Canon?
It really is quite weird reading an internet discussion, forgetting about it, finding it again a year later, and discovering you now agree with the other side.
In other news, the Buffy comics are definitely not canon.
…possibly I should explain?
Well, at the height of my Whedonesque reading, someone started this discussion, about canon, and comics, and Word of God, and whether the Buffy comics counted as canon just because Joss said so, or not.
I knew precisely what side I was on. Of course the comics were canon! After all, Joss had said so! And that was what mattered, obviously.
The idea that you could decide what was canon just based on your own ideas of what canon was or should be, was… insane. To put it mildly.
I remember reading that discussion very well. And I remember wanting to scream at my computer screen (which I couldn’t, because I was at work) and possibly reach through the internet and slap the heck out of Dana5140 for being so obtuse, and stubborn, and just not getting it. He was such an idiot!
…fast forward to a year and a half later…
…which is when I found the thread again, and read it (mostly out of sheer boredom).
AND IT FREAKED ME OUT.
Because, re-reading it, I could see that, clearly, Dana5140 was totally, completely right, and knew precisely what he was talking about (brilliant man), and really deserved a medal.
Awesome, awesome guy, who was so utterly in the right.
It was so weird. Because I could remember this discussion, and I could remember agreeing with the posts I was now disagreeing with, and disagreeing with the posts that I now agreed with. So Very Strange…
Sitting back and thinking about it, it didn’t actually take me all that long to figure out what had changed.
You see, in the year and a half gap between readings, I had discovered fanfic.
There are basically two different kinds of Official Buffy Comics: the authorised comics that came out while the show was airing (and were quite often completely crap), and “Season 8”.
In 2007, my opinion went something like this:
authorised comics - crap, contradicted by the show, and not canon
season 8 - going to be fun, will not contradict the show, and canon because Joss Says So
In 2008, it changed to this:
authorised comics - kinda fun (although still crap), contradicted by the show (but who cares), and not canon (but that’s okay)
season 8 - kinda fun (also kinda crap), cracky, and not canon (at least not for me)
I changed my mind on two different things.
Firstly, canon can be defined in many different ways, by many different people, for many different reasons.
And secondly, whether or not something is canon really doesn’t matter that much.
What on earth does this have to do with fanfic?
People who pay attention to my ramblings might know that, until mid-2007, I thought fanfic was complete and total dren. Horrible, ridiculous stuff, that was badly written by people with no imagination.
Also, writing it meant that you hated the original story and wanted to change it, and reading it would completely wreck the original story for you, by having this alternate version forever stuck in your head.
Then I read some.
After a few months of that, I’d realised that not only was fanfic actually rather fun, and quite well written, it was mostly written by people who loved the original story and had something to say about it.
Also, reading it (lots of it) would really help your appreciation of the original story. Especially if you read heaps and heaps of versions of “Oz and Willow go shopping” or “Xander and Gunn get into a fist fight” or “Fred is secretly in love with Lorne” - because reading so many different takes of the same concept would give you lots of options to choose from, and you wouldn’t just have one version stuck in your head, and because they were all coming at the original story from different angles, you’d get to really focus on the original story, too…
Changing my perspective on fanfic really changed my perspective on the authorised comics - because they were fanfic too.
Fanfic in visual form, sure, but definitely fanfic.
Suddenly it didn’t matter whether they got everything right, or whether they were “officially correct” or not. They were writers having fun playing with the story, and they were fun to read. And they were fanfic - just like all the fanfic I had been reading (and writing).
Also - I didn’t actually get into fanfic through Buffy-related stuff. I got into it through a story about the X-Men, where Bobby and Rogue get married, and aliens make Bobby pregnant.
(Seriously. Go read it. It’s awesome.)
This is X-Men. Which is from Marvel comics. (I’d recommend reading a “what is canon?” discussion by comic book fans sometime. They really are fascinating.)
And the story specifically said that it was “post X2”.
After the second movie, ignoring the third, changing anything from the original comics that didn’t fit what we’d seen in the movies, and canon be damned.
“Canon”, for the purposes of that fic, meant “The first movie, and the second movie, and anything else I like from the comics”.
It changed my perspective.
Suddenly, I could write a Buffy fic and say that canon for that fic was “The show. Just BtVS, not AtS.”
Or “The show, plus this authorised novel I really liked.”
Or “The movie. I don’t like that crappy TV show.”
Or “BtVS, plus AtS, plus the season 8 comics, but not the AtF comics.”
Or “Both shows, all the comics, plus something Jane Espenson said in an interview once.”
Or anything else I wanted.
Wow.
Like I said - the season 8 comics are definitely not canon. Not my canon, anyway.
My canon is the TV show (all the episodes) and nothing else.
But for anyone else? They can come up with whatever canon they like. It’s their choice.
I really don’t think it matters, in the end.
In other news, the Buffy comics are definitely not canon.
…possibly I should explain?
Well, at the height of my Whedonesque reading, someone started this discussion, about canon, and comics, and Word of God, and whether the Buffy comics counted as canon just because Joss said so, or not.
I knew precisely what side I was on. Of course the comics were canon! After all, Joss had said so! And that was what mattered, obviously.
The idea that you could decide what was canon just based on your own ideas of what canon was or should be, was… insane. To put it mildly.
I remember reading that discussion very well. And I remember wanting to scream at my computer screen (which I couldn’t, because I was at work) and possibly reach through the internet and slap the heck out of Dana5140 for being so obtuse, and stubborn, and just not getting it. He was such an idiot!
…fast forward to a year and a half later…
…which is when I found the thread again, and read it (mostly out of sheer boredom).
AND IT FREAKED ME OUT.
Because, re-reading it, I could see that, clearly, Dana5140 was totally, completely right, and knew precisely what he was talking about (brilliant man), and really deserved a medal.
Awesome, awesome guy, who was so utterly in the right.
It was so weird. Because I could remember this discussion, and I could remember agreeing with the posts I was now disagreeing with, and disagreeing with the posts that I now agreed with. So Very Strange…
Sitting back and thinking about it, it didn’t actually take me all that long to figure out what had changed.
You see, in the year and a half gap between readings, I had discovered fanfic.
There are basically two different kinds of Official Buffy Comics: the authorised comics that came out while the show was airing (and were quite often completely crap), and “Season 8”.
In 2007, my opinion went something like this:
authorised comics - crap, contradicted by the show, and not canon
season 8 - going to be fun, will not contradict the show, and canon because Joss Says So
In 2008, it changed to this:
authorised comics - kinda fun (although still crap), contradicted by the show (but who cares), and not canon (but that’s okay)
season 8 - kinda fun (also kinda crap), cracky, and not canon (at least not for me)
I changed my mind on two different things.
Firstly, canon can be defined in many different ways, by many different people, for many different reasons.
And secondly, whether or not something is canon really doesn’t matter that much.
What on earth does this have to do with fanfic?
People who pay attention to my ramblings might know that, until mid-2007, I thought fanfic was complete and total dren. Horrible, ridiculous stuff, that was badly written by people with no imagination.
Also, writing it meant that you hated the original story and wanted to change it, and reading it would completely wreck the original story for you, by having this alternate version forever stuck in your head.
Then I read some.
After a few months of that, I’d realised that not only was fanfic actually rather fun, and quite well written, it was mostly written by people who loved the original story and had something to say about it.
Also, reading it (lots of it) would really help your appreciation of the original story. Especially if you read heaps and heaps of versions of “Oz and Willow go shopping” or “Xander and Gunn get into a fist fight” or “Fred is secretly in love with Lorne” - because reading so many different takes of the same concept would give you lots of options to choose from, and you wouldn’t just have one version stuck in your head, and because they were all coming at the original story from different angles, you’d get to really focus on the original story, too…
Changing my perspective on fanfic really changed my perspective on the authorised comics - because they were fanfic too.
Fanfic in visual form, sure, but definitely fanfic.
Suddenly it didn’t matter whether they got everything right, or whether they were “officially correct” or not. They were writers having fun playing with the story, and they were fun to read. And they were fanfic - just like all the fanfic I had been reading (and writing).
Also - I didn’t actually get into fanfic through Buffy-related stuff. I got into it through a story about the X-Men, where Bobby and Rogue get married, and aliens make Bobby pregnant.
(Seriously. Go read it. It’s awesome.)
This is X-Men. Which is from Marvel comics. (I’d recommend reading a “what is canon?” discussion by comic book fans sometime. They really are fascinating.)
And the story specifically said that it was “post X2”.
After the second movie, ignoring the third, changing anything from the original comics that didn’t fit what we’d seen in the movies, and canon be damned.
“Canon”, for the purposes of that fic, meant “The first movie, and the second movie, and anything else I like from the comics”.
It changed my perspective.
Suddenly, I could write a Buffy fic and say that canon for that fic was “The show. Just BtVS, not AtS.”
Or “The show, plus this authorised novel I really liked.”
Or “The movie. I don’t like that crappy TV show.”
Or “BtVS, plus AtS, plus the season 8 comics, but not the AtF comics.”
Or “Both shows, all the comics, plus something Jane Espenson said in an interview once.”
Or anything else I wanted.
Wow.
Like I said - the season 8 comics are definitely not canon. Not my canon, anyway.
My canon is the TV show (all the episodes) and nothing else.
But for anyone else? They can come up with whatever canon they like. It’s their choice.
I really don’t think it matters, in the end.