Because, as we've discussed, the entire mode hangs on an appeal to authority. To enjoying the "real" story. You keep trying to say it is more than that, and yet I've shown multiple times that if I have everything except that authority, it isn't canon. Canon relies on that authority.
There are several things to unpack here, the first of which is that I've mentioned previously that canon relies on multiple things, of which the authoritative nature of the external authority is one. And yes, if you don't have that you don't have canon, which is true for any of its components, hence why I mentioned the
Anna Karenina principle previously.
Second, "appeal to authority" is a misnomer, as it connotes that there's some sort of fallacy of logic going on. Even leaving aside that the actual
appeal from authority (not "to," notice) isn't necessarily a fallacy in an of itself, there's no particular "appeal" here. The authority is self-evident and an integral component of what makes canon what it is. If your objection to the value of the idea (which seems to be what you're doing here?) is that it involves an authority, I don't see how that undercuts the idea in and of itself. The authority is determinative regarding the canon itself - that doesn't cast aspersions on things that aren't canon.
And I find something insidious in trying to divide a body of work into "this is the real and true official story" and "this is just a derivative work".
What exactly do you find "insidious" about that? I really think you need to expound on this, as I'm guessing it goes to the heart of why you seem to hold (if I'm understanding you correctly) that there's something about the entire idea of "canon" that's somehow harmful.
But the value for them is tied to finding and reading "the true story" of a fictional work. Of knowing which work is true and which isn't. Which again, I find something insidious in that concept.
And I'll say again that I don't understand what it is that you find insidious about it. I've explained multiple times what the personal appeal of that particular mode of engagement is, that it's separate from other such modes, and that there's no particular indictment involved with preferring one over the other. Presuming that you understand and agree with all of that - and if I'm reading you correctly, you do - then what's the problem?
The difference seems to be seeking to be right and appealing to authority. That is what canon revolves around. If you take that aspect out, it falls apart.
I've already explained why the "appealing to authority" aspect is misstated, since there's nothing objectionable there. Likewise, I don't know what you mean about being "right." "Right" is a value judgment, and we've already spoken about that; to reiterate, people can determine their own values for themselves, and speak on them if they wish, but the nature of canon doesn't imply any sort of value judgment over derivative works.
Let me ask: is there any room for understanding on your part that you might be reading a negative implication that isn't actually there, when it comes to canon?
Towards the "practical concerns of the IP" I am talking broadly about a few different subjects. DnD and other TTRPGs can't in practical terms have a single binding canon. The moment play happens, the canon is broken by the table. And then you have another practical concern. Because now the understanding of the world and situation you are engaging with can't be based on what the canon says, it has to be based on the events at the table. But you refuse to call that a canon. It is something else, even if that event echoes down and the table is referring to 20 years of shared gaming, that isn't a canon. Because they aren't WoTC who controls DnD, even though there is no higher authority for the game they are playing than themselves. It also comes into play in regards to things such reboots and spin-offs of older media. There are six various comic runs and five TV shows for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, up until 2009 the franchise was split between multiple companies and even know all rights belong to a single company... except for issue 4 of a comic book.
I'm having a hard time understanding how that's a "practical" concern. The sum of what you're saying here appears to be grounded in a sense of dissatisfaction that derivative works aren't canon. But given that you don't seem to care for the idea of canon anyway - that is, it's not a mode of engagement you prefer to utilize - then what's the practical nature of this concern? Why is it somehow bad or objectionable that derivative material isn't canon? The only thing I can come up with is that you're of the opinion that there's a value judgment inherent in that, but if that's the case then I disagree strongly.
And, actually, laying this out, I'm curious about something. If a table of gamers can't create canon, because they themselves can change it... how can a company like WoTC or Mirage Comics or Marvel create canon? They themselves can change the material, and decide what is and isn't canon, so why is what they create canon, but what a table creates is not canon?
The same reason that fanfiction can't; it's based on material that's external to them (at least in part) and so is understood within that context. That's not the case when the authority that oversees a particular conceptual framework oversees the entirety of that framework.
But people are upset because they are saying WoTC shouldn't change canon. This entire discussion is predicated on a "should", so I'm not sure I understand why you keep refusing to take that step. I'm not supposed to discuss "shoulds" but that is the basis of the complaint, saying what WoTC should do with their canon because people are invested in it.
By "higher" I meant a zoomed out question, looking at a broader issue.
I don't believe that is what this entire discussion is framed around. Rather, I think it's framed around people telling the people who
do care about canon that they shouldn't, which is them passing judgment on the likes and dislikes of other people. That's something that I think should be examined, in order to demonstrate why it ultimately leads to nothing worthwhile (i.e. why "badwrongfun" complains aren't helpful).
The people who are upset that WotC is changing the canon are pointing out that their mode of engagement has been impinged upon, which is the case. As I said, just because you recognize that someone has the right to do something doesn't mean you need to agree with what they do. You can engage with canon without liking the direction that it goes.
Ah, but you are wrong. This is actually kind of a common mistake though, so it isn't surprising.
This kind of language isn't conducive to the discussion; in fact, it seems almost tailor-made to generate acrimony.
Authors draw on established works all the time. TMNT was based not only on Ninja fiction being spread, but the reason they fought The Foot is because Daredevil fought The Hand in Marvel comics. Much of their identity is tied up in New York City, a place that is real and that the author's had no control over. Can you think of nothing that has changed the perception of "New York Heroes" or "Pollution" (the source of the turtles) since the 1980's?
You're conflating being inspired by something with actually making use of a discrete part of an imaginary world. The two are entirely different things. Someone being inspired by the idea of ninjas isn't infringing on any canon if they then go and create an original story which happens to involve ninjas. Someone who wants to write about pollution isn't making use of any particular canon if that's all that drives them to write about a hero whose origin story involves some sort of industrial accident.
Sherlock Holmes written by Doyle used Cocaine and Morphine. This was brought back in the Sherlock adaption Elementary.... and was seen very differently in the Modern Day than it was in the original books. In fact, there is a lot of things we could probably find as canonical that are very cringey in the modern day, altering the understanding of the author's original work in light of new context. An example of this I recently found, in the thread about about "demihumans of color" people were saying that it was possible to interpret Samwise Gamgee as being darker-skinned than Frodo, Pippin or Merry... which makes his continued calling of Frodo as "master" land very very differently. Certainly I don't think that was Tolkien's intent, a rich land-owner like Frodo being called master by those poorer than them was plenty common.... and also really lands differently in the modern age, doesn't it? This sort of perception shift is incredibly common, and always happens with older works.
Again, I'm not saying that fanfiction can't be poignant or engrossing or valuable in various other modes of engagement. But it necessarily cannot add to the body of canon, which means that it's therefore unable to be used to further understand the canon itself. At most, you can certainly be inspired by fanfiction, but it's ultimately an alternative take that doesn't actually lead to greater understanding of the conceptual framework that canon embodies. The nature of canon is that it
alone informs us about the imaginary world, which gives us the grounded nature to envision it better and so understand it more. That's really what canon is all about.
Secondly, you are assuming that the Fanfic writer is engaging with a story that has not ended, meaning that new material is going to come to light. But, if I were to write a fanfiction set in the Avatar: The Last Airbender world... there really isn't any new material being created. Same with Steven Universe. Same with Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. There are probably literally thousands of IPs that are "finished" that a fanfic could be written about, with no new information ever coming to light. So, making that division is strange, because it seems self-evidently ignoring the potential work.
And, even if a fanfic is written, and then a new event in an ongoing story changes something from their assumptions... that is no different than what happens to any other work.
If Peter Pan can get an official sequel after almost a hundred years, the issue of "finished" is a lot less definitive than it seems. This is often the case with various canons, but that's less important than noting that this entire issue is simply an example - the most dramatic one, perhaps - of how the derivative work is (at least partially) understood from the context of the canon it draws upon, and therefore doesn't have the authority that a canon work does. It doesn't get to completely define itself, and so can't be understood unto itself without referencing the canon it's drawing from.
It can. But it can also hurt that same exercise. Sometimes revealing the answer to a mystery gives us a less interesting answer than the non-canonical ones. Canon is rather neutral in this regard. Especially since I can do the same thing involving non-canonical work, and that can be even more fun or engaging, just because I like the non-canonical work more.
I'll note that I didn't say that it was more (or less) interesting; only that it provided greater understanding. Those are two different things; the reveal behind a mystery might be a letdown, but that's still going to provide greater insight into what's happening. While the purpose of canon is to provide greater insight under the presumption that said insight will allow for more enjoyment, that might not always be the case (which, you'll recall, I said previously: there's no guarantee that a particular endeavor will turn out successfully).
Again, if your entire point is just "some people are invested in canon because they like canon" then there is nothing to even discuss. That much is self-evident. But what I'm seeing is that people are drawing seemingly arbitrary lines about what can be considered "canon" and what couldn't, for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
The thing is, I don't believe that it's arbitrary per se: it's that, as we've both noted here, it's very poorly defined. A recurring theme in this discussion has been a lack of proper verbiage for spelling out different conceptual areas. Another has been misunderstandings based on that. This isn't a case of people trying to be shifty about what is and is not canon; it's an issue of trying to articulate something that's largely intuited. Mistakes and misunderstandings are going to happen.
What do you mean by "different bodies of work" as opposed to "different imaginary worlds"?
I was largely using those as synonyms, if for no other reason than something can be less pleasant to read (and write!) when using the same phrase over and over again. Another aspect of the lack of useful terminology, here.
Marvel, DC, Harry Potter and Transformers all take place on Earth. In all four of them you can go to Chicago. What you find in Chicago may be different for all four of them. Of course, all four of them are not necessarily exclusive. I actually read a fanfic where someone had one of the multiverse shaking events combine the worlds of Marvel and DC... and considering those two universes have crossed over multiple times, that is actually something possible in canon.
I'm not sure what point you're making, here. Yes, different bodies of work (or imaginary worlds, or conceptual frameworks, etc.) can make use of various aspects of the real world. The real world isn't part of an imaginary realm (well, outside of existential takes that are
far beyond what we're discussing here!) and so that doesn't seem to imply any sort of shared material insofar as the conceptual frameworks go.
But, to take another point, one of the canons I brought up was the She-Ra from 1980's as compared to the She-Ra from 2018. Both take place in the same world, both have many of the same characters, both use many of the same elements and history.... but I'd certainly say they are two different bodies of work. Just like I'd say a fanfiction written about She-Ra would be a different body of work than the TV series. They are obviously different works by different authors, even if all three take place in the same setting with the same characters.
And the She-Ra issue is I think really telling, because I can't imagine where you could say that either the original run by the original creators or the new run by the publishing company that owns the rights are "non-canonical". Yet, you want to say the fanfic is because of the same thing that all three versions share.
Again, I can't really speak to these examples, because I've only seen a little of the original series and none of the new series. Given that understanding a particular canon typically requires having partaken of the series, I'm not really comfortable analyzing any example that uses a body of lore with which I'm unfamiliar. As it was, I still regret having brought up Doctor Who previously; my understanding was that the pre-revival seasons were kept canon with the current one, but I haven't seen any of it, and so I couldn't say anything when particular aspects of the show were then mentioned!
Except that you have said that those properties do have a canon, that you would simply need to investigate to determine what it was.
I'd have said there is no canon for Peter Pan, the various versions are too different, but you have put forth that there is a canon. The 1911 screenplay and the new Peter Pan in Scarlet book. Everything else would be non-canonical... even though disney's Peter Pan is a character with multiple movies and TV shows and probably nets more than the "canonical" versions do.
To be absolutely clear, I'm not the one who put forward that there is a canon for Peter Pan; that was done by the publishers of
Peter Pan in Scarlet when they put forward that it was the "official sequel" to the original story. I suppose one could try to draw a dividing line between what's "official" and what's "canon" - and I won't say that's not necessarily a worthwhile endeavor - but given the imprecision involved in this particular area, I'm hesitant to say that's not what they meant.
I disagree. Canon has never helped me understand Sherlock Holmes or Tarzan better. Both lack canon, and yet I would not say that Disney's Tarzan is any less vivid in my imagination than Disney's longer running show "Jessie" which would be more likely to have a canon.
You can certainly feel like a longer-running work with callbacks is better for you, but that doesn't make them easier to understand or more vivid than a stand-alone work with no "canon"
You can say that canon hasn't helped
you understand something better, and that's fine. What modes of engagement people find worthwhile will vary for individuals
and for what media they're engaging with. What concerns me more is the undertone I'm detecting that canon is somehow detrimental to other people's enjoyment of other modes of engagement, which I think is untrue.
