To Be Canon... Or Not To Be Canon

Wishing Oceans

Wishing Oceans

I don't think, I know.
Joined
Nov 9, 2008
Messages
2,103
Canon. Some people like it, some hate it. 'Ships, events, memories, personalities, everything that makes a show what a show is.

Judging by all the debates found on the site, my question to you is, to you believe that canon is the way it's supposed to be? Or are you more of an AU fan? Where there any times where you thought canon was wrong? Do you think that canon events and couples are important, simply because they're canon? And finally, what things did you want to happen in canon that never did?

Just curious, because it seems that we all have a lot of canon things that happened that we prefer to think... didn't. 🙂 Or we think that something should have happened that never did.

I do believe that the things that happened in canon should have happened. I'm not very fond of Bangel, but many things I liked resulted from it, so it's all good. No, in my mind canon is always right. Except in killing off Darla. I think that they need to bring her back. Again. Canon couples are important in IMO. They all happened for a reason, and that needs some respect. And yes, I did want some things to happen in canon that never did. I want Darla back, Spike with Buffy, Kennedy gone, and Season 7 spuffy kissing. 😀

Of course, sometimes you just have to say 'screw canon'.


Thoughts?
 
Canon is absolutely necessary for a fandom to be able to discuss. If the show/comic/movie went exactly as the fans wanted it to, there would be no criticism to debate.
 
Canon is very important. In the end we are fans, but the show isn't our creation, we don't set the rules. Of course, I wish some things were undone - the Cordy season 4 arc for instance, it wrecked the episode "Birthday" for me - which was my favorite, but Joss and Co give the characters life, we just watch.
It is great though that through fan-fic though, people get the chance to undo or further storylines. They may not be official, but are fun to read. 🙂
 
hannahfngrl26 said:
Can you better explain canon? I am super lost...
Click to expand...

Because I'm lazy I'll let wikipedia answer this one:

Canon (fiction), material that is considered to be "genuine", "something that actually happened", or can be directly referenced as material produced by the original author or creator.

Meaning: Buffy Seasons 1-7, Angel Seasons 1-5, Buffy Season 8 and Angel: After The Fall are canon (what one considers their own, personal canon is between them and their God 😉). It can also include several stories that weren't conceived by Whedon but if he said, "Yeah, I like that, let's add that to the continuity" it would also count as canon. Same goes the other way around, like the 1992 BtVS movie which Whedon stated isn't canon.

It also means that the several other Buffy and Angel comics and novels aren't canon because Whedon didn't have any involvement with them. Those are - to the overall continuity - just published fan fiction.

There's also the (lesser-known?) term "fanon" under which fanworks like fan fiction would fall.

Hope that helps.
 
Mumrik said:
Because I'm lazy I'll let wikipedia answer this one:

Canon (fiction), material that is considered to be "genuine", "something that actually happened", or can be directly referenced as material produced by the original author or creator.

Meaning: Buffy Seasons 1-7, Angel Seasons 1-5, Buffy Season 8 and Angel: After The Fall are canon (what one considers their own, personal canon is between them and their God 😉).

It also means that several other Buffy and Angel comics and novels aren't canon because Whedon didn't have any involvement with them. Those are just published fan fiction.

There's also the (lesser-known?) term "fanon" under which fanworks like fan fiction would fall.
Click to expand...

Okay gotcha, thank you for the clarification, I was going through these threads about canon and just avoided them because I had not idea what was going on. Thank you again 🙂
:cheering:
 
Mumrik
Mumrik
Glad I could be of service :)
I never have problem with canon because well, it's canon and I have to accept it. 🙂 But sometimes I love reading fan fictions because my fav ship has never be canon. But I always choose the fics that close to canon the most. 🙂
 
Canon discussions are inevitably frustrating.

The whole purpose of having a Canon is to have a specific group of stories that are universally considered "reality" by fans, and which can be discussed when talking about a character's development. If everyone has a different definition of what Canon is, then it loses all meaning. It's like people having different opinions on what 2 + 2 is.

But there's no way to force others to accept something as Canon if they don't want to.

Buffyverse Canon is anything written by Joss Whedon or under his direct supervision as Executive Producer. It shouldn't include stuff he or his office simply signed off on... Fox sends everything Buffy-related to him just as a matter of courtesy. A lot of stuff has come out with the Buffy name that Joss hasn't read and barely knows about. (Scott Allie, editor at Dark Horse comics, has confirmed this.)

So canon would include:

* 144 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series (executive produced and partly written by JW)
* 110 episodes of Angel TV series (ditto).
* Buffy Season 8 comics (ditto)
* "Tales of the Slayers" and "Tales of the Vampires" comics produced by Dark Horse (ditto)
* "Fray" graphic novel (written by Joss)
* "Angel: After the Fall" comic, issues 1-17 and 23 (executive produced and co-plotted by Joss)
* "Buffy: The Origin" comic miniseries by Dark Horse (adapted from JW's original script for the 1992 movie and approved as canon by him)
* The "MySpace: Dark Horse Presents" webcomics, produced by the season 8 writers and artists with Joss as producer

I'm also willing to accept the "Spike: After the Fall" miniseries, since it was written as part of the collaborative project by him and Brian Lynch and is directly interrelated with "Angel: After the Fall."
 
Canon has never really been anything I've thought about very much. I've never wondered 'is that canon?' etc.

I think it depends on how much 'stuff' you read in relation to the Whedonverse. I used to read some of the fiction when I was younger, but I don't any more, and when I was younger whether it was canon or not didn't even occur to me let alone bother me.

For me, it's just the two shows, really. But that's because I don't partake in other supplementary material that could run alongside them. So I kind of see it as something more important to those who read lots of different Buffy fiction around the shows, which is when they need to determine its credibility in relation to the TV series.

And even though the two shows are kind of THE canon, I still see them all how I want to and yeah, as many have already said, argue/challenge what happens cos otherwise I'd find it boring.
Does that make sense?
 
I can accept non-canon stories, as in fan fiction, especially the "After Chosen" and "After Not Fade Away" variety before the comics came out, as long as it was well written and interesting, and, as has been noted above, whose subject matter or pairings and/or teamups that didn't really exist on the show (Spike and Faith is a combination that I've always felt had definite possibilities, or crossovers with other series, like "Highlander," "Supernatural," "Dark Angel," or a few others)
 
AndrewCrossett said:
Canon discussions are inevitably frustrating.

The whole purpose of having a Canon is to have a specific group of stories that are universally considered "reality" by fans, and which can be discussed when talking about a character's development. If everyone has a different definition of what Canon is, then it loses all meaning. It's like people having different opinions on what 2 + 2 is.

But there's no way to force others to accept something as Canon if they don't want to.

Buffyverse Canon is anything written by Joss Whedon or under his direct supervision as Executive Producer. It shouldn't include stuff he or his office simply signed off on... Fox sends everything Buffy-related to him just as a matter of courtesy. A lot of stuff has come out with the Buffy name that Joss hasn't read and barely knows about. (Scott Allie, editor at Dark Horse comics, has confirmed this.)

So canon would include:

* 144 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series (executive produced and partly written by JW)
* 110 episodes of Angel TV series (ditto).
* Buffy Season 8 comics (ditto)
* "Tales of the Slayers" and "Tales of the Vampires" comics produced by Dark Horse (ditto)
* "Fray" graphic novel (written by Joss)
* "Angel: After the Fall" comic, issues 1-17 and 23 (executive produced and co-plotted by Joss)
* "Buffy: The Origin" comic miniseries by Dark Horse (adapted from JW's original script for the 1992 movie and approved as canon by him)
* The "MySpace: Dark Horse Presents" webcomics, produced by the season 8 writers and artists with Joss as producer

I'm also willing to accept the "Spike: After the Fall" miniseries, since it was written as part of the collaborative project by him and Brian Lynch and is directly interrelated with "Angel: After the Fall."
Click to expand...

I agree with all of the above. Though The Origin is only semi-canon since the vampire's abilities are different from Buffyverse vamps.

The thing is, if Angel: After the Fall is canon, Spike Asylum is canon by association, since its events are heavily referenced in AtF.

I think Aftermath proves itself non-canon since Angel's character is radically different as are TPTB (I know that's not what you're going by Andrew).

And personally, Boys and their Toys just feels like Angel Inc. to me, and it is written by Lynch...
 
Buffyverse Fan said:
The thing is, if Angel: After the Fall is canon, Spike Asylum is canon by association, since its events are heavily referenced in AtF.
Click to expand...

Brian Lynch himself claims that Asylum and Shadow Puppets are not necessarily canon... only the parts actually referenced in AtF. (He was the one who did the referencing, after all.)

But I highly doubt Joss will ever specifically contradict the stories, so it probably wouldn't cause any problems if you wanted to see them as canon.

"Origin" may have some continuity issues in the details, but the story itself is canonical. The differences in vampires are similar to the differences in Klingons between the original Star Trek and Next Generation... all canon, fanwank as desired.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom