Talk:Canon (fiction)

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[edit] The very idea of a canon

I think the whole idea of an "offical canon" ( at least in a fictional context) is flawed on philosophical grounds, and that the idea that offical statements by authors have power over "their" worlds is flawed and relies on a mistaken interpretation of the concept of meaning. Ultimately I would argue that what one considers canonical is a matter of aesthetic choice ( the worlds are, after all, fictional). I really don't see that a statement by an author in, say, an interview can constitute a decision on what does or does not exist in their world. Does anyone know of any like minded critics, who I could use as sources, so I could say something like this in the articile.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.31.164.73 (talk • contribs) 07:37, January 5, 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree. I think the idea of canonicity in fiction works against Suspension of disbelief, which many believe is essential for the enjoyment of fictional works. The idea of canonicity seems arise from a misapplication of scientific rationalism, or coherentism to fictional worlds. Traditional story telling, and especially oral traditions of story telling relish the idea of multiple interpretations of the same basic story, with each storyteller adding creative embellishments that help to make a good, engaging story. The idea that each storyteller must be entirely consistent with "official" versions of the story seems ludicrous. The idea of multiple re-tellings of a story was nicely explored in the novel Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman - there's a lot of exploration in the book about who owns the (traditional) stories, and therefore who can retell them in the way they want. 128.100.5.199 21:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

It will certainly be a good idea to discuss the validity of the "canon" concept as a whole in this article: as you have both pointed out, only a subset of those who enjoy any particular fictional story have any interest or belief in the concept. On the other hand, it's equally POV to assert that the very concept of canon is flawed. Both perspectives are valid ways to approach literature, and different people will prefer one or the other (or may even vary in their approach based on their mood of the day).

A source that I find quite relevant to the notion of a fictional "canon" is J.R.R. Tolkien's essay On Fairy-Stories. In it, Tolkien explains his thoughts on what makes fiction work, with particular emphasis on the fantasy genre (or more generally, speculative fiction) but not limited to it. He mentions suspension of disbelief in particular, but he considers it dangerous to stretch it too far. An author, he says,

"makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. ... The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed."

There is a distinction drawn here between types of suspension of disbelief. All fiction demands that the reader accept that the fictional world is not the real one (depending on genre, that may require a greater or lesser effort). But good fiction does not require the reader to overlook internal inconsistencies. Suspension of disbelief can overcome a few of these, but if they are blatant or frequent the story is simply frustrating. (If everyone calls the main character "Ted" for the first half of the book, they'd better not start calling him "Frank" for the second half without good reason!) Seeing Tolkien echo my own feelings about literature in this way suggests to me that my preference for some level of "scientific rationalism" in fiction is not entirely uncommon (and is not simply due to my career as a scientist).

Extending that perspective to the notion of "canon" is reasonably natural (at least to those of us who sometimes appreciate the concept). The driving motive behind a search for "canon" is not readers craving authority, but rather an interest in understanding as much of that "Secondary World" as its creator has developed. If a different storyteller were to re-tell the same tale, of course nobody would demand that her version be completely consistent with the original: the freedom and beauty of storytelling (of "sub-creation", as Tolkien put it) would be lost. But for those authors who have made an effort to weave a single large tale over a long period of time (successfully or not), I beleive that asking "what is true in that author's telling of that large tale" is a valid question (albeit a question that not everyone finds interesting). And that's the notion of "canon", at least as I see it.--Steuard 00:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

There is also the issue that many writers, particularly television writers, tend to only maintain continuity to the extent that it is convenient to do so. Oftentimes fans will attempt to assemble a complete and internally consistent world out of something that was produced haphazardly (cf. Doctor Who). In some series of video games, virtually no attempt is made to maintain continuity. It may be wiser to view the games in these series as independent works with common characters and themes rather than attempting to reconcile them into a single universe.

In cases where continuity is poorly maintained, the notion of canon may be counterproductive to understanding a series of works. 24.214.26.159 06:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

As Stueard noted, the existance of a canon means that you are taking the "suspension of disbelief" differently - a "basic" suspension would require you to accept anything, a more refined "canon" rather puts you in an alternate existance.

While there are some works (such as Tom and Jerry) and various "loner" works of fiction that arguably don't have a canon, many series (such as Babylon 5) have fairly complex, but consistant, canons. The more simplistic aspect of "suspension of disbelief" still comes into play occasionally, however, as unexpected circumstances occur or as a minor occurance becomes a major theme. (E.g. Elizabeth Weir, who had 2 actresses playing her and Goa'uld - a minor "alien possession" idea (in the Stargate movie) which became one of the basic ideas of the Stargate-SG1 TV series. These ideas may include occasional "ret-conning" or official reverting of previous canon, as with Hathor (Stargate SG-1) due to mistakes, or a decision to go a different direction with the work.

All of these elements provide an aspect for a (sometimes extensive) Suspension of Disbelief, within the structure known as the "canon." --Tim4christ17 18:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

There are key points here. I think much of the preceding should be distilled and incorporated. It'd be nice if there were citations, too. As noted below, the article also needs to be split. -- Akb4 12:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The discussion on the deletion of the Dragon Ball Z canon entry is interesting [1] - one of the main arguements for keeping it is that this is exactly what is being done in this entry. What we really want to avoid is this entry setting a precedent especially as I am concerned that at least half the entry's sections are also original research (leaving aside the ones that appear to be arguing that there is no canon) - see my other comments on this page. I suspect we should realy trim this page down to works of fiction where canon can be proved (again in other posts on this page I've mentioned entries I can see keeping) and if people want to add anything in then they need to provide references or they can't add it. (Emperor 23:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC))

The definitive answer to the question 'what really happened' in a fictional universe is NOTHING. It's wonderful how deluded people waste their lives. Perhaps the Star Trek cultists will start waging Holy Crusades against one another, the Spockites and Tupperites, each shreiking "He died for our sins!" Anyone else think 'fictional canonicity' is a sure sign the human race is insane?

I don't think it's pathetic to speculate on fictional or hypothetical situations, as in TV shows. We needn't be limited to only thinking about things that have happenned, because through fiction we can think about things that could happen. Canon just sets the rules so that people can talk about fiction and be talking about the same thing. Canon is just an opportunity for the author to set the rules where they are unclear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.1.209.165 (talk) 03:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] definitons/taxonomy

OK, I've thought about this a bit. The reason canon exists in churches is because

they have large bodies of work
- with potentially many internal conflicts
- often by multiple authors over a span of time
they have a hierarchy capable of specifying what is canon and what isn't
- even to the extent of revising past decisions.
Resolving the conflicts is key for some people in maintaining suspension (or absence) of disbelief.

In terms of fiction, humor does not seem to require suspension of disbelief to the same degree that drama does. If "Tom and Jerry" or "Seinfeld" has internal conflicts, not many viewers are bothered; in many situations, internal conflicts or unlikelihoods are accepted simply because they are funny. While it certainly isn't impossible for a comedy to have canon, I can't think of any that have the same sort of structure that Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. do.

This is, of course, all original thinking on my part, so unless I can find some references to people who've thought the same thing, I can't put this stuff into the article. I'm sure there are some essays and discussions in the slash community that make similar points (but don't have time just now to dig them out; maybe later).

What I feel ok doing is reaming out all the subsections on fiction which merely note or express opinions on continuity conflicts, and elucidating a bit on those examples to which the concept is particularly relavent. Akb4 00:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I suspect the only way forward is to strip out most of the entry. Below I have laid out some criteria for how the existence of a canon can be demonstrated and I think if people want to start a section dealing with the canon of a work of fiction they have to provide authoratative sources which show it (demonstrating consistent creative control over an overarching storyline along with clear statements on what is and isn't considered canon by them - which mirrors the criteria from the original church meaning). Without it we get back to the majority of what discussion on canon is - fan speculation (often based on continuity consistency/errors). While that might have some sociological interest (there are Doctoral theses waiting to be done about the interaction of fan speculation in the building of a fictional universe) it is basically original research and has no place here.

At the moment a lot of these entries are actually saying there is no canon (like the computer games ones) and, as has been mentioned, comedy usually not only has a canon but often makes jokes at the expense of it (I've seen a number of jokes along those lines especially in The Simpsons where they have wild unlikely and world-changing adventures and then comment that everything will return to normal tomorrow).

The problem with fiction is that you can run into knowing post-modern winks to it (as with the Simpsons example) and with mutliverse ideas things may be non-canon because they exist within a parallel reality - this is pretty much how the DC Universe and Marvel Universe work and this means they can exploit continuity errors and/or just retcon them away (throwing in the occasional Crisis across their multiverses to tidy things up). All these conventions make a bit of a nonsense of trying to define canon.

So what could stay? Babylon 5, Buffyverse, Discworld, Dune, Firefly, Matrix, Sherlock Holmes, Star Wars, Star Trek - as long as there are solid references to support this. (Emperor 16:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Example List

That example list is slowly growing to cover almost every fictional canon in existance. Each example should be scaled down to give a rough scope of the canon and/or what makes it unique among other fictional canons. Alternatively, most of these canons have their own articles and such a description on this page is redundant. Another option is just splitting the entire list off into a typical list article. However its done, this article needs to be cleaned up.

To make things a little more complicated I added the Lancers canon to the example list. Note that this was added specifically to create a link on the Openlancer article - do not remove the Lancers canon reference. --MegaBurn 04:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a worse problem, which is that many of the entries are lists of discrepencies, or else statements of what the article author thought canon should be. Some media inarguably have the concept of canon, Star Wars and Star Trek being the most obvious. I don't think Peanuts does, and South Park explicity doesn't. -- Akb4 12:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Worse yet: they're discrepancies... but we don't say to what. Generally, in the case of movies and television, the definition of canonicity I use, myself, stolen from others whom I can't locate just now to cite is: "material is canonical if it actually aired on the screen in the first-run of the item in question." Syndicated reairings of television don't clip canon, though it's open whether re-workings of material such as directors cuts expand or alter canon. Yes, Han shot first. Material shot but dropped before air, while it may be suggestive, also does not contribute to canon. Extensions to what can be considered canonical are customarily left to the opinion of the creator of the ficton or his designee(s). And, as to why we care? Well, canon defines continuity in the context of series films and television as well, and there are those of us who really should have been script supervisors, instead of whatever it is we do for a living now.
--Baylink (talk) 05:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar

The word "Canon" is a noun.

One can say "XYZ is canonical" or "XYZ is part of the canon" or "the canon includes XYZ," but one can't say "XYZ is canon."

If I'm wrong about this, and if the dictionaries are wrong about this, could someone please supply a good verifiable source for the use of "canon" as an adjective. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

On the one hand, you are absolutely correct with regard to the historical usage of the word. On the other hand, the English language has an unimpedable tendency to shift the meaning and usage of words from one part of speech to another, and a look at any fannish web forum will demonstrate that in practice, the word is being used as an adjective. It's a question of prescription and description, really — by the prescriptive rules, "XYZ is canon" shouldn't fly, but in practice (descriptively) it does. I tend to be old-fashioned about these things, but I don't think that my preferences need to be imposed on the article.

That said, I believe strongly that anyone who types "cannon" when they mean "canon" should be shot with one, so I'm not entirely self-consistent. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

O tempora, O Moses. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:51, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, if the adjectival use of "canon" is something new, emerging, etc. something should be said about this in the article, and buttressed by source citations. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

There really should be a canon about the phantom of the opera.

It's very popular for fan fiction.

Dpbsmith, the dictionaries are right: canon is a noun. However, the sentence structure in "XYZ is canon" is not inherently incorrect. In linguistics, this type of sentence structure is generalized as:

SUBJECT + VERB + COMPLEMENT ,

where the verb acts as a copula (more specifically as a linking verb), and the complement (or more specifically, the subject complement) is often a noun or an adjective.

If you think about it, the sentence structure is not that unusual (The presence of an article between the linking verb and the complement is frequent, but not necessary):

- My word is law.

- Ignorance is bliss.

- He is God.

- It's mere coincidence.

- That is a shame.

Obviously, this does not address the issue of which sentence structure is the more correct one. I hope this clarifies things a bit. -- Byakuren 06:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Yet... I don't think every construction of this kind is valid. Oddly enough, it seems to me it is good idiomatic English to say

"Byakuren's argument is nonsense."

However, I don't think it sounds right to say

"Byakuren's argument is sense."

You'd have to say

"Byakuren's argument is sensible."

"Byakuren's argument makes sense."

And I don't think "XYZ is canon" is canonical. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The adjective is canonical. I don't think canon can be used as an adjective. In the only possible example I can think of, canon law, we have a noun-noun pair similar to computer programmer. --Halcatalyst 22:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
- In "computer programmer", 'computer' acts an adjective. It describes the kind of programmer we're talking about. I would have thought the 'canon' in "canon law" is the same. It distinguishes canon law from family law and company law etc etc. JackofOz 00:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Nobody's suggesting that canon is an adjective; the question is whether it can be used as a noun complement. I see no reason why not. (I think the answer to the sense/nonsense problem is that 'sense' is not just the opposite of 'nonsense'; 'nonsense' is a marked form in that it can only be bad, while 'sense' can be good sense or bad sense. So 'Byakuren's argument is sense' doesn't work the same way that 'Byakuren's argument is nonsense' does.) Henry ^Flower 09:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Based on the dictionary (or anything else), can anyone explain why one can say "the Ten Commandments is Scripture" but not "The Ten Commandments is Bible?" I don't think one can say "The book of Tobit is apocrypha," but I think one can say "The books of Tobit and Judith are apocrypha." Is a puzzlement. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact, I can, Dan. :-) Scripture is a *collective* noun; it denotes a group of items. Bible does not. My assertion is that canon is also a collective noun; it denotes those items which are part of the identically named canon; that is, "X is canon" is shorthand for "X is [part of the] canon". Or you could just treat it as the hackish desire to noun adjectives. :-) If you want a *real* answer to this, go ask the Language Log people.
--Baylink (talk) 05:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Star Wars

Could someone add some information on what is considered Star Wars canon? Are the books canon? And what about the holiday special?!

Since this article is about canon in fiction in general, it wouldn't be a good idea to add that information to this article. However, I see there is a Star Wars canon article now. (Without looking, I can tell you that the Holiday Special is not canonical. Lucas has just gotten around to admitting that it happened in the first place! =D )

And actually, looking at that article now, I think there may be information there worth incorporating into the main article -- this is the first time I've ever seen a media company maintain four letter-identified levels of canonicity. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:34, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Star Wars and full canon

Though Lucasfilm uses a GCSN system for merchandising and such, Lucas, who is deemed the absolute authority, considers the Expanded Universe separate from his films. Most importantly, he compares Star Wars canon to Star Trek canon.

"There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions."

The above mixes responses on the issue of canon from two interviews with Lucas, that is, in Cinescape and Starlog magazines in 2001 and 2005, respectively.

Lucas wouldn't consider the Expanded Universe full canon. --Kasparov 05:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Apparently (by what you quoted above) Lucas says there are two canons, so to him EU is part of "the parallel universe". His corporations, otoh, define four levels of canonicity, but one could see that as a more complex view of the same thing. -- Akb4 12:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

He seems to be saying that in his mind nothing but his stories really count. As the creator/master of this particular universe... and the guy writing the main stories, his opinion on what is and what isn't canon would seem to be the authority.

Also on the Q&A section of the StarWars.com they refer to only the movies and absolute canon and everything they refer to as the Expanded Universe continuity.

There is a very strong case that only the films are canon, the rest is an (mostly) internally consistant apocropha.

Duggy 1138 00:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Whovian trouble

Sorry, but although the section on DW continuity laudably stresses the wide range of viewpoints, and also (quite rightly) expresses the loose nature of Doctor Who continuity as a whole, I have a couple of problems with the following statement:

"Within that spectrum most view the licensed novels and audio plays as at least near-canonical, and some of those would also include the Doctor Who Magazine comic strips." (my emphasis)

Whilst I would accept that *many* tend to give the books and audios greater weight than, say, the annuals, the word 'most' has a very specific meaning: you're *stating* that this is the view of the majority of fans. Now, either you have access to a survey or reader poll (or somesuch) which offers statistical evidence for this, or the above statement remains unsubstantiated.

Again, whilst there are those who seem to hold the comic strip in slightly lower esteem than the other spin-offs, it's worth noting that they do so in the abscence of any specific justification for doing so (from a legal viewpoint, Panini's license is no different to Big Finish's; both have similar methods of working around the TV series' continuity, inventing their own companions etc; the best comic strips e.g.Children of the Revolution, are no less critically acclaimed than the audios Etc.)

Finally, it has to be worth at least a mention that both the comic strip and the BF audios have at different times *attempted* to differentiate their universes from that of the novels, in 'Ground Zero' and 'Zagreus' respectively. Although that might be mentioned under another entry, I don't know.

No offence intended - Jamie B.

None taken; and in fact, I do agree. I'm altering the language to "many" instead of most, and will add a little paragraph about the multiple universes proposed by BF and the BBC Books. --khaosworks July 8, 2005 02:43 (UTC)

Thankyou very, very much, dude. Go forward in all your beliefs, as I must go in mine :) - a now much happier Jamie B.

[edit] Star Trek canon vs. Star Trek canon

OK, this is getting silly. It's an incredibly trivial edit to get into an edit war over, so let's be civilized.

Here's what the Wikipedia guide to writing better articles has to say about the principle of least astonishment:

===Principle of least astonishment===

Using the principle of least astonishment, you should plan your pages and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense. If a link takes readers to somewhere other than where they thought it would, it should at least take them someplace that makes sense.

====Example====

A user wants to know about the nuclear power plant that exploded in Chernobyl. The page on "Chernobyl" redirects to "Chornobyl", an alternative spelling for that town. However, the user sees that a link to the desired page, Chernobyl accident, is placed prominently near the top of the Chornobyl page, and happily clicks on that.

It's true that an editor who saw a link saying Star Trek canon might subsequently type a link as [[''Star Trek'' canon]]. However, such an editor would quickly realize their mistake, just as E. Pluribus Anthony did within two minutes. It's Wikipedia style to italicize titles of television series, so the link should say Star Trek canon, even though the article is (rightly) at Star Trek canon. I don't see what's wrong with using the piped link here. —Josiah Rowe 17:01, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you all for the debate regarding this 'minor' edition. I didn't realise it would be such a powderkeg; that being said, though, the italicised and not versions of Star Trek are equally valid and argumentation for the 'principle of least astonishment' can be made on both sides: the phrase is common enough so that it can remain in plain text, or specific enough (particularly when referring to the ST universe or show) that it may require italics. Personally: I think we should be more concerned with how visitors/users view and interpret information, not with how editors/contributors can best manipulate it (though I realise that the latter may result from very interested visitors wanting to contribute). Really, I'm easy either way; however ...

I believe this debate may underline a slightly larger one – of (in)consistency or of (not) having a standard (to my knowledge) – regarding various Star Trek references on Wikipedia pages in general. Many of the ST articles I've perused (and edited thusly) contain both forms (i.e., Star Trek or Star Trek) to describe the 'ST universe'. So a few questions:

(1) The first overall question that this begs is: what term and how should the ST universe be referred to in toto: Star Trek (plain) or Star Trek (italicised)?

(2) Next: which of the terms should be used to describe the original series: the term Star Trek (italicised; the genuine name for the original series) or Star Trek: The Original Series (or ST:TOS/ variation) (not the original name, but used to distinguish it from the various incarnations and from the larger 'universe')?

(3) What, if any, confusion will or can result from the varying usage/appearance of this term? That is: will someone infer that Star Trek (italicised) infer the original series or universe? Or will they infer that Star Trek (plain) infers the universe, a general reference, and not the original show, et al.?

So, I think a standard must be developed or adhered to with using this term in Wikipedia (perhaps by consulting and comparing to 'canon' reference works, et al.), and I'll go with that. Thoughts? Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 18:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Here is my belief:

When we are using a link that is part of the article text, we format it as appropriate for the text. Thus, if an article contained the sentence "McCoy's daughter is not actually part of Star Trek canon" then "Star Trek" would be italicized.

However, when we are trying to convey to a reader the name of the Wikipedia article, we use the exact name of the article. Nothing else makes sense. A "seemain" line isn't telling the reader information about the subject, it is telling readers about how Wikipedia chose to organize that information into articles. It is there for one purpose only: to tell the reader the "address" of the article. The address of that article is an exact series of typographical characters, not how those characters would be formatted if interpreted according to content. To format a line that exists purely for functional reasons so that it is one whit less functional but prettier is ill-advised.

Compare to disambiguation lines, another purely functional construct that exists only to help the reader follow how Wikipedia chose to organize information into separate articles. In this case, we acknowledge that someone who went to the address "Alabama" may not have been looking for the state of Alabama, which is what they found there. Do we tell them "If you're looking for the Native American group, see Alabama (people); if you're looking for the country music band, see Alabama (band)" -- or do we tell them "If you're looking for the Native American group, see Alabama; if you're looking for the country music band, see Alabama"?

Again, in article text, it makes sense to pipe those links and hide the functional constructs that Wikipedia has to use in order to deal with the fact that it can't give three different articles the exact name/address "Alabama". But when we are exposing those functional constructs, when we are trying to tell the reader "no, we couldn't give all three articles the same name/address; here's where we put the article you're looking for", to put anything other than the exact address is just silly! Pointing out that an editor "would quickly realize their mistake ... within two minutes" does not mean there is any good reason to be encouraging that mistake, which is what we do when we tell the reader "here is the verbatim name/address of the article you're looking for" and then giving them a prettyprinted version of that name/address instead. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah. That makes a bit more sense, when you put it like that. I didn't understand your intention, before. Carry on, then. —Josiah Rowe 17:03, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes! I completely understand – now! :); thanks for elaborating and I concur with your explanation. Besides: I'm willing to take some flak; no offence received. ;)

This still begs the question, though, of what should be done for apppropriate references in-text (as they vary) and whether there should be a standard way of doing so, or going through the many articles to ensure some sorta consistency; I've initiated similar discussion threads in various talk pages (and distinguishing between 'piped' and in-text references). This needn't be a huge priority, though. Thoughts? Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 17:26, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, good question. Let me see what WP:MOS says... well, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles) confirms that episode titles are put in quotation marks and series titles are put in italics. However, it doesn't say anything about franchises like Star Trek which may incorporate multiple series. I could make arguments for two formatting decisions:

MOS talks about "shorter" and "longer" works as the primary indicator of whether to use quotation marks or italics. A multi-series franchise is clearly longer than a single series in that franchise, so it should use italics.
A multi-series franchise is clearly an order of magnitude larger than a "longer" work by itself, so it should receive yet a third style of formatting. In this way, it is easier to differentiate between the franchise and a work in that franchise.

As I said, I could make arguments either way -- I find myself more convinced by the latter. I could say something like "The utopianism that pervades Star Trek dates back to Star Trek itself" and it's fairly clear despite my deliberate omission of clarifying nouns that by 'Star Trek' I mean the franchise and by Star Trek I mean the first TV series. However, I don't know of any precedent already set in the matter. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:56, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I hear ya. Do you recall how reference works like the Star Trek Encyclopedia do it?

Perhaps such in-text notations, given the breadth of the franchise, should be left (when describing the universe in toto) as or changed to Star Trek (no italics, and no bold (superfluous for emphasis)) so that there isn't any confusion with the series Star Trek(: The Original Series)? (In which case your 'utopian' sentence would be correct!? And this is clear because you use them in the same sentence, but may not be obvious/clear if they aren't in the same sentence.) If agreed, perhaps we should place something to this effect on the 'canon' and related style pages? And, in abbreviation: ST (no italics/bold) for the franchise/universe but ST:TOS (italics, no bold) for the series?

I guess we've come full circle, in a matter of speaking, but not for not what. :) Thoughts? Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 20:24, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Addendum: various Star Trek works use Star Trek (italics) when referring to the universe or generally; this, however, is likely corporate self-promotion by Paramount.

To that end, I propose usage of Star Trek (plain) in Wikipedia for general references, and the use of Star Trek /: The Original Series when referring to the original series. If this is acceptable, I'll massage the Wikiproject page. Thoughts? Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 20:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. Being composed of Star Trek fans, the Star Trek WikiProject could probably use a backrub. ;)

Seriously, that clarification is probably a really good idea. —Josiah Rowe 21:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Great! I'm glad we were able to morph this into something truly positive, for fans and not alike. Ta! E Pluribus Anthony 21:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Don't you mean oomox? ;)

Yet another 'pickle' is the use of quotation marks when referring to episodes: they appear in all titles throughout the series (newer ones, I mean), but do not appear usually within wikilinks for in-text references to them; the articles themselves are rightly without them. Am I picking knits? :) A bientot. E Pluribus Anthony 21:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest (actually, I should have suggested before) that you bring up the issue on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (titles); since this has the potential to set precedent (or alternately, to follow underdocumented precedent) it makes the most sense to bring it up there.

As for your last query about episode titles... er... I confess I'm not sure I understand it. ^^; What should be done with episode titles is simply placing the quotation marks around the wikilinks, like so: "[[Spock's Brain]]". In practice, you'll often see people forgetting the quotation marks when they have to remember the wikilinking brackets. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your reply; I'll post where you've suggested.

As well, this is what I mean(t) regarding episode (not movie) titles:

"Spock's Brain"

though the omission of any quotation marks is also a concern. Make sense? Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 18:11, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Er... okay, I see what you mean. ~~However, you're putting the episode titles in quotes and in italics. We only put episode titles in quotes; we don't italicize them.~~ -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:38, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Oops! Forgive that slight oversight (actually, an ep title would be italicised if a sentence the episode was in was completely italicised; see quotes for Jean-Luc Picard, for example); corrxn above. Thoughts? E Pluribus Anthony 22:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello again! Since a couple months have lapsed since we last spoke about this, and with the assumption that the status quo is sufficient (i.e, retain this and the Wikipedia: WikiProject Star Trek articles and do not merge them), I have removed the merge note atop the article page. I've also edited both articles since our chats. Thoughts? Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 09:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Prisoner

What about the Prisoner comics series from DC in the late '80s? Is that considered canonical or not? Lokicarbis 12:40, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

That question presumes the existence of a canon. Star Wars and Star Trek clearly have big complex canons, but I'm not sure the Prisoner does, at least not in the same way. -- Akb4 12:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Or, alteratively (and very belatedly) "Yes". It is an officially-sanctioned sequel, and arguably more canonical than the equally-'official' novels, two of which (among other points) explicitly make the Prisoner-is-Drake link, which is held as controversial. ntnon (talk) 09:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Terminator

I'd be interested to see what people consider canonical. Arguably, just the first two movies (and even those create arguments about whether they can be totally reconciled!). The third movie clearly breaks continuity in various ways (the whole timeline is unconvincingly retconned, or just blatantly flouted). I doubt that any of the novels or comics can be considered canononical. Metamagician3000 04:36, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Considered canonical by whom and for what purpose? -- Akb4 12:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sonic the hedgehog

My theory always was that the consloe Sonic games and the handheld games are two different universe's. Template:Darkmech

That can't be possible, as Cream met Sonic for the first time in Sonic Advance 2, but she reappeared in Sonic Heroes as a good friend of theirs.

The thing is that it doesn't matter what anyone's theory is. Sonic the Hedgehog was removed in the tidy up and I've just removed a recent attempt to add one back in. (Emperor 21:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Batman#509 appears to be where the reference to Jigsaw took place.

That issue appears to be where the reference to Jigsaw took place.

[edit] South Park

claiming south park has a canon is silly. They quite clearly mock the very idea of internal consistency being important. We should either make the entry say this (as an example of media universes without canons) or just dump the section. -- Akb4 12:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A note about the Highlander link

Just a quick note to those wikipedians who are overseeing this wikipage. The link at the Highlander section is titled as though it goes to an article about the canonicity of the films versus the TV series but it only links to the first film. I didn't find any link at the film to a compare contrast aticle either. If you know where such an article exists here at wikip you will want to fix this and if there isn't you may want to change the name of the link. Thanks. MarnetteD | Talk 20:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Example lists

I know this has been addressed before, but it is REALLY getting out of hand. I propose that people nominate examples to delete, and we vote on them. 199.126.137.209 21:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

We'd really need criteria to judge what we even mean. I am currently discussing the issue in relation to Alien/Predator [2] and I'd suggest there are a few key criteria (the first three are the vital ones and requiring heavy referencing):

It has to have a strong consistent central control
A broad overarching vision of the fictional universe
A well agreed upon definition of the core canon
The canon has to be large enough that it is possible to define the canon (someone above discusses the third in the Terminator films as not being canon but that really just leaves the first two which are largely only considered canon because there are no major internal contradictions. Trying to measure spin-offs against that and decide what is and isn't canon seems pointless and the idea of parallel univseres may make it all a moot point).

Things like Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Buffy, Harry Potter, etc. seem to tick the various boxes.

If you don't have those then it is getting into the realm of fan speculation (and in this context original research) and one should really work from the null hypothesis that a canon doesn't exist and then someone has to show it does by reference to independent and reliable sources that

For example the Dr Who section starts:

There has never been an "official" statement on what is canonical Doctor Who. Doctor Who has never had a single author or authority and it is apparent that the BBC, which owns the series, has generally not cared about the matter. The many creators of Doctor Who have always treated the concept of continuity loose.

That should really be the end of the debate surely? The section then goes on for a number of paragraphs discussing which of the spin-offs is considered canon. That has to be the strangest thing on the page and seems to defy logic. Basically, like a number of other things here it is more of a franchise - if you have a good idea and a license then go for it (and try not to break anything while you are at it).

Equally the Beauty and the Beast section seems to talk purely about fan speculation.

The Metal Gear Solid section strikes me as not having a canon to speak of to measure other things against it (see also Highlander) - is it worth having something here saying there is no canon? The same seems to be true for Mortal Kombat and Soul Caliber as they state it is impossible to establish what is canon. Should the entry be examples of what is considered canon so that people can get a good grasp of what it means?

Another question presents itself - wouldn't most of this be better off in the main entry (or like Star Wars in its own one) and then here there'd just be a short paragraph and a link to that? (Emperor 04:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC))

[edit] "official canon"/the evolution of canon

- - - First let me state that the idea of canon is extremely flawed and I 100% agree with the first posts above.

While my opinion on the concept of canon being good or bad is irelevant, I do think that many fans are trying to "create" or "justify" their own canon without any official recognition from the official source. For example: the concept of canon being talked about for so many tv shows/ video game series/ movies is relatively new. 10 years ago: Asking a guy : "Is batman: animated series canon to the movies" wouldnt have even been discussed (probably would have been laughed at). But ever since ppl saw how some ppl (IE: George lucas) actually took the trouble to make a detailed canon that can really be exemplary to all shows.............everyone seems to be trying to make an "official canon" to their favorite shows without the author's concent. Many companies either 1) Dont know of this term........or 2) Dont care for it. But what is making this very annoying is how a company doesnt make anything canon and yet because 60% of fans of a show agree that "something" is canon, then it makes it "official" that everyone should accept it as canon too because "the majority accepts it".

-This raises many issues (1 being that it's obvious that fans should not be the ones deciding what is canon ...but the companies making the book/show/movie/game etc)

Suddenly what is "canon" has become "what one likes". IE: If you liked a certain movie in an anime series Person A: can argue that it's "Canon" ..........but if Person B hated it then he can argue "It wasnt made from the Manga" But who are they to even say that "It's only canon if it was made from the manga" Or really the question is: Why should it matter? So now ppl invented a new concept: "Higher canon" and "Lower canon" ....where aparently what the majority "likes" is considered a "superior" or "official" form of the story while something else is an "alternate universe". It's gotten to such a point that some people are arguing that "X-Men 3" isnt canon cause 1) "It sucked" (aparently) and 2) "It wasnt written/directed by the original director/writter or part 1 and 2"

This is literally pathetic. Fans should not decide what is canon............all they can decide is if it was a good idea, that's all. (I for 1 find it incredibly disrespectful for a person lately to go to a message board and be repelled almost to the point of having people insult them because what they speak of is : "Not canon" or "it doesnt matter cause its not canon" (I've seen this happen countless times all over the net and this is the reason I type this now).

What do people think about this?

Good night guys.

[edit] Rename

Hi - would anyone object to a rename of this article to Canon (fictional universes) or even Canon (fan fiction? That way it would be possible to create an article on the idea of the canon as it's more commonly understood (e.g. the sort of canon F. R. Leavis had in mind). As it stands, this article has many statements that are simply incorrect when applied to canonicity in fiction as a whole - for instance, the idea of canons of taste doesn't just pre-date Sherlock Holmes fans, it actually pre-dates the creation of Holmes himself. These statements would begin to make sense under the proposed rename. Vizjim 09:00, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Its a good idea Jim. My main concern is that it would be slightly papering over the cracks as things stand. What we currently have are: well verified canons (where the creators have strong control over things with a good view of the story arc and have made statements about what is and isn't canon), we have well-verfied canons that are created purely by fans (as in The Case of Sherlock Holmes) and we have about half the entry which is unsupported, rubbish and/or original research. Moving it as it stands just moves the problem and might slightly cloud the issue (as people might try and claim that as it is fan fiction they have a broader remit and the existing sections would give them precedent) but it may also provide the opportunity to tidy this whole section up. I'd suggest clearing out half the sections on the main page and possibly sending the others of to both those pages (some have canon and some have canon thrust upon them):

Fictional universes - Babylon 5, Buffyverse, Discworld, Dune?, Firefly, Matrix, Stargate, Star Wars and Star Trek. Also Gundamn (if Harmony of Gundam can be properly sourced).

Fan fiction - Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter and Middle Earth as well as possibly Beauty and the Beast (with references), Dr Who (although as I've said this seems to argue that there isn't a canon) and D&D (although again this states clearly that there is no canon so...). Clearly something like Harry Potter might shift to the other entry if some definitive statement is made but sometimes it seems creators don't worry as much about this as the fans do.

And then set up strict criteria that you can't add anything to either page unless you can support it with solid references (one mad fan running off and doing his own thing isn't going to cut it) - which should really have been the criteria for this entry in the first place. (Emperor 12:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC))

My major concern with this article is the lack of referencing - if there's no statement about a particular work of fiction, then say "there's no official statement" or take it off the list, don't just guess. Once that's fixed up, though, I'm happy to leave the article where it is, with all the canon examples in one spot (except where they grow too large, like Star Wars). If people want to find what constitutes canon for a particular universe, they're going to look in the "canon" article, not "fan fiction". The "Fictional universes" and "Fan fiction" articles should discuss those individual concepts. If the canon introductory section grows so large that it needs to be separated, then I wouldn't mind splitting the list off to a separate article by itself, but the introductory section hasn't grown to that stage yet. Quack 688 03:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The examples section has now been heavily cleaned up and largely link through to relevant sections which contain the major references. However, I'd still like to see more sourced quotes here to deomstrate the creators intent. (Emperor 17:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC))

I'll start discussions on the ones that seem problematic to get a consensus on things. (Emperor 17:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Split "Examples of fictional canons"

Someone has suggested splitting off the section "Examples of fictional canons". I'd say we should keep it here. It has been trimmed down to a good core set of examples which is how it should be, I fear splitting it off would lead to vast bloat again and the introduction of a lot of spurious claims and allegations and we'd be back in the siuation we were in a while ago (see discussion above for more on that). (Emperor 17:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC))

I oppose splitting. I've seen more than a few similar "examples of ..." articles deleted because they've been labelled WP:NOR violations and the like. Having these examples combined with an article explaining the topic reduces the knee-jerk cries of "NOR!" that might arise if the list were published separately (even sourced as it is). 23skidoo 21:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transformers?

I'm reading that paragraph and it seems to me that it says there isn't really a canon or one is difficult to define). Fair enough but this suggests that it doesn't really have a place on a list of examples of fictional canons. The examples should support the rest of the article with examples of solid well-defined canons and this isn't one. (Emperor 17:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC))

I've taken it out as no one has put forward a good argument why it should stay. (Emperor 21:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Doctor Who

As mentioned above the opening couple of sentences make clear there is no canon. Everything else in that largely section deals with fan speculation - it starts "Fans run a spectrum between those who consider only the television series canonical and those who consider all Doctor Who canonical" and continues in a similar vein using "generally considered" and "considered". It might be worth leaving in with the first 2 sentences as an example of something that has never been consdired canon but the bulk of that seems to be OR based on fan speculation. (Emperor 17:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC))

I've removed it again. [3] Just read the opening sentences: "There has never been an "official" statement on what is canonical Doctor Who. Doctor Who has never had a single author or authority, and it is apparent that the BBC, which owns the series, has generally not cared about the matter. The many creators of Doctor Who have always treated the concept of continuity loosely. Fans run a spectrum between those who consider only the television series canonical and those who consider all Doctor Who canonical." There is no canon as far as the creators are concerned and so things veer into fan speculation. (Emperor 12:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC))

I have no problem with the section being removed, as long as Doctor Who remains as a counter-example in the "Nature of fictional canons" section. However, many Doctor Who articles used to link to that section, because it was standard practice in Doctor Who articles to distinguish information based on the television series from information derived from other sources. Whenever the Doctor Who novels or audio plays are used as a source, that source is stated, with a clause saying that its "canonicity is unclear". "Canonicity" is/was usually linked to Canon (fiction)#Doctor Who. There are probably hundreds of these links in Doctor Who articles, and they now point to a non-existent section. It would be a good gesture if Emperor would go through "what links here" to find these links in Doctor Who articles and repoint them to Canon (fiction). Thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Looniverse

I removed a section on that [4] it was just a list of shows and just saying it doesn't make it so and does make it original research. This section isn't the place for a large entry on canons and Wikipedia isn't the place to prove there is a canon (see the discussion above). On a sidenote Looniverse means something different to the intended meaning. (Emperor 22:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Smallville

Removed a section on Smallville [5] as it was original research amongst other things. See discussion above - this isn't the place to demonstrate a canon exists it is a few examples of important canons to support the main bit of the article. (Emperor 20:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Deuterocanon

The article completely misses the very important idea of a deuterocanon, which lies between the canon and the apocripha. For example, posthumous books that were authorized by the State of a late author should be deuterocanon, like the Caliban Series and the Foundation and Robots Trilogy based on Asimov's Robot-Empire-Foundation Universe. Albmont 13:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that you are talking about Biblical canon, which is different from the use of "canon" to refer to fiction. While it's an interesting idea to similarly expand the classifications of fiction according to the models of Biblical canon, if we don't have an appropriately reliable source for it then we run into problems with original research. -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Dave Green Counterexample

Since the article refers to "the Douglas Adams", one wonders about the canonicity or otherwise of The Dave Green. Is it just NTK (or rather, those parts which are definitively non-Lee and non-DOB)? Do we include The 99p Challenge? What about the Battle For London? --Alanconnor 00:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nonsense

The whole article is utterly absurd and should be removed. Awaler 17:50 GMT 29 May 2007

If you feel that way maybe you should consider nominating it for deletion (see how to here [6]) although I think it might be possible to clean up and improve the article. [[Guest9999 21:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)]]

[edit] Harry Potter

Removed the Harry Potter section [7] that was recently dropped in here. It states clearly it is reporting fan speculation and, as I've said before, the list isn't for proving canon (or lack of it) they have to be examples to support the main part of the article and be linked through (using {{main}}) to a larger entry giving a well referenced overview of the issue. (Emperor 02:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC))

[edit] "Continuationists"

I can't find any evidence of the word "continuationist" to refer to a Tolkien fan who considers movies and video games to be canon outside of Wikipedia. Can anyone provide support for such a term? -- Lore Sjoberg (talk) 20:49, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grand Theft Auto?

I think it would be a good addition because the series include at least three canons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.233.39.207 (talk) 01:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

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