While there can potentially be ambiguity with regard to whether or not a particular work is part of a particular canon, that only affects the potential value of it with regard to that particular mode of engagement. You can still value it some other way. So yes, with regard to that particular mode, that's "it." I'm not sure what the significance is of highlighting that; if you have no use for that mode, then it's a non-issue for you.
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.
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".
Leaving aside the unnecessary capitalization, yes, things that are canon can be appreciated in the mode of engaging with canon. That's almost a tautology. The value is perceived (which I think is a better term than "exists" when it comes to finding something personally valuable) when the work is engaged with that way. And while there are a lot of people who clearly don't value such an engagement, that doesn't diminish the value for those who do.
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.
Okay, insofar as investigating how that's different from the other modes of engagement, that's a line of inquiry I can understand. I'm less sure I know what you mean with regard to "the practical concerns of the IP" though. That said, the first issue (i.e. seeing how engaging with canon is different from other modes) is one where I suspect the core of the discussion lies, and indeed has been brought up several times now. So I suppose the question I have in response is whether or not you've perceived what the difference is (which is distinct from if you find value in it or not)?
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.
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.
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?
I don't think that's a "higher" level - though again, I'm not completely sure what you mean by "higher" - but rather a different, unrelated, question. Again, issues of "should" don't seem like a fruitful line of inquiry, simply because it's us presuming what someone else ought to care about, and interrogating the ways in which they do or do not align with that expectation (at least as we perceive it). Given that the IP holder(s) in question aren't here to lend any insight on that front, I don't think it'll bring us any greater understanding here.
Again, I feel the need to back up and examine the underlying premises, since I'm not sure how inquiring about the personal motivations of the IP holders - which we can't know anyway, short of them telling us - is going to lend us a greater understanding of why canon matters to the people who engage with it.
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.
Because "all of those things" don't apply to a work of fanfiction. I'll note here that you don't know what I'm thinking; rather, you're making an educated guess based on what I've said, and in this case your guess isn't correct. It's not that a fanfiction author will necessarily choose to make use of a new canon; there's no presumption that they will. Rather, it's that the fanfiction author's work is - at least partially - derived from the canon they're drawing upon, and so is dependent on that for at least some of its definition, in a manner that doesn't hold true in reverse. That means that the work can be interrogated based on subsequent changes to the established canon, which then changes the understanding of the work of fanfiction in ways that the author might not have intended.
I've pointed out before, the reason for that particular mode of engagement is not - and certainly not "only" - for the so-called "stamp of approval." Rather, it's because the externalized nature of the work grounds it in a way that a derivative work doesn't possess.
A fanfiction author does, in fact, have less control over their body of work than a "normal" author (though I think calling them "normal" carries unfortunate connotations about the fanfiction author). As noted previously, that's because the canon elements that they draw upon are defined at least partially by the canon work they're utilizing, and so subsequent developments of that can alter the understanding of the fanfiction author's work.
A work of fanfiction can certainly present alternative takes on the source material it's drawing upon, and it can present various ideas about it. But in terms of understanding the canon work unto itself, a work of fanfiction necessarily has nothing to contribute, insofar as helping to present a more grounded scope of the imaginary world. That's why it's non-canon.
Ah, but you are wrong. This is actually kind of a common mistake though, so it isn't surprising.
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?
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.
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.
Of course what you imagine isn't canon; the point of that mode of engagement (as I see it) isn't to allow you to add to what's there. It's to provide a stronger framework to build upon in terms of your own personal understanding of the imaginary world. Greater canonical definition abets that.
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.
If there's any takeaway from this thread, it's that the entire idea of what's "generally understood" with regard to "canon" as a concept is very undefined for a lot of people who're engaged in fandom.
Having said that, I've seen a lot of fans grow angry when the undefined parts of a body of canon are subsequently developed in a way that doesn't match what they've imagined. It's something I'm sympathetic to, but which I think highlights the issue of engaging with something in a given mode: you might find it personally unsatisfying for whatever reason. The same way someone might not be able to appreciate a lecture about the history surrounding The Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata, they might disagree with the development of a particular body of canon. Even with regard to entertainment, endeavors have risks (e.g. you might lose a game, or find a book growing boring, or see the canon develop in a way you don't care for).
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 canons you were proposing - as I understood you - wasn't with regard to different bodies of work. Rather, it was with regard to different takes on the same bodies of work. I agree there's no expectation of rankings involved if they were about different imaginary worlds, but that wasn't what you were talking about (or at least, that's the impression I was under).
What do you mean by "different bodies of work" as opposed to "different imaginary worlds"?
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.
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.
In which case there's no need to bring them up here, is there?
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.
I disagree in the sense that I'm not sure that the word "need" is appropriate. Certainly, canon helps a great deal in that regard, but I'm not sure I'd elevate it to the level of being a requirement; you can base a fanfic off of another fanfic, for instance, which is an instance of making something non-canon from something non-canon (albeit with canonical elements utilized).
Similarly, I don't agree that simply using canon purely as a source of imagination and discussion is necessarily going to rise to the level of "creating non-canon works." Canon helps to understand a particular body of lore better, and make it more vivid in the imagination; what one does with that is entirely up to them.
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"
