Canon shift? - What is more Official?

[Grand Master Belial]

Having been with this hobby for almost 25 years, I’ve got some long history and many things have changed and I think something has changed subtlety. This is how we look at the BL Novels in terms of canon. Originally, the Codex and even the prior editions were the end all be all in terms of what was canon. The Black Library books added meat to the bones but any inconsistencies were ignored as it was not canon.

 

With the massive success of the Horus Heresey series, Black Library has become a juggernaut in its own right and has modified many bits of old canon. The Lion sidelined the Caliban Angels instead of the Terran Angels. Native American influences have been removed and the inspiration for this thread Sammael never being Master of the 4th Company as was in the 2nd Edition Codex.

 

So brothers, are you putting more into the BL novels as the most official canon or do you still subscribe that the Codicies past and present are still the most prized in terms of canon?

[Master Sheol]

I still believe more in the good old 2nd edition fluff

the lion sided more with the terrans than the calibanites? and then a terran (astelan) shooting the fleet of the returning lion? simply Gav rubbish writing

Sammael not being DWbefore becoming master? a Company Master not being Inner Circle? still Gav

 

When BL writes this things totally non respecting the basic fluff of the DA i ignore it

[Aothaine]

I've always used the codex/supplementary material released by GW. 

[Darkn3ssF4lls]

So for me, having a long back log of so many novels to read. I generally subscribe to the codices i've actually been collecting the older ones. To bring me up to speed. 

[Chaplain Lucifer]

The best answer would be to cherry pick Canon to fit my views.

But IMHO BL is as official as a Codex.

[Lostrael]

I started playing Warhammer with the 5th edition and read a lot Black library books. I tent to see those as cannon. With a grain of salt.

"Everything is cannon, not everything is true" or something like that....

 

Sounds like an excuse for many discrepancies in novels and lore.

After a very frustrating read, I once ask one of the authors of my team, who has also written books for a fantasy book line, how this could happen. She explained to me, that  to prevent discrepancies to happen, you have an editor, who checks the stuff you are writing for coherency.

For the author it's usually impossible to know every book. Even if you have a good editor it is not possible to remember every half sentence that was written about a person or an event.

With many authors working in the same world this is bound to happen.

Still it gnaws at me every time I stumble over something like that. 

[Walter Payton]

It's interesting that BL authors seem to pick up storylines and then drop them.  We had the whole "was the Lion a traitor was he not" ambiguity introduced in Angels of Darkness, which added this extra layer of complexity (though not necessarily quality) to the story of the Fallen...and then kill that stone dead in the HH series.

[Greenz]

As I see it, BL novels are just as canon as our codecies and rulebooks. There are inconsistencies with BL novels (lascannons mounted on attack bikes comes to mind, thank you Mr. Thorpe), and really, with so many authors it's hard to not have some. But on the flip side, there are certainly inconsistencies throughout the codecies as well

 

As you said GMB, the BL books have become an absolute juggernaut the last few years. With the wealth of detail that can be written in their pages, it's hard to ignore the fluff that's laid out in them. Ultimately, a lot of it comes down to people's interpretation, and whether certain things "fit" in people's own view of canon.

[Brother Sergeant Luther]

My opinion is that all sources are relevant, but if a modern source counters something from a previous edition then the modern source is the more accurate source.

 

However people like to cherry pick their sources to back their view points so some cling to older editions over the modern fluff

[aura_enchanted]

honestly if that cant get their story straight i take it as isolated incidents of story telling. until they establish hard and concrete was is and is not canon. it could all be BS, for all we know caliban is still a planet, the heresy of luther never took place, and the lion currently works at a BK because he found the career more fulfilling then waging war on a galactic scale (jokes aside seriously they could say whatever they want and we could start whole new trains of canon thought invalidating everything at this point and be just as correct as anything theyve currently printed).

 

imo i think that they should honestly sit down and say what is canon, what is mistakes on their part. and be adults about the fact that theyve made more then casual errors on telling the story of the dark angels, often using us to get other peoples canons more aligned.

 

if the terminator was built on top of so everyone could live in a nice rules home in 6th and 7th, then the dark angels were buried next door to build the lore

[Frater Cornelius]

With Dark Angels, who the heck knows? I am pretty sure the DA themselves aren't sure anymore what is right and what isn't :D

[MoK]

I'd say if a book is currently not in print, then it is not canon. Of cause we have to wait for the new codexes to come out to find out exactly what is canon or not.

[Bryan Blaire]

Seeing as a Black Library author has specifically said that there is no "hard canon" for writing for 40K, only "loose canon", right here on this very site, the answer is "Whatever you want" as long as that doesn't violate basic tenants of the setting (the Emperor is the Imperial Corpse-God, Chaos and daemons exist, etc.) - even basic "facts" like how a bolter or lasgun work are subject to change based on the views of the author and the story they are writing. There are even multitudes on in-universe reasons for these differences: different forge worlds may use different materials, power sources or even slightly different mechanisms to achieve similar working items. That actually fits the sense of scale for something like 40K very well, and doesn't constrain it to the limited view point of inhabitants of a single world.

 

I mean, seriously, this is a setting that utilizes an in-universe time-line conflict to adjust when things have actually been occurring to the point where the setting itself could be upwards of two hundred years off - and it makes sense when you take into account the denials, inaccuracies, politics of a single world in acknowledging events, and it also makes sense when you take into account messages delivered by telepathic interpretation or word of mouth via ship transportation that never story-wise gives the indication of adjustment due to relativistic effects of in-system travel.

 

I don't understand why some folks want to ruin the beauty of this setting by introducing needs for something from another setting (like Star Wars). I get that some what to know exact (from what I've seen - due to a need to be right in an argument about events within the setting as if it is a single story) truths for 40K. This is not the setting/story for that type of desire. There are few truths within this setting, and those that are tend to be inexact and lend themselves to interpretation. There have never been "canon levels" to 40K, and there still aren't.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Bryan Blaire

[Phoebus]

It's a tricky beast, isn't it?

 

On the one hand, I think the most diplomatic answer would be something along the lines of, "whatever you like is canon." On the other hand, it's been stated more than once, by Black Library authors and editors alike that anything carrying the Warhammer 40k logo is, well, canon. And, finally, we have to live with the fact that canon sources are not necessarily true. For instance, one has to take into account that material presenting the perspective of the Imperium of Man in the 41st Millennium must be assumed to be compromised by the bias, censorship, and outright ignorance that faction is so rife with. That's before we start touching on the sheer scale and distance of the Imperium, as well as countless other factors that preclude the record-keepers of mankind from having an accurate picture on so many things.

 

Finally, there is the Warp. The defining force of this setting affects its universe to such an extent that a ship embarking on Warp travel can arrive at its destination a millennium ago or a millennium in the future. Any number of inconsistencies within the setting can be explained by way of temporal vagaries.

 

All this is a very wordy way of saying that there are many avenues to justify including or excluding material as you see fit.

 

Now, if you're asking me? I think it's been made clear that people like Laurie Goulding have, however late in the game, gone to great lengths to ensure that there are as few inconsistencies within the recent, current, and upcoming Horus Heresy material as possible. There is no doubt they view their series as canon as it gets. There is also no doubt they work very closely with the Forge World people to that end, as well. Finally, there is no doubt the people who manage the setting's intellectual property support them in these ventures. Is there that much coordination where the rest of the material is concerned? Outside of collaborative efforts like The Beast or the Sabbat Crusades anthologies, I sincerely doubt it.

[FerociousBeast]

If you accept Black Library as canon, you have to accept the conclusion of The Unforgiven by Gav Thorpe. Accepting its conclusion is impossible for me, therefore I cannot accept Black Library as canon.

 

I was on the fence for a while, vacillating towards finally giving up my codexes as the be all end all, but then Gav had the Dark Angels do that. Poof. Back to the codexes.

[Master Sheol]

If you accept Black Library as canon, you have to accept the conclusion of The Unforgiven by Gav Thorpe. Accepting its conclusion is impossible for me, therefore I cannot accept Black Library as canon.

 

I was on the fence for a while, vacillating towards finally giving up my codexes as the be all end all, but then Gav had the Dark Angels do that. Poof. Back to the codexes.

I agree

For me canon is only the codexes and the Index astartes books

What is written on BL books is usually garbage for me

DA's HH books are the most bad written of all the bunch so i stick to GW pubblications too when it comes to DA and HH

 

The ONLY thing i accept from BL books is that Cypher is loyal and acts like a renegade for some dark reasons and Inner Circle knows it

Edited July 21, 2017 by Master Sheol

[Bryan Blaire]

I don't get this idea of "What you accept as canon" people keep putting forward. We don't get to decide what is or isn't canon, just what we will or won't follow/agree with as fact for our version of the universe. Canon is determined by the creator/property owner, and on that, GW Corporate has been pretty mum, but the BL folks have been pretty clear - it's a wide sandbox, there are basic tenants that no one can violate, but all the rest is 30K/40K.

[FerociousBeast]

True Canon is and has always been determined by the audience, never simply by decree of the copyright holder(s). That's true for literary canon, biblical canon, and fluff canon.

 

In this case, there is no single, accepted body of works that everyone acknowledges to be canon, so there is no canon and we are therefore free to pick and choose what we like to be our own personal canon.

[Bryan Blaire]

That's not true at all, fictional canon (canon as the concept of "rule") is only able to be set by those that can actually have knowledge of what is correct. There is no such thing as "personal canon", those are two opposing concepts. There are numerous instances of fictional canon, as decreed by the holders of Star Wars, Star Trek, the Malazan tales, etc. "True Canon" can only be determined by the creator or authority over the material, because it is literally the rule on how it works, which on the creator(s)/authority can set. You don't get to be the authority by simply being a fan of something.

 

You can have your personal views, or "headcanon" as it were, but that doesn't affect what the creator(s) set as the canon. Any time that personal view or "headcanon" disagrees with established canon, you have a divergent view of the story. It certainly doesn't become canon for everyone.

 

So for 40K, the acknowledgement is "decide for yourself, it's all accepted".

Edited July 21, 2017 by Bryan Blaire

[Aleax]

Personally I subscribe more to the past concerning DA, which is before the recent BL novels and before 2nd ed, even. I despite Gav Thorpe as a DA novelist also, so I tend to ignore all his BL work at least his DA novels, which is kind of sad.

 

Because Gav Thorpe while being a BA-sided 40k dev, did truly respectable work at GW - there are many codecii he did briantlly design. But while he did good to 40k (overall), he did not to DA at all.

 

Well someone should just ask DA fan base about his DA novels, the opinions are not exactly overwhelming positive.

[ronin_cse]

At the risk of going way off topic here: what was so bad about Gav's DA trilogy and its ending? Honestly I found them to be pretty decent

[FerociousBeast]

Bryan Blaire, first, GW is notoriously slipshod about what is and isn't canon. And about whether there even is a canon. Different writers will tell you different things. I suppose if there's any rule at all, it's "whatever was published more recently is more authoritative." But this rule doesn't stop Writer Y from completely disregarding or overwriting something in Writer X's story just because he/she doesn't like it. We've seen that time and again in the Horus Heresy series, with the Dark Angels in particular.

 

So if we were all to agree that GW gets to decide what's canon or not, well, they have abdicated that responsibility, so we're back to "whatever you like best is the only possible criteria."

 

But that's not how canon works. Canon is determined by the fan base. Often, the fan base holds the opinions of the publisher and writers in high regard, and will take seriously their direction about canon, particularly when the publishers do a good job with it and take the idea of canon seriously. But ultimately it's still the fan base's decision. As examples, see the debates that are going on in the Star Wars community over the new trilogy trashing the Expanded Universe. See the rejection of the latest Middle Earth video games as canon by Tolkien fans. Despite the legal copyright holders in both cases creating this content and making these decisions, the fans are debating whether or not to accept it.

Edited July 31, 2017 by FerociousBeast

[Bryan Blaire]

Fans can debate canon and create "fanon" all they want, and you and anyone else can believe whatever they want about it and determine what's good for you. However, only the person(s) actually authortatively capable of making decisions for a body of work can determine what is actually canon. That's it. There is literally no debate and to think otherwise requires making up a new definition of "canon" other than that accepted in English to suit yourself. If you don't have authority, you can't override a creator, and no "community" holds the authority or represents all fans with any kind of weight. Canon is not "whatever the fandom thinks it should be."

 

For instance, if I write a series of four novels, then wait six years, and write two additional novels, both of which are set in between books 3 and 4, fundamentally altering the nature of the ending of book 4, only I, as the works' author have the capability of saying "For my universe, only books 1-3 and 5-6 are canon." If I don't say that, then everything officially published is canon. If fans feel there is something contradictory about it, that's fine, they can debate it, but only I can actually determine what is or isn't true for my universe - hence I determine what's canon. You don't "make it your own" as a fan, you don't have the capability to. If a fan-fiction author actually tries to publish a work as official without license, I even have the right to sue that person for trying to infringe on my works.

 

Sorry, but that's how it goes.

 

In the case of GW, yes, they have basically taken the stance of "Everything published is official." If it is official, it's canon. They don't have to work the inconsistencies out for everyone - they aren't obligated to. Just because people don't like it doesn't mean that they've somehow abdicated the decisions on canonicity to the fans. Fans have no authority to determine canon. You can't just call your preferences canon, because they have no weight. That's called "fanon" and has no officiality to it whatsoever.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Bryan Blaire

[Atia]

It's funny how people still think "GW codices are more canon than BL novels" even though it's stated many times (and even kind of in universe with the dating system ....) that the codices are written from the PoV of the Imperium, and the lore/dates there are just broad "facts". If a Codex says Harlequins appeared some times M33 it's still wrong, because they were active since the Fall, as early as the War of the Beast. If a Codex tells you the story of the Destruction of Caliban it's still "wrong", because the ending of Gave's trilogy tells you the true story (atleast a part of it), and that's canon.

Yep, time walking Azrael and friends who create a warprift that eats Caliban and "saves" the Fallen is canon.

Of course you can say you don't care for it, but it's still canon. Same with people who ignore the new Star Wars movies/books and prefer the old EU. It's your choice, but you can't decide what's canon if you aren't the creator ^^

[Frater Cornelius]

[...]

 

Yep, time walking Azrael and friends who create a warprift that eats Caliban and "saves" the Fallen is canon.

 

[...]

 

..Wat? Did I miss something?

 

Now tell me Azrael was played by Christian Bale and my life will be complete

Edited July 31, 2017 by Immersturm