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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Krensky" data-source="post: 4830654" data-attributes="member: 30936">Again, it depends who is defining the canon, but since this typically refers to the 'official' canon, it's whoever 'owns' the universe. In Star Trek, that's Paramount. For Star Wars it's Lucas. For Lovecraft, it's stickier. There are a few accepted Lovecraft canons, with Derlith being the biggest dividing point. In these cases it's really up to whoever is making the list.As for Star Trek, canon is the movies and live action TV shows (although there's ambiguity about deleted scenes not in the original presentation but inserted in a director's cut or home video release. The novels, cartoon, games, etc are all non-canon, although certain elements were made canon by inclusion in the shows or movies, that doesn't transfer canon status beyond that specific element. It's crucial to remember that the concept of literary canon is a construct of literary analysis and education. Canon isn't an organic thing, it's something imposed to delineate a topic of discussion. As used regarding fannish topics, it's used to determine the actual imaginary events that make up a world in order to facilitate discourse, or to make things manageable for writers.I'm actually a little fuzzy on what the debate actuall is, but I think it's about changing existing worlds into something else, ala FR4e? If so, the fetish for canonicity comes from the nature of fans (remeber, fan is short for fanatic) and the implication of 'holy writ' that the word canon brings along with it. In fandom it usually comes about as a tool in debat (read arguments) about the work."Kirk had a love affair with Mary Sue and pined for her every day after that because she was his true love.""That book wasn't canon you idot!"or"I loved the three Star Wars movies""You mean six.""There were only three."In the former it's either a thought terminating cliche or an attempt to limit the scope to commonly accepted 'genuine' works and in the later its sort of a No True Scotsman.</blockquote>

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