Musings: Canon or Myth?

http://talefoundry.tumblr.com distinguishes between two different concepts of narrativity. They’re not really genres, though I guess you could call them meta-genres. In essence, they’re two different ways in which stories grow. These two concepts are Tale, and Myth.

Myth is defined as a story that originates from or changes through mimetic mutation.

Tale is defined as a story that follows an ‘archplot’ and (thus) adheres to classic design.

(...Inb4 “I’m in it for the plot” jokes.)

By this definition, stories like Bruised Apples or (hopefully) Freeville Chronicles would be Tales. On the other hand, what is known as the “FoE Canon” is essentially a collection of Myth(s). Keep in mind that “FoE Canon” not only includes the current stories in the old “canon”, but also the images, as well as the documents with “background information” from NCN’s group that Schorl made public in the wake of the Bruised Apples finale. Even most of the canon stories can effectively be sorted under Myth, because while they tried to be Tales, they ended up incomplete and full of plotholes, and are thus seen and used more as sources for mimetic appropriation than as complete stories. Similarly, what we’re currently doing with the Redux also essentially amounts to the collection and reimagining of Myths, not of Tales, and everyone involved in the Redux appropriates the existing myths differently. In other words, when it comes down to it, both the old canon and the Redux are a meme pool.

Now of course, Myth and Tale are often closely intertwined. Very often, a myth is comprised of (among other things) different tales. In case of the Redux, we deliberately set out to create a Myth, but with the creation of Tales that would spring from it in mind. We have to keep in mind though that discussion of “canon” is not the same thing as writing a story - discussion of “canon” is part of the process of creating the Myth, while writing a story is the process of creating a Tale. Why is this distinction important? Because when it comes down to it, a Myth complex is a essentially a meme pool. Anyone who crafts tales connected to a certain Myth takes from the meme pool what he can use for his Tale. Of course, this in turn re-shapes the Myth, since the Myth itself is the result of memetic circulation and mutation, and taking memes from the pool in order to use them in a Tale is obviously one way in which memetic mutation happens. On the other hand, a Myth is far more open than what could be called the “canon” of a Tale. A Tale has to be internally consistent, a Myth in this sense really doesn’t.

My point is that it might be more helpful to think of the Redux project as the creation of a Myth than as the creation of a “Canon”. When it comes down to it, a narrative “canon” can only be created by the process of writing a Tale itself, not by discussing about it beforehand, and it only applies to this one specific Tale (and potentially all those other tales who choose to commit to it - but that’s already mimetic circulation, and thus blurs into Myth). That’s also one of the things that went wrong in the old contributor group on a fundamental level. They thought they were creating a “Canon”, but they weren’t - or more specifically, the only one who actually succeeded to create a “Canon” was Schorl, because she created a Tale - but of course, as I said, this canon only applies to her own Tale. What the contributor group as a whole created was a Myth - a setting, or meme pool. Of course, they were never the only people involved in the creation of that Myth - everyone in the fandom participated in one way or another. NCN just took steps to attempt to make this Myth look like a “canon”, because he wanted exclusive control over the meme pool. These steps include, but are not limited to: Creating an artificial division between “canon” and “non-canon” without even being able to make the former internally consistent (his own contributors didn’t read each others’ stories for the most part). Creating a rift between FoE and Post-Fall. Trying to silence people who were using the Myth in a way he didn’t like. And so on. I may be wrong, but it seems to me this is the only way in which a Myth can be made to look like the “canon” of a Tale when no such Tale actually exists, at least in the context we're talking about here. Now of course, we in the Redux project don’t want to do these things - but so far, we still used to think we were creating a new “canon”. Maybe gathering the different elements of the Myth, presenting them and giving an overview over them, and then adding to the meme pool by creating new elements that might work better as narrative elements in Tales, would be a better aim for the Redux project.

Of course, that doesn’t absolve us from the task of creating Tales as well. For example, it doesn’t absolve us from asking what story and character arcs could exist during the time of the invasion. But it helps us to distinguish between two very different tasks that are both part of the Redux project, but still very different in nature. It will allow us to create a community that takes up the task of adding to the Myth and giving an overview over it and the task of creating a community where writers can find support from each other and the community for the creation of their own Tales. Each tale will also add to the Myth, but it won’t be restrained by it, because a Myth doesn’t need to be consistent. It’s just a meme pool after all.

Of course, in reality, Myth and Tale blur a lot more than it looks here in theory, and in very complicated ways. I already mentioned that fact. But distinguishing between the two aspects of Fall of Equestria can help us create better stories, better backgrounds for them, and a better community. Thus, thinking about Fall of Equestria as a Myth and not as a Canon might also help us solve the problems that have plagued the Redux community recently by helping us redefine the Redux’ purpose(s).