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

[Phoebus]

I’m in an awkward position wherein I think continuity (in terms of moving forward, if not previously published works) is both desirable and achievable given the technology available today, but I’m nonetheless accepting of the “loose canon” approach of the Warhammer 40K setting. I generally don’t mind contradictions or retcons in the sense that a setting evolves and creative minds should be encouraged to improve their shared sandbox. On the other hand, I do believe there is an obligation to maintain continuity and cohesiveness where self-contained storylines are concerned. In that sense, I understand and sympathize with readers who were frustrated by Horus Heresy numbered novels that did little to advance the heresy, presented chronological conundrums, and so on.

[bluntblade]

I think it's more a matter of when the demand for canon and things to go on a Wiki becomes the primary want from readers.

[Scribe]

Short Answer? No. It is not 'toxic' to desire an internally consistent world or setting. This critically does not remove the scope for interpretation and character view's that are contradictory.

 

Something, can be multiple things, to multiple individuals, and those things can be contradictory.

 

Talos, well he had a particular view on the Night Lords.

Xarl? He had a different view.

 

Just because those views do not align, does not mean one (or both!) are non-canonical.

 

The Emperor? Well...he fights Horus. He defeats Horus. He then sits in a Golden Throne for eternity.

 

That (as of this writing) is Canon. That is not up for debate, and it is not 'toxic' to expect that basic foundation level truth's of a setting, are canon.

 

When it comes to something like 40K, the setting is shared. It is what allows us to have an understanding of expectation and experience that adds to the whole. If I turn up to a game and drop down this https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/d1m92m/hello_kitty_chapter/ then...I'm sorry but thats not respecting the setting. The canon is part of it.

 

This entire section of the forum is useless if you can simply say 'nah, that didnt happen, I dont care what novel X says'. We have of course many examples of 'head-cannon' but as someone who does that as well, its tongue in cheek, its simply how some of us get by with aspects of the lore (aka: canon) that we personally find offensive.

 

No, a desire for canon is not toxic. It is what enables a shared experience, allows for community growth.

 

If everything is a lie, or in doubt, or unknowable, where is the investment potential? Why do I care that the dream of the Emperor died in Master of Mankind? He wins tomorrow, because I say so.

[Roomsky]

I don't believe the drive for a consistent canon is a toxic trait, no.

 

Racism, sexism, gatekeeping, willingness to personally harass a creator, that is what makes a fandom toxic. These things may often appear to come from an obsession with canon, but it's really just because the person is racist, sexist, etc. 

 

I do think an overwhelming obsession with canon can be silly when taken to extremes, and more than anything I believe the first thing on any creator's mind should be telling a good story. The reason I dislike so much of the old Star Wars EU (our lord and savior Zahn excluded) is that "stories" would completely disintegrate in favour of strict adherence to canon, or a bunch of look-how-clever-I-am moments of things being unnecessarily tied together. I love the looser nature of 40k because I almost never see that happen, and when something like that is unavoidable authors have the decency to give us some unreliable / uninformed narration to sidestep the issue.

 

Of course I'm not saying authors shouldn't be aware of how the setting works, I've certainly spent much rage of things like the continuity error in Outcast Dead, but if everything enjoyable about a book can be accomplished in a detailed synopsis, it shouldn't exist. 

[DarkChaplain]

To draw a parallel to Star Wars, where the Disney acquisition led to a complete reboot of the expanded universe, with the promise that everything would be canon and consistent.... Star Wars started having contradictions real quickly, but most of all, the movies (TLJ and TRoS) ended up abandoning a lot of synergy with the novels and comics on their directors' whims, retroactively making a lot of plotlines, hints and buildup void, because somebody in the movie production chain decided to reinvent the wheel. Last I heard, even TRoS was recut heavily from what Abrams wanted it to be, and it shows the cracks in the setting's continuity.

 

Where Star Wars is off worse than 40k is that they promised story group oversight to make sure continuity was preserved, but then quickly started to buckle, look away or not bother actually enforcing things. They started dropping the ball more and more, to the point where they - in my eyes desperately - resorted to the whole "From a Certain Point of View" principle, thus effectively killing their story group canon mandate, and producing such canonical tosh as the aptly named From a Certain Point of View anthology for A New Hope's 40th anniversary, where 40 stories even within the same print volume warred with each other, and themselves, making it perfectly clear that even from a certain point of view, only one of the stories depicting a certain event in there could possibly be true, if even that.

 

It's a big can of worms that 40k avoids by virtue of being, well, bigger. Horus Heresy aside, 40k is not restricted to a relatively brief list of trademark characters, and even those that do appear as big figures have livespans far beyond those of Luke and Leia, and don't age in the same way, allowing for more space between individual appearances. While 40k has its iron rules of the setting, it is also vast enough as a setting, with troubled enough travel and communication, that you can tell your stories in as much isolation as you'd like, without the rest of the setting ever being tangibly affected. Star Wars is far more confined; everybody and their brother seemingly was on Nar Shadaa, the political oversight from Coruscant was far more direct than anything the High Lords could effectively enforce on a backwater agri world, and hyperspace jumps in Star Wars are basically instant, or barely as delayed as the author needs them to be to allow the crew to have a chat in-between fleeing from the Empire and arriving in a war zone. Warp travel is fickle and takes months, maybe years, with enough unreliability in planning and actually performing it that the subject matter of time and distance is approached fundamentally differently - and that distance, along with the long-lived nature of Astartes or Xenos, benefits 40k immensely to disperse its narratives. Unlike SW, a distress signal from Jedi Master XY won't reach the Jedi Council in real time, right then and there, but may end up getting ferried about by Astropaths and relays for years, making outside intervention into the unfolding story a rather unlikely prospect.

 

By which I am trying to say that 40k's scope lends itself far better to isolated stories than most other settings or franchises do, and its canon includes necessarily unreliable elements aplenty to ensure narrative independence for its works and authors. A lot of problems have arisen the past couple of years as well, but more due to at least a perceived abandonment of those core principles, allowing too many big actors to appear on short notice and populating warzones simultaneously, leading to trouble with the usual suspension of disbelief. But that's more the studio fluff, rather than Black Library.

 

In a sense, these unreliabilities in the setting also work as a failsafe for when continuity gets damaged; taking The Outcast Dead as an example, the timeline issue in particular, McNeill was able to use Wolf Hunt to point towards that discrepancy and - whether you think it effective, or dislike it - fix it by offering an explanation that plays directly on the unstable nature of the psychic/warp element within the setting. Dark Imperium had Haley reconcile a lot of seemingly contradictory timeline entries by utilizing the warped nature of time perception within the Imperium, the discrepancies in local calendars from one another, the warp timejumps etc, to break up 999.M41 into possibly centuries worth of adventures. It's not something to be used lightly all the time as "the warp did it", but "the warp" does indeed do "it" from time to time, and this get out of jail free card is a fully intentional and integral part of the universe.

 

In my mind, discussing canon in 40k cannot be done on the same terms as discussing that of, let's stick with it, Star Wars. While there's overlap between both, the fundamentals of how their canonicity functions and the core rules set out for each franchise are so different from one another, despite the whole adventures in space, starships, supernatural powers stuff, that their respective fandoms converse on quite different levels (I say from years of experience in both, including following ongoing conversations on reddit's StarWarsCanon sub). SW fans are often more concerned with reconstructing characters' narrative arcs and experiences, plugging gaps or drawing direct connections, whereas 40k is often more about interpretation of the material and trying to avoid outright contradictions between sources, or explaining them when they crop up, or collating material on specific (sub)factions and worlds, and wish for authors tackling their favorite color of Marines to be treated with respect to the pre-existing lore, while also being hugely welcoming of painting in the gaps with their own ideas (see: Robbie's Carcharodons, Fehervari's Angels Resplendent/Penitent (which a Codex directly contradicted for a bit, which had me fuming), or Josh Reynolds on Fabius Bile).

 

My perspective on the 40k fandom boiling things down to factoids is also one based on the hobby itself. Fans reduce stories down to core facts that they can adapt in their plastic army, get a cultural feel, you know the gist. The wikis are a natural extension of that desire to adhere to and incorporate these details into one's own forces. Sometimes those details will be ignored deliberately, rather than incidentally, because a veteran might disagree with an author's interpretation, but all those tidbits serve to visualize factions or characters within the hobby space as well. But none of this means that 40k fans aren't generally as keen to interpret, extrapolate and make up their own fluff to fit snugly between those established factoids, or in places to reconcile them with their own, often older ideas of their Chapters. From a certain point of view, this does not even remotely fit the label of toxic or reductive, or mean that fans disregard the literary value of the stories being told. If anything, it may even be considered the highest praise for those works to be influencing the hobby on a global scale, giving birth to new collections created by fans that sift their texts for factoids in a chase for authenticity.

 

 

And with that, I'm bowing out for now. This is what happens when the new neighbors figure it's a good idea to hammer nails into the wall my bed is hugging, waking me at 2-3am and killing my sleep schedule for the second concurrent week. It's nearly 6am, and they finally went to bed (I hope) so I get another few hours of naptime before the other neighbors decide to play journey to jerusalem with their furniture again. Good night, I hope my ramblings were somehow coherent and offer food for thought.

[b1soul]

@ Roomsky

 

"I don't believe the drive for a consistent canon is a toxic trait, no.

 

 

 

Racism, sexism, gatekeeping, willingness to personally harass a creator, that is what makes a fandom toxic. These things may often appear to come from an obsession with canon, but it's really just because the person is racist, sexist, etc.

 

 

 

I do think an overwhelming obsession with canon can be silly when taken to extremes, and more than anything I believe the first thing on any creator's mind should be telling a good story."

 

Yes, desire for internal logical consistency is certainly not "toxic" behavior in and of itself. Arguments that it somehow is, to me, smack of deflection to cover up editorial sloppiness.

 

A toxic fandom is a fandom that goes about voicing its desires in an uncivil and harassing manner.

[Donkey Kong]

@ Roomsky

Yes, desire for internal logical consistency is certainly not "toxic" behavior in and of itself. Arguments that it somehow is, to me, smack of deflection to cover up editorial sloppiness.

 

A toxic fandom is a fandom that goes about voicing its desires in an uncivil and harassing manner.

 

Henry Cavill has a good take on passionate fans.

 

40k doesn't have a canon, so outside of a contained series by a single author (e.g. Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts or Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Night Lords), I don't expect continuity. I didn't know that going in to the Horus Heresy series back in 2006, and I happily flew through the first five books until I hit Descent of Angels, which I didn't like. Then I picked up Legion because maybe Descent of Angels was a fluke. Hot take, I didn't like Legion. Then I picked up Battle for the Abyss, which has its own reputation. Then I picked up Mechanicum, which I also didn't like, at which point I finally stopped caring about staying on top of the series. Since then, I've picked up maybe a handful of Heresy books only after verifying that they were worth the investment.

 

Meanwhile, I still picked up The Anarch even though I haven't particularly liked any of the previous books in The Victory arc because I want to see where the story goes.

 

The advantage of having and respecting a canon or continuity is that there's something to get invested in. Maybe the story isn't great or the prose isn't inspiring in this installment, but the plot will progress and I want to see how events unfold. Maybe the next installment will be better. If there is no canon or continuity, I can't get upset when something that I thought was canonical is contradicted, but I also don't have that baseline expectation to motivate me to keep going.

[aa.logan]

It’s weird, an article that is overtly about people being unable to settle for nuance or ambiguity in a piece of fiction, preferring instead to discuss canonical absolutes leads to a discussion where people are picking holes in the meaning of a term that isn’t really the thrust of the text...

 

The leap the author makes below is a pretty startling one-

 

“ Like I said, discussing canon can be fun, it can add a lot to a series!

 

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.”

 

Shifting from a potentially verifiable stance- there more focus on ‘facts’ than on narrative, story rather than setting in lots of online cultural discourse- to one that is much harder to prove- that this is linked to all the (undeniable) nastiness that circles around the discourse.

 

In doing so, the article kind of manages to prove its point? Or something? I’m not sure, I’m sleep deprived and am writing sentences so long I can’t remember how they started, but I think there is the kernel of *something* in what I’ve just typed...

[Scribe]

 

@ Roomsky

Yes, desire for internal logical consistency is certainly not "toxic" behavior in and of itself. Arguments that it somehow is, to me, smack of deflection to cover up editorial sloppiness.

 

A toxic fandom is a fandom that goes about voicing its desires in an uncivil and harassing manner.

 

Henry Cavill has a good take on passionate fans.

 

40k doesn't have a canon, so outside of a contained series by a single author (e.g. Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts or Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Night Lords), I don't expect continuity. I didn't know that going in to the Horus Heresy series back in 2006, and I happily flew through the first five books until I hit Descent of Angels, which I didn't like. Then I picked up Legion because maybe Descent of Angels was a fluke. Hot take, I didn't like Legion. Then I picked up Battle for the Abyss, which has its own reputation. Then I picked up Mechanicum, which I also didn't like, at which point I finally stopped caring about staying on top of the series. Since then, I've picked up maybe a handful of Heresy books only after verifying that they were worth the investment.

 

Meanwhile, I still picked up The Anarch even though I haven't particularly liked any of the previous books in The Victory arc because I want to see where the story goes.

 

The advantage of having and respecting a canon or continuity is that there's something to get invested in. Maybe the story isn't great or the prose isn't inspiring in this installment, but the plot will progress and I want to see how events unfold. Maybe the next installment will be better. If there is no canon or continuity, I can't get upset when something that I thought was canonical is contradicted, but I also don't have that baseline expectation to motivate me to keep going.

 

 

What is 'canon', the meaning of the word to you, if 40K does not have it?

[Donkey Kong]

What is 'canon', the meaning of the word to you, if 40K does not have it?

 

I like definition c : a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works

 

When I say that 40k has no canon, I'm reiterating an official statement.

 

 

 

"Keep in mind Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are worlds where half truths, lies, propaganda, politics, legends and myths exist. The absolute truth which is implied when you talk about “canonical background” will never be known because of this. Everything we know about these worlds is from the viewpoints of people in them which are as a result incomplete and even sometimes incorrect. The truth is mutable, debatable and lost as the victors write the history…

 

Here’s our standard line: Yes it’s all official, but remember that we’re reporting back from a time where stories aren’t always true, or at least 100% accurate. if it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it.

 

Let’s put it another way: anything with a 40K logo on it is as official as any Codex… and at least as crammed full of rumours, distorted legends and half-truths.

 

I think the real problem for me, and I speak for no other, is that the topic as a “big question” doesn’t matter. It’s all as true as everything else, and all just as false/half-remembered/sort-of-true. The answer you are seeking is “Yes and no” or perhaps “Sometimes”. And for me, that’s the end of it.

 

Now, ask us some specifics, eg can Black Templars spit acid and we can answer that one, and many others. But again note that answer may well be “sometimes” or “it varies” or “depends”.

 

But is it all true? Yes and no. Even though some of it is plainly contradictory? Yes and no. Do we deliberately contradict, retell with differences? Yes we do. Is the newer the stuff the truer it is? Yes and no. In some cases is it true that the older stuff is the truest? Yes and no. Maybe and sometimes. Depends and it varies.

 

It’s a decaying universe without GPS and galaxy-wide communication, where precious facts are clung to long after they have been changed out of all recognition. Read A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M Miller, about monks toiling to hold onto facts in the aftermath of a nuclear war; that nails it for me."

- Marc Gascoigne, former Black Library General Manager

 

And Marc hasn't been contradicted yet. So, yes, maybe you and I and maybe everyone else we ever speak to about Warhammer 40,000 can agree that there is an "Emperor" and an "Imperium" and a "Warp" and "Chaos Gods" and "Orks," and any other number of concepts. But, so what? I doubt we'd all agree on every detail. How tall is a space marine? Can an Imperial Guardsman take an Ork in a fight? How many Chaos Gods are there? What about Malal?

 

Let's agree that there is an "Emperor," his Empire is called "The Imperium of Man." The Emperor has 20 "Primarchs" who are, for want of a better word, his sons. One of his sons is "Sanguinius." Sanguinius is Primarch of the "Blood Angels Legion" of "Space Marines." I don't think any of that is too contentious. Now, what color is Sanguinius's hair? Because every official picture I've seen shows him blonde. A Thousand Sons says his hair is black. Maybe Sanguinius dyes his hair. And anyway what business does anyone have telling you or me or anyone else how they should be playing with their toy soldiers?

 

As far as the official word is concerned, Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader, The Horus Heresy Book One - Betrayal, Gathering Storm, Ian Watson's Space Marine, Dawn of War, C.S. Goto's Dawn of War, Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie, Astartes a Warhammer 40,000 fan film project, If The Emperor Had A Text-to-Speech Device, those Hello Kitty Marines in your post, whatever, it's all equally canon. Yeah, I completely agree that having a conversation where at any given point you or I can point to one source and the other can dismiss it with "not my canon" sucks, but that's the official statement. I can say Betrayal, Watson's Space Marine and Astartes fan film are awesome, and Gathering Storm belongs in a dumpster fire next to C.S. Goto's Dawn of War, the Ultramarines Movie, and Hello Kitty Marines. Meanwhile, someone somewhere is having a blast with their Dornian Heresy Nurgle Blood Angels.

[bluntblade]

It's not really a matter of wanting canon and expansions to that, as per the original article. It's when that becomes the main desire and the primary way in which people approach culture: the I Clapped Because I Know 40K/Star Wars/LotR phenomenon.

 

I've seen that referred to as the Ready Player One Fallacy, wherein accumulated knowledge matters more than what it means. This can lead to scenes being denounced as pointless because they're not necessarily moving the plot forward, when they're absolutely key to the story.

 

That's where the toxic angle comes in, particularly where new female fans of a franchise are concerned in my view. I've made many discussions of a film series where my admission that I've seen the original installment maybe a dozen times each and only really love the middle ones was taken as evidence that I don't know what I'm talking about. No matter how profoundly some of the new films affected me.

 

That is what Ready Player One inadvertently represents: the gatekeeping aspect. You haven't done enough homework to be in the club. Heck, this even went meta in TRoS by accident or design.

 

This also dovetails with the rise of an approach to criticism founded solely on logic and plotting (a la Cinemasins) and solely literal interpretations. Which is how you end up with Looper videos about Annihilation, whose own director says it only functions as metaphor, which act as though the personal drama will be followed by an alien invasion movie because they don't see what the Shimmer represents.

 

I think 40K has some demarcation lines with the big franchises, however, in that players have all the facts and stuff as part of a creative toolbox. Because the fandom has a much larger "transformative" wing. Also the only real gatekeeping I've seen has been in the game so far, unless you count the "AD-B broke the Emprah's character" lobby.

Edited April 26, 2020 by bluntblade

[b1soul]

"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"

 

I don't think the craving itself is toxic. Is such a craving eccentric or obsessive, yes...but is it "toxic"?

 

What does toxic even mean? To me, toxic refers to treating other people in a demeaning/uncivil manner.

[Bobss]

 

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.

 

 

I don't really have an opinion on how 40k canon works to be brutally honest, mate - I think that whole discussion would make me more jaded than going into real estate on Medrengard. All I'm interested in is something that is pleasant to read or play or otherwise engage with. That's all I ask for. I know which authors I like and which authors I don't like; I know which editions I like and which editions I don't like; I know which artists I like and which artists I don't like; but you will never catch me in a canonicity debate claiming My X is canon and Your Y isn't canon. I've probably read 100+ Black Library books, but my personal collection is barely 30-40 tomes. There's a reason for that: I cherish the things that I love; but I happily accept those that I don't

 

What I was (badly) getting at is how newer breeds of fan (in my, totally subjective and alarmingly anecdotal experience) don't seem to engage with source material or 'shop around' for information as much as older fans used to, and as a result fail to build an organic understanding of the IP and don't construct their own views, opinions, stances and preferences - all of which I think is, legit, sad because 40k is a top-tier IP. I mean, look at the braying herd demanding the Lost Legions be revealed - as if there's anything to actually reveal when the whole thing exists for a hobbyist purpose. Taking it even further this is why we're seeing so many discussions of newer novels turning into lore bulletins, instead of 'I love Abnett's snappy dialogue  ' or 'Wraight made me well up again  ' or 'did ADB just? Oh snap he did  ' For example, there's several hobbyists I know quite well who base their entire opinion of The Master of Mankind on that one, fateful spoiler thread on Reddit in late-2016, and have never read it. Sad!

[Marshal Rohr]

If someone only reads the wikis their outlooks and takes on the settings aren’t really going to matter. Just like people who read Wikipedia pages on black holes aren’t going to be able to understand black holes as well as a scientist. Edited April 3, 2020 by Marshal Rohr

[DukeLeto69]

Wow what an eloquent and polite band of brothers we have on B&C. Great discussion.

 

I think the “loose cannon” approach of GW is rooted in two things:

 

1) 40k is a game setting that over the years has seen the lore expanded by additional media. However, it remains a sandpit for ppl to play toy soldiers in. It always had that “open narrative so you can invent your own army etc” approach and that permeates everything.

 

2) “Loose cannon” is a perfect get out of jail card when GW editorial/IP staff mess up (which is inevitable with such a huge setting with millions of words or lore/fiction and of course staff changes).

 

Personally I apply a large amount of head cannon anyway so never a biggie to me (except Outcast Dead).

 

What matters really (as others have already said) is how we as a passionate fandom debate and discuss.

Edited April 3, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[Xisor]

Of course I'm not saying authors shouldn't be aware of how the setting works, I've certainly spent much rage of things like the continuity error in Outcast Dead, but if everything enjoyable about a book can be accomplished in a detailed synopsis, it shouldn't exist.

Is this sentiment toxic to, or nurturing of shaggy-dog stories? I feel enraged and passionately conciliatory in equal measure, I hope you're happy.

 

@Phoebus, Bluntblade et al., I think your views are unified around the notes about, say, Chris Wraight's Mortarion.

 

Ideally, everyone would be approaching the Heresy with Wraight's apparent philosophy of breathing life into stuff. It doesn't need to be whole cloth creation or reinvention, but breathing a whole extra dimension or two does the trick beautifully..

 

He managed it with the Scars, but not only that, he made Mortarion come alive (only to be immediately made tedious again in Vengeful Spirit, resurrected in Path of Heaven, then sent back to the underworld in Burdied Dagger!), but also early-days sort-of hobbling along ideas, like Lord Commander Eidolon.

 

That sort of stuff isn't a work of mere continuity or transformativity, but sort of getting into the epheremereal thematics of things.

 

And I think it's those things being neglected that have hobbled my enjoyment - but worse: have been outlets for me to be toxic about.

 

Not quite cause/effect, but intertwined certainly.

 

My rage (echoing that mentioned by Roomsky on The Outcast Dead), has often been a touch.. Untethered. (Unhinged!)

 

But that's nothing next to the joys.

 

I suppose that's part of the problem, it's easier to nitpick than it is to wax lyrical.

 

A lot easier.

 

I'm not sure, however, that there is a "drive" towards this. Flame wars have raged down the decades now, and vicious letter writing campaigns longer still.

 

As others have said, there's something in the human condition here afoot.

 

And I don't think platitudes like "we all enjoy different things" quite get to the heart of it either.

 

Not because they're helpful or not, but because they distract.

 

I think what's needed is a sort of two-step translation.

 

I need to understand my own complaint/praise/stance on a work, or at least communicate it in a wya someone else can grasp it...

 

But I also need to leave enough books in it for other people interacting with that view to be able to decode it - not only my stance on things, but some of the other opinions/preferences that influence why I enjoy something, or what I'm getting out of it.

 

Once those two "aspects of hottake" are there, any other person viewing it can unpick it and interact with it, themselves, their own view, and whatever thing we're all looking at without... Misunderstanding? Whatever that toxic element is, people can sidestep the problem and carry on with the useful information about thoughts/feelings/observations without hampering their expression.

 

It's - I suppose - adding a dimension of "meta data" or "context" to whatever random thing I'm raging about on the forums.

 

When that's in place, other people can take/leave it as they please.

 

But without it? At best, it's easily ignored and skipped over.

 

At worst, it ruins someone's day, or ends up conveying the "wrong" idea about some detail.

 

Entropy'll slip in at some point, but there's no need to surrender to Chaos just so you can skip to the end.

 

And we all know that it's people who skip to the end who're the really toxic enemy here.

 

Sarcasm

 

?

[Donkey Kong]

It's not really a matter of wanting canon and expansions to that, as per the original article. It's when that becomes the main desire and the primary way in which people approach culture: the I Clapped Because I Know 40K/Star Wars/LotR phenomenon.

 

I've seen that referred to as the Ready Player One Fallacy, wherein accumulated knowledge matters more than what it means. This can lead to scenes being denounced as pointless because they're not necessarily moving the plot forward, when they're absolutely key to the story.

 

That's where the toxic angle comes in, particularly where new female fans of a franchise are concerned in my view. I've made many discussions of a film series where my admission that I've seen the original installments maybe a dozen times each and only really love the middle ones was taken as evidence that I don't know what I'm talking about. No matter how profoundly some of the new films affected me.

 

That is what Ready Player One inadvertently represents: the gatekeeping aspect. You haven't done enough homework to be in the club. Heck, this even went meta in TRoS by accident or design.

 

This also dovetails with the rise of an approach to criticism founded solely on logic and plotting (a la Cinemasins) and solely literal interpretations. Which is how you end up with Looper videos about Annihilation, whose own director says it only functions as metaphor, which act as though the personal drama will be followed by an alien invasion movie because they don't see what the Shimmer represents.

 

I think 40K has some demarcation lines with the big franchises, however, in that players have all the facts and stuff as part of a creative toolbox. Because the fandom has a much larger "transformative" wing. Also the only real gatekeeping I've seen has been in the game so far, unless you count the "AD-B broke the Emprah's character" lobby.

 

I won't comment on The Rise of Skywalker or Ready Player One since I haven't seen and/or read them and have no desire to. And while I haven't seen Annihilation yet either (that one is on my short list though), you brought up an interesting point about authorial intent. The article OP posted says "there cannot be death of the author, if the author's got their own fandom wiki."So, does authorial intent overrule death of the author if the author unambiguously explains what they meant to say? Or can we still analyze and discuss a work in and of itself and safely ignore another source? Is there a reason we can't have both?

 

DarkChaplain brought up Starship Troopers earlier in the thread. I also love both the book and the movie, however different they might be. Heinlein's Starship Troopers is a civics lecture featuring Power Armor. Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is an sci-fi action blockbuster with an underlying commentary about how fascism is bad, fundamentally misinterpreting Heinlein (authorial intent from the behind the scenes). Is there any particular reason why it's wrong for me to enjoy Verhoeven's Starship Troopers while ignoring his spin on the source material?

 

The other thing is that Annihilation, Edge of Tomorrow, Starship Troopers, and any number of other stories are their own works. They're not beholden to any larger continuity, so they're free to do whatever they want. Mass accelerators are cool. That scene in TLJ featuring light speed ramming was genuinely really pretty and good spectacle. It's also a fundamental misunderstanding of how FTL travel and Hyperspace have worked in Star Wars up to this point. Hence, the community at large asks why wasn't this done before? Tying back to the OP, when working in a shared universe that has established rules, I don't think that it's unfair or "toxic" to expect those rules to be followed or to be upset when they're not.

 

Is "the "AD-B broke the Emprah's character" lobby" about how the Emperor appears differently to everyone he speaks to in Master of Mankind? Is that the crazy spoiler?

 

I don't really have an opinion on how 40k canon works to be brutally honest, mate - I think that whole discussion would make me more jaded than going into real estate on Medrengard. All I'm interested in is something that is pleasant to read or play or otherwise engage with. That's all I ask for. I know which authors I like and which authors I don't like; I know which editions I like and which editions I don't like; I know which artists I like and which artists I don't like; but you will never catch me in a canonicity debate claiming My X is canon and Your Y isn't canon. I've probably read 100+ Black Library books, but my personal collection is barely 30-40 tomes. There's a reason for that: I cherish the things that I love; but I happily accept those that I don't

 

Oh, it's definitely jaded me on 40k. But, there's part of it that's liberating too. If studio sanctioned and official authors are not beholden to one another, then I'm not beholden to any of them either. I don't want or need Spear the Psychic Pariah or Perpetuals or a labor union at the Helsreach docks. There's an "Abnett snappy dialogue" scene in, I think, The Guns of Tanith, where the Ghosts are getting ammunition for an upcoming attack and the ammunition packs they're getting aren't compatible with their lasguns. The dialogue is good, I laughed, but I fundamentally didn't like it because why is the ammunition different, it's the Guard, everything is supposed to be standardized. Worst case scenario, why aren't the Tanith recharging the ammunition packs that they presumably already have? At least a couple people in this thread have thrown praise on Master of Mankind, and I like Master of Mankind too (I like most of the characters, I like the M. C. Escher-y Eldar City, the dialogue's good, the battles are cool). But, the overarching story in Master of Mankind sucks because it means that the Emperor of Mankind has spent the last five years sending his best soldiers to hold an impossible beachhead against infinite enemies. If he's supposed to be acting irrationally because he's clinging on to his magnum opus, he's not shown acting irrationally enough. So, I ignore it, or I think "how would I fix this." 

 

And, while I'm sure you may not have had a conversation that verbatim went "My X is canon and Your Y isn't canon," I doubt you've never had a conversation about conflicting interpretations of what things are or how they're supposed to work, and then you talk about your preferences. Maybe you even make a convincing argument or are brought around to a different point of view.

 

e.g.

Hey, dude, I'm building Salamanders and I'm confused about what it means when it says they're "charcoal black," any input on that? And then you talk about whether you prefer Salamanders to look like fire giants with charcoal black skin and bright red hair or if you want them to look like they're from the old Armageddon book with more African features and that cool blonde cut Wesley Snipes rocks in Demolition Man.

 

Hey dude, in this Dawn of War cinematic, the Blood Ravens lose a Predator, a Dreadnought, and most of a Tactical squad to what looks like a couple mobs of Ork boys. I think the Space Marines aren't being portrayed as strong enough. Or, the opposite side of the spectrum, one of the comments on the Astartes fan film says I think that the marines are being portrayed as too powerful, look they're shrugging off shots from an autocannon and a multilaser.

 

I've heard people say that they think Fifteen Hours is a perfect portrayal of life as an Imperial Guardsman. I thought Fifteen Hours was incredibly dumb. Some people like it when the Imperium is portrayed as laughably corrupt, inefficient, and stupid. I like imagining that the Imperium is commanded by people who are frighteningly capable and competent and they're still struggling against a galaxy of opponents who are just as capable or hindered by their own inability and unwillingness to cooperate (Chaos and Ork infighting).

 

How are Commissars supposed to behave? When would a Commissar exercise their power to execute a soldier? Dawn of War (I think Black Crusade) features Guardsman "But sir I-." The Gaunt's Ghosts novel where they invade the chaos occupied planet in Traitor General (I think The Armour of Contempt), features a commissar leading a penal unit on probation (Hey, how do you feel about probationary penal units? I think Abnett called it R.I.P. or something like recruitment/ indoctrination/ punishment. Because I think that they're dumb. Why would the Guard have half measures like that) armed with a whip. He also shoots a guy for losing his helmet or his gun. Funnier still, even though I don't like the R.I.P. unit, that part of the book where Dalin lands on the beachhead is my favorite scene that I remember from that book with a tide of guardsmen advancing and a Titan crashing through a wall or a building blaring its foghorn.

 

A while back Watson's Space Marine was published with a Heretic Tomes brand to declare it "noncanon," presumably in part because it features Squats and a Zoat. I think Watson's Space Marine is one of the better 40k novels ever published. That Heretic Tomes label was also quietly dropped.

 

It's not necessarily a clean "everything in this book is garbage," but more of "I like this" maybe even "I like most of this," but "I think this part is dumb, I think it'd be better if it wasn't there or if it was rewritten." I'm sure that I could come up with plenty more and that everyone could come up with examples of their own.

 

 

 

 

The other thing about an expectation of continuity is that it's a baseline. I may not be particularly excited about the premise for a story, but if it weaves into the bigger picture, then I have a reason to care that I might not otherwise have. I think that people are willing to forgive a lackluster story or a sub par execution if there's at least something that's being added to the continuity. Example, I've seen most (say a little more than half) of the MCU movies in theaters. I saw Captain Marvel in theaters because a friend invited me and I wanted to be up to date for Endgame. If I was in marketing, I would be ecstatic to have a consumer base like that where I've got the benefit of the doubt and they're going to buy in for that baseline expectation. But, the tradeoff is that I as a creator have to meet that expectation. I bought Descent of Angels expecting a continuation from Fulgrim. I got a story about some techno barbarian knights on a feudal world where children slay monsters. I didn't get more continuity. I didn't get a story or characters or prose that I liked. I shouldn't have continued following blindly then and there.

[Scribe]

While I understand what you're saying the idea that a band of Night Lords did not wreck some havoc on some Astropaths, and have a run in with some Eldar, is absurd.

 

To suggest any of the founding 'truth' of the setting may or may not be true once there is an actual novel that details the events, makes a mockery of the setting.

 

'Nah Lorgar was never with Angron, Angron just woke up a Daemon Prince'. It's idiotic.

 

Again, I don't blame you, but it's a cop out.

 

If canon doesn't exist, this portion of the forum is worthless..

 

For them to even suggest as such is lazy.

[aa.logan]

If canon doesn't exist, this portion of the forum is worthless..

 

For them to even suggest as such is lazy.

See, this is maybe kind of the point of the article, aside from the fact that in 40k everything is declared canon.

 

If nothing was canon, we could still discuss the *content* of the books. You know, the narratives, character development and prose- the sort of things that distinguish novels from catalogues of models or rosters of battle. I’m more than happy to discuss BL books on their own merits- some stand up as ‘literature’, some don’t.

 

Canonity can be (should be?) secondary.

[b1soul]

Honestly, a good book is a good book, regardless of whether the IP owner declares it to be canon

 

I think we should also distinguish between the concepts of offcial canon and internal logical consistency

[Scribe]

 

If canon doesn't exist, this portion of the forum is worthless..

 

For them to even suggest as such is lazy.

See, this is maybe kind of the point of the article, aside from the fact that in 40k everything is declared canon.

 

If nothing was canon, we could still discuss the *content* of the books. You know, the narratives, character development and prose- the sort of things that distinguish novels from catalogues of models or rosters of battle. I’m more than happy to discuss BL books on their own merits- some stand up as ‘literature’, some don’t.

 

Canonity can be (should be?) secondary.

For tie-in fiction, you need consistency.

 

You need relevance to the wider setting.

 

You need a grounding, in which book A plays by the same rules as book B.

[bluntblade]

We're not saying that is bad. We're saying that these stories should have a greater raison d'etre than just filling gaps in the lore.

[Scribe]

We're not saying that is bad. We're saying that these stories should have a greater raison d'etre than just filling gaps in the lore.

 

If that is directed at me, I agree, completely.

 

What I'm saying, is that well, first not every book does. Even in the Heresy there are plenty of books that many have called filler. Is that toxic? Or is it just that expectations are not met?

 

I look at ADB's series. No major lore notes are hit. No major plot events in the wider 'meta story' and in fact the meta story we have now, did not remotely exist.

 

And yet, it is one of the most celebrated series, spawned pages of discussion, spawned hundreds of armies, fan art, fan fiction, speculation, and so on.

 

It is, without a doubt, part of the 'canon' of 40K, and yes, even outside of that canon, you can read the book and find meaning.

 

Not every 40K book does that, not even close, but those books are still part of the evolving canon of 40K.

 

--

 

There is canon. GW/BL may want to deny it, but that is like Wizards of the Coast denying the Secondary Market for legal reasons. They wont acknowledge it because it is not convenient (or for Wizards legal) to do so, but it exists.

 

The Emperor sits on the Golden Throne, and has for 10,000 years.

[Indefragable]

Very interesting topic which I will return to with more thoughts on.

 

My initial thought is that it is echoed in the various articles about "Is playing Xbox better without Achievements?" 

 

Hidden Content

For those unfamiliar, Xbox has "Achievements" (and I think Sony Playstation has "Trophies") that are essentially points you get for doing some task in a game. I.e. you might get 200pts for beating the story quest in the game or 10pts for slapping all the chickens in the village farthest northwest. No joke, there are some weird ones. But typically there would be a max of 1000pts worth of Achievements per game, so "completing" a game in some circles in fact related to getting all Achievements rather than actually beating the storyline or winning online or like...the actual intent of the game. 

 

As you can imagine, this lead(s) to all sorts of fan conflicts where someone who just beat the storyline wants to go talk about the plot or resolution and instead can only find guides on the most efficient way of slapping all the chickens in the northwestern most village. 

 

Even if the things the Achievements want you to do were not as distant from the actual game concept as that, the very notion of arbitrarily inserted "content" like Achievements distracts from the author's work is a core part of the debate. 

 

[Scribe]

Now that, is an interesting discussion point. :)