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| Crash Override wrote: |
| Having re-read a large bulk of the Star Wars "continuity" over a short expanse of time, I've come to the realization that "canon" or "continuity" is an illusion. It's an label created by Lucasfilm with absolutely no substance behind it. And it's worked rather successfully. If a story is applied the label of "canon" or "continuity," suddenly fans value it more highly than they would otherwise. And yet there's no difference between whether that story is "canon" or not, either for that story or for other stories. |
While I applaud your conclusion that it is largely an illusion, you are being way too absolute IMO. If what say here was true, PoD vs JvS or TCW vs EU CW wouldn't have caused fans to bat an eyelash. Details are what tend to be overlooked, and only with GL do those detail changes have large ramifications. That is a far cry from continuity not mattering at all.
Where I agree with the "canon is an illusion" line of thinking, is in the fact that theoretically, a creator can violate most anything created by the EU, and if somehow it isn't caught before release, it will pass through. More realistically, though, only small details, factual details that is, actually do so. The illusion lies in the theoretical extreme, not in the practical reality.
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| How often has a story had any significant effect on another story? |
Unless you set the bar really high for significant, I'd say that happens all the time. The recent Jedi: The Dark Side owes tons to the Jedi Apprentice series. The KotOR era, and by extension the TOR era, hinge on TotJ. By sheer grace of cronological closeness, I expect each novel of FotJ to rely on the last, and it on LotF, which in turn hinges on the NJO. I haven't read much of either series, but being as close as they are, I don't see how the turn of events in each can't depend completely on the last. This goes for every story part of a series anywhere in the EU, a fact that by itself answers your question.
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| There's no continuity between Jacen in the New Jedi Order series and Jacen in Dark Nest and Legacy of the Force.There's little continuity between those in general. There's not even continuity between Caedus in Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi, with his motives being completely different. |
You are talking about character portrayal here. Nothing we have ever known about the Holocron promised that something as subjective and multi-author unfriendly as character portrayal would be consistent from work to work. The very idea is frankly utopian. Continuity can't even maintain black and white facts on the detail level, so obviously any portrayal consistency is a mere courtesy.
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| Whether Anakin wore red pants or not is ultimately a matter of if it's in a story -- whether the story has a label affixed to it or not is relevant ultimately only as a fan valuation of the story. If Anakin wore red pants in "Anakin Skywalker and the Red Pants of Tatooine," but Anakin doesn't wear red pants in any other story and "Anakin Skywalker and the Red Pants of Tatooine" and its events are never mentioned again in any other story, does it matter whether the label of "canon" is attached to it or not? That fact is only significant for THAT story. There's no broader "continuity." |
I disagree. The given example is, granted, hardly applicable to any further discussion, but I probably won't catch you saying that anything of primary interest to a specific story won't ever matter to the larger universe or other stories. Hell, it is arguable that the very Jacen you mention fit our purposes here, once upon a time serving mostly as a macguffin for the reborn Emperor in DE. He sure has gone on to play quite the part in other stories. If your argument hinges on the piece of canon being as irrelevant as a literal pair of red pants, it isn't much of an argument to begin with.
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| The idea that there's a single unified, consistent "continuity" in which any single "fact" can be ascertained is generally just an appeal to authority as an arguing tactic in these sorts of discussions. "[K]nowing what is canon" is simply an attempt to legitimize a particular interpretation, and in the process derailing the actual discussion of each individual's interpretation. One doesn't need to familiarize his or herself with every single quote from George Lucas or Leland Chee in order to enjoy and form his or her own conclusions about a story that they read or watched. |
This segment is what I disagree most with, however.
First of all, that is a gross misapplication of the term appeal to authority. If citing fact from a divinely recognized (canon) source is an appeal to authority, anyone who ever cited empirical fact in defense of a hypothesis is guilty of one as well. That doesn't begin to fit an appeal to authority, which is the opposite completely.
That nitpick aside, I think I get the gist anyway: Since you think personal interpretation matters more than official sanctioning, obviously you would be critical of something as unrealiable as canon being used to validate one interpretation over another. I just don't see how you can think that highly of personal interpretation. If fans want to discuss, and they will, personal interpretations helps no one but the interpreter. Fine, canon isn't as perfect as we would like, not by a longshot, but personal interpretation is so weak an alternative that it doesn't even play in the same league. It answers nothing. So if one wants a more definite answer, canon is the way to go. The only way.
Not to mention that between canon and personal intepretation, the former has oceans more impact on future works than the latter does. There is no comparison. Frankly I read this argument as: "Option X isn't perfect, so option Y is superior even though it is even less perfect. Since both are imperfect, it doesn't matter which rules". It shouldn't be hard to see why I find that sentiment worthy of critique.
What is wrong with trying to legitimize one's interpretation? If the other party disagrees, he can put his fingers in his ears just as easily as when he was faced with mere opinion.
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| For instance, I'm not really invested in the Even Piell character, so I could not care less if he died at the Citadel or on Coruscant, and I'm not really waiting with baited breath for some sort of Lucasfilm clarification on the issue. |
Then dig up something that does matter to you, and imagine that the truth of that issue was somehow directly related to when Even died. If your opinion has now changed, can you still tell me it doesn't matter just because you don't happen to care about that aspect of the universe? Sounds like shoddy grounds for basing an absolute upon.
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| Discussing whether Anakin is the Chosen One allows numerous interpretations. Whether the label of "canon" is relevant to an interpretation is ultimately up to the individual, so discussing what is or isn't canon is only relevant to that interpretation. |
Agreed. And this in turn means that upon the premise that the fan in question does find canon relevant to their interpretation, as is usually the case when fans want to convince other fans of something, knowing the nature of Holocron continuity matters a great deal. Other fans can just bow out in disinterest, without that making canon any less important overall.
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I discuss to learn, not to win. Then again, learning enough tends to translate to victory in the end anyway.
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