Quote:
Originally Posted by haiz123321
Ic, mind reminding me what canon is again? I remember there was another canon term, over canon or outer canon i think.
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Canon: Anything that the original creators of the work made or authorized. Sometimes divided into "strict canon" and "expanded canon". In larger, more complex fandoms, there may be scores of individual sub-canons.
Strict Canon:
Only what the original creators of the work made, or officially declared to be wholly and completely within their views of their creation.
Expanded Canon: Everything else canon that doesn't fall under strict canon. This includes spinoffs and tie-ins. Has a higher probability of containing continuity errors or dealing with alternate interpretations.
Fanon: Unofficial fan version of events, usually embraced by a sizeable portion of fandom, mostly for being convenient. Very dangerous for newbies, as often the oldbies don't bother explaining that what they're talking about is in no way official. Often has a tendency of being both confusingly complicated, and yet internally consistent, due to innate error-checking.
Fanwank: Attempts to reconcile errors, plot holes, or things that Do Not Make Sense in the canon, to make it consistent in-universe. The Magic and Tech thread is a typical example of this. Not always successful, and topics which have been discussed and abandoned for being unworkably broken may become inadvertant flamebait.
Retcon: Retroactive Continuity. An official attempt to change the backstory or established content. Can range from minor error corrections on re-releases (DVD correction of bad animation) to "Lucas-ing" (altering story events using better skills or technology) to complete character reboots.
Canon is seen to be important mostly so that we can all have a baseline on which to write our fanfics. One may ignore certain aspects of canon, but only if one knows what one is doing. This is not an easy thing to determine.