What is the current philosopohy of canon?

[Donker]

I think those were more than "fans". It wasn't some peasant in Thessaly deciding what to include and what to toss out.

They were literally fans. These people did not write the bible. You can argue the catholic church had "rights" on the bible, but then why do Orthodox, Baptists, Lutherans, Adventists etc all have different "canon" on the same book? When we get to the Protestant reformation, it literally is just "some peasants" deciding what parts of the bible are and are not canon.

We see this heavily with Star Wars at the moment with different canon "cults" almost split between Disney and Old Star Wars canon.

Canon is a fan concept. All that is canon is what fans decide are meaningful parts of the story that people find worthy of discussion.

How do you define 'real'?

Hahahaha perfect, like I said, this is all a deeply philosophical question in reality. What is actually being argued here are two different views on philosophy. What defines reality, especially in fictional works.

Edit:
In the end, isn't this entire debate just the "Death of the Author" debate?

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[Nerys Myk]

They were literally fans. These people did not write the bible. You can argue the catholic church had "rights" on the bible, but then why do Orthodox, Baptists, Lutherans, Adventists etc all have different "canon" on the same book? When we get to the Protestant reformation, it literally is just "some peasants" deciding what parts of the bible are and are not canon.

Nope. They were the guys with the "rights" to the Bible. They're Paramount and CBS, Berman and Braga or Orci and Kurtzman not Donker and Nerys Myk.

 

[Valenti]

I would think reality would be what's on the screen and what the share holders are invested in as in MONEY.

 

[Christopher]

This makes perfect sense as far as it goes, but I think it's worth inserting a caveat, since the example is somewhat legalistic. Specifically, the concept of canon does not depend on ownership, under current IP law or any other version. After all, the Bible and Sherlock Holmes have been mentioned here repeatedly, as ur-sources of the term... but obviously the Bible has never been under copyright, and (almost all of) Conan Doyle's Holmes stories are now in the public domain as well (indeed, the 7th Circuit confirmed this in a 2014 ruling).

A word can mean different things in different contexts, regardless of its etymology. Radio waves derive their name from an analogy with water waves, but they're very different things. "Canon" as it pertains to fiction is a metaphor derived from the religious usage. They're not literally the exact same thing.

Really, it's an informal term for a very straightforward concept, and fans worry too much about splitting hairs over its exact usage. It's just the work of the core creators. Most canon questions are easily answered if you keep that principle in mind as your lodestar. (E.g. are these tie-ins canon? If they're by the core creators of the original work, quite possibly yes. If not, then very probably no.)

Yeah, that's undeniably the way a lot of fandom uses the term. On the one hand, it's understandable, simply because it's a convenient shorthand — "is X canon" is an understood way of asking "should I consider X to have happened as depicted in the fictional reality."

The thing is, what determines the answer to that question is what the makers of future episodes/movies decide to write. It's not a matter of what an individual fan may want to be "true," because the writers of new canon will do what they want, not what some random fan may want. That's why it's weird when fans think they can decide what's canon. Sure, if the series were permanently ended, then they'd be perfectly free to decide for themselves what to count, but as long as people are making new episodes or movies, it's their decisions that will dictate the shape of the continuity.

On the other hand, it's not really accurate, for all the reasons that have been discussed here. (For instance, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a single fan who considers VOY's "Thresholds" to have "happened," even though it's technically canon.)

Even "Threshold"'s own writers consider it not to have happened. Canons do remove parts of themselves sometimes.

For purposes of clarity, I've generally taken to using the term "headcanon" when discussing what I think fits into the continuity. It acknowledges the inherent subjectivity of the discussion, and lets me make an argument based on the content of the stories involved regardless of where they appeared.

I prefer "personal continuity," but I admit that "headcanon," however inaccurate, has caught on as an understood term, and it does have kind of a ring to it.

 

[Shawnster]

Canon literally comes from FANS of the bible deciding what is and isn't worthy talking about. The CANON of the bible has changed over hundreds of years because people just decided parts were and were not canon. These people did not write the bible, they were just "fans" and you had different groupings of fans consider different parts of the bible canon (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant sects)
Canon is literally a fan concept. The LITERAL ORIGIN of canon is literally fans arguing over a book and deciding what parts were "real" or not..

Ah, there is where our confusion is! You are using fans to mean the people in charge! I see now.

You are referring to the clergy as fans. I've been calling the laity the fans. After all, it wasn't that poor wretch who filled the church pews that decided what was or wasn't Bible canon. It was the church leaders that made said decisions.

You are calling the leaders the fans. Ah, I get it now. Thanks for setting me straight.

No, it's not a legal term... But canon is not something the laity, the readers, the viewers, the masses decide.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

And the writer doesn't write in a vacuum, they write for the fans.

Most writers say they write for themselves. They aren't trying to write for some hypothetical fan whose opinions they don't actually know. Fan appreciation is a nice bonus, not the sole endgame.

And many fans don't know what they want, anyway. Fans hated the idea of Spock getting killed off in The Wrath of Khan when they first heard about it, but today it's the most beloved Star Trek movie because the final product was well done. You can have a visceral hatred of an idea when you first hear it ("Kill Spock? NO! Never!"), but come to like it if it's well done ("Oh, I didn't know you were going to do it like THAT...").

What the hell is the point of writing if the fans don't consume it or talk about the work?

Paying rent, buying groceries, artistic fulfillment... There are lots of reasons.

But the fans don't make canon. The fans are the customers.

^^ This x1000. Saying that the fans are anything more than the consumers of the product is absurd. Fans may vote with their dollars, but at the end of the day the rights holders and the creators are free to do whatever they want to with their products, even in the face of fan disapproval. Art is not a democracy.

Again, to go with TWOK as an example, Trek fans hated the idea of Spock dying in TWOK, but it still happened because Leonard Nimoy, Nicholas Meyer, and Harve Bennett wanted it to happen. Fans didn't get a vote. Hell, even Gene Roddenberry didn't get a vote.

Canon literally comes from FANS of the bible deciding what is and isn't worthy talking about.

You not talking about something doesn't make it not exist.

And again, Canon is a FAN CONCEPT. If Fans do not consider it canon, nobody discusses it, it is, effectively not canon. It doesn't exist in any meaningful way.

No. The creators of the product can continue to tell the stories they want to tell, regardless of whether or not fans (small f) consider them canon. Most Star Wars fans disliked the prequels, but George Lucas still made the movies he wanted and told the stories he wanted to tell. And the stories are still considered canonical within the Star Wars Universe, even if they aren't referred to much.

Too many fans have the taxpayer mentality when it comes to entertainment. "I pay your salary, therefore you must do what I say!" Well, no. First of all, the studio or publisher pays the creator's salary. Second and more importantly, entertainment is not like ordering at Burger King. You cannot have it your way. The only choice the consumer has is whether or not to support the product financially. Now, the financial success of a product can certainly influence its future creative direction, but if any fans think that they're actually dictating the content, they're living in a fool's paradise.

I just want all of you to know:

Every time a Star Trek fan talks about "canon", a kitten dies.

What's the down side?

 

[Refuge]

(For instance, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a single fan who considers VOY's "Thresholds" to have "happened," even though it's technically canon.)

Hi, my name is 'Refuge' and I'm a Star Trek fan. I like Threshold. It is burned into my memory. It is canon.

 

[ChallengerHK]

The term has been used to discuss fiction since Sherlock Holmes fans and critics began using it as an analogy to refer to the Doyle stories as distinct from plays and pastiches.

Again, all likely true, but not the point I was getting at. I'm not looking for a history of the term's usage. I'm looking for the context of that usage in fandom. For the moment, let's call it motivation. Why did the term begin to be used, and by whom?

 

[ChallengerHK]

Sure, if the series were permanently ended, then they'd be perfectly free to decide for themselves what to count,

This is an interesting concept. I can't see how the show being on the air, or not being on the air, affects the continuity value of any given element. I don't think that the producer caring, or not caring about any given element affects the continuity value. As I see it, any given element either fits in the continuity, or doesn't. If it doesn't, we may be able to determine a reasonable explanation for the lack or fit, or we can't. I can't show how new episodes no longer being produced would change that.

 

[Christopher]

This is an interesting concept. I can't see how the show being on the air, or not being on the air, affects the continuity value of any given element.

Experiencing fiction is not a passive exercise. You take it into your own imagination and create your own version in your mind. If the series is over, you can be sure that that version in your mind won't be changed -- not unless you decide you want it to change. But if the series is ongoing, if new stories are being added to it, then those new stories will add new information that will change your understanding of the whole, and that will probably contradict some of your interpretations and require you to change them to keep up.

For instance: Star Trek never unambiguously established its calendar date until the end of TNG's first season. TOS references had suggested it was 200 or so years in the future, and the movies had established that it was in the 23rd century, but the precise date was unclear and references were conflicting. So there were two schools of thought in fandom and tie-in literature about when TOS took place. Some tie-in writers and fans put it in the first decade of the 23rd century (the closest they could get to the "200 years" references in season 1), while others put it in the 2260s, exactly 300 years ahead of when it was made. At the time, I was a proponent of the 2200s theory, because I based my personal version of the chronology on a fanzine article that used that theory (I later found it was based on the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology published in 1980). But then TNG aired "The Neutral Zone" and said the date of the episode was 2364. And we'd seen at the start of the season that Admiral McCoy was 137, so he wouldn't even have been born yet in the 2200s. So that one throwaway line in one episode required me to rewrite my entire personal chronology (in pencil and paper) and add 60 years to all the dates. I had to do that many times in the years that followed, reworking my interpretation of the Trek universe to fit the new information that the shows kept revealing. An active canon is a work in progress, always expanding and changing how you see it. Only a completed canon, one that has no new stories being told, can be expected to remain constant.

I don't think that the producer caring, or not caring about any given element affects the continuity value.

I'm sorry, but that is completely nonsensical. How in the world can the people who are creating the continuity in the first place not have power over the form it takes?

As I see it, any given element either fits in the continuity, or doesn't.

That assumes that things remain constant. As I said, the only way things will remain constant is if the story is over, if no new information is being added by new stories. As long as new stories are being told, that's going to change your perception of the universe. The Wrath of Khan changed our perception of Kirk by making him a father. TNG changed an ambiguous future time frame to an unambiguous one. DS9 retconned the Ferengi from a lame military threat to a bunch of comedy capitalists. ENT retconned Kirk's Enterprise from the first starship of its name to the second, and radically altered our perception of Vulcan history. Even without contradiction, the information added in new stories alters the context of the things we think we know, and that can require us to change some of the assumptions we've made.

Tie-ins are speculative stories based on the knowledge and assumptions that their writers have about canon at the time. They're best guesses based on what we know. Tie-in authors like me can't predict what new ideas future writers of canon will come up with. So often the canonical stories that get told later on will contradict our guesses. So even if the books we wrote were consistent with the continuity that existed at the time (as they're required to be by the studio), they can still be contradicted by new continuity that's added later. An active continuity is always growing and changing.

 

[iliescu]

That is one long chapter my friend...

 

[ChallengerHK]

I'm sorry, but that is completely nonsensical. How in the world can the people who are creating the continuity in the first place not have power over the form it takes?

Because the statement was not about power, but rather (yet again) motivation. Yes, the producers have the power to break the continuity. That is not in dispute; they do it. A lot. The question is, "Does whether the producer has ceased to be concerned about continuity, i.e., if the show is off the air and the producer is no longer receiving checks, have any effect on the continuity? I don't see that it does. You seem to be arguing that it will.

 

[Christopher]

The question is, "Does whether the producer has ceased to be concerned about continuity, i.e., if the show is off the air and the producer is no longer receiving checks, have any effect on the continuity? I don't see that it does. You seem to be arguing that it will.

That's not even close to what I'm saying. I'm not talking about the producers here. I'm talking about the interaction between the continuity and the interpretations that the audience adds to it. Fans always make assumptions and interpretations beyond what canon says. We fill in the gaps. We form opinions about how to interpret ambiguous information (like whether TOS was in the 2200s or 2260s, say). We choose to count tie-in stories as part of the continuity. We build models in our minds that use the continuity as a starting point and expand upon it.

What I'm saying is that the only way we can be sure those personal models -- those "headcanons" -- will never be contradicted is if there's no new canon being created. If there is new canon being created, then it will inevitably contradict some of our interpretations and extrapolations and require us to adjust our "headcanons" to take it into account -- like when I changed my personal Trek chronology to fit the new information from TNG. So fans shouldn't get angry when new episodes or movies require them to change their view of the continuity. That's just what happens when a continuity is active. It means that it's alive and growing. A lot of fans insist that they want a continuity that's absolutely consistent and never requires them to rethink anything, and that's misguided, because the only way they'll get that is if the series is defunct. Only dead things are unchanging.

 

[Shawnster]

Again, all likely true, but not the point I was getting at. I'm not looking for a history of the term's usage. I'm looking for the context of that usage in fandom. For the moment, let's call it motivation. Why did the term begin to be used, and by whom?

Context in terms of fandom is continuity. Fans misuse the term canon to mean continuity. Klingon blood changing color has been called a canon violation when it really is a continuity violation. The idea that Spock has a foster sister has been called a canon violation when it's closer to a retcon or retroactive continuity. In this case, it may not be a continuity violation because it was never stated one way or the other in all the past 50 years of Star Trek. There is enough ambiguity to let it slide.

Klingons going from smooth forehead to ridged forehead to helmeted forehead to ridged forehead with hairless skulls have been called canon violations when they are really continuity errors or discrepancies.

Any time a fan says "canon violation" they really mean a continuity error.

 

[ChallengerHK]

Only dead things are unchanging.

I think we're closer to agreeing than we were before. I want to add to this statement, though.

Change is required in literature. Change is not a binary value, however. It exists on a continuum.

In TUC, Kirk starts off with an intense hatred and distrust of Klingons. That is used against him, in several ways. By the end of the story, he has grown, through challenging his own values. That is a change in character. Most will probably consider it positive (both in the diegetic outcome, Kirk becomes a better person), and in the effect on his character when viewed diegetically (his character arc, seen from outside of the story). I would not view thhat as a continuity change, but rather as character growth.

On the other hand, what if there were a story in which Kirk was portrayed as a black Jewish lesbian Vulcan, who grew up on the wrong side of the Vulcan tracks, and had everything stacked against her? In this version, she fought hard, made it to the Academy, and through hard work and skill worked her way up to be the Captain of the Enterprise. That might be an interesting story, or it might fall flat on its face. One way or another, it would alter not only the continuity, but also the basic premise of TOS, annd the core of the character. James Kirk would not be growing because of this change. The change would be gratuitous.

In between these two extremes are a universe of possibilities, some of which would represent change within the story which represented growth or failure to grow, others which would represent a wholesale change to what makes the character the character.

All of which brings up another point, but I'm going to start a new post for that one.

 

[Christopher]

Klingons going from smooth forehead to ridged forehead to helmeted forehead to ridged forehead with hairless skulls have been called canon violations when they are really continuity errors or discrepancies.

Rather, they're differences in artistic interpretation. If two different theater companies put on Hamlet and use different costumes and set designs, that's not a continuity error, it's just different artists bringing different creative visions to their interpretation of a fictional work. Fans fixate on Klingons, but they forget that many Trek aliens have been repeatedly redesigned by different makeup (or CG) artists, including Romulans, Andorians, Tellarites, Gorn, etc. Not to mention the cases where Michael Westmore changed his own designs -- completely redoing the Trill and Ktarians, adding sharper cheekbones to the Ferengi makeup, simplifying the Bajoran ridges to remove the U-shaped bit at the top, even completely redesigning Worf's forehead between seasons 1 & 2. It's not an "error" for an artist to refine their work, or to bring their own creative vision rather than slavishly copying a predecessor's work. On the contrary -- the error is in refusing to try to improve something, in clinging blindly to the original version even if you've come up with something better.

Gene Roddenberry himself saw Star Trek more as a dramatization than a literal depiction. When fans asked about the redesigned Klingons in TMP, he told them to assume they'd always looked like that and TOS just hadn't gotten it right. His TMP novelization pretended that TOS was a 23rd-century show that inaccurately dramatized the Enterprise's adventures, and that TMP was a more accurate fictionalization because it had Admiral Kirk riding herd on it. A lot of Trek inconsistencies can be easily explained if you assume you're just seeing an approximate account of an underlying reality, with different dramatizers making different choices about how to interpret it.

 

[ChallengerHK]

Question for those who know comic books, not necessarily limited to Star Trek:

I know practically nothing about comics or comic history. I've never enjoyed reading them, for a variety of reasons, annd when there's been a movie basid on one that I've really enjoyed, I've frequently heard fans dissing the movie, which has done nothhing to make me want to read more comics.

All that said, from my persepctive, it looks like comics alter their continuity of a fairly regular basis. For those who know comics:

• Is this true?
• Any idea when it started happening?
• Whether subjectively or objectively, do you think that acceptance of continuiuty changes there have made it more likely that continuity changes will happen in other fandoms? Or less? Or, no change?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Question for those who know comic books, not necessarily limited to Star Trek:

I know practically nothing about comics or comic history. I've never enjoyed reading them, for a variety of reasons, annd when there's been a movie basid on one that I've really enjoyed, I've frequently heard fans dissing the movie, which has done nothhing to make me want to read more comics.

All that said, from my persepctive, it looks like comics alter their continuity of a fairly regular basis. For those who know comics:

• Is this true?
• Any idea when it started happening?
• Whether subjectively or objectively, do you think that acceptance of continuiuty changes there have made it more likely that continuity changes will happen in other fandoms? Or less? Or, no change?

• Yes, it's true
• Probably since the beginning. Though the first major retcon was probably the introduction of Superboy in the mid 1940's.
• Depends on the change and the fan.

 

[The Wormhole]

The average person doesn't give a shit about canon,

I'm thinking we need to start adopting the ways of the Normies.

people go watch Star Wars movies, doesn't mean the core fanbase considers everything put out by Disney canon.

Hey, guess what? Wookieepedia is a fan generated website, and what do they list all the Disney content as? Canon! So, looks like a bunch of fans have spoken and declared they consider canon.

Oh, I guess this is the part where you get hyper worked up and declare Wookieepedia a website run by shills pushing the Corporate Man's Propaganda on the proletariat, isn't it?

 

[Christopher]

All that said, from my persepctive, it looks like comics alter their continuity of a fairly regular basis. For those who know comics:

• Is this true?
• Any idea when it started happening?
• Whether subjectively or objectively, do you think that acceptance of continuiuty changes there have made it more likely that continuity changes will happen in other fandoms? Or less? Or, no change?

There's no uniform answer to that, because comics are just a medium, not a genre or a set formula. Different series or companies do things in their own individual ways.

The two big companies, DC and Marvel, have traditionally done things in two contrasting ways. DC periodically reboots its universe and starts over with a new continuity -- usually as the result of some sort of big universe-shaking story that actually rewrites the timeline, so that the change happens in-story. Marvel, on the other hand, treats everything that's happened in its comics since the late 1930s as a single, supposedly consistent universe, but everything that's happened since 1961 is periodically retconned as having taken place within the past 10-15 years, with the story details updated accordingly as if they'd always been that way. Meanwhile, there are other comics from other companies that maintain a single, tightly consistent continuity for decades (for instance, I gather Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo has maintained an extraordinarily unified and cohesive narrative saga since 1984), and there are others that just tell stories and don't worry about continuity, or that have multiple parallel series offering different continuities and interpretations of their characters (like Archie Comics, which has the classic comedy version, the modern hip reboot, the alternate-future series showing two parallel timelines where Archie marries Betty and Veronica respectively, the dark horror series where there's a zombie apocalypse, etc.).

Continuity is one tool in the writer's kit, and like any tool, how and to what extent it's used depends on the preferences of the storyteller and the needs of the story.