Is the drive for canonicity (or continuity) in fan cu toxic?

[Petitioner's City]

io9 has an excellent article on canonicity today, which immediately made me think of this excellent forum and the language we use when talking about BL books - especially the Heresy and how spoiler culture and (un)critical language surrounds the books on wider interner:

 

https://io9.gizmodo.com/our-fascination-with-canon-is-killing-the-way-we-value-1842590915

 

But this craving for it above all else is a toxic attitude, not just to the way we talk about pieces of media from a critical perspective, but in fan circles as well. The hunger for facts above all else leads to things like “filler episode” becoming a derogatory term for stories that don’t advance the larger ongoing plot of a narrative or don’t include some shocking new revelation that someone can add to a list. It predicates the gatekeeping act of being a fan that is built on how much you know about a thing over whether you actually enjoy that thing or not. It’s an attitude that in turn feeds the equally unruly and constantly growing spoiler culture because a fandom that values pure details above all else puts weight in the knowledge of those details. The need robs discussions about the stories we get of nuance and interpretation, because who cares what you think happened when there’s an answer from the Word of God to that question you might have had?

It's got a lot of punch overall, and I think needs a good read. Look at how reaction to Saturnine has focused on a few 'revelations' within it, or how heresy and studio source books are read for new factoids often.

 

It doesn't say this is all bad but how we take care with the toxicity conversations about 'canonicity' (which is a misnomer, really, since what people really seem to want is 'continuity') can bring.

 

I would say read this, then comment. Yes it refers to other franchises so avoid that for B&C rules - but thinking, how does this apply to our own slice of fandom and (a) is it right and (b) are there ways as a critical culture here we can do better?

 

Edit: also i find it interesting that GW has a loose canon approach but the same language always applies (and I am guilty of it too!)

Edited April 2, 2020 by Petitioner's City

[mc warhammer]

i like what i've read so far

[Sandlemad]

It's a good piece and this part is particularly relevant.

 

 

 

Critics and fans alike are now less interested in actually interpreting a piece of media thematically or to engage with why they liked or disliked it, but instead to pick it apart and break it down to the base components of what are, essentially, its pure, unflinching facts. Google Star Wars or the Marvel movies and you will likely see as many articles and videos with headlines like “X Confirms Y is Canon,” “X Questions Answered By [New Media],” or “X Things We Learned About Character Z in This New Book/Movie/TV Show” as you will critical essays about these stories, if not more

 

I think this is a separate sort of issue to the more commonly discussed matter of GW's approach to (loose) canon or even the demands that a miniatures business with an associated IP puts on licenced fiction. This is about the fandom's response and overall I do find it disappointing that discussion, particularly of new books, tends to shrink to a narrow set of subjects. It's a particular manner of discussion which seems to put character, prose, theme, plot - the qualities of a work of fiction as a work of fiction - on the back burner. Not always, and generally B&C is a good bit better than this, but it's a trend in the fandom.

 

Scott Benson had some good thoughts about this same subject:

 

 

All aspects of a work must be read hyper-literally so that they can all be made into puzzle pieces. Metaphors can't really exist except to further the puzzle-solving. All parts are gears, locks, or keys, essentially.

 

I saw someone refer to this as wiki-culture, but that's already a term. It's a good one for this, though. There are a lot of stories that follow these assumptions that I like, btw! Not like saying it's "lower". Just that it is often assumed to be the "correct" way to do or interpret narrative and that leads to very specific kinds of storytelling and story reading

 

[...]

 

And again, let me stress, there's nothing wrong with stories that do this kind of thing. I like a lot of them! But this mode of /analysis/ just doesn't lend itself to discussing themes, or metaphor, or subjectivity. And those are to me the most interesting parts of stories.

 

I should reiterate though that B&C is by no means the worst place for this trend. Reddit's 40klore sub often seems like the userbase would prefer if novels were simple lists of unambiguous bulletpointed facts without all those awful 'themes' or 'characters' or 'subjectivity' getting in the way.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Sandlemad

[Scammel]

I think 40k fans are willing to offer greater or lesser leeway depending on the nature of the facts in question, the quality of the writing and the narrative impacts. Let's be real, we're talking about the Heresy here, and I think there's three choice examples of where fans might offer the benefit of the doubt - or not.

 

The depiction of Krole in Saturnine, particularly the apparently 'new' ability to avoid detection by mortal senses, fulfills a great narrative purpose and leads to the beautiful conclusion of a previously-unremarkable character arc. The change isn't exactly contradictory but it is new, though I definitely couldn't care less given it results in one of the greatest character moments in Black Library fiction.

 

The apparent death of Falkus Kibre does appear contradictory to other BL work, and even though he's a relatively minor character it's resulted in some head-scratching. It's a satisfyingly grisly death in a well-written key scene, so the reaction appears to be confusion rather than offense.

 

The botched timing of Magnus' projection to the Emperor - and it really does appear botched - is notorious for a reason. It explicitly contradicted well-established facts and completely undermined both the apparent motivations of several characters and the dramatic irony of the Prospero tragedy. It remains an utter howler.

[Marshal Rohr]

There’s not much excuse for it in other IPs, but 40k has something those IPs don’t - huge collections of miniatures to create your own background for that needs to mesh with the universe.

[Bobss]

I think this discussion segues nicely into how a lot of Black Library fans (I say that loosely cuz there's definitely different 'levels' of fan, passion, commitment, investment etc.) eagerly anticipate each new book not for its literary merit, but for its reveal(z). Reactions to the Siege of Terra series are the most relevant and prevalent for this nowadays tbh. I've had a rather large bee in my shamefully big bonnet ever since getting back into 40k that a lot of newer fans seem to be getting their material from wiki-style sites, Reddit etc. whereas Back In My Day^TM we mainly used codicies, rulebooks, sourcebooks, artbooks and delved into Black Library for particular topics that interested us. They key here is that one fan is engaging with official materials and interpreting events, themes and characters their own way; whereas the other fan is basing their entire knowledge on, at best opinionated, and at worst spoofy Internet accounts. The biggest reason I signed up to this forum was because I saw some folks discussing prose, which caught me off guard because in other community circles Sigismund's power level or Unaligned Demon Princes seems to be more of a focus

 

Does anyone feel like some/certain/a few Black Library authors consciously write with this new reveal(z) culture in mind ? The Armageddon spoiler at the end of The Beast series sticks in the back of my throat as another pointless shock-reveal, when the classic tale of a bunch of boyz happening across a heavily defended and important Imperial world actually worth defending, thereby making for a good punch up, made for a better and more believable campaign basis than all of this pseudo-orky-gorky-morky magick prophecy guff?

Edited April 2, 2020 by Bobss

[bluntblade]

I think there are wider questions as well of how we engage with stories, which I see more and more. Increasingly people expect stories to work perhaps more on a logical level than in terms of theme - prioritising "plot" over "story", if you will. This is how you get films like Annihilation or Edge of Tomorrow being griped over when their endings are very metaphorical, and changing them would have the effect it did on I Am Legend and remove the whole point of the story.

 

In a setting where lore is so important and has VERY defined rules, I think that often becomes relevant.

[b1soul]

The middle path is golden

[bluntblade]

There’s not much excuse for it in other IPs, but 40k has something those IPs don’t - huge collections of miniatures to create your own background for that needs to mesh with the universe.

One might say 40K is the only major fandom where the curational and transformative wings of the fandom have substantial crossover. Every time an army is assembled and painted up, there's a degree of interpretation going on.

 

I think discussions of the Emperor come under this banner too. Lots of times people ask when He didn't to X or Y, which amounts to undoing the premise of the story with information from outside it's context.

 

Think "why didn't ___ tell ___ the plan?" (Whispers: because ___ wasn't trusted with the information) but more importantly, it's to create conflictm

Edited April 2, 2020 by bluntblade

[Marshal Loss]

 

There’s not much excuse for it in other IPs, but 40k has something those IPs don’t - huge collections of miniatures to create your own background for that needs to mesh with the universe.

One might say 40K is the only major fandom where the curational and transformative wings of the fandom have substantial crossover. Every time an army is assembled and painted up, there's a degree of interpretation going on.

 

An interesting thought but one I'm not sure I agree with; even in a historical wargame, these exact same processes are taking place.

[bluntblade]

I was thinking fictional settings tbh, though that's a good point.

[DarkChaplain]

I think there are wider questions as well of how we engage with stories, which I see more and more. Increasingly people expect stories to work perhaps more on a logical level than in terms of theme - prioritising "plot" over "story", if you will. This is how you get films like Annihilation or Edge of Tomorrow being griped over when their endings are very metaphorical, and changing them would have the effect it did on I Am Legend and remove the whole point of the story.

 

In a setting where lore is so important and has VERY defined rules, I think that often becomes relevant.

 

Just cutting in to point out that Edge of Tomorrow was based on a Japanese light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, with a highly modified ending that kind of misses the point of the original work. They changed a lot about the premise, plot and theme for the movie (which, while still fun, was weakened in comparison). At least that's why I'm griping about it; I read the novel before. It's not as big a discrepancy as with Starship Troopers, thankfully, but still a difference that sets the original and adaptation apart on a tonal level. As for Starship Troopers, I think it's safe to say that the movie has plenty of its own merits, but is wildly divergent from Heinlein's novel, missing out on plenty of its themes, so there'll probably always be a divide between fans of the book and those of the movie, similarly to how there's a discrepancy between adherents of ForgeWorld's Black Books, the readers of the original Collected Visions and the HH novel series.

 

That being said, I agree with your assessment in general, I just thought that tidbit was worth bringing up in regards to one of the examples.

 

As for the engagement on plot vs theme, it's something I've observed and noted before on here as well, including with the Guilliman Primarchs novel, or Lorgar, or a bunch of Annandale's works where the theme of faith is approached from various angles. I enjoyed my time with Guilliman because I enjoyed the themes and could appreciate the author's intent, while the plot, when boiled down to its core, was nothing special. A lot of folks consider the book to be garbage here, and the discussions I've seen on here were pretty focused on its plot being dull or not revelatory enough.

Edited April 2, 2020 by DarkChaplain

[bluntblade]

Fair points. I've only engaged with those two works as films, so approached them solely with regard to their aims as opposed to the sources (which I intend to read soon).

 

Anyway, to 40K. I find Master of Mankind and Solar War's Abaddon flashbacks both come to mind here. In that their impact on me is largely due to their emotional import. Our scenes with Abaddon bulk out his Lexicanum page, sure, but they also inform his character.

Edited April 2, 2020 by bluntblade

[b1soul]

It's hard for BL to be consistent across the board and demanding that it silly, but it's not toxic to point out logical inconsistencies between roughly contemporaneous books in the same series

 

This is simply expecting editors to do their jobs.

[Sandlemad]

It's hard for BL to be consistent across the board and demanding that it silly, but it's not toxic to point out logical inconsistencies between roughly contemporaneous books in the same series

 

This is simply expecting editors to do their jobs.

 

It's not that, that's not the issue here. It's when this kind of arguing over in/consistencies - the fan tendency to "pick it apart and break it down to the base components of what are, essentially, its pure, unflinching facts" - dominates discussion at the expense of "actually interpreting a piece of media thematically or to engag[ing] with why they liked or disliked it".

 

I've pointed out inconsistencies and speculated on BL keeping things together myself, as has probably everyone in this thread, but that is not the only way to engage with art. It doesn't make for a particularly good or broadminded critical culture.

[byrd9999]

I'm probably going a little away from topic here, but I think it all comes from the same source.

 

I think a lot of this comes down to how human beings interact with each other, with a lot of these aspects of opinion and communication being exaggerated on the internet.

 

Firstly, it takes time to read a book. A lot of time. It takes time and deep thought to internalise and process an experience (such as reading/watching/listening to fictional narratives), something that doesn't lend itself to the age of hot-takes and buzzfeeds and tl;drs, so what we get are mostly first-impressions and knee-jerk reactions that are designed to inflame other posters into responding. (posters who may not have read the book in question).

 

You could spend several hours crafting a thoughtful and insightful response to a book you just read, but most people will only respond if they disagree with you. And it's much easier to disagree with a specific fact or lore-nugget than to debate the "Use of the Subjunctive Mood to Generate Tension in David Annandale's Warhammer Horror Works", because that requires hours of time and thought and effort.

 

Movies like The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker do themselves no favours by seeming to pander to these lore-nugget-miners and reveal-hunters in favour of genuine story arcs and satisfying character development. This reverse-engineering approach can end up backfiring, because it turns out no one cared who was related to Palpatine, what people actually wanted was the slow-build of The Mandalorian.

 

However, it's not just limited to Warhammer, or sci-fi, it's in all aspects of life. Check out the fan forums of your favourite sports team of choice. There is very little dissection of the importance of the local football team's right-back to retaining possession under pressure, or the leg-work put in by a big Number 10 up-front, or the benefits of youth-team exposure in the starting XI. Most fan debate is based on stats like league position and goals scored, with comments limited largely to "sack the manager" or "sign a new striker".

 

In view of all this, websites like B&C, where posters sometimes put great thought and effort into their criticism (in the literary sense of the word), are to be cherished for fostering a community that rises above the usual dross.

[bluntblade]

Though looking at stories solely in a plotty, mathematical way has its own problems: https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2012/10/30/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-plot-holes-and-movie-logic

Apologies for the block caps article.

For my part, I thought TLJ eschewed loremongering in favour of character growth which drove the story like a War Rig, while TRoS was a trilogy's worth of plot and lore with no story, joylessly repacking Mystery Boxes with the answer Abrams wanted this time. But I'm sick of talking about those movies to the point where I resent my own love for TLJ. This is where I'm at in 2020, apologising for and regretting the culture I enjoy.

It's that lack of sustained theme and a belief that plot is enough, however, which sometimes sinks BL work as well. The Buried Dagger doesn't zig Chris Wraight's zag of a setup with Mortarion seeking Typhon, it just ignores it. Meanwhile Meduson's story goes from a brewing conflict with the more conservative IH leaders to a rehash of Ferrus' story.

Edited April 2, 2020 by bluntblade

[Donkey Kong]

It doesn't say this is all bad but how we take care with the toxicity conversations about 'canonicity' (which is a misnomer, really, since what people really seem to want is 'continuity') can bring.

I would say read this, then comment. Yes it refers to other franchises so avoid that for B&C rules - but thinking, how does this apply to our own slice of fandom and (a) is it right and ( are there ways as a critical culture here we can do better?

 

Edit: also i find it interesting that GW has a loose canon approach but the same language always applies (and I am guilty of it too!)

 

 

I don't think wanting continuity is "toxic," nor is getting understandably and reasonably upset when that continuity is violated (emphasis on understandably and reasonably e.g. return the book/movie/etc. and get a refund, maybe write or talk about it if it feels warranted (possibly for hours on end, I like those videos), not threatening the author). I think the problem comes when someone goes in expecting continuity (which I think is, for better and worse, the default position), and then encounters a property that takes "a loose canon approach" like 40k.

 

Novels also require a greater time investment than movies or short stories, and that's before you delve into analysis and criticism. So, that adds to frustration if you find a story that didn't entertain you on top of doing something that you believe contradicts what you think you know.

 

I've had a rather large bee in my shamefully big bonnet ever since getting back into 40k that a lot of newer fans seem to be getting their material from wiki-style sites, Reddit etc. whereas Back In My Day^TM we mainly used codicies, rulebooks, sourcebooks, artbooks and delved into Black Library for particular topics that interested us. They key here is that one fan is engaging with official materials and interpreting events, themes and characters their own way; whereas the other fan is basing their entire knowledge on, at best opinionated, and at worst spoofy Internet accounts.

 

No offense intended to Bobss especially because I wish that this was the way that things worked too, but this is the sort of interpretation and expectation that I think leads to the problems OP is talking about. The official position from Games Workshop is that there is no canon. Your favorite and your least favorite rulebooks, your favorite and your least favorite black library books, and your favorite and your least favorite fan works are all equally canonical, and you can accept and reject each and every one at your leisure. I can only think of a handful of properties like this and I'm only passingly familiar with most of them (40k, The SCP Foundation, The Elder Scrolls C0DA, Fallout, and Dark Souls). 

 

40k continuity does not work like A Song of Ice and Fire where it's all coming from one George R.R. Martin or Pre-Disney Star Wars where they was a clear continuity hierarchy with George Lucas and his movies and shows at the top with the rest of the lore in a more loosely defined expanded universe continuity (e.g. Knights of the Old Republic, Battlefront 2 (2005), The Thrawn Trilogy, etc.). There are clear tradeoffs. For me, speculating in ASoIaF feels rewarding because I'm confident that there's an answer I'm working towards. In Star Wars, less so because at any given opportunity, Lucas can swoop in and override it (see pacifist Mandalorians). In 40k, we're all our own George Lucas.

 

If there is any solution to this problem as it applies to 40k, I think the first step is putting that little nugget front and center: 40k continuity is a loosely defined sandbox and it's up to each individual to decide what they want to do with it. Past that, treat 40k each individual story as either a self contained product or directly related to its immediate series and nothing else. As a broader solution, authors would be better served writing their own stories instead of twisting existing characters to serve their own.

[b1soul]

Well, I feel the beauty of art is people on a forum are free to engage with it however they please, as long as they are respectful of each other.

 

Some people like themes

some people like plot

Some people like evocative prose

 

"Toxicity" is not what you like, it's how you go about expressing your preferences

 

You can love the plot reveals without being "toxic" and edgy. You can love the themes while being insufferable and condescending.

[bluntblade]

I think "counterproductive" might be better than "toxic", though this does feed into what one might call the Ready Player One mentality. I've seen fans of certain franchises shouted down online because they had only seen the films or had only enjoyed a tv series or novels.

[b1soul]

Productive or counterproductive of a deeper thematic discussion, I suppose

 

By definition, fan focus on metaplot is at the expense of fan focus on themes or other merits of each work.

 

I don't think the former is reprehensible or silly. I just think if you like thematic discussions, you probably want to connect with like-minded individuals, same applies to those who love the plot developments.

 

I think B&C has a pretty healthy mix, whereas Reddit skews more toward metaplot discussions.

[bluntblade]

I think counterproductive to, for want.of a better word, consuming stories. Any great story I can think of loses something if you only engage with it on a solely literal level. It's why so many people miss out on what's so great about Blade Runner except for the visuals.

 

Heck, to do that would diminish top-tier BL works like Path of Heaven, The First Heretic and Master of Mankind.

[Frater Antodeniel]

Not everyone will be please by everything, and i did say that we are masters of our own Lore.

 

The reason we crave for Canonicity is a laughable one, it is simply that we seek the others to aknowledge our point of view, our vision of the events. In this, most often, we expect the authors to fulfill our hopes....but as we know it, "Hope is the first step on the road to disapointment".

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Tzeentch : " The plot is good, but....it lack a little something...well, i think it would become more interresting if i Changed some part of it, yes indeed...what would happen if i Change this....and also that...or this...and that...."

 

Khorne : "It lack ACTION ! it need more battle, more Blood, and beheading, and Skulls ! Well, now i'm in the obligation to write it ! So be It !"

 

Nurgle : "The main character is ridiculously too healthy, and it lack some realism, there should be more Corruption in this story. Lets see how much of my "touch" it require to make it worth it."

 

Slaanesh : "The script is trash, i stopped after the first chapter, it isn't good enough, no seriously, if only the author had work a little more on it....it would had been Perfect. I think i will write my own version of it, it can only be better than this."

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I think it resume the situation pretty well.

 

Also, it is good to remember that no author can remember every detail of every canon stories of the Lore. Because of this simple fact, there are inconsistencies in the Lore.

 

(And yes, i will never Aknowledge Guy Haley vision of the Knights of Blood physical corruption and extiction. The reason why i work on my personal "Lore" that explain that only the corrupted Knights of Blood did go to Baal, and that the few untouched survived...and the chapter with them^^. Plus, they may even evolve into Primaris, because Stronger is Better.^^)

[Tyriks]

I think this is a false correlation.  Our culture (worldwide, and in every aspect of life) is increasingly "toxic."  Factual errors / oversights / revisions provide an outlet for the toxicity in some areas, which others will often reward.  But if there was never another continuity error in any franchise, people would just find other areas to pour out toxic mindsets into.  People have obsessed over details from things like Star Wars since it first came out; that's nothing new.  The problem is the radical polarization at work in most communities that has come about in the last few decades.  People (in general) are far less considerate of others, less open minded, less forgiving, and less tolerant across the board, not just in how they view major franchises.  This is just a symptom.  

[bluntblade]

I think the toxicity factor and the other thing are two different issues, though they do overlap at times.