Is "canon" meaningless?

[turkishproverb]

Your post is one that I feel really needs to be addressed in segments, and I'm only prepared to address this one as of now. First, canon CAN be "pure and good and true to the original/the source material/itself." It requires at least 2 specific conditions that are inestimably difficult to achieve with a massive money-making series, though (which is why so many of these have canons that are indeed meaningless: )

1. The author(s) of the work make the effort to maintain perfect internal canon consistency.
2. The author(s) of the work maintain sufficient control over that work to negate the potential for Executive Meddling.

The second thing I'd like to say is there's "canon" and then there's "minutia." Boba Fett dying in the Sarlacc pit was canon until it wasn't, and an X-Wing having a type 3 or type 6 generator is minutia. Usually, there can be a few inconsistencies in the minutia without truly affecting canon.

This post is more or less meaningless in relation to how the word is supposed to be used. And responses like this, or ones that lead to the mis-use, come up way to often. So, yes, "canon" is meaningless now to all intents and purposes. This is because people have taken the term and tried to shoehorn it into an area it doesn't belong, resulting in it bordering on meaning "in-continuity" due to mis-use by the likes of Gene Roddenberry and Joss Wheden.

Canon, outside a literary context, was to cover what in a body of work was considered important enough to be "required reading" effectively in that field, usually centering on the likelihood it was written by the original author, or with his permission, or was an influential/well known enough piece, IE the "Literary Canon" or "Holmes Canon".

Sorry, Joss, I don't care if the Buffy movie "happened that way" in your TV universe or not, that has nothing to do with whether it's "canon". Watson's wound moved, and there was no argument about both those stories "counting" back when canon debates for Holmes were a new thing, and those were being done as amusing intellectual exercises. It has nothing to do with if the work is sound in continuity.

Canon is not meaningless. The problem is that people keep using it and confusing Canon with Continuity.

archie Turtles comics are Canon IDW Turtles comics are Canon. But neither of them are In Continuity with each other.

Silver Age Superman comics are Canon New 52 Superman comics are Canon. Neither are In continuity with each other.

This post has some idea what I'm talking about.

Of course the fundamental problem is that canon is nominally (and sorta though not entirely IRL) a system to resolve consistency issues.And well the problem is that it can't beyond a certain point.

Not..really. Aside from the consistency of "what is canon" it's very rarely been used for that purpose outside of geek circles.

I'll think you'll find that the ordinary geek is as zealous in defending 'canon' as is any religious zealot.

Heh. Hard to argue that.

@Asta_Kask: "Fan" is just the shortened form of "fanatic", after all.

or possibly a corruption of "fancy" or "afficianado", depending upon who you ask.

As for canon: I work on the basis that if you are trying to tell stories set in the same universe, you actually have to be consistent about it. A story that is self-contained is... just a story. A diversion for a while. But if there's nothing else to it, if there is no universe outside it to explore... Then it's not really anything of any substance and I, at least, am likely to forget about it ass soon as it's over.

That...has to be the most inaccurate thing I have read in this thread. I do hope it was merely a massively poorly worded statement, as otherwise I really have little idea where to begin in everything that is wrong with what you just said.

Although there is a clip from a movie that comes to mind...

It sounds like you consider the entire history of great writers and artists to be worthless*. Practically every novel of note in the "must read to understand the human condition" category of classics is a stand-alone work. I'm struggling to think of any Classic work which is NOT a stand-alone work. Even Shakespeare doesn't qualify, except maybe a little bit of his historical stuff which is connected by virtue of being, y'know, history.

I can't even come up with a snarky response to that position.


*And yes, considering it worthless to you means considering it without merit.

There is Sherlock Holmes, which is accepted by many even in the literary world as a classic, although that usually doesn't have the whole body of work on required reading lists to understand humanity.