Its Only A Model!
Dear Merlin Fandom,
Please quit using words like "Canonify", "Canon shipping" "Canon" anything unless you are referring to the actual show itself. What is the deal with you people and your obsession with a canon in an area of literature that has diverged and changed and pretty much gone full circle since the legends and romances first began to surface?
My GOD, the entire beauty of the Arthurian mythos is that it is fluid, ever changing and draws upon a variety of sources, both new and old to create something unique and relevant to the individual. Do you people not realize that in our re-creations of the Arthurian mythos we are revealing things not about the legends or the characters themselves but about ourselves, our times and our own place in history. There is no definitive Arthurian canon* because the canon has essentially been designed to change with each retelling to reveal things about our own ideals, our own visions, our own way of life. For the love of FUCK, your precious Guenevere didn't even appear in the first stories and we won't get into Lancelot's arrival and the complications that brought up.
The Mythos does not work in a way that we can pin it down and berate other visions as wrong or incorrect or uncanon. The various stories that make up the mythos take place in a canon of their own. There's a beauty in the intersection, but it is not necessary, it is not important and it is not the be all and end all of making a piece of work worthy.
Maybe when you lot have actually read more than a few rehashed versions of Malory, you'll come to terms with it. Until then? STFU unless you're talking about a particular show's, book's or author's "canon". Otherwise? I'm sending THIS man after you. HE doesn't like being told that he's not "canon" either.
*Yes there are the sources most people turn to like the aforementioned Malory, Chretien, Gawain, The Vulgate, Monmuth and many others. Many of these major sources also are seen as having greater credibility and historical value. The point here is that there is not *one* particular canon that MUST be followed at all costs by everyone ever and that even these major sources differ when examined closely. That's all I meant to say there.
Please quit using words like "Canonify", "Canon shipping" "Canon" anything unless you are referring to the actual show itself. What is the deal with you people and your obsession with a canon in an area of literature that has diverged and changed and pretty much gone full circle since the legends and romances first began to surface?
My GOD, the entire beauty of the Arthurian mythos is that it is fluid, ever changing and draws upon a variety of sources, both new and old to create something unique and relevant to the individual. Do you people not realize that in our re-creations of the Arthurian mythos we are revealing things not about the legends or the characters themselves but about ourselves, our times and our own place in history. There is no definitive Arthurian canon* because the canon has essentially been designed to change with each retelling to reveal things about our own ideals, our own visions, our own way of life. For the love of FUCK, your precious Guenevere didn't even appear in the first stories and we won't get into Lancelot's arrival and the complications that brought up.
The Mythos does not work in a way that we can pin it down and berate other visions as wrong or incorrect or uncanon. The various stories that make up the mythos take place in a canon of their own. There's a beauty in the intersection, but it is not necessary, it is not important and it is not the be all and end all of making a piece of work worthy.
Maybe when you lot have actually read more than a few rehashed versions of Malory, you'll come to terms with it. Until then? STFU unless you're talking about a particular show's, book's or author's "canon". Otherwise? I'm sending THIS man after you. HE doesn't like being told that he's not "canon" either.
*Yes there are the sources most people turn to like the aforementioned Malory, Chretien, Gawain, The Vulgate, Monmuth and many others. Many of these major sources also are seen as having greater credibility and historical value. The point here is that there is not *one* particular canon that MUST be followed at all costs by everyone ever and that even these major sources differ when examined closely. That's all I meant to say there.