Why geeks need to drop this “canon” idea like the crush they had on that cheerleader in high school. “Canon” doesn’t exist.

Title:

Why geeks need to drop this “canon” idea like the crush they had on that cheerleader in high school.


Subtitle:

“Canon” doesn’t exist. Just like your chances with that cheerleader.


Alternate title:

Why Spock and Sir John Falstaff need to go have a drink sometime.


A blog note:

Dan here. This is a post about geek culture (of which I claim an identity to). The moms who usually read this blog for my wife’s postings about her and my kids may not be interested in this subject.


I write this knowing that tonight I will watch the new Star Trek movie and J. J. Abrams will commit a cardinal geek sin which is “violating established canon”. How much and to what degree he commits this sin, I simply don’t care.


My thesis is:

The notion of “canon” (as described by geek culture, not religion) is an artificial construct that is antithetical to the history of human storytelling.


Definition from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_(fiction)

“Canon, in terms of a fictional universe, is any material that is considered to be ‘genuine’, or can be directly referenced as material produced by the original author or creator of a series. Basically, something that is ‘canon’ means that it is something that ‘actually happened’ in that fictional universe. An example of something non-canon is a fan-fiction; a fan fiction about a particular story is not ‘canon’, as the story in the fan fiction never actually happened in that fictional universe.”


Geeks believe (falsely) that all stories in a single fictional universe should never contradict themselves and also maintain a consistent chronology. In this sense, they attempt to place real-world constraints on purely fictional worlds. Simply on its face, I find this ludicrous, but let's explore why this is anyway.


Human storytelling has evolved from ancient oral traditions usually associated with a campfire. Stories were passed down from generation to generation with no constraints on the storyteller to avoid altering the content of the fiction.


Our modern day campfires are television and movies. In the cases of science fiction and fantasy, special effects technology has enabled the viewer to experience a hyper-real environment during the storytelling that suspends the disbelief of the viewer to long enough to enhance the story telling by fooling the senses that what is impossible is actually real.


A problem arises in the geek culture, when the geek encounters an inconsistency with the current story line as compared to the previous narrative (or the "established canon") during a film. At that moment, the illogical canon violation forces the geek to confront the fact that their suspended disbelief is only an illusion and a fiction. They are ripped, kicking and screaming, away from the bridge of the starship in their fantasy world and are transported back to their banal reality, which is the pedestrian fact that they are only sitting and watching a movie for two hours with their paunchy bellies. They too quickly forget that they were simply partaking in an advanced form of campfire storytelling and need to relax and roast a marshmallow.


Let’s take the example of Star Trek. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that roughly 400 writers and actors have contributed to the Star Trek story telling since the 1960’s. Imagine if you placed those 400 storytellers next to 400 campfires with a small group of listeners each telling a piece of the Star Trek narrative. No sane person would expect that each of those 400 campfires would individually receive a perfect set of non-contradictory stories that fit a sound chronology. That would be “illogical”. None the less, the Star Trek fans (and most geeks) believe that four decades of scripts, legions of writers and dozens of actors should be able to create just that. They ignore the ancient and established prerogative of the storyteller to tell a slightly different version for the sake of his or her audience.


Even in Shakespeare’s time, multiple playwrights were given latitude to write different versions of the same story and no one got their geek panties in a bunch. They could blend fictional characters with historical figures. Take liberties with historic events and even…get this…wait for it…violate the established canon of their own previous stories.


Take Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff, for example. Falstaff is established as the worldly and comical companion to Prince Hal in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and also carries the second highest number of lines (Prince Hamlet has more) in all of Shakespeare’s writings. He then randomly shows up in the Merry Wives Windsor with no connection whatsoever to the other two plays. Shakespeare ignores his own canon and makes no attempt to integrate Falstaff’s romp with the wives into the larger Henry IV and V storyline. This would be like Spock randomly showing up in an episode of Lost.


As long as geeks continue to harp on this notion of "canon", they will only be further disappointed because there is no real historical precedent to force the storyteller to do what they are asking for. The heightened reality created by the special effects raises an unrealistic expectation that the story itself will also suspend their disbelief equally over multiple decades.


George Lucas pays a staffer a full-time salary to keep a database of the Star Wars canon (he does it because the fans practically demand it). How has that helped the telling of the Star Wars Saga? In my humble opinion, not much.