How far should canon be respected?

Hot Cross Bunny – 1948 – Warners – McKimson

Before a crowd, a doctor attempts to show his new creation by switching the mind of a chicken and a rabbit. The rabbit is Bugs Bunny. The doctor is a man. The chicken is not Foghorn. The results are funny.

Wild and Wolfy – 1945 – MGM - Avery

This wolf cartoon, set in the Wild West (while watching it, I was actually surprised at how many parts of it would be used in a cartoon featuring Yosemite Sam) has a few moments weak bits (mainly, having trouble deciding if it wants to have a plot or not). But it was a sign that Avery was finally getting back on his feet when he moved to MGM. So there are some funny moments (like the wolf's first robbery), and a rather amusing ending.
By the way, the version I'm linking to has been adjusted from the original release. This cartoon was released during WWII and first joke appeared on the wanted poster, which offered an "A book" used for rationing as an option besides the money. There used to be a copy of that version on the web, but I think it's gone thanks to copyright.

Donald’s Snow Fight – 1942 – Disney – King

After their uncle wrecks their snowman, Huey, Dewey, and Louie seek revenge, which snowballs into a snowball fight complete with a fortress and battleship made of ice. Donald’s behavior is of course incredibly childish (he’d have to be in he wanted to wreck his newphew’s snowman), and the whole thing is really silly when you think about it. But despite some forced gags, I still enjoy.

Motion Painting No. 1 – 1947 – Fischinger

Of all the films I’m probably going to link to, this is probably the one that work for the least. So let me start with some warnings. If you’re looking for an animated film with gags, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for one with characters or plot, try some place else. If you’re for animation where you can at least tell what everything is suppose to be, you know the drill. This is an abstract film, and an interesting one.

Oskar Fischinger was a German filmmaker, who after securing funding, set about to create a film set to the music of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. Here’s what’s interesting, Fischinger did the entire thing with paint on glass (and if that glass became to crowded, he put another in front of it). Because of that nature, it meant he had absolutely no way of knowing how his film would look until he completed it.

Such technical aspects aside, the film itself is little tricky for me to explain. It starts slow at the beginning (although, I still found this part interesting) and at times it becomes too repetitive or too cluttered so you don’t know what’s happening (and will probably get bored).

The real good stuff comes in the close to the end of this eleven minute film, where Fischinger’s painting slowly starts to take a life of it’s own (I’m not kidding, there are parts where the paint feels alive, it’s frightening) and he starts to abandon his more fixed shapes with pleasing and moving circular forms of a variety of colors. I had forgotten how strong that ending was when I rewatched it, but seeing it again reminds me that there are more ways to get emotion out of audience besides just characters and plot. So if you feel you can handle that, then by all means try it out. I wouldn't recommend it if I thought it was bad.

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Just for Sidekicks

Episode didn’t start out to my liking. The only gag in the intro were basically Spike mindless eating his gems (which is certainly in character) causing him to scream (which is not funny in any way shape or form).

I think the rest of the episode might have suffered from having a little too much to do in the amount of time given. Angel aside (it’s interesting how the show keeps changing the number of pets Fluttershy has), every other pet becomes obedient with Spike a little too darn quick. Okay, Owlowiscious, I can buy because he lives with Spike, and maybe Tank, but Opal, no way, that cat has a bad temper, Winonia, nope, I’ve lived with dogs, they don’t follow orders as instantly as you might think, Gummy, that gator is a known biter (admittedly, he is torpid at times). Plus, the episode did raise a few questions such as how long were the main cast at the crystal empire because it seemed really short (in all fairness, this one popped up after I started writing), does Applebloom really have no experience with taking care of Winonia, and really, a gem that small will buy an “industrial hair dryer” (if they’re that valuable and that easily accepted as currency, I’m amazed that Twilight (who also would seem to enjoy the taste of them) doesn’t lock them away to keep Spike from eating them or that Rarity’s store isn’t broken into more often (actually, a fanfict with a gem smuggling subplot (“Blood Gem”) could be rather interesting); and really an “industrial hair dryer”, that was a bad gag (where the heck do they plug that thing in)).

But to be honest, I liked this episode. It wasn’t great or anything, and it certainly will never be one of my favorites. But I never questioned any of the characterization for the show’s main characters. And it did make me laugh. Spike getting hit in the head by Tank, yeah that made me chuckle; Zecora “tricking” Spike was amusing (Zecora: “I want to donate something today, but nothing that’s mine I will give away. Instead, a gem from Spike to cure his bad luck, he’ll believe it, for he is a dumb cluck”). Angel’s constant attempts at messing with Spike were amusing. And even though Spike having to constant give up the gems was an obviously unsubtle attempt at showing his greed getting the better of him, I did like how he ended up back in square one.

Again, it wasn’t a great episode, but I did enjoy myself.

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Gobbling and other Traditional Pursuits

I’ve said before that I do like reading fairy tales from a culturally perspective. However, as I said in my piece on the Old Stories, I’m always a little concerned when reading such stories for a fictional culture. Most fairy tales aren’t very good stories by themselves, with their give and take attitude towards plot and characters, and rather ham-fisted morals. So I was a little concerned when I looked at “The Gobbling and Other Traditional Pursuits” by Lady Moondancer (and looking at her user page, I see that Continuum is not loaded on her Fimfiction account and she hasn’t online for weeks, which makes me sad that it’s abandonment has been confirmed).

I think by far the strongest of these tales was the first one, Geode and the Nightmare. Moondancer said that Baba Yaga (the great Russian hag, “House of brown, now sit down”) was a source of inspiration for this, and it made me smile seeing Nightmare Moon play the part. Honestly, it would actually work as piece of folklore. Everything from Nightmare Moon singing part of her plan, the heroine occasionally singing to live another day (although no parts rhyme, so, it’s not good on that front), the writing itself, the repetition, even the way the heroine solves her dilemma (slightly dark); it just seemed to nail the style of such classic folklore wonderfully. Granted, like a lot of fairy stories, it does feature a heroine who is wise beyond her years, but its part of the package. As a story itself, there are some humorous bits but there’s nothing really surprising nor are any the characters really engaging. Again, this isn’t deep or thought provoking, it’s a light read and I enjoyed it.

The next one, “Two Sisters and the Spirit of Strife” features a race between everyone’s favorite master of chaos (before they murdered him) and two princesses (none of which are named). I want to point out now that neither sister is really in-character as far as canon goes. That’s fine for this kind of story but I do feel it’s worth pointing out. As for the story, I don’t really find it that interesting

I can’t really say the same thing of the final two. Both of them more or less direct copies of other tales (rather disappointedly), and probably because of that, they had me scratching my head of why they were included considering they had little to do with the show. It was for the fourth that I enjoyed the least because I had read that story (the third one was new to me). The third one could have used any species besides ponies (its also dark, as the author warns ahead of time; not that fairy tales are necessarily pleasant, but this one takes it to another level), while the fourth uses a coyote for a character, and while there is a little mythology about why certain things are as they are, I still wondered what it doing in this group. Not that either of had a bad moral or a bit truth to them, but third one just pounded its moral without any logic at the end, that I found it unbearable.

So, I can say that I enjoyed the first story, and at least found the second one okay. The other two, I personally, wouldn’t read again.

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I mentioned last week that I was going to pretend that the episode where the staff murdered my favorite character never existed along with much of season three. Outburst aside, I do have to wonder how much of canon a writer should really pay attention to or how much they can even deliberately ignore. I’m not saying that every or even most aspects of the show should be slighted, if you’re going to write a fanfict about Twilight Sparkle, you better make sure that the character is actually, well, Twilight Sparkle. And to be honest, while there are a few AU fanficts I like, I do question why the writer didn’t just create their own characters (but that’s another story). So, canon should be respected, but what parts?

I think we should start by asking the question, “What is canon?” Simple right, it’s what appears in the show, kind of like what happens in other TV shows and other works. Well, I don’t think it’s that simple. Let’s look at the Simpsons, and Homer’s drunk buddy, Barney. The episode "Mr. Plow" says that Barney was first introduced to alcohol by Homer when he was a student studying for the SATs and that started his alcoholism. However, a later episode “She Used to Be My Girl” says that it was because Barney’s drinking problems are due to his girlfriend leaving him, after high school was over. So which one is canon; as both were presented, only one of them can be right. And that happens a lot of in the Simpsons, as the show goes on, the writers change, there’s just too much previously stated that contradicted for the sake of humor. What about creators who changed what was in their works, such as Lucas and Tolkien? Lucas may not be the best example because plenty people (myself included) say that “Han shot first,” but I positive that most people accept the revised version of The Hobbit and how Bilbo got the ring. And if the show contradicts itself on something, is okay if a fanfict writer does the same?

Now there are certain things that are in really no danger because they are explained or always shown to be true to in the show. For FIM, the main characters live in Ponyville, Equestria’s capital is at Canterlot and is located on a mountain, clouds are produced in Cloudsdale and are used to bring rain where needed, the movement of the sun and moon are controlled by Celestia and Luna, respectively. These “neutral facts” are ones that pretty much everyone agrees on and if one does contradict them (as a few have), an explanation is owed. So, we go agree that such stuff probably shouldn’t be tampered with. But it goes beyond world building.

What about characters? Certainly, there are universal aspects to them and we can also tell who they are. But as always there’s a bit grey to that. What really happens is that we come in with generally expected views of the character, but due to a variety of things, they may be widely different. I remember a piece on this blog that complained about the portrayal of Scrooge’s rival, Flintheart Glomgold in Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck (a true published fanfict in the worse sense). The issue was that Rosa presented Glomgold as Scrooge but evil, but the blog’s owner pointed out that contradicted the character’s first appearance in Barks’ “The Second Richest Duck”, where two money-lovers are shown as no more devious than the other and found the characterization to be overall flat. As one reader suggested, the reason for Rosa’s decision was that in he might have read Barks’ third and final use of the Glomgold character in “So Far and No Safari” first, where the character is nothing more than and out and out villain and therefore that defined who Glomgold was to Rosa (I don’t know myself because I haven’t read that particular story, but I’ve read “the Second Richest Duck” and I can back up that Glomgold is no more a dirty cheater than Scrooge in that comic book, and Rosa’s story definitely shows Flinty as a despicable weasel in ways Scrooge isn’t, but then again I’ve never liked Rosa’s work to begin with). Face it; first impressions can really make a difference (I remember the old pre-48/post-48 debates on the now defunct GAC forums).

In addition, as is point out here (I really recommend, no require that you read this before you go any further, but don’t click any of the links there), characters were changed all the time between the difference mediums. And in the same one as the Barks example above showed. I can go further, take Daffy’s first appearance in Porky’s Duck Hunt and then look at him in Rabbit Fire. Besides the fact that the two black creatures that resembled ducks, they barely have anything in common.

Bugs is also a good example, in fact he might be a better example, because he has no generally agreed upon first appearance. Like pretty much every character created at the time, there was no belief amongst the crew that Bugs would be a hit and just created him because they needed a rabbit for that role. One could argue that the unlike the above, the characters in MLP were more or less defined at the start. But so were a lot TV characters from the Simpsons to All in the Family, and their personalities have also been changed or even expanded upon. Those shows also have lasted a lot longer, supposing FIM goes on for say, three more seasons, I suspect that the characters will be different than from what we remember.

Plus, no one has the same view of what is canon as everyone else. There are people who try to make every single line of dialogue and word from the staff somehow make sense even when they shouldn’t and then there are people who take a “there is no canon but headcanon” approach. Myself, I disavow pretty much any sort of “Word of God” (it’s just my belief that creators change their opinion way too many times and that if something is so important to be “fact” then they should tell us in the work themselves) and accept only certain attributes that I feel are going to be universal, and reject most others because there’s usually an out-universe explanations for things that I feel makes more sense (Celestia and Luna aren’t princesses because there’s a king or queen above them nor do they live in a castle because their used to be siege warfare, they’re called princesses because Hasbro feels that queen has a rather negative connotation amongst young girls thanks to Disney, and they live in a castle because where else does fictional fairy-tale like royalty live). As Mark Evanier explained in the article you should have read, most of the time, people who write, draw, and create don’t intend to have much of what they do accepted as fact. They do it because they’re trying to create “good” stories, because they think, “hey, E. in Wile E. Coyote stands for Ethelbert because that’s a funny sounding and embarrassing name and it would be a great gag.” That’s probably why Barks wrote Glomgold so differently in his stories, and why characters in the Looney Tunes changed over the years. They’re concerned with being entertaining, and not with keeping things consistent besides things like the “neutral facts.”

And now to return back to whole point of this incredibly long piece, is a fan within his or her right to reject certain parts of the show given all the above? I think I can say yes, but what I still don’t know is what parts are safe to neglect. I think a lot of minor things can ignored without consequences, but a whole episode, no matter how bad it is or as much as I want to, I don’t think I can. But what if something in between those two extreme gets in the way of a good story idea and I don’t what to use AU tags? Again, I don’t know. As Lucas showed, being the actual creator of a work doesn’t give one immunity from backlash in messing with canon (give it time, though, and people will probably come around to accepting his changes as the “real” version of Star Wars). Should we accept the “Air Bud principle” aka “there’s no rule that says that a dog can’t play basketball” as allowing “there’s nothing in the show that says Twilight doesn’t have a sister, she’s just on awful terms with her other two siblings and that’s why she wasn’t invited." What if the show states something that goes against something in a work in progress, is one obligated to change it? If the characterization of a character is so bad that we find it a contradictory mess, is it okay if we replace it with our own (I've read some people (including a well-respected fan writer) say they were going to ignore Luna's show portrayal and I know I take a different stance on Celestia than most people do)?

Is there no right answer and you can do whatever you want depending on how well you distract your audience so that they don’t notice what you’ve done? I mean there is no objective measurement of quality, and we're stuck with inter-subjective ones that are vulnerable to majority opinions or even the unquestioned opinion of a few that has since become fact-esque.

What is everyone else’s thoughts? What is okay to disregard and what should never be messed with? I’m curious. Canon is after all highly subjective, and I don’t think I have the right to be the only voice on it.

“So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view.” ~ Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master and Champion Bullshitter

Comments

[Inquisitor M]

Hmm. I would say the important distinction is to separate respect for canon from being bound by canon. While I wouldn't necessarily suggest simply ignoring the stuff we see in the show, I think any author who wants to ignore certain nuances in order to tell their story is better off doing so than struggling to make everything fit. After all, the show's writers clearly can't be arsed to make their own characters consistent, so there are many cases where staying entirely true to canon is nothing short of an oxymoron.

I don't think there's a limitation on how much you can get away with changing. Instead, I think it is simply a matter of considering the reasons why you want to change/ignore certain features and events, how your readership will likely respond to it, and whether it adds anything to the story being told. As long as it's not a matter of laziness or making a story difficult to understand, I say throw out whatever you need to. Based on season three so far, you'd be hard pressed to do worse that the people getting paid to make this stuff up...

(I didn't dislike this episode, which puts it alongside Sleepless in Ponyville for me, and they're the best in the season from where I'm sitting)