Timeline for What exactly is canon?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 29, 2017 at 17:03 | comment | added | user111 | @Spagirl meaning one is surprisingly subjective--see the examples I provide in the answer, and in particular take a look at cases where works are published posthumously, or cases where authorship is disputed. | |
| Nov 29, 2017 at 14:17 | comment | added | Spagirl | @Hamlet, in both comments and question you have raised the issue of 'worth', which is not addressed at all in the first your dictionary definition, and is the entire point of the second. Your discussion of 'what is canon' seems to try and merge the definitions to the extent that you appear to be prepared to consider rejecting authorship as a qualifying characteristic. You talk about it all 'being subjective', but surely meaning 1 is absolute, only meaning 2 is subjective? | |
| Nov 25, 2017 at 21:27 | history | edited | user111 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 25, 2017 at 12:32 | comment | added | user111 | @LaurenIpsum the important takeaway is that deciding something is canon is ultimately a statement of "I think this work is valuable, useful, worthwhile, and should be read." Thats a subjective decision. | |
| Nov 25, 2017 at 11:52 | comment | added | Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum | then there are works or parts of works which the entire community has rejected from canon. In Star Trek alone, Gene Roddenberry famously declared parts of the fifth movie "apocryphal," most of the fanbase rejected the VOY episode "Threshold," and almost everyone who saw or heard of the preposterous attempt at an ENT finale, "These Are the Voyages," immediately dismissed it as garbage. A creator can claim something is part of "canon," but the audience is not actually obligated to accept that claim. | |
| Nov 25, 2017 at 1:25 | comment | added | user111 | The question of whether something is canonical revolves around the question of whether you think a work should be considered in some broader context. And there isn't a hard and fast rule--you have to make decisions that have no right or wrong answer. | |
| Nov 25, 2017 at 1:24 | comment | added | user111 | @Randal'Thor unfortunately I don't think it's worth going into the specifics of the debate in this answer. But yeah, it's very complicated and depends a lot on making choices that don't have a right or wrong answer. For example, do the last three wheel of time books count as cannon? They're based on notes from the original author, but the original author died before writing the last three books--someone else wrote those books for him. | |
| Nov 25, 2017 at 1:16 | comment | added | Rand al'Thor♦ | "Pottermore--a website published by the author of the Harry Potter series" - no, it's more complicated than that. Not all of Pottermore even claims to be penned by JKR, and some of us believe even the bits that do are actually ghostwritten. | |
| Nov 25, 2017 at 1:14 | history | edited | user111 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 24, 2017 at 18:09 | history | edited | user111 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 24, 2017 at 18:02 | history | edited | user111 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 24, 2017 at 17:50 | history | edited | user111 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 24, 2017 at 17:44 | history | answered | user111 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |