s sequel tells me those events never happened it ruins the previous story’s enjoyment and makes it harder to get invested in the current story’s plot because the writers have already told me these events likely won’t matter. This draws attention to the hand of the author and can harpoon investment in a story. This is not absolute but story’s should flow smoothly from one to the next and not undo themselves.
One choice that disney made that I actually REALLY like is instead of calling it "non-canon" they called it "Legends" which means anything in the EU, etc. meaning it MAY have happened its just unconfirmed. Means nothing is truly off the table.
especially since it fits with the idea that the galaxy is huuuuuuge, so stories may have gotten stretched in the retelling....
@@jessicalee3229 Problem is when it involves important characters and places where history is recorded well
@@موسى_7 but do you know the story of American president George Washington chopping down the apple tree? What about the story of Russian Empress Catherine the Great dying after having intercourse with a horse? Or the story that English Queen Anne Boleyn had a 6th finger and a mole on her neck? None of these are true, but the stories are considered by a ton of people as such. That's kind of how I look at it.
Canon matters, it develops a coherent and widely agreed story that develops a wide fan base. also allows future fans get the basic knowledge and storyline summarized so they can keep up.
If Canon doesn't matter that's how we get Star Wars Episodes 7,8, and 9...
Can have those Solo.twins mucking about...
I’m never sure why fans get angry at Disney for decanonising a bunch of stuff. Like it was already implicit that such a thing could (and would) happen due to the tier system of canon Star Wars had
I like canon, and I find it interesting learning about certain deeper lore etc.
But there really are very few things I care about enough to properly argue about. IP isn't one of them. TBH even Tolkien changed his mind about canon in LOTR; it's really dealers choice if you want to think Middle-Earth ends in the Dagor Dagorath- a climactic final battle with Morgoth, or if it slowly changes into our world (team Dagor Dagorath ftw though).
I like Doctor Whos "Fixpoint in Time", where there are events in time and space that always need to happen in one form or another.
For me that also applies to the canon of a series/franchise.
The more memorable and impactfull an event or aspect the more likely it is that it is a fixpoint (same for beloved characters).
For games fixpoints can also be gameplay aspects. But a fixpoint can also be a ruleset or the presents of certain characters.
Small changes to fixpoints can be needed and will happen after enough entrys/reboots/reimaginings.
If a new entry disregards too many fixpoints or makes the changes to big, a lot of the fandom will dislike/hate it and it won't feel like part of the series/franchise.
Canon is incredibly important. A story is damaged immensely with obvious lore inconsistencies so going farther and farther off of canon only damages the story further
I tend to take a three tier approach to the subject of canon.
First, you have the work itself. Everything contained in the work itself is Canon.
Second, you have supplemental works, like novelizations, media adaptations and "Word of God", that sort of thing. Anything official or semi official that isnt the work itself.
Finally, you have Fanon, which itself can be split into two tiers, Good and Bad, that are mostly defined by the quality and how well liked rhey are by the fandom.
And where the work later contradicts itself (ie: a new book in a series contradicts an earlier one) the new interpretation wins out. Recency bias
TThese weeks have gone by so fast... I really do apreciate the work that goes into these videos, great art, great content, ty.
I love that this channel isn’t scared of getting a little childish like with the cannon sounds. They really crack me up but they don’t keep it long and quickly move on bc well then it wouldn’t be so funny or good.
For me 'Non-Canon' is 'What-If" experiment. It's branch away from what's considered 'canon'. It might be fun to engage, or if you do not like it, just ignore.
'Canon' estabilishes what's fact and real events in the world building - It base for my judgement either I like it or not.
Or from other side i might like specific branch of 'non-canon' assumptions and events, more than actual canon.
Like I prefer to read book series in order, I like to get world building facts stright when engage with media - is it canon, or which non-canon branch we talk about. Is it "ruining" tone of entire title, or it's just funny exercise.
I think that really the whole of Sherlock Holmes sums it up completely. Many want to be the Great Detective, to find some hidden meaning be it a n Easter Egg or some unexplored detailed of a universe we love. People by nature are curious and want explanations, we also like good stories, and often great meta-narratives. But much like a good recipe, following canon faithfully will always bring you to a particular conclusion, but sometimes experimenting and deviating will bring you to something tasty, wonderful, and new.
A more interesting view might be to look at franchises that eventually strayed from the original canon and were all the better for it versus the ones that really should not have left the playbook behind.
I think of "canon" as a banyan tree. Always growing larger as new trunks (stories) are added to the tree, and every bit of it intertwining with the mass as a whole. Everyone has their own idea of which trunk is the main trunk (primary canon) and can see the interweaving trunks that start from other bases (non-canon) and limbs that split, weave, and merge into each other (semi-canon) of those around them. It is all a matter of perspective and freely up to each person to decide from where they wish to enjoy the story. Only way you can really be wrong is to take an ax to it and cut away all other trunks and branches to attempt to eliminate those perspectives, as eventually, you will kill the tree as a whole and lose the story you tried to protect.
This is a brilliant analogy. I will absolutely be referencing this in the future (with credit).
@@KenjiShiratsuki Thanks.
No. That's absurd.
@@tavernburner3066 To each their own I suppose. That's just how I see canon in regards to stories. How do you see it?
@@RasielDraconis story telling is a game and the rules of that game is causality aka cannon.
I mostly dwell in the DC fandom nowadays, and as a fanfic writer I've definitely had my fun with canon. But I think it really highlights for me what parts of canon I consider necessary versus not, and made me realize I prioritize emotional continuity.
Sure, writers can't remember where in Europe Markovia is supposed to be, but if they remember the character's arcs related to that and the general feel of the country and culture, it's more hilarious than anything. Also consider people's biggest complaints for adaptations: It doesn't "feel" like Superman, or Batman, or all these other characters.
Elseworlds and the like really highlight it. Superman in Superman Red Son still feels like Superman despite the premise of the AU. The same is true of the Injustice comics.
So if an addition to canon changes the core feeling, or emotional continuity of the series it will be rejected. But anything that adds to that will be accepted.
The use of canon is essential, and at least needs to be acknowledged and respected.
I’m still reading fanfiction (as writing it finally got me out of the gutter for schooling-induced writer’s block [seriously, don’t do anything other than a simple outline]), and some of the stories I’ve seen that get negative reviews usually come from violations of canon that either make no sense (non sequiter), or are poorly executed.
Violation of canon can work, but a writer needs to show their work on how they can do it, especially if it drifts towards deus ex machina. That’s why the older Star Wars fans will accept Raddus’ ramming tactic in the Rogue One film, but not Holdo’s in The Last Jedi.
There's also the matter of cost/balance.
Holdo took out an entire fleet of capital ships by sacrificing a single life on a single capital ship (and wouldn't have needed even that if a 'lifeless' droid could have pushed a button).
Raddus sacrificed a single corvette explicitly designed for ramming to push an already compromised destroyer into a shield, creating a brief opening for the rebels.
With Holdo, all battle strategy is thrown into chaos. With Raddus, it's a very specific tactic that requires lots of setup and circumstance, and that would normally not be worth the cost. There's a very clear divide between the two in not just planning, but in avoiding the creation of OP strategies or characters.
@@r3dp9 the tactical debate isn’t what’s wrong. It’s how the execution of the rammings in universe are performed.
Raddus’ idea works because it’s essentially using a disabled, floundering ship and a stand-in tug at sublight speeds. More importantly, Raddus comes up with it on the fly, showing why he’s far more bullish than other members of the Alliance council.
Holdo’s doesn’t because it overrides years of canon on how hyper drives work. Even without Disney’s hand wave of the EU, audience expectations assume that hyperdrive ramming simply doesn’t work, because if it did, it would be far more economical for galactic factions in Star Wars to go around slinging asteroids with sublight and hyperdrives than building actual warships.
Audiences can follow continuity much better than randomness not done ironically or in humor.
From my perspective, the importance of canon is that which developers, authors, etc. give it within a work. The more narratively driven a work is, and the more connected the works, the more canon matters. On the other side, you tell me that games like Sonic the Hedgehog or (nonconsecutive) Fire Emblem actually need a consistent overarching storyline, and I’ll laugh at you for few seconds before realizing you’re serious.
My search for a fully thought-out, totally realistic and contradiction-less fantasy world eventually got me into studying real-life history and drew me to Extra History in the first place.
Since I was a little boy, I've been equally interested in history and world building fiction (fantasy and sci fi)-they both give me the same thing.
Canon is good because it establishes the baseline “truth” to discuss things on. Just like science in the real world. It’s a waste to spend time bickering over that, but without it we lack the common ground to advance debate with
Canon is just what the average person accepts as true about the series. For example Harry Potter has 2 main canons, Movies and Books. These canons are developed by whoever is creating the work with the legal rights to it.
But there is another canon called Fan Canon or Fanon that is formed through common perceptions shared between fans that either don't exist in or are not obviously construed from canon works. An example of Fanon in Star Wars is the Existence of Gray Force Users.
Coming from the SCP fandom, I find this episode hilarious.
For those looking on in confusion, there are as many canons to the SCP Foundation as there are collected works, articles, tales, and individual PAGES in the fandom.
Personally, I think a major view got left out of this discussion: literary agent hypothesis. This posits that the "author" is trying to tell a story as they envision it. And it is our job, as readers, to decide what is from the "original source" and what is interpretation by the storyteller.
I once heard the suggestion that the road warrior became a myth beyond a certain point.
Was the night rider real? Did Max drive an interceptor? Was there a dog? Was the dog God?
We dont know. Just know there was a man, and a family, and now he is alone, the road warrior
Gonna be honest.. this is one of the few things I can agree with. Respect the canon and add on to it, don’t change it.
Or at least rarely change it if changing it allows for better media.
Such as Magneto being a Holocaust survivor, giving him a far deeper motivations with a more nuance personality.
I think the problem with canon is that when you have one canon, fans want every adaptation to revolve around that canon. One example is fnaf. The main games focus on one canon but when the books came out everyone complained how it did not fit the main story but it was never the point. Scott Cawthon said that the books were a reimagining of the main story used to explain things never explained in the main canon. Scott wanted to tell a story but his games limited his ability to tell a story so he he wrote a reimagined story.
Another case is the Archie Sonic Comics. I have seen many reviews on these complain how the characters are out of character when they keep forgetting it is supposed to be a reimagining of Sonic story.
Whenever I look at an adaptation of something I don't look into how close it is to the canon I look at how good it is on its own merit and be cause of that I am able to appreciate all kinds of adaptations.
Well that and as a series goes on for years audience and demographic tweaks become necessary to keep a sizeable fandom engaged.
I always view canon as important to a franchise, since it is what the creator intended to share with their story.
while i do think internal consistency improves the value of any fiction, i think fandoms often live out these satirical illustrations of why canon is a limited tool without any appreciation of the irony. For me it's the fullness of the characters and the richness of the stories/themes that gives meaning, and internal consistency is only one tool to support that. I think western people often forget that for most of history storytelling was about remaining true to traditions surrounding characters and themes and that measurable mechanics of plot stability are a relatively modern phenomenon. Like the whole point of figures like Arjuna, Artemis, Freya, Hercules, Moses, Jesus, etc. was that their stories could be localized and personalized while remaining true to the character and the overarching themes of their stories. Try reading the canonical gospels, they are all radically different stories describing the same character that were produced by communities with different values and thus have different themes. Mark's Jesus is a secret messiah, Matthew's is a Jewish messiah, Luke's is a prophet in the tradition of the Nev'im, and John's is an avatar of G-d who has existed since the dawn of time and has no qualms about telling everyone. Very different stories and takes on the character, but sharing related ideas and many of the same story beats. As Extra History has demonstrated, these fandom debates shaped our civilization and gave birth to Catholic Orthodoxy. So we as modern fans should maybe embrace plurality.
Personally, Canon is an important aspect because it reminds player, watcher or reader important factor from their respective medium, such as Iron Man and his traits and Narnia and Its Magical Story. Yes some part might be different than their original form, but it has something that sticks that we can't just forget and I think that's what makes canon beautiful in its form.
A good example of how not being TOO invested in canon can be seen in the Castlevania Netflix series. It had a lot of homages to the games added to the visuals by the animators, but the writer Warren Ellis just looked at a bunch of wikis and info about Castlevania the games and put together a coherent plot lightly based on them, and brought out one of the greatest video game adaptations of all time.
Cannon is obviously important but using it as a conversation stopping shield for perpetuating problematic stories, tropes, etc. is not acceptable. No storyline or character trait is immutable, no matter how many times it's been told that way. I think some things get so ingrained they feel like truths rather than creations and people defend them like truths when others point out that they really should be altered or replaced.
Constantly shifting/changing cannon is one of my biggest issues with comics and I am saying that as a person who loves comics. As annoying as it can be, I get having the sliding timeline to keeps comics always in the current time. However, if you are constantly changing a character's origins or major events in their past every time there is a new story or with every new writer, then it makes me feel like keeping up with the story doesn't matter. Or why should I care about a major event if it won't even have happened a few years later. It can also feel like lazy story writing, like the writers didn't actually bother to research the character/topic they are writing about, or like a new writer feels that they are superior to the previous when and know better how the plot should have gone. Anyway's, that's my rant for the day.
this is one of the main reasons I will never be able to get into comics. The constant shifting of backgrounds and past events by new writers strikes me as incredibly lazy and completely takes me out of the story.
@@DarthNicky It is meant to be lazy because they're taking advantage of an already existing franchise, instead of putting effort into new stories with different characters. Comic series were reboots and remakes before they were a thing in film media.
@@100lovenana this does nothing to make me like or respect comics more
As long as it's written well, I guess you can make an argument for any side of this issue. Just look at Spider-Man, we all love the established Canon from all of those versions and we got to see them together without having to dismantle anything that was previously established. But Miles Morales challenge the status quo and came out the better Spider-Man.
I'd say that the main problem people have with the question of canon is when changes in corporate management on certain properties leads to people being put in charge of characters and storylines that they have never read/experienced and that they have no interest in learning about. They lack a fundamental understanding of what made the character/story popular and change the character/story to meet their own personal tastes in story telling which usually means making it more "mature" so people will know they are serious auteurs and not just some genre hack writing kid's stuff.
So we end up with an angsty Superman pondering his role as a god descended from the heavens to an ungrateful population instead of the kid from Kansas that gets cats out trees for little kids and punches earthquakes in the face. Seriously, just give Kohei Horikoshei the Superman franchise as he's the only one that seems to understand that kind of character.
I understand your point, but is that really an issue of canon? I would say it's less an issue of making factual inconsistencies and more a lack of understanding/respecting the spirit of prior works.
The short answer to the Antsy Superman issue is two folded. There is are still shows and comic book that that small time paragon of good Superman today. The second is that Superman was so OP by 1978 he could sneeze away galaxies.
My view is that each piece of media stands on its own and Canon only refers to what is taken up in that piece of media as backstory.
My friends and I expanded on this. Broadcast canon which is the Film, director cut of film, tv cut of film. Tv Show canon which is loose or tight depending on how many writers the tv show had. Adapted works canon these are the scripts or adapted novels. Then comic book canon which is great if they even keep the names correct when new writers and artists come on to series. We try to keep theses canons in their own lane as we the longer the 'Fiction" exists the greater chance of changes occuring.
Depend on where the Canonball is flying
One of my favorite comic writers of all time is Grant Morrison and they famously don’t give a single crap about continuity or canon.
If it makes the story better, put it in, if it doesn’t, then don’t.
As are many thing you are both right.
Cannon is important to keep things straight, but we shouldn't be so hard set in the cannon of something that we keep ourselves from enjoying something that isn't cannon but is nonetheless good.
Whenever some new author argues against cannon, what it really means is that author thinks they know better then the original creator and wants to rewrite history within that world, typically to push an agenda or political philosophy. Instead of the story revolving largely around a central male protagonist, they can just write that person as incompetent while converting a female side character in the real main character / protagonist. Yeah figure out which recently releases series did something like that.
I feel canon should be viewed as a "within the current run" sort of view.
If you're writing a brand new Batman, you should be able to do whatever you want within the rules of the copyright(or whatever it is that makes LOTR bloody difficult to work with). If you want Bruce to openly kill cause that's what your Batman does, go right ahead. You're making your new canon.
But, if you're writing a new sequal to Tim Burton's Batman, then you need to follow the rules of the world established within that canon. Otherwise, it won't fit the story.
I get the argument of "if you change the canon too much, you may aswell create a new world and charater and world" is a strong one, but end of the day, that's what creative license is for. And if you really don't like it, then don't play/ watch/ follow it. That's fine. You won't lose your fan card.
(Yes, there are caveats for characters that are small or don't have many works out. I appreciate that there are some cases where you just want to see the characters from the page brought to life in the big screen. That's a different and harder issue.)
So what if i wanted to make a batman story where his parents never died, but they lost all their money. Bruce grew up to be a weak and simple man that likes to dress up in a chuahaha costume and rob places. Is it still a batman story?
As for the dont watch it narrative, if I wanted to make a story of a terrible criminal, why did I need to destroy a beloved character to make the story so different? It's one thing to make a different view point, its another to take something that has been cherished and loved for decades and change it totally.
I love Star Trek, i hate the new ones, they have the same names but the designs and stories are totally different. I don't watch them, but now I will never get new shows or movies while i watch what i loved become a cheap knockoff of itself. Where do you set the line? If Kurtsman wants to have the new threat be space wizard with magic swords and moon bases that blow up earth, is that ok? What happens when the Borg and taken over by Bylons who shout extermination! and shoot lazers at people. At which point does it loose what it means to be Star Trek? The whole point of Star Trek was optimism and a brighter future for humanity where we evolved past hatred and bigtory, New Trek seems to be modern day us in space.
I don't think that either a strict canon and loose canon approach is wrong but like everything it comes with tradeoffs. A strict canon can make a franchise feel real and interconnected but sometimes you end up painting yourself into a corner. Individual stories in a franchise can sometimes be made worse by having to strictly adhere to established canon rather than being allowed to stand on their own. On the flip side loose canon can allow individual works much more creative freedom but at the expense of not feeling as grounded in their universe as stricter canons.
I think fandoms care too much about canon to the detriment of their own enjoyment.
I have had way too many conversations where non-canon or retconned stories, which had comparable or were arguably better experiences than the canonical material, were completely dismissed as meaningless.
What if "Kingdom Hearts 3 GUITAR BY BIRTH" had electric guitars instead of keyblades but was ten steps above in quality over every other game in the series in every other aspect, would you refuse to play?
What if the real KH3 wasn't penned by Nomura but this one was? Would it change things? Does it gain more validity?
Ultimately people enjoy what they enjoy, but I'd argue you shouldn't take non-canon to mean "worse".
That is true. Sometimes sticking to the canon can be so tight and rigid that there is nothing new to explore anymore. At times, if done well, challenging the ideas in the canon can be add a new experience that brings depth to a story.
I used to be obsessed with Canon and then I almost got into a fight with my brother ever wonder woman two and the new Star Wars mess me up and I realize I need to stop caring about Canon so much And I haven’t looked back it makes my view an experience better now I was overthinking everything and raising my expectations
This was interesting! I think I like the idea of creators maintaining canons (though I don't mind thoughtfully-executed retcons), but I'm also in favor of IP law being opened up so that different creators can make their own canons of an IP, kind of like what has happened with Sherlock Holmes (see: CBS's Elementary vs. the BBC's Sherlock vs. the Robert Downey Jr. movies, for some examples).
canon provides a framework to answer the question "what would the outcome be if that thing actually happened in that fictional universe, or at least involving those particular aspects in question" and whether or not it matters or is useful depends on what kind of question you ask and answer you're looking for.
It's a great starting point if you want to expand on the already established stories in a way that would believably fit with the original works, but if that's not a high priority canon doesn't really matter.
Shoji Kawamori has an interesting take on Canon. Macross Do You Remember Love is a reimagined retelling of SDF Macross. Later sequels like Macross 7 hint to both continuities. You know his response when asked about Canon? Macross is a docudrama. Meaning it is a Metafiction.
Not really taking a side here but I will say i'm currently playing through the entire "Trails of" series from game 1 on the PSP all the way up to the current game which unlike games like Final Fantasy is actually an ongoing story. I'm now on game 8 of 9 English releases and whilst theres certain new releases begging for my attention (ie. i'm going to play triangle strategy once im done Cold Steel 4) I'm really loving the strong canon/continuity despite putting hundreds of hours into the series by now.
More specifically
Beaten
Trails in the Sky 1 - PSP
Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter - PSP
Trails in the Sky the 3rd - PC
Trails from Zero - PSP
Trails to Azure - PSP
Trails of Cold Steel 1 - PC
Trails of Cold Steel 2 - PC
Current
Trails of Cold Steel 3 - Switch
To Play
Trails of Cold Steel 4 - Switch
Not Yet in English
Trails of Reverie - ???
Trails of Calvard 1 - ???
Trails of Calvard 2 - ???
Note: I also played the first 3 Legend of Heroes games (NOT dragon slayer) on the PSP not knowing they were separate form this series, they were fun too :)
I think that like in theology, canon is the officially sanctioned collection of texts, not necessarily the original or the most coherent. But like in theology, fans can have a very different idea of what should and should not be canon. For example, many Star Wars fans believe the Thrawn books should be canon, but Disney doesn't.
In my opinion the basics of what “Canon” is can be summed up in one line from the first pirates of the Caribbean movie; “Their more like guidelines.”
...than actual rules." Which I 100 percent agreed. Any works of art, whether games, movies, books, or a tv show will have interpretations and reinterpretation. There will be good ones, bad ones, and one for the LOL's. Overall, it is part of the fandom experience. The best fiction is not all about what was established, but what it can grow into.
A strange but useful tool to change canon is the unreliable narrator. Take for instance Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, multiple times in both games and other media he's seen to have gaps in his memory, a fabricated background, loss of control, and hallucinations. Only one of which could be a gateway if you wanted to mess with canon
I always loved canon. Strong canon lets you re-live your favorite stories rather than slashing and burning them. Spotting small details and making connections is super rewarding.
Something that's interesting to think about since Persona was mentioned, is that Persona actually is the result of a non-canon branch. Its a spiritual sequel to "Shin Megami Tensei: If" (and may or may not actually be in the same continuity as that game) and "If" was seen as an alternate timeline to the SMT series - and in this situation, the break from canon resulted in an even more popular franchise that eclipsed the original canon in popularity.
I think that the importance of canon will vary from fandom to fandom, usually based on how long the franchise has been going. You call to Dr Who for a sec there, and it's a great example of a franchise where canon pretty much doesn't matter. Part of that might also be how it is so heavily into time-travel (which can easily be used to hand-wave a lot of inconsistencies as off-screen butterfly effects) and that a lot of the sci-fi elements are always left so vague as to feel more like magic. But also the fact that it's been going so long in so many different media formats with official stories, it's likely noone has knowledge of *all* of it.
Personally, I usually can't stand a franchise that doesn't show at least a strong effort to maintain their own canon. However, I also love when part of the franchise splashes in a narrative device that allows for a lot of canon wiggleroom: the unreliable narrator!
I never saw the need for a Zelda canon. To me, I guess I always just saw the games as what would be retellings of a similar story over time. I am not a fan of the need to link them all together. (Take the pun there if you want)
I think that we as community need to learn one important lesson: canon is not automatically better than non-canon.
At least, I feel that a lot of the debate around canon stems from the fact that people feel like something is worth less or of less quality simply because it is non-canon. And obviously, you won't sit by and watch quietly as somebody else says this sidestory/arc/spinoff or whatever you particularly like is worth less. You would rise up against this challange and defend the authenticity of whatever you like.
But that shouldn't be the case. Even if something is non-canon it still can have a deep story with lots of hidden details, homages and and meaningful character growth.
In a way, I think we should treat canon and non-canon as a sort of multiverse. Canon is the main universe in which most stories tie into and reach the most fans. But it does not mean that the stories in other universes are automatically less important or worthy of attention.
It's not less quality, but it's less... credibility, maybe? X maybe a fine and interesting story, but ultimately it just didn't happen in the main universe of Y, which makes it kinda... consequenceless?
@@DarthBiomech Consequenceless for universe Y, yeah. But this shouldn't diminish the story.
Though, I understand it's frustrating to live with the thought that the story you like so much will just end in nothingness since their likely will be no follow up. But if it were canon, then everything that is to come would depend on it.
As a Zelda theorist, this topic comes up all the time. There is rarely a clear cut definition of what is canonical, and there always seems to be someone who is ready to knock some long held belief off the canon shelf. Personally, that's what actually draws me to the theorist community; the ongoing examination, and reexamination of all the different pieces, and rearranging them to see what other ideas can come of it.
Canon must be maintained at all times, after all we all know that Batman, shoots people, does not kill people, loves Robin as a foster son, loves Robin as a hetero-life-partner, locks Robin in caves and makes him eat rats, and let’s not forget his rampant hatred of the ultimate menace - *rock-and-roll* !
You forgot about his lifelong nemesis ... ONE-FACE!
I think videogames, comics and animation (western and eastern) have already proved that there are already many options to introduce variety to the same IP without sacrificing the cannon: reboots, remakes, reimaginations and change of media.
Cannon definitely has value, that's evident. I think these options allow for a broader perspective on the IP while keeping cannon value.
IPs can even branch in continuity! There is a world of possibilities.
As regards whimsically changing your canon, I'd recommend looking at Warhammer 40k.
As regards some generally thought to be good changes to continuity, ie., Good changes to official canon... Well, also Warhammer 40k 🤷🏻♂️
Coming at this more from a fiction writing background, a canon-related comern of mine is when writers declare something canon that one couldn't reasonably conclude from the source material alone, particularly when it all but contradicts the source material. That- just feels really off to me. As someone who dabbles in writing, I feel my work should stand alone, and the author's additional expert knowledge is fun behind-the-scenes details people can take or leave.
Canon is important. If writers don’t care enough to string together a coherent canon which fits with the world they’re trying to build, why should the readers care about it? Each contradictory left turn just hurls us out of the experience and we become aware just how throwaway this information is and therefore not worth internalising and and investing in. Imagine game of thrones where the status quo is restored at the beginning of each episode and how it would cheapen the feeling of all the canonical deaths that happen. Just wouldn’t be the same.
You should care about them because Pachelbel's one is AWESOME
Sanderson's "Laws of Magic" comes to mind. When a fiction has a "hard" Magic system, debates about canon make sense since the writer intentionally sets rules for his/her fictional world.
This allows an approach by logical deduction.
A "soft" magic system does not allow such an approach.
It is based on the author's feelings (like "Lord of the Rings" or "Narnia").
It's like trying to interpret an abstract painting.
One advantage to giving canon a little bit of looseness is to undo terrible ideas. I'm not talking about just bad stories but ideas that were racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. This kind of retconning is particularly common in superhero comics. You can find many stories of new writers undo things a previous writer had done or just taking a character in a new direction, esp. with the industry becoming more diverse.
Makes me think of SHIELD from marvel, how they were working on an acronym through iron man 1, but then later movies/shorts/shows Peggy Carter is a founding member of Shield, and people call it SHIELD. An early throw a away joke that they just ignore later, (in the MCU, not necessarily earlier material)
As someone who loves worldbuilding and thinking about what else is or could be going on in the world, it's important to me to have a consistent canon so that these questions have meaning and possibly even answers. That said, I don't mind the existence of divergent or "What If . . . ?" stories, as they can be fun ways to explore alternate possibilities when done well. And I don't really care which branch of the timeline my _Zelda_ game takes place in because it's not really trying to build that shared universe in the same way, although I'm sure others feel differently (and that's fine).
I'm a bit surprised that you didn't mention the Mythos as an example for the fanbase to expand the original universe.
And I really loved some of the images like the 40K one.
Canon in the Elder Scrolls lore community remains a hugely divisive topic that rarely fails to get people's blood boiling.
As it is, the developers of the Elder Scrolls games seem to have a very relaxed approach when it comes to canon. Not only is information about the universe delivered almost entirely through fallible narrators, but devs like Todd Howard have come out and said that carrying over established lore from prior games takes a back seat to what the devs want to do with the story and setting. They've also reiterated that canon in some aspects is up to each individual player and the choices they make.
Despite this approach from the developers, major problems arise as irreconcilable contradictions arise between games - and sometimes within games themselves - as the result of story events experienced first hand by its players, conflicting lore that can't be merely the result of differing perspectives or interpretations, and lore that is just poorly conceived or badly implemented by developers. With this come fan theories attempting to explain things from game mechanics to metaphysics, some which are popular enough to get passed around as truth and are irreconcilable with the "canon" established by the games.
Its an impossibly twisted rabbit hole to crawl down into, and debates over the role of canon in the Elder Scrolls (more so than what is and isn't canon) still inspires impassioned arguments today.
So put your TES lore and canon takes in the reply section below!!
to me if it's made by the company/endorsed by them its canon. If its written by a fan its not
Canon tends to make things more consistent and cohesive from what I've seen, for example the legends/extended universe of Star Wars actively conflicted with MANY pieces of established lore such as the existence of things like the Star Crusher (Starkiller but tiny and made out of literal plot armor) as well as the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong and would immediately conflict with the upcoming sequel trilogy.
What doesn't help however are dogmatic fanboys blindly sticking to already established information and refusing to allow any change such as the amount of people angered over force healing and the Holdo Maneuver. The way I explain that is simply that force healing might have been seen as impossible or otherwise miraculous with barely anyone able to do it and the Holdo Maneuver simply wasn't done due to the fact that its suicidal, requires perfect conditions to execute and requires a fairly big and expensive ship to pull off.
One interesting spin on how a canon is handled is Kirby Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot. Both games have a bonus mode where you play through the game as King Dedede in Triple Deluxe and Meta-Knight in Planet Robobot. Not only do you have to contend with stronger bosses, but the final battle changes drastically which adds more lore to the Kirby series. Though the events are not canonical, the events that transpires confirms these developments … which is a shame because that means Meta-Knight canonically never fights Dark Matter.
I like the moderated view at the end. Canon should be mindfully followed, not mindlessly obeyed or mindlessly thrown out. It's generally important to honor, but sometimes it creates a prison that the intellectual property can only benefit from breaking past.
If you're going to break canon, do so mindfully and with measured purpose. If you're going to follow it, know what you're giving up and how to work around that.
This is the best explanation n definition for Canon I've ever seen. Plenty of things have been added to a particular story's Canon info thru pop culture osmosis. I submit that so long as it's adding an interesting layer of depth that's internally consistent without retroactively tarnishing what was established its good (provided what was previously established wasn't terrible)
I think an interesting question that games specifically have to deal with is potentially having to deal with previous entries having events play out differently for each player.
Some games elect to pick a true ending to follow up on. But that can leave players who went down different routes feel like they played the last game wrong.
Other games try to keep the cannon loose so that no matter what the player did last game then it could still fit. But that kinda limits how detailed the lore can get in the new game. Dark souls probably does this the most effectively. The lore is already vague enough that how you want to connect the games is subjective.
Some games even do both. There are a few elements in fallout lore that are basically written in stone. But there are other events that, because of the significant time and distance between games, don't have a cannon resolution.
The third option is to import the players previous save file and adjust the game based on that. But that either ends up being a lot of work, and you still have to restrict things to having most of the game work regardless of previous choices and have only fairly superficial elements change.
It gets even more messy the longer running the series is.
This was interesting video and discussion! Also Matt, 4:05 I FELT THAT IN MY SOUL😆😩
There is also a term people in fandoms use that's "Headcanon", as in the canon inside your head, or your interpretation of the implicit canon of stories. Things that are never stated explicitly but you want to imagine because it fills up the gaps and builds up the story or characters. Headcanons usually are based off indirect relations to things that _are_ explicit, but it can also not be the case if it feels coherent enough on it's own. People in fandoms like to discuss their own headcanons and how they arrived at those conclusions, which I think it's pretty good as long as it's kept respectful
Who doesn't like canons? Without them, there is no discussion, for example in Finland the most common canon discussion is about which Disney comics are in canon with Donald Duck comics by Don Rosa and Carl Barks because there are so many artists and stories. Such a discussion maintains interest and involves comparing, analyzing, and justifying individuals' personal canons that they have created.
Kinda wild that one of the best EC eps in a while is so tangentally related to games. Still, you did a great job on this one, everybody!
I think once a franchise has grown big enough, zealous attention to established continuity and granular lore details leads to new stories and their themes drowning under a sea of "wow I remember that thing!" and discussions about whether they used the right carburetor for a spaceship (cough Star Wars cough)
Never knew that there was a history to fandom such this. Felt the same amazement when I found out the term Mary Sue supposedly came from a 1900s Star Trek fan fiction.
Canon is important to me because story investment is a huge part of what can make me obsess over a game, but I also hold the stance that canon should be flexible to a point. Rule of Cool is in full effect. With that said, there are some series (Legend of Zelda for example) that benefit from an extremely loose canon that leaves it up to fans to figure it out.
I feel like this topic needs to be discussed further. There are a lot of pros and cons to cannonizing media. I think some concepts work better with canon than others. I think a lot of that has to do with the level of consistency achieved by the production.