I think I get into the second part later, but let us look towards the first part. Because, you want to make this not about True vs False, but this is exactly where that definitional aspect leads.
No, I remain convinced that saying definitional authority necessarily leads to "true vs. false" is a misstatement of the issue, though even if that were correct (and it's not) it wouldn't then lend itself to any sort of conclusion along the likes of "therefore, it has value beyond other modes of engagement."
Why is it important that if an authority says to contradicting things that a reconciliation is needed? Because both things cannot be true. Therefore one must be false or there is a lack of information which when revealed allows both things to be true. And we are right back at the core issue. Canon is about an authority telling you what is true and what is not. And in a single canon viewpoint, that is compounded and inescapable.
First of all, that's overlooking the definitional aspect of what's there. It's not enough that there's an authority making a declaration. There also needs to be an understanding that the declaration creates definition, hence why something canon that's conflicting with something canon therefore creates an issue where the understanding is impinged. Authority alone, in other words, isn't enough.
But this gets back to what I was pointing out before, which is in fact
your core issue rather than
the core issue. You're fixated on the idea that because an authority is being exercised, that this necessarily gives something greater qualitative value. Can you back up why that is? Because so far, you haven't actually supported this particular view. All you've put forward is that other people tend to misunderstand that, and use it as a bludgeon with regard to putting down other modes of engagement, which isn't actually an indictment of canon itself. When something is being misused outside of its intended purpose, that's not a compelling reason for the thing to be discarded (particularly since discarding it wouldn't seem to stop the tribalism which you seem to be
really indicting).
The context is this exact discussion, only Perkins blog post instead of Crawford's comment.
No, the context was another thread, regarding a different development on this topic. Or rather, the context was the discussion in that particular thread, in which both of the posters you quoted presumably said quite a bit more than what you quoted here. More notable is that both then showed up in this thread to say that you'd misrepresented them.
I obviously don't think I've misrepresented their words. And if you checked into the quotes, you'd see one was a direct response to the other, and the context is this same discussion, just from a different thread.
Except that's up to them to determine, and both have said otherwise. Given that they're the ones being quoted, I'm of the persuasion that I should presume they're more correct when it comes to their own words.
I also don't see how them "wanting" to know what is "true" is any different. Perhaps they don't have a need for it, but there is a clear imperative, and it still strikes to the same root. One version is true, and one version is false. And they want to engage with the true version.
Again, you're misstating this by framing it as an issue of "true vs. false." The reason for that is a work of imagination has no independent existence with which to verify its truth; an authority gets to define the particulars of the concept, but that doesn't imbue it with any sort of objective existence (to use a loaded term; begin the countdown until this thread starts getting into Descartes and solipsism), it simply means that the labile nature of that particular work is held in suspension for everyone (other than the authority) who engages with it.
Leaving that aside, however, let me ask you something: can it be the case that you
want canon to be an issue of "true vs. false" because you're of the opinion that it makes canon necessarily contain a value judgment which indicts non-canon works? Because that seems to be the conclusion you've decided you want to reach, and are attempting to frame all discussion on the subject toward that.
If so, there's no agreement to be had here, since I disagree with A) the idea that "canon" connotes "truth" and with B) that "truth" necessarily connotes value (in this particular context).
And again, I am baffled by this concept that somehow Fanfiction doesn't check all the same boxes. When Timothy Zahn wrote "Star Wars: The Last Command" in 2011 he was writing a novel based off an existing universe, bound by things that he could not change and were out of his control. His readers couldn't alter the book if they wanted to, it existed externally from him. Lucasfilms said it was canon... and then a few years later, Disney said it wasn't. The only difference between him writing that story, and Alraune7096 writing a fanfic about She-Ra is that outside authority finding it and saying "yes, I accept this".
Both stories are external and unalterable by the reader. Both stories are based in existing properties. Both are currently considered Noncanon. But, a few years ago, one of them was canon. The only difference, was that an authority recognized one and not the other. It gave it the weight of "true canon" and then took it away. And if Disney decided to reverse that decision, or someone bought Star Wars and reversed that decision, then Last Command is once more "True Canon" and usable to understand the world of Star Wars... which is currently can't be because Disney has said no.
And yet... people in 2011 did use it to understand Star Wars, and there is no reason I can't reject Disney's assertion and decide that I want to use this book to help understand Star Wars. Well, except, then I wouldn't be following "the true, single canon"
I'm honestly having trouble comprehending what point you're making here. Having something non-canon be unable to provide greater definition to a particular work of canon borders on being tautological. The entire point of the mode of engagement with regard to canon is to understand the canon, to partake of an imaginary realm that is grounded in a manner that's external to one's self, having been defined (in terms of how things are in that conceptual framework) by an authority who isn't you (in the general sense of the word "you"). I've stated that many times now.
You say that fanfiction has all of the same properties, and yet you previously admitted that it lacked the property of authoritative declaration (which you're fixed on for what seems like the aforementioned reason of it necessarily connoting a value judgment). By that token alone, when a canon work is declared no longer canon, then it doesn't lend itself to that particular mode of engagement any longer. Or are you actually suggesting that not just any but
every work of fanfiction - for every imaginary world - necessarily informs the reader about the "true" (to use your term) nature of said world?
Because if not, then how do you decide which works offer greater insight into those worlds and which do not? How do you find any common ground with others who might not have read the same fanfics as you? Does someone who's read a story which has a wildly different take on the characters, plot, and world-building elements to the point where they no longer resemble the original work have any particular expectation of that being the "true" state of the conceptual framework involved? Or is there a recognition that such works don't occupy the same mode of engagement as the canon material?
The problem is that the nature of canon is explicitly tied to this idea of "the truth" especially when you say that there is only a single version of canon for any property. You can quibble and say "true for this fictional world" if you really want to, but the idea is still the same. Canon represents the "real version" the "true version"
Except that's an easy problem to solve, since "canon" is
not tied - explicitly or otherwise - to the idea of "the truth." Canon is simply a designation, one that carries a definitional connotation for what lies within a particular mode of engagement. Saying that it somehow has some sort of inherent quality of being more "true" than other such modes is not only false, but opens the door to misunderstanding that truth connotes a judgment of value.
You've previously put forward that you don't like the idea of using "canon is true, so it's better than non-canon material." So why argue in favor of that interpretation now? I'm a fan of what's canon (and also a fan of what's not) for the various series that I enjoy, and I'm telling you that's not the case. Do you not believe me?
Opening up canon, to allow for multiple canons based on the author, continuity, and context would eliminate that. But, when Perkins suggested such for DnD, canon fans immediately declared that it was the death of canon, that now that everything is canon, nothing is canon, and none of it matters. And this happens pretty continuously. People defend the idea that there is a single true version, and that that is their version that they follow, and anything outside of that version is by necessity less important.
Much like with the two individuals who say you misrepresented them before, I don't think you're correctly representing the beliefs of canon fans now. I'd say it's better that we stick to talking about ourselves in this discussion to avoid similar problems occurring. To that end, I can tell you that as a canon fan, I didn't like this announcement - which I'll note doesn't mean not recognizing that WotC had the authority to make it - because it fractures what was previously a greatly-defined area of imagination, impinging on the mode of engagement.
But this "mode of engagement" is literally in defining whether or not the work is "true" or not. To take your statue example, it would be like someone going to view the Venus Callipyge, and there being a lot of people who are incredibly concerned with whether or not the statue really was associated with the Temple Aphrodite Kallipygos at Syracuse.
Except that's
not what the mode of engagement is. To continue with your extension of my example, suppose that a lot of people were concerned with the statue's association with that particular temple. That's in no way an impingement on someone who appreciates it for the technical skill it took to sculpt it in the first place. Which feeds into what comes next...
And you might say "well, that's fine, what does it matter to you if they care about that." But, it always carries to the next step, that if it isn't associated with that Temple, then it shouldn't be on display. Or they may say that only the recreations of the statue by Jean-Jacques Clérion should be in the museum, and the versions by François Barois don't count as "real" versions of the Venus Callipyge. Or they may be insisting that none of these versions count, that only the original Greek statue that we've never seen and we only think may exist is the one true version, and we should dedicate our efforts to finding it to replace all of these "false" versions.
These are things that I have actually seen people say about "canon works". That if they aren't associated with the correct brand, they shouldn't be considered. That if they were made by the wrong author, then they shouldn't be canon. If there is even a hint of a "hidden canon" they want nothing more than to uncover it to replace all other versions. This is a direct result of saying there is only a single canon, and that canon is the authoritative truth.
This is a
slippery slope argument, which while not necessarily a fallacy, is still predicated on the idea that A = B, which means that B will equal C, and that C will equal D, all the way down to Z, which is bad. In other words, you're extending the debate beyond what's actually under discussion.
Ultimately, from what I can tell based on what you're saying, you seem to want to discard the entire idea of canon because it's intrinsically based on the idea that other modes of engagement are somehow qualitatively inferior to it. Your basis for this is that you've seen people (mis)use it that way. This despite my saying that not only is that not the case, but also pointing out how canon is an entertaining and informative mode of engagement for those who enjoy it.
This sounds a lot like saying that hammers are intrinsically harmful, because while some people use them to build houses, other people can sometimes use them to knock down your house. Ergo, hammers are bad (and we should start looking for ways to get rid of hammers altogether). Do you agree?
That is a strange concept. "Oliver Twist" is not a terribly long work. I believe it would be quite easy to present a significant amount of the canon of that work in a fan sequel. Or at least, the same amount of material that would be present in a "canon" sequel. And it is actually still a much longer work than "The Velveteen Rabbit" which is only 42 pages.
You misunderstood what I was saying here. It's that any restatement of something is going to miss out on crucial context that's innately going to be found in the original presentation. Like with a game of telephone, the original message is distorted as it's presented over and over again. Regardless of length, the restatement of something won't present the same material in the same context in the same manner as you'd get from partaking of the original work. Ergo, the understanding is going to be different; how different is always going to be up in the air, but the difference in understanding will still be there (especially if the work is presented in a different medium from the original, often compounding the issue).
Or, is this an indication that you feel that canon only applies to works of a certain size? This is something I've noticed, by the way. Discussions of "canon" only seem to come up in regards to large IPs that have had multiple versions of them. We never bother with the question of "what is canon for Oliver Twist" but we do care about what is canon for Marvel Comics which has multiple dozens of different stories, events, timelines, movies and games. It is only when "knowing the real version" becomes difficult, that it becomes important to speak about "canon" and what it is and isn't. Actually, it really is also determined by the "importance" of the material to a certain community as well. I googled "Junie B. Jones Canon" and got... nothing. The closest to a conversation was someone saying that she is canonically autistic. And it wasn't even a discussion, just an image and the title. Maybe if I dug I could find something, or maybe if I went to a different property like "The Magic Treehouse" but the discussion of what is or isn't canon for these works, or for something like Matilda that was made into a movie... never really happens. While if I googled "Marvel Canon" I get dozens of articles, definitions on wiki's, theories about is this canon, is that canon, will this be canon, how are they ignoring canon.
This "mode of engagement" only seems to apply to a very small number of IPs, in a very small section of communities.... and seems to be solely for the purpose of separating "the truth" from "the falsehoods"
See above for issues related to the size of the work, i.e. that's not relevant. The reason I think this tends to come up with regard to larger bodies of lore has to do with the what I mentioned before, since it's largely an issue whereby greater definition tends to feed the imagination more. Ergo, the particulars of that canon's definition are often queried, indexed, catalogued, and analyzed because that helps to keep straight the large amount of material so that it can be better put to use by way of engaging with it, and thus enjoying it. A shorter work doesn't really require that since it's short enough that you can keep all of the relevant details straight without needing any further analysis. All of which is orthogonal to the points regarding what canon is and if it's good or bad (or rather, why good and bad aren't really issues at all).
I believe it is possible to have correct conclusions about what a person has said, and what that likely means without having them explain themselves. If we couldn't, it would certainly make history and Language Arts far harder subjects of study.
How can you be certain that your conclusions are correct if the person isn't there to verify them, though? What if they tell you flat-out that your conclusions are wrong? Both
@JEB and
@Maxperson said that you didn't correctly present their positions; are you calling them liars?
But, as I pointed out, this is entirely true for canonical works too. For example, the entire idea of the "white savior" trope is because of a fundamental change in how we understand and interact with certain works that depict a "civilized" individual "saving" a group of "savages". This was an incredibly common narrative back in the day, and many many works engaged in it. And now that topic is understood in a new way, and that changes how we understand those canon works.
There is no qualitative difference, unless you are speaking exclusively about a spin-off work being written at the same time as an original work is still being made.
The identification of tropes isn't an issue of canon, however; at the risk of turning this into an instance where we start quoting dictionary entries to each other (which is always the death knell of any conversation on the Internet) a trope is a convention which makes use of a particular stereotype, convention, motif, etc. Canon is an issue of specifics, hence why the use of a laser sword in one canon doesn't imply that any sort of utilization of the lightsabers from Star Wars.
The issue of a particular work of fanfiction being understood differently if the canon it draws from changes is with regard to it making use of (specific) elements of that canon which the readers are presumed to be familiar with. Now, as noted above, it can try and restate those elements, but a restatement will in some way be different than the original statement. More notably, if the canon is subsequently understood in a different way because the governing authority introduces a change, then that will affect how those same elements are understood in a work of fanfiction.
Or, put a different way, one author doesn't have the authority to define the work of another author.
Eichiro Oda is the writer for One Piece, and one of the big mysteries of the setting is what is the treasure One Piece and what is the significance of D. If I write a story that answers these questions, and Oda finally reveals his plan.... Oda has no authority to tell me that my version of the story needs to be changed or understood differently. Just as I have no authority to tell Oda that same thing.
It's not an issue of (in your example) Oda telling you that your story needs to be understood differently. It's that the readers would understand it differently because the reference that it draws upon has subsequently become different in the source material (e.g. its nature wasn't known before, but is now).
However, you want to say that one of us should be considered "more true" than the other. Now, this is threading a needle a bit, because I'm talking about an Author and their original work, and in regards to one of the primary mysteries of their setting. Clearly, I wouldn't try and say my version was Oda's original intention. But, there is this disconnect where it seems my own work wouldn't be able to be seen as anything except an inferior version of Oda's. And this is where I struggle with this insistence on a single canon. Why is my work, no matter what it is, lesser? We certainly don't consider the work of Brian Michael Bendis (a writer for spider-man) to be automatically lesser than Steve Ditko's (one of the Creators of Spider-Man) yet he certainly is just writing based off the work of another author.
But, a company decided that he was allowed to write "canon" so its okay?
Again, there's no "should" going on here. I'm in no way making a value judgment; I'm saying because the fanfiction draws upon elements of canon, it's understood with regard to the context of the canon, and that subsequent changes will necessarily alter that context. No one is introducing an issue of inferiority here except you.
I feel the need to restate this, as I'm of the opinion that it gets to the core of the issue here. Canon contains no inherent indictment of non-canon works, and any use of it in that regard is a misapplication of the entire mode of engagement.
I'll go one step further. While I've said previously that I don't think it's worthwhile to speak for anyone else, I'll suspend that now: as someone who believes that canon is a worthwhile mode of engagement, I apologize to you on behalf of all canon fans for anytime someone attacked, mocked, belittled, or otherwise denigrated a non-canon work that you enjoyed by comparing it unfavorably to the canon work. Those people were wrong. No one should be told that the thing they like is inferior to what someone else likes.
Exactly. So they can use the same "real world space" and not overlap in canon. So why if two works are using the same "fictional world space" must they overlap in canon?
In the case of "I am Legend" and "Adventure Time," I don't believe they
were using the same fictional space, if I'm understanding you correctly.
I'm all for no one mokcing someone for the things they like, but the point I've tried to get across time and again is that "canon" carries with it a qualitative element. It is about the "true" version, and as such, it immediately gives rise (even if only slightly) to judgement over other works.
And you can't seperate this element of "trueness" from canon as long as you stick to a single canon paradigm.
I disagree. I think that's demonstrably false, and that simply charting out a defined, immutable area of conceptual space, with the recognition of a governing authority that gets to make that definition, does not have any sort of qualitative value judgment. Some people might have presented it that way, but that's incorrect. Authority is not truth, and "truth" (with regards to elements of imagination) is not "better."
