A canon, in terms of a fictional universe A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements which differ from the real world. It may be called, variously, a fictional or imaginary realm, world or universe. The terms Multiverse, Parallel Universe, Alternate history, Story or Screen Bible, Backstory and Crossover have a considerable amount of overlap with fictional, is a body of material that is considered to be "genuine," or that can be directly referenced as material produced by the original author or creator of a series. Basically, something that is canonical can be thought of as having "actually happened" in that fictional universe. An example of something non-canonical is a work of fan-fiction Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term used to describe stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Works of fan fiction are rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work's owner, creator, or publisher; also, they are almost never professionally published. Fan fiction,; fan fiction about a particular universe is not canonical, as the story in a particular work of fan fiction never actually happened in that fictional universe.
Origins
The word "canon" originally meant the books which the Church A Church has two commonly used meanings. Often the word 'Church' is used to describe a place of worship, a church building, or congregation or local gathering of religious believers. It is used to describe the local congregation or the larger body of a religious community officially chose to be included in the Bible; by extension, it means the authoritative "holy writ" of a fictional universe. However, the practice of defining a "canon" within a fictional world derived from the concept of a literary canon The Western canon is a term used to denote a canon of books, and, more widely, music and art, that has been the most influential in shaping Western culture. It asserts a compendium of the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the development of "high culture.", a specified collection of works considered to be both representative and the best of a particular form, genre A genre (pronounced /ˈʒɑːnrə/, also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/; from French "kind" or "sort", from Latin: genus , Greek: genos, γένος) is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance. Genres are vague or culture Culture is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:. In that more common use of the word, works forming a canon do not have to bear any relation to each other, apart from their high quality or historical influence.
The use of "canon" to describe the degree to which a work adheres to the standards of its fictional world appears to have originated amongst devotees of the Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scottish-born author and physician Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and is renowned for his stories, as a way to distinguish between the original works of Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL was a British author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, and adaptations of those works or original works by other writers utilising related characters and settings. However, much of the interest in and controversy over issues of canonicity have appeared in recent decades in the fan followings A cult following is a group of fans devoted to a specific area of pop culture. These dedicated followings are usually relatively small, however they can also be quite large as evidenced by the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show and often pertain to items that don't have broad mainstream appeal. Cult followings are prevalent in pop culture of films and television shows, such as science fiction Science fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature . Exploring the consequences of such differences is the traditional purpose of science fiction, making it a " franchises Star Wars Star Wars is an epic space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, spawning two immediate sequels, released at three-year intervals. Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy's final film, and Star Trek Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series and media franchise. The Star Trek fictional multiverse created by Gene Roddenberry is the setting of six television series, including the original 1966 Star Trek, and eleven feature films. The franchise also includes dozens of computer and video games, hundreds of novels and instances.
When the body of work nominally set in the same fictional universe becomes large enough, it can happen that new material, such as might be found in spin-off A spin-off is a new organization or entity formed by a split from a larger one, such as a television series based on a pre-existing one, or a new company formed from a university research group or business incubator. In literature, especially in milieu-based popular fictional book series like mysteries, westerns, fantasy or science fiction, the television shows, prequels and books, contradicts earlier material. Such contradictions may be a result of bad research, or an attempt to revise, correct or retcon Retroactive continuity is the deliberate changing of previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change is informally referred to as a "retcon", and producing a retcon is called "retconning". Retconning may be carried out for a variety of reasons, such as to accommodate sequels or further derivative works in a perceived error in earlier material. The question is which material to favour and which to ignore when attempting to resolve all the material into a consistent whole. Two simple approaches are the "principle of first mention" in which information in the original work provides a foundation which later material must respect, and the revisionist Within historiography, that is the academic field of history, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations and decision-making processes surrounding an historical event. The assumption of the revisionist is that the interpretation of a historical event or period as it is accepted by the majority of model in which the latest work always supersedes earlier material. However, the situation can be much more complicated.
Nature of fictional canons
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The word canon can simultaneously refer to the considerations of the publishers of a fictional series as well as what the fanbase chooses to consider as authentic.
Generally, "Expanded Universes The term Expanded Universe is generally used to denote the 'extension' of a media franchise (i.e. a television show, series of feature films, etc.) with other media (generally comics and original novels). This typically simply involves new adventures for existing characters already developed within the franchise; however in some case entirely new" are not considered canonical; by analogy with the idea of a canon of Scripture Religious texts, also known as scripture, are the texts which various religious traditions consider to be sacred, or of central importance to their religious tradition. Many religions and spiritual movements believe that their sacred texts are divinely or supernaturally inspired (see Biblical canon A Biblical canon or canon of scripture is a list or set of Biblical books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community, generally in Judaism or Christianity. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example:), such stories are considered "apocryphal". However, there are exceptions. In the case of the Star Wars canon The Star Wars canon consists of the six Star Wars feature films, along with all officially licensed, non-contradicting spin-off works to the six films. As once defined by Lucas Licensing:, the Expanded Universe is canonical, though open to interpretation in a way which the "gospel" of the films is not. Doctor Who Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien time-traveller known as "the Doctor" who travels in his space and time-ship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box. With his companions, he explores time, which began life as a television series but has also been produced in prose, audio and graphical formats, has never had a single author or authority to pronounce on the issue of canon, and its fans run a spectrum between those who consider only some parts of the television series canonical and those who consider everything labelled as Doctor Who canonical.
In addition, a story can belong to two overlapping canons. One of the most obvious examples of this is Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton family The Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of crossover fiction developed by the science fiction writer Philip José Farmer. Farmer suggested in two fictional "biographies" of fictional characters , that the (real) meteorite which fell in Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England, on December 13, 1795, was radioactive and. Some (but not all) of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by apes, who later returns to civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes , and then in twenty-three sequels and innumerable works, Doc Savage Doc Savage was a fictional character published in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. He was created by publisher Henry Ralston and editor John Nanovic at Street and Smith Publications, with additional material contributed by the series's main writer, Lester Dent, etc. are canonical in the Wold Newton setting. This does not mean that the events of Farmer's books are canonical from a Sherlockian perspective. Similarly, fans of Laurie R. King's novels of Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scottish-born author and physician Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and is renowned for his and Mary Russell consider all the Holmes stories to be canonical in King's setting.
The difference can be even less clear-cut than this. Current Star Trek novels maintain a tight continuity with each other, and avoid contradicting the television series. When a Lost Era novel set between the movies and The Next Generation Star Trek: The Next Generation is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Set in the 24th century, about 70 years after the original Star Trek, the program features a new crew and a new starship Enterprise. It premiered the week of September 28, 1987 to 27 million viewers with the two- features a younger version of a character introduced in a Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television program that premiered in 1993 and ran for seven seasons, ending in 1999. Rooted in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek universe, it was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, at the request of Brandon Tartikoff, and produced by Paramount Television. The main writers, in addition to Berman novel, it is obvious there is some sort of "canonical" novel-setting, even if the TV series is not obliged to conform to it. This is where fanon and canon often collide, especially when a TV series, movie or other officially canonical source contradicts it. An example is the Trek novel Starfleet: Year One, which appeared in print before the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise Enterprise was a science fiction television program created by Brannon Braga and Rick Berman and set in the Star Trek universe created by Gene Roddenberry. The series follows the adventures of humanity's first Warp 5 starship, Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed was announced, but was completely invalidated by the series. Generally, though, in the case of televised fiction, only facts which appear in the as-originally-aired version of a program are considered canonical (including scenes cut from re-runs, but not including such things as deleted scenes and scenes from unaired pilots and other such material that "leaks out" over the Internet).[citation needed]
Furthermore, the issue is also complicated when the definition of a canon changes well after the fictional universe is established. As an example, a number of reference works for Star Trek were published between 1970 and 1988 by Franz Joseph and FASA Corporation. These books were considered canonical at the time (some even made with the explicit approval of Gene Roddenberry), sanctioned by Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is the oldest existing American film studio; it is also the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los, and were used almost universally by novel and comic book authors, as well as the production staff of the earlier Star Trek movies (information from these manuals appeared as background dialogue in some scenes, and many diagrams were used as computer displays). However, in 1988, as part of the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures changed their policies regarding canonicity and stripped these books of their canonical status, as the new series quickly made many changes and revelations which openly contradicted earlier canonical books. Thus a book that was considered completely canonical in 1985, such as The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual, would be considered non-canonical in 1995.
In recent years, complications have been created by the increasing popularity of supplemental web content While the Internet began with a U.S. Government research project in the late 1950s, the web in its present form did not appear on the Internet until after Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues at the European laboratory proposed the concept of linking documents with hypertext. But it was not until Mosaic, the forerunner of the famous Netscape appearing on network's A television network is a distribution network for television content whereby a central operation provides programming for many television stations. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small number of broadcast networks. Many early television networks evolved from earlier radio networks show sites A website is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed with a common domain name or IP address in an Internet Protocol-based network. A web site is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via the Internet or a private local area network. Deleted scenes and webisode A webisode is a short episode which airs initially as an Internet download or stream as opposed to first airing on broadcast or cable television. The term has been largely deprecated in favor of the simpler 'episode'. The format can be used as a preview, a promotion, as part of a collection of shorts, or a commercial. A webisode can be part of an series, produced by the studio A television studio is an installation in which television or video productions take place, either for live television, for recording live to tape, or for the acquisition of raw footage for postproduction. The design of a studio is similar to, and derived from, movie studios, with a few amendments for the special requirements of television are often considered canon, while other materials, such as character profiles, stories, and games, often produced by the networks themselves, generally are not.
In some fictional universes, interviews and other communications from authors are also considered canonical—like the letters of J. R. R. Tolkien The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien is a selection of J. R. R. Tolkien's letters published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter assisted by Christopher Tolkien. The selection contains 354 letters, dating between October 1914, when Tolkien was an undergraduate at Oxford, and August 29, 1973, four days before his death with relation to Middle-earth Middle-earth refers to the fictional lands where most of the stories of author J. R. R. Tolkien take place. These stories include The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's stories chronicle the struggle to control the world and the continent of Middle-earth, between the angelic Valar, the Elves and their allies among Men; and the demonic; also items such as interviews, Internet chat sessions, and websites (e.g., the website of J. K. Rowling Joanne "Jo" Murray OBE , who writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author best known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived whilst on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 in relation to the Harry Potter Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter, together with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his friends from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The central story arc concerns Harry's struggle against the evil wizard series). This usually only happens in cases where all works in the universe have the same author.
In almost all cases, fan fiction Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term used to describe stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Works of fan fiction are rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work's owner, creator, or publisher; also, they are almost never professionally published. Fan fiction, is not considered canonical, as fan fiction is usually produced by amateurs. Sometimes, however, events or characterizations portrayed in fan fiction can become so influential that they are respected in fiction written by many different authors, and may be mistaken for canonical facts by fans. This is referred to as "fanon". An intentional inversion of the exclusion of fan fiction came in Eric Flint's 1632 universe; in February 2000, fans and other established authors were invited on the Internet forum Baen's Bar to shape the multiverse Parallel universe or alternative reality is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a multiverse, although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute physical reality. While the terms "parallel universe" and "alternative, and the fan-fic, once vetted, is itself published in the various Grantville Gazettes, themselves under the direct editorial control of Flint and a 1632 editorial board. This is an ongoing process that apparently will continue indefinitely, as the series continues to enjoy burgeoning popularity.
Additionally, works of foreign origins (as is the case with most Japanese Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters which make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which-produced video games A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device. However, with the popular use of the term "video game", it now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to, manga Manga (in kanji 漫画; in hiragana まんが; in katakana マンガ?, listen ) (English: /ˈmɑːŋɡə/) consist of comics and print cartoons (sometimes also called komikku コミック), in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after World War or anime Anime (アニメ?, an abbreviated pronunciation in Japanese of "animation", pronounced [aꜜnime] in Japanese, but typically /ˈænəˌmeɪ/ (help·info) or /ˈænəˌmə/ in English) is animation originating in Japan. The world outside Japan regards anime as "Japanese animation". Anime originated about 1917) may have certain details of the original plot changed or modified during the adaptation from one language to another. The person in charge of the adaptation may choose to write an adaptation canon in addition to the original canon to maintain consistency when adapting a possible later work such as a sequel or a spinoff, although this is not always the case. An adapted version of the same work can sometime deviate completely from its source material, resulting a separate franchise from the original, as is the case with the Macross Macross is a long-running series of science fiction Mecha anime, created by Shōji Kawamori of Studio Nue in 1982. The franchise features a fictional History of Earth/Humanity after the year 1999. The franchise title features three TV series, three movies, six OVAs, and two manga series and Robotech Robotech is a science fiction franchise that was launched by an 85-episode adaptation of three different anime television series. Within the combined and edited story, Robotechnology refers to the scientific advances discovered in an alien starship that crashed on a South Pacific island. With this technology, Earth developed giant robotic machines franchises.
See also
- Cthulhu Mythos
- View Askewniverse
- The Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis
- Bible (writing) A bible for writers is a reference document used for information on a story's characters, settings and other elements. They are commonly used in mediums with multiple writers, such as comic books and television series, where new writers and freelancers are often referred to it when writing scripts for the show to ensure continuity with previous
References
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Categories: Canons | Continuity (fiction) In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer. The term is taken from the mathematical sense of something being smooth and without break. In some forms of media, such as comic books, continuity has also come to mean a set of contiguous events, sometimes said to be &
