Every now and again someone actually posts somethign intelligent to one of the mailing lists I’m on. Here’s an example; me overarguing the use of cannon in fanfiction…<br />
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The debate is set in HP/SS slash fandom, and is about medium v. message and a few other things. This is my snip of cannon debate. Enjoy.<br />
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:music: DDR, “Butterfly”<br>
<tt>>>Also, the movies are *not* canon, if only because they *do* change <br />
>> the clothing.<br />
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Ridiculous argument; I personally didn’t see *any* clothing the last time I<br />
was reading the books. Maybe all the actors should have performed nude? Behind<br />
giant sheets of paper. And not speak, and instead the audience should have just<br />
read words off the screen.<br />
<br />
Seriously, though, by the same token I could argue that “Star Trek” is<br />
non-cannon with itself since they change uniforms every few years. By your<br />
reckoning, then, is *any* movie adaptation legitmiate cannon-fodder? This seems<br />
to be a very narrow-minded intrepretation of texts… but I won’t go into all<br />
that deconstructive death-of-the-author Postmodern stuff here. Instead, dip into<br />
Japanese anime fannon for a moment with me here; anime OVAs often have entierley<br />
different plots than the series which spawned them, which in turn are<br />
unrecognisable from the manga they drew from (qv. ‘Gravitation’, ‘Utena’ etc.),<br />
yet they’re still *all* considered cannon interpretations of the events. <br />
Western literature cannon is far too much like the Catholic church nowadays…<br />
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>> Of course, the movies also changed the entire final <br />
>> scenes of a book so I figured that was self-evident. […]<br />
>> It’s a difference of degrees of contradiction: one does,<br />
>> one doesn’t. Using the movies as canon is, at its very<br />
>> start, illogical, no matter how sexy Alan Rickman is.<br />
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Again, the whole argument for strict-originality-root cannon is its own<br />
circular proof (“it’s not cannon because *we* say it’s not”). There’s no<br />
self-evident reason why one version of a text originating from a primary or<br />
close-to-primary source (ie. directly from the original author or with the<br />
approval of said author) should *not* be considered a form of cannon. Are we so<br />
narrow minded that we can’t deal with something like the change of clothing?<br />
(Again parallels with Catholocism and the actual meaning of ‘the cannon’ arise;<br />
with apologies to all Catholics.) Even if strict-originality is intended to<br />
preserve the sanctity of the author’s ideas, it is hypocritical in that it<br />
disallows for *any* change, even that made by the author herself. Not to mention<br />
the fact that the theory of a text as unaffected by change and evolution is<br />
largely no longer considered a valid form of literary analysis.<br />
<br />
Using your definition of cannon, nothing but the *originally penned<br />
manuscript* of HP is cannon (maybe not even that); any changes afterwards by<br />
either editors, the author or another party are non-cannon, as are any<br />
translations into foreign languages (ie. ‘for American audiences’ versions). <br />
This is the logical extent to the originality-root cannon argument. Quite<br />
frankly, not only is it ridiculous, but takes the entire point of any given text<br />
away. One of the most amazing and inspiring things about literature is its<br />
ability to produce such wildly different reactions and interpretations from even<br />
very similar people.<br />
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‘Cannon’, as far as I see it, is only a useful as a set of *guidelines* for<br />
writing fanfiction so that it remains fanfiction and not<br />
‘original-work-with-unoriginal-names’. However, as with any literary or<br />
artistic guidelines, once an author has reached sufficient competence they<br />
should be free to push the boundaries of the established norm. Most complaints<br />
about cannon, for example, are in truth thinly veiled complaints against bad<br />
writing. A good author should be able to get away with most anything.<br />
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>> As for slash being OOC, I’m waiting for Rowling to state no-questions-<br />
>> possible that Snape, Black, Lupin, and Harry Potter are straight and <br />
>> only straight before I agree with that.<br />
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And I wait patiently for the day she states Snape joined the Deatheaters<br />
because his father made him do it. Oh, and because he really, really hates<br />
Black. (And I’m willing to bet if she *does* given any reasons they will be no<br />
more complex than these; this is a book for *children*, not friggin’ “War and<br />
Peace”.)<br />
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Oh, and you realised you just defeated your entire argument for<br />
strict-originality cannon, right? Except even moreso, because Rowling has<br />
actually *approved* the films…</tt>