What does "canon" mean?

Question

I'm going to be writing a post for the blog and the subject is: What is canon? And because we're a community, standards of what constitutes canon is going to vary person to person. My goal is not to try and establish any kind of over-arcing, generalized rule that formally defines canon; my goal for the blog post is to discuss canon usefully, in a way that will ultimately impact SFF.se in a positive and meaningful way.

I will read anything you have to say regarding canon¹ and am very interested in how you classify the particular canon of a creative work that you favor. I'm also interested in your thoughts on the importance of different axioms of canon, and how you personally vet the various levels of canon source materials. In other words, what source materials are the most important to you? Which are the least important? Why? For example, my personal Harry Potter canon hierarchy might look something like this:

1. Seven main Harry Potter novels; three ancillary books Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard
2. Interviews with J.K. Rowling
3. Pottermore website
4. JKRowling.com via the Wayback Machine
5. Information I remember having once read before but now cannot find
6. Various Harry Potter fan sites/forums
7. Harry Potter theme park trivia
8. The eight Harry Potter films / The HP Wikia
9. Fan Fiction

ETA: In chat the issue of ret-con came up, which means changing canon long after it has become established. For example, should J.K. Rowling suddenly decide that Dobby the House-elf's name was actually "Barry", and that (spoilers) --

his death

-- never occurred, that would be ret-conning. I really think ret-conning is a legitimate axiom of canon, so I'm trying to figure out where it will fall in my personal hierarchy. Some fandoms are cleaner than others when it comes to continuity errors and ret-conning. Fandoms like Doctor Who and Star Trek have had to deal with significant or confusing ret-con. Anyhow, do consider ret-con for your hierarchy if it's applicable.

It's late so I won't detail my canon hierarchy, but I very much want to know why you choose the order(s) that you do, so please feel free to go into as much detail as you'd like.

Thank you very much. And thanks to the mods for letting me post this.

¹ _{I'll even accept formal complaints regarding the ridiculously inflexible standards I impose upon Harry Potter canon! Go ahead ... Queue up in the comments section ... No shoving ...}

Answer 1

As a Tolkien fan, and particularly as someone who has read all of the Middle-earth works Tolkien published in his lifetime but not all those published posthumously, this is difficult for me.

The Silmarillion, for example, was published after Tolkien's death, by his son. Perhaps not "canon"? But then again, much of it was from material that Tolkien had submitted for publication, or at least considered submitting for publication, in his lifetime. So, perhaps "canon". But then, it may include things that Tolkien might not have considered ready for publication, and things that Christopher Tolkien added (or subtracted) for editorial reasons. So perhaps not "canon". And on and on.

Personally, with respect to Tolkien, I'm not sure I'm ready to use the distinction "canon"/"not canon" with all Tolkien work, since I'm not sure that he had arrived at a distinction between the concepts by the end of his life. There were ideas that he never published and seems never to have considered for publication; ideas that he published in The Hobbit, and then things that were revised in The Hobbit in light of The Lord Of The Rings; there were things that he kept working on even after that—concepts that appeared one way in The Lord Of The Rings but got changed in writings afterwards; even things that he apparently never came to a final decision about (like the back story of Galadriel).

As far as "retcon" - the most famous example in the Tolkien canon is the treatment of Gollum in The Hobbit. In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum is a rather nice, obsequious, though somewhat slimy creature. He offers Bilbo the ring (that Bilbo's already found); then, when it becomes apparent that the ring is lost, he explains what the ring does, and offers to show Bilbo the way out. This of course is far too nice a Gollum for The Lord Of The Rings; when Tolkien had finished that, he re-wrote The Hobbit to make Gollum nasty. Of course, he couldn't do anything about the thousands of copies already in the public's hands with the earlier description. So he wrote the story change into The Lord Of The Rings. He explained that Bilbo lied about how he had got the ring, that he put this false explanation into his diary, and that some earlier copies of Bilbo's manuscript had retained the explanation, but that the story was later corrected in the authoritative copy ("Findegil's copy") of the manuscript. A complete in-universe description of the result of a completely out-of-universe decision. Thus, both "Gollum was a nice character who wanted to give Bilbo the ring" and "Gollum was a nasty character who wanted to use the ring to murder Bilbo" are canon answers—but for different time periods and situations.

As far as Tolkien goes, for me the distinction "posthumous/non-posthumous" works far better than "canon/non-canon".

Answer 2

I have never really understood how there can be "levels" or a "hierarchy" of canon. Either something is canon, or it isn't. To be canon, it must come from the "author" or be approved by the author.

Answer 3

Personally speaking I generally do not pay any attention to things like canon. In this answer I'll put across a few of the arguments against its usefulness as a concept.

It seems to me that canon is used to describe those works of fiction that 'count' (and are somehow less fictional than other fictions?), according to some authority. Things only really seem to develop canon policies when there are works that someone wants to exclude. Gene Rodenberry only created a Star Trek canon in order to mark the animated series as 'non-canon'; George Lucas created his alphabet soup of canon levels so that he wouldn't have to worry about all the tie-in novels conflicting with his movies. Marvel and DC canons exist for similar reasons.

It also seems to be primarily an American phenomena. Warhammer 40,000's canon policy is:

Everything is canon; nothing is true.

...which suits the tone of that work just fine. Judge Dredd doesn't have a canon -- it all happened, even the stuff that is completely at odds with the current tone of the comic. Even that time that Dredd became Sheriff of the Moon. Doctor Who's current showrunner has said that 'It is impossible for a show about a dimension-hopping time traveller to have a canon.' (though if you want to push the issue, you'll find that there is a Doctor Who canon, but that it includes every work of fiction ever written, with the exception of the Noddy stories -- and even that's arguable).

In the past people always used to retell stories that they had heard. This happened in every culture around the world, to the extent that Terry Pratchett once suggested that we'd be better off classified as Pan Narrans -- the Storytelling Ape. It seems to me that canon is primarily a way for capitalist industry to discredit and suppress that storytelling instinct, so that only their profit-making narratives 'count'. DC Comics managed to screw over the creators of Batman and Superman, so now they claim authority over what stories are canon and what stories are non-canon, fake, disreputable -- and all the fans go along with it.

That the fans of these works can get into quite heated arguments about what is or isn't canon is instructive of the idea's destructive effects, I think. They accept it -- because it appeals to the fannish, nerdly desire to collect everything into neat little boxes, as if stories were objective physical phenomena rather than ephemeral interactions between the artists and the audience -- and then they internalise it. To many people, stories are somehow 'less' if they're not canon. Because Daddy says so.

Answer 4

First, I'd like to thank you for spelling canon right. No cannonball-shooting typos in your post.

Second, I'd suggest a few topics to touch on. Official canons, like what Star Wars used to have, where there were various media (i.e. film, TV, video games, books) in the franchise, and they were stratified into various canon levels. Other things like Doctor Who's lack of an official canon, would be a good thing to touch on.

Last suggestion is to discuss 'headcanon' where fans take various elements and remix them a bit to make them more personally palatable. I'm sure there are some notable ones for Harry Potter.

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My personal hierarchy? Let's take a ubiquitous franchise, and go with Star Wars:

1. Stuff in the films and TV shows.
2. Books (the former EU)
3. Video games
4. Information from licensed materials. I used to play the Star Wars card game, which provided a great deal of minutae on various background items and characters. While I used to know this stuff like the back of my hand, it's not so important that I'd consider it more valid than the higher-ranked sources of data.

In general, I'm not a very strict follower of canon. I watch/read/play whatever, and incorporate what I can remember into my knowledge of the franchise. If I notice things that do clash, then it's usually obvious why or how the conflict came into being, so I accept them both as being possibilities of what happened in universe.

In the case of Star Wars, the films and TV series are as close to word of god as possible. Then all the other stuff is licensed, and managed by people who keep track of canon. So #1 is far and away the most 'canon'. 2-4 are varying levels of filling in corners of the universe that they're not otherwise going to cover in #1.

Answer 5

I wrote out a brief canon guide for Star Trek a couple of months back (see below). It might help you to get a handle on the sheer complexity of materials available.

Canon Sources

1) The TV episodes (TOS, TNG, Voy, DS9, ENT) and the 12 films are the highest canon (as well as transcripts, deleted scenes and the Animated Series where they don't conflict with what happened on screen)

2) Original scripts (which may or may not mirror what actually happened on the show)

3) Interviews with the writers and producers, cast and crew (AKA "Voice of God")

4) Canon reference books such as the "TNG Technical Manual", "DS9 Technical Manual", and "Voyager Technical manual". These were originally written as reference manuals for potential script writers.

5) Non-canon reference books such as "Mr Scott's Guide To The Enterprise" and the "Starfleet Technical Manual". These were written by people closely associated with the show but may have been contradicted later. They're usually considered 'canon unless otherwise contradicted'.

6) Official novelisations of various episodes except where contradicted.

Non-canon Sources;

7) Deleted scenes where they conflict with established canon

8) Officially licensed properties such as Star Trek Games, RPGs, Crossovers and Trek Comics

9) Expanded-Universe Star Trek books. Those written by those involved in the show (such as Bill Shatner, Jeri Taylor and Armin Shimerman) are generally considered more worthwhile than those written by people with no involvement in the show.

10) Fan-made properties such as Star Trek: Phase II and fanfiction

Answer 6

Chiming in with a more generic answer, geared somewhat (I hope) towards our peculiar environment here on SE:

My general canon hierarchy is:

1. The primary published works by the original author.

2. Any publication by the original author of the primary works, in a different medium.

   For example, if the book(s) came out first, then the book counts as the primary, and movie/comics/video games/plays falls under #2 above. In the case of movie remakes, this only applies if the author has direct creative input. Movies made after the author has died, or without the author's support (such as Alan Moore and the Watchman movie) fall into a lower level of canon, #6 below.

3. Ancillary published materials from the author directly intended to supplement the primary work. For example, special reprints with extra author's notes, tie-in short stories (such as George R.R. Martin's Dunk and Egg stories), etc..

4. Any published explanation given directly by the author ("word of God" answers), such as interviews or the author's blog.

5. Officially published materials created by people aside from the author, but with permission from the author.

6. Officially published materials sanctioned by the license owners, but not necessarily the author.

Note that "author" can be a pretty nebulous term, and in many cases can refer to more than one individual, or even large groups of people, and can have its own hierarchy (for example, the Forgotten Realms setting for Dungeons and Dragons and its various spin-off materials, was created by Ed Greenwood, and then expanded upon by both Ed and Jeff Grubb, and eventually grew until a number of other authors, such as R.A. Salvatore, were contributing major elements of the setting).

For purposes of answering questions here, I consider answers from #1-4 to all be roughly on the same level of authority. #5 follows behind, and #6 is the lowest level of what I consider "canon".

Note that I do not consider unauthorized "fan fiction" to be canon... but that does not necessarily preclude it from being part of a good answer.

From the standpoint of good answers, information from multiple levels of canon can (and should!) be presented, if applicable, even if they contradict each other.

Answer 7

Understanding why things are canon in the first place is something I think a lot of people miss, and it leads to arguments over what is and is not canon.

The most basic definition for canon in this context is "If the creator or current writers were to write more in their universe, what would they consider to have definitely happened?" For ongoing works, the value of this is obvious: A subsequent work comes out, and things the creator or writers didn't say are contradicted. For closed works, the value is less obvious, being something else that makes canon valuable: it's what we can all agree has happened in that universe. It makes sense then for that to be what was canon up until the point when the work was closed.

It can get a lot more complicated (as indicated by other answers and even the question itself with retcons.) The fact that there can be multiple canons (due to multiple writers or otherwise considering multiple universes or timelines) But the basic idea is pretty good starting point. For example, it leads to the idea that Silmerillian is canon because it is what the author would have written if he'd been able to publish his ideas.

It even leads to "levels" of canon, as you're rating how likely the author is to reference that information in further works. Obviously official supplemental material is more likely to be used (or "confirmed") in the official work than speculation by a fan.

Answer 8

How do we feel about the third radio series of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

In fact, applying the concept of “canon” to Hitch-Hikers is always going to be tricky, as the various incarnations all merrily contradict each other. There are the first two radio series (the primary and secondary phases; fits the first to twelfth), the novels, the TV series (which I haven’t seen), the film (released after Douglas Adams’s death), more radio series adapted from the books after Adams’s death, and various theatrical releases.