On canon and stuff

[thebratqueen]

kita0610 had a question about what is and isn't considered canon and why. My reply got too long so I'm putting it here. =)



Just adding my pennies to what others have already said -

I think a problem for our fandom is that we're also working with something where canon basically amounts to whatever was last said on the screen. See also: "You were my sire!" To add more worms to this can, ME has also said that this is how they treat canon. They're not going to let what happened previously get in the way of what to them is a good storyline.

This then creates a twisty-turny problem where we really can't even say "if it happened onscreen, it's canon" because that's kind of like saying "everything in the Bible is true". Really? Even the stuff that contradicts itself? Because Angel can't be the guy who made Spike and be Spike's grandsire. Sahjhan can't touch things and also never be able to touch things. Cordy's birthday can't fall on two separate days out of the year. Etc. and so forth.

We can look at what happens on screen and rank it as more canonical than other things. We know that Spike killed a slayer in New York and in the Boxer Rebellion because we saw that happen on the show. That contradicts the tie-in novel that had Spike killing a non New York slayer. The tie in novels do not count as canon anymore than non paid for fanfic does.

When the show canon contradicts itself, we're then left with a choice. Do we accept whatever was said last as the canon (and, if so, how do we reconcile this with previous storylines that do not add up to current ones) or do we look to what the creators say about it to help us know what was true and what wasn't?

For the creators' POV we then run into even more problems. We can rely on them for facts. Joss can tell us which of Cordy's birthdays is the real one and we can accept the one he picks because he's Joss. Joss can tell us Faith's last name for the exact same reason.

But when it comes to intent of stories it then gets trickier, because that's when we run into the story ME wanted to tell vs the story they actually told. Many of us watched season six. Some of us saw Spike as being a good boyfriend. Some saw him as being a bad one. Marti wanted him to be the bad boyfriend. Her intent is a separate issue from whether or not that was the story she told. Sometimes this is a problem of the reader's, such as the example used of someone who writes a story about a person who buys milk and the reader insisting it was really about orange juice. Sometimes it's a problem of the creator's. As Marion Zimmer Bradley said: if you can't convey your intention to the reader that's your fault and not theirs.

And just to make it even more complicated we have the problem that Joss jokes, babbles, lies like a rug, and frequently makes it all up as he goes along. Just because he said what Faith's last name was for a tie-in game does not mean that if there's a Faith show or movie he's going to keep that name if another one suggests itself. Joss also joked about Xander losing another eye (IIRC) in Not Fade Away, obviously that doesn't mean that it happened.

With the show being over and done we can put some confidence in what the creator says they wanted or what was going on because this is possibly Joss giving us the canon that the WB did not allow him to give. He can say that Illyria was going to have problems with her self and Fred's self in s6 and we can put some confidence in that as we look at Illyria's s5 storylines and try to determine what was going on with her. We can also put some confidence in this being the new canon, or at least until Joss gives another interview that contradicts the first one.

Bringing this all back to the Spike/Angel thing, it sadly falls right in the middle of something that people don't have to believe in if they don't want to. For many of us Joss is only confirming the canon that we saw onscreen (which would be like unto Joss confirming that some of us were not insane to think that Spike could have been a good boyfriend for Buffy - we saw evidence of that, and Joss would be agreeing with our interpretation). He might also be indicating canon that was to come based on what his plans were for season 6.

But the flip side is that he might also just be making another Xander/NFA comment, or a "Buffy would have wished Tara alive" comment, and if somebody doesn't want to accept that as canon then they're not totally insane for doing so. The DVD commentaries aren't necessarily proper canon, and previous DVD commentaries have had canonically factual errors in them as well, or at the very least had comments in them that were then proven wrong by subsequent eps.

For me I take Joss's comments at this stage as as much canon as we're going to get. At least assuming there are no new series or movies in this universe. Yes, he often jokes and shoots his mouth off, but if he wants to say that Spike/Angel shagged or that (just to make up examples) Illyria was going to become a can can dancer or that Harmony and Angel were soulmates - well he is the guy who created this stuff. He'd be the one to know.

If we get new "proper" canon, though, then that goes out the window because then it becomes anything can happen day at ME studios, and canon is once again whatever we saw last.