What the “Expanded Universe” means is that, while all those books and comics from Bonanza to The Beverly Hillbillies were basically just one more licensed product, interchangeable with a T-shirt as far as the relevance of their events on the original were concerned, things that happened in the Star Wars novels were regarded as having happened to the characters.
And the comics. And the cartoons, the role-playing games, the video games, and online fiction. Even the descriptions on the backs of action figure packages! It’s all part of the canon. It all matters. There’s no pecking order; it’s all part of the larger picture.
It’s meant a lot to the license, which we can get into later here: it’s kept interest high, long after the closing credits on Episode III ran. Other licensors, like Bioware with Mass Effect, have been doing the same thing. It takes work, but it pays off in reader interest.
So I learned there were no silly questions in Star Wars. And that always — always — someone was out there with the answers. It’s because of wonderful people at Lucasfilm like Leland Chee, the “keeper of the Holocron,” who keeps tabs on everything. But it’s also because of the fans, who keep track of everything and who demand — almost always, kindly! — consistency in the fictional universe that they love. Nothing is trivial; everyone wants to know what that thing is in the background. (On my own site, I actually do liner notes from every work, clarifying some of those things.) This kind of intense interest and interplay has its benefits and pitfalls.
