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Post by sherlock on Mar 20, 2018 2:30:01 GMT
Does whether something is considered 'canon' or not matter?
Its a term that's thrown around a lot in fandoms in general, but does it actually matter?
Personally, despite being someone who devotes an disproportionate amount of time to continuity issues (theorising about fictional universes' inconsistencies passes time) and timelines, it doesn't matter to me whether a story is 'canon' or not. I'll enjoy a story regardless of its categorisation, but at the same time I'll probably try to categorise it later.
What does the DU think? Does canonicity matter?
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Mar 20, 2018 3:05:46 GMT
I don't think canon should ever get in the way of telling a good story. Canon gives you context and it sometimes provides a good set of markers for where something can go but generally when talking about a show that has been around over 50 years, and this goes for Star Trek as well, sooner or later you are going to contradict some piece of canon and if you let that stop you from moving forward, then you just become stuck in, and a slave to, the past. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and sometimes that is a good thing but more often than not, it isn't. Anyway. Good question.
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Mar 20, 2018 4:23:27 GMT
Doctor Who literally has no canon, so if it matters, I guess we all better go become Star Trek fans or something.
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Post by liam on Mar 20, 2018 12:30:22 GMT
I don't take canonisation too seriously. Everything I have watched or listened to or read I consider part of The Doctor's life. So I consider all the companions from Big Finish and Titan/Panini Comics and the events that happened as true. I don't read too much into where it slots in or how it happened. If you think about it too much it loses all the fun. Doctor Who is what it is. A wibbly wobbly timey wimey mess and that's why we love it
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Mar 20, 2018 14:12:33 GMT
It all comes down to personal preference. We all see Canon in different ways
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Post by randomjc on Mar 20, 2018 14:59:06 GMT
Canon doesn't matter so much as good story does. I came at this realization the more I heard people seriously come up with theories on James Bond canon.
Sure having connective tissue is cool and interesting and can be enhancing, but that isn't needed for a good story, and can at times hinder it. So...Canon is okay, but not necessary.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2018 16:00:32 GMT
Canon for Doctor Who is what I find a very stupid idea. The less contradictions there are, the less interesting the whole universe becomes to me.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2018 16:43:43 GMT
Personally, I have no interest in canonicity in Doctor Who... or anything. If like something, I like it. I have a good few Star Wars comics that are not 'canon'. (Star Wars having an officially recognised canon of course, unlike Doctor Who.) but I still enjoy those stories and always will do. So why should one word [canon] define anything? If a story is good it's good, if it's not, it's not. Somebody saying 'this' counts and 'that' doesn't is irrelevant to me.
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Post by jasonward on Mar 20, 2018 16:44:14 GMT
Depends on what your talking about, but since this is a Doctor Who forum, then "No". The overriding reason being because The BBC makes no use of or indeed pays even lip service to it, which makes any attempt what so ever by anyone else to say what is or is not canon, false canon.
Another reason I have for it not mattering, is because without The BBC, who is it that can say with any authority which canon is correct? All possible canon's are equally valid, or invalid.
But the reason that motivates me more than any other reason to say there is no canon and it doesn't mater is because of how canon is and can be used as gatekeeping, which I hate, I have no interest in the Who comics and they don't add (or detract) anything from my own personal head canon, but I will never tell someone else that the comics are "not canon" it's no different than saying "it's pointless, real fans don't pay it any attention".
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2018 16:50:01 GMT
Depends on what your talking about, but since this is a Doctor Who forum, then "No". The overriding reason being because The BBC makes no use of or indeed pays even lip service to it, which makes any attempt what so ever by anyone else to say what is or is not canon, false canon. Another reason I have for it not mattering, is because without The BBC, who is it that can say with any authority which canon is correct? All possible canon's are equally valid, or invalid. But the reason that motivates me more than any other reason to say there is no canon and it doesn't mater is because of how canon is and can be used as gatekeeping, which I hate, I have no interest in the Who comics and they don't add (or detract) anything from my own personal head canon, but I will never tell someone else that the comics are "not canon" it's no different than saying "it's pointless, real fans don't pay it any attention". The BBC can't even declare canon- they don't own many of the show's elements- Daleks, the Brigadier etc, meaning that they can only officially declare things canon if they have the Doctor Who logo on. For example, the Benny box sets Epoch, all the way to Missing Persons may not be able to be considered 'canon', but The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield could be because the Doctor is in them.
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Post by Ela on Mar 20, 2018 16:59:09 GMT
Canon doesn't matter so much as good story does. I came at this realization the more I heard people seriously come up with theories on James Bond canon. Sure having connective tissue is cool and interesting and can be enhancing, but that isn't needed for a good story, and can at times hinder it. So...Canon is okay, but not necessary. This. What matters the most is a good story.
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Post by mrperson on Mar 20, 2018 20:36:42 GMT
I don't worry about trying to line everything from BF up with everything on TV, etc (though I'm hard pressed to think of any real inconsistencies), but I do need a degree of consistency on TV (and separately on BF). And if I ever go farther, say by reading the books, I'm definitely not going to worry about reconciling them with the TV and BF.
But again, I do want a given format to be largely self-consistent.
For example, I get bothered when the necessity of making sure Gallifrey does not return because this will reignite the Time War and bring hell/devestation to the universe is used as a plot driver for plot arcs and individual episodes. But then, Gallifrey returns and the show simply brushes it off with a nonsense excuse ("hiding at the end of the universe".....this was a Time War. Every point in spacetime burning, remember? And the Daleks weren't destroyed).
Annnnyway, stuff like that doesn't make me just turn the TV off, but it definitely makes it harder to feel involved with the story. The next time the Doctor announces it is absolutely crucial that something not happen, I'm more liable to roll my eyes.
How can various things have impact when any rule can be ignored/broken at any time? It's sort of like the penchant for killing off a character, then saying "just kidding...." If that happens enough, you stop caring if a character is killed off.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2018 23:50:29 GMT
Only in so much as it helps to make a good story. Canon is a lot like improv theatre, it's a long chain of "Yes, and..." that eventually takes on a life of its own. The First Doctor landed on Earth in 1963. Yes, and he also brought along the Hand of Omega. Yes, and one of his later incarnations deliberately broke the Chameleon Circuit. Yes, and he later returned to deal with the Common Men, Soviet Space Programme and the Light, respectively.
Continuity is fun to explore in the same way that sorting out old photo albums is fun to explore. It's essentially a flipbook timelapse of watching characters and settings evolve to where they are today (and where they might be in the future). There's something very satisfying in seeing it all play out in sequence from beginning to end.
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Post by jasonward on Mar 21, 2018 0:05:28 GMT
Only in so much as it helps to make a good story. Canon is a lot like improv theatre, it's a long chain of "Yes, and..." that eventually takes on a life of its own. The First Doctor landed on Earth in 1963. Yes, and he also brought along the Hand of Omega. Yes, and one of his later incarnations deliberately broke the Chameleon Circuit. Yes, and he later returned to deal with the Common Men, Soviet Space Programme and the Light, respectively. Continuity is fun to explore in the same way that sorting out old photo albums is fun to explore. It's essentially a flipbook timelapse of watching characters and settings evolve to where they are today (and where they might be in the future). There's something very satisfying in seeing it all play out in sequence from beginning to end. For me, what your describing is a timeline, which very much fits the story telling aspect and flip book aspect of things, when I hear "canon", I hear "bible", "gospel", "the one true vision", which seems quite different to me.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2018 7:57:02 GMT
Only in so much as it helps to make a good story. Canon is a lot like improv theatre, it's a long chain of "Yes, and..." that eventually takes on a life of its own. The First Doctor landed on Earth in 1963. Yes, and he also brought along the Hand of Omega. Yes, and one of his later incarnations deliberately broke the Chameleon Circuit. Yes, and he later returned to deal with the Common Men, Soviet Space Programme and the Light, respectively. Continuity is fun to explore in the same way that sorting out old photo albums is fun to explore. It's essentially a flipbook timelapse of watching characters and settings evolve to where they are today (and where they might be in the future). There's something very satisfying in seeing it all play out in sequence from beginning to end. For me, what your describing is a timeline, which very much fits the story telling aspect and flip book aspect of things, when I hear "canon", I hear "bible", "gospel", "the one true vision", which seems quite different to me. Yeah, me too. "Canon" for me is foundational, stories which can form the baseline that authors draw from. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. In Western canon, that's stories like Beowulf or Romeo and Juliet which are springboards for how other stories are structured. Something we can look at and go "This is what X looks like," or "This in Y, can be found first in X." Like... I'll use Weapon in Space as an example, my "canon" for a Six/Peri/Frobisher story is the 1980s comics featuring them. They're my baseline for how these characters interact. "Continuity", in contrast, is another word for "intertextuality", so how some stories inform other stories. A really, really nice example of continuity is how Davros informs Revelation of the Daleks, despite the second coming before the first. Because of what happens in Davros... The doomed infatuation between Tasambeker and Jobel takes on another meaning. It becomes a metaphor for what happened between Davros and Shan. The same with Tranquil Repose's solution to the famine (it's linked to Skaro) and Davros being able to ingratiate himself in as the Great Healer (probably something to do with the TAI company). (It's a story which I really want to recommend to writers actually. It's a perfect example of how to use continuity as a storytelling device, not just as set dressing. It and Emperor of the Daleks.)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2018 12:30:37 GMT
Does whether something is considered 'canon' or not matter? No, and why should it?
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Post by randomjc on Mar 23, 2018 17:28:14 GMT
Canon doesn't matter so much as good story does. I came at this realization the more I heard people seriously come up with theories on James Bond canon. Sure having connective tissue is cool and interesting and can be enhancing, but that isn't needed for a good story, and can at times hinder it. So...Canon is okay, but not necessary. Just to elaborate. Canon is also fun. Figuring out Canon should be fun. how things fit together, if they fit together. It's a puzzle to solve. But it should never get in your way of enjoying a story. If you enjoy making charts and timelines and trying to piece everything together, then have fun. if it makes you happy nothing should stop you from enjoying the thing you love, the way you love it.
And it should never be used as a tool or weapon to attack another person and their enjoyment of a property. This is perhaps the thing that turns me off any serious canon debates. too often have I just seen it used by gatekeepers to keep other people out of their "thing"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2018 18:06:48 GMT
Canon doesn't matter so much as good story does. I came at this realization the more I heard people seriously come up with theories on James Bond canon. Just to elaborate. Canon is also fun. Figuring out Canon should be fun. how things fit together, if they fit together. It's a puzzle to solve. But it should never get in your way of enjoying a story.
I think you are mixing up canon and continuity, which is a common mistake in fandom. Canon means having one authoritative source as to what officially counts, which Doctor Who doesn't have as the BBC have never proclaimed such a thing. Continuity is how it all fits together. Which is what most of us grapple with at some stage, or try to, and yes it can be fun. I used to love putting all the Dalek stories from every medium together, then John Peel came along with his novels, I went dizzy and gave up!
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Post by jasonward on Mar 23, 2018 18:21:07 GMT
I think the replies here are demonstrating two different views/ideas behind what "canon" means.
There is the more, perhaps traditional view, coming from the original meaning of the word, a list of books/stories (and versions thereof) officially recognised by the church as being genuine. That developed into canonical law (Christian religious law).
Later Sherlock Holmes fans adopted to word to distinguish stories from author Conan Doyle from Sherlock stories by other authors.
Then other fandoms adopted it for similar purposes.
Then authors and publishers themselves started to adopt the word, and right up till this point, canon had always meant some for of "official" vs "none official" or "the real thing" vs "not the real thing".
To find for some the word has developed into something else, one more about story telling and less about telling people how to behave, what to read and what they should think is a good thing, but I find it hard to see the word that way, not because I'm married to it's traditional meaning, but because I am so wary of its meaning, I wary of thinking someone is using the word in its newer form when in fact their using it in its traditional form.
For me, canonicity and dogma will always be close allies, and that always makes me suspicions and wary.
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Post by randomjc on Mar 23, 2018 18:35:40 GMT
Just to elaborate. Canon is also fun. Figuring out Canon should be fun. how things fit together, if they fit together. It's a puzzle to solve. But it should never get in your way of enjoying a story.
I think you are mixing up canon and continuity, which is a common mistake in fandom. Canon means having one authoritative source as to what officially counts, which Doctor Who doesn't have as the BBC have never proclaimed such a thing. Continuity is how it all fits together. Which is what most of us grapple with at some stage, or try to, and yes it can be fun. I used to love putting all the Dalek stories from every medium together, then John Peel came along with his novels, I went dizzy and gave up! Well, yes. I think too I was more thinking along the lines of headcanon, than official canon.
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