- This article is not about literary canons of influential works of fiction, but about the concept of a canon which defines the world of a particular fictional series or franchise.
A
canon, in terms of a
fictional universeA fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements which differ from the real world. It may be called, variously, a fictional realm, world or universe...
, is a body of material that is considered to be "genuine" or "official", that can be directly referenced as, or as if it were, material produced by the original author or creator of a series. New works set within that universe are ostensibly constrained to be consistent with pre-existing canon, though the issue is somewhat complicated by several factors: pre-existing canon itself may also be subject to
retconRetroactive 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"...
, for instance, and some licensed works, such as movie or television
novelizationA novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
s or
spin-offA spin-off is a new organization or entity formed by a split from a larger one, such as television series based on a pre-existing one, or a new company formed from a university research group or business incubator...
novels, may not be considered "canonical" by some. Additionally, adaptations of a work into other formats, such as
feature filmIn the film industry, a feature film is a film made for initial distribution in theaters and being the "main attraction" of the screening...
or
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
, may be considered either non-canonical, or forming a separate canon; and consistency with prior canon is not sufficient in and of itself to make a work "canonical" -
fan fictionFan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
, for instance, often follows the original pre-existing canon but is not part of the canon.
Origins
The word "canon" originally referred to the books which the
ChurchChristian Church and church Christian Church and church Christian Church and church (Greek kyriakon, "thing belonging to the Lord"; also ekklesia (Latinized as ecclesia, "assembly") are used to denote both a Christian association of people and a place of worship. In the phenomenological sense there...
officially chose to be included in the Bible (see also:
canon lawCanon law is the body of laws and regulations made by or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
); by extension, it can be taken as referring to the authoritative (albeit metaphorical) "holy writ" of a fictional universe. However, the practice of defining a "canon" in terms of a fictional world likely derived from the concept of a
literary canonThe 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...
, a specified collection of works considered to be both representative and the best of a particular form,
genreA genre 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...
or
cultureCulture 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...
. In that more common use of the word, works forming a canon do not have to bear any strong relation to each other, apart from their perceived high quality or historical influence.
The specific use of "canon" to describe the degree to which a given work adheres to the standards of its fictional world appears to have originated amongst devotees of the
Sherlock HolmesSherlock 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 British author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
stories, as a way to distinguish between the original works of
Arthur Conan DoyleSir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle,
DL was a British physician and writer, 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...
and adaptations of those works or original works by other writers utilizing related characters and settings. However, much of the interest in and controversy over issues of "canonicity" have appeared in recent decades in the
fan followingsA cult following is used to refer to a small or large group of fans that are either somewhat or highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture.-Cult media:...
of films and television shows, such as the
science fictionScience 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...
franchisesA media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...
Star WarsStar 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...
and
Star TrekStar Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series.The original Star Trek was an American television series, created by Gene Roddenberry, which debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons, following the interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Federation...
.
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-offA spin-off is a new organization or entity formed by a split from a larger one, such as television series based on a pre-existing one, or a new company formed from a university research group or business incubator...
television shows, prequels and books, contradicts earlier material. Such contradictions may be a result of poor research, or an attempt to revise, or correct a perceived error in, earlier material (see also:
retconRetroactive 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"...
). The question is which material to favor 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
revisionistWithin historiography, that is part of the academic field of history, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
model in which the latest work always supersedes earlier material. However, the situation can be much more complicated.
Nature of fictional canons
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 UniverseThe term Expanded Universe is generally used to denote the 'extension' of a media franchise with other media...
s" are not considered canonical; by analogy with the idea of a canon of
ScriptureScripture is that corpus of literature deemed authoritative for establishing doctrine within any of a number of specific religious traditions, especially the Abrahamic religions.Such bodies of writings are also sometimes known as the canon of scripture...
(see
Biblical canonA 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...
), such stories are considered "
apocryphaIn the context of fiction Apocrypha includes those fictional stories that do not belong within a fictional universe's canon, yet still have some authority relating to that fictional universe. The boundaries between canon and apocrypha can often be blurred....
l". However, there are exceptions. In the case of the
Star Wars canonThe 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:- History :...
, the Expanded Universe is canonical, though open to interpretation in a way which the "gospel" of the films is not.
Doctor WhoDoctor 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...
, 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 labeled as
Doctor WhoThe Whoniverse is the fictional universe in which Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and other related stories take place...
canonical.
In addition, a story can belong to two overlapping canons. One of the most obvious examples of this is
Philip José FarmerPhilip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....
's
Wold Newton familyThe Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of crossover fiction developed by the science fiction writer Philip José Farmer...
. Some (but not all) of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes,
TarzanTarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by fictional great apes, who later returns to civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
,
Doc SavageDoc Savage is a fictional character originally published in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. He was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L...
, 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. KingLaurie R. King is an American author best known for her detective fiction. Among her books are the Mary Russell series of historical mysteries, featuring Sherlock Holmes as her partner, and a series featuring Kate Martinelli, a fictional lesbian San Francisco, California, police officer.King's...
's novels of
Sherlock HolmesSherlock 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 British author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
and
Mary RussellMary Russell is a fictional character in a book series by Laurie R. King, focusing on the adventures of Russell and her partner and, later, husband, an aging Sherlock Holmes. Most of the novels are told in first-person retrospective from Mary Russell's point of view. Locked Rooms is the exception,...
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 EraStar Trek: The Lost Era is a series of novels that take place during the time period between the 23rd century events of the film Star Trek Generations and the first season of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, set in 2364....
novel set between the movies and
The Next GenerationStar Trek: The Next Generation is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Created about 21 years after the original Star Trek, and set in the 24th century about 80 years after the orginal series, the program features a new crew and a new...
features a younger version of a character introduced in a
Deep Space NineStar 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...
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: EnterpriseEnterprise is a science fiction television program created by Brannon Braga and Rick Berman and set in the fictional Star Trek universe created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s...
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).
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 JosephFranz Joseph was an artist and author loosely associated with the 1960’s American television show Star Trek. Joseph is perhaps best known for his 1973 Star Trek Blueprints , to date the only set of blueprints of the original Starship Enterprise ever officially endorsed by Paramount Pictures,...
and FASA Corporation. These books were considered canonical at the time (some even made with the explicit approval of Gene Roddenberry), sanctioned by
Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is a Worldwide 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 world's oldest existing American film studio; it is also the last...
, 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 ManualThe Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual is a fiction reference book by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt about the workings of Starfleet, a military, exploratory, and diplomatic organization featured in the television series Star Trek.Although it is fiction, the book is presented as a collection of...
, would be considered non-canonical in 1995.
In recent years, complications have been created by the increasing popularity of supplemental
web contentWhile 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...
appearing on
network'sA 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...
show sites. Deleted scenes and
webisodeA 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 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 already established...
series, produced by the
studioA 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...
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. TolkienThe 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...
with relation to
Middle-earthMiddle-earth is an imaginary place which is the setting for most of the stories of author J. R. R. Tolkien. These stories include The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings...
; also items such as interviews, Internet chat sessions, and websites (
e.g., the website of
J. K. RowlingJoanne "Jo" Murray, OBE , better known 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...
in relation to the
Harry PotterHarry 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...
series). This usually only happens in cases where all works in the universe have the same author.
In almost all cases,
fan fictionFan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
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| influenced =| website = http://www.ericflint.net/}}Eric Flint is an American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his main works are alternate history science fiction, but he also writes humorous fantasy adventures....
's
1632 universeThe 1632 series, also known as the 1632-verse or Ring of Fire series, is an alternate history book series, created, primarily co-written, and coordinated by historian Eric Flint...
; in February 2000, fans and other established authors were invited on the Internet forum Baen's Bar to shape the
multiverseParallel 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...
, and the fan-fic, once vetted, is itself published in the various
Grantville GazettesThe Grantville Gazette is the first of a series of professionally selected and edited fan fiction anthologies set within the 1632 series inspired by Eric Flint's novel 1632...
, 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
Japanis an island country 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...
ese-produced video games,
mangaManga consist of comics and print cartoons , in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century...
or
animeis animation originating in Japan. The world outside Japan regards anime as "Japanese animation". Anime originated about 1917.Anime, like manga , has a large audience in Japan and high recognition throughout the world...
) 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
Macrossis 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...
and
RobotechRobotech 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...
franchises.
See also
- Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared universe created in the 1920s by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term Lovecraft Mythos is preferred by some — most notably the Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi....
- View Askewniverse
The View Askewniverse is a fictional universe created by writer/director Kevin Smith, featured in several films, comics and a television series; it is named for Smith's production company, View Askew Productions. The characters Jay and Silent Bob appear in almost all the View Askewniverse media,...
- The Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis
- Bible (writing)