Canon or Canons: What's Canon and how can I change it?

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Title: Canon or Canons: What's Canon and how can I change it?
Creator: Lee Burwasser
Date(s): September 2001
Medium: online
Fandom: The X-Files
Topic:
External Links: Canon or Canons: What's Canon and how can I change it?
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Canon or Canons: What's Canon and how can I change it? is a 2001 essay by Lee Burwasser.

It was posted to the X-Files website Working Stiffs in roughly early 2001 very shortly before the author's death.

The website table of contents titles it: "What's Canon and how can I change it?" The title on the essay itself is "Canon or Canons."

"Preliminary Caveat: this discussion must inevitably touch on certain issues that have given rise to controversy and occasionally to heated argument. Here, however, they will be discussed rationally and decorously."

Some Topics Discussed

Excerpts

I. Historical Overview

Fanfic in the sense of "the further adventures of Whosis" is as old as storytelling. Today's institution of fanfic goes back to the 1920s, when science fiction fandom was first getting organised in the United States.

There are several peculiar notions about fannish institutions that would be cleared up by realising that these institutions began in a village, a community small enough that everybody knows everybody, or at least have friends in common. In this fannish village, the line between fan and pro was at first blurred, and after it firmed up, the pros that commonly interacted with fans were more village elders than a separate caste. The rules are not legislated but evolved, and for the most part based on fannish concepts of courtesy.

Fanfic did not originate (as is so often stated) in media fandom. It first came to J.Q. Public's attention as an institution of media fandom, but originated among fans of pulp magazines and later, paperback books. The emergence, and the volume, of media fanfic in the 60s was one of the two major shifts in the institution of fanfic. The other is the emergence and the volume of online fanfic in the 90s.

Media fanfic began with the Star Trek Phenomenon in the late 60s and 70s. Until then, there wasn't enough movie or TV science fiction worth the effort. With Star Trek, there was a tremendous influx of Star Trek fans into general science fiction fandom, which finally catalysed the separation into the print camp and the media camp, each with its own daughter institutions. Just as the names suggest, the media camp is fans of science fiction and fantasy that originate on the big or little screen (plus their print-format "tie-ins") and the print camp is concerned primarily with science fiction and fantasy that originates in books and/or magazines. It's clear at a glance that the two had a common ancestor, but equally clear that they are distinct. One of the differences is that media-camp fanfic is far greater in volume.

STAR TREK CANON

Early Star Trek fanwriters described their work as "writing your own episodes," which meant fitting into the show as a whole (with some exceptions I'll get to later). Star Trek had the best story continuity of its time, which isn't really saying much, but ST continuity was really good. Not perfect -- what is? -- but very seldom was their the storyline equivalent of the hero shedding a tan trenchcoat for the martial arts scene and re-donning a grey sportscoat afterward.

Most TV series could manage this with just a weekly log, because most TV series had a familiar background: the real world. An historical series might need a basic reference book or two on the era. Star Trek had not only fictional characters, but fictional places and fictional cultures with fictional histories, all of which had to come out of someone's head. Instead of a simple log, Star Trek had The Star Trek Writer's Guide, with descriptions of the two star empires, the Federation, Star Fleet, et cetera.

Naturally, the aired episodes did not stay precisely with the Writer's Guide. Vulcans, for instance, were at first called "Vulcanians," and Klingons evolved from cardboard villains to a fleshed-out opposition with their own background and even some virtues. But the show stayed for the most part consistent and congruent. And the aired episodes were CANON; fan-written stories were consistent with the show-as-aired, or they were uncanonical failures. You might deliberately write a story that clashed with an aired episode (see below), or of course a story written during second season was bound to clash with the episodes aired during third, but if your story clashed through ignorance, carelessness or laziness it marked you as a clumsy wannabe, not a fanwriter. If you started carrying on about your "interpretation" or your "creativity," someone would tell you to come back when you were ready to study your craft.

But since the aired episodes don't cover everything, the Writer's Guide is a secondary canon; use it as long as it agrees with, or doesn't differ from, the primary canon, the season-as-aired. There is in addition a tertiary canon: pronouncements of people like Gene Roddenberry and Dorothy Fontana, who are or were authorities on ST scripts and story. Just as the secondary canon is overruled by the primary canon, the tertiary canon is overruled by the primary or secondary.

(No Internet back then, so none of today's wholesale information exchange. Not enough people knew about the scenes/lines shot but edited out and the scenes/lines scripted but never shot to make a difference. Today, such would be tertiary canon from the start.)

An example of the tertiary canon is the discussion by Dorothy Fontana of the script "Johanna," which was originally supposed to be McCoy's backstory. It was to bring out his divorce, and "Johanna" of the title is his daughter. She's old enough for Kirk to flirt with, and McCoy does not like this. The script was changed so completely that the version that finally aired was -- are you ready? -- "Way to Eden." I kid you not. But since there is nothing left of "Johanna" in "Way to Eden," Ms Fontana's discussion of it is *not* contradicted by the show-as-aired, and is therefore tertiary canon. Fanwriters can follow it if they like, or ignore it, just as they prefer.

DEPARTURES FOR A REASON

On occasion, a fanwriter would deliberately go against canon for a particular reason -- usually satire. When this is well done, it is clear that the violation of canon is deliberate, and what the reason is. When it is badly done, it more closely resembles violations from ignorance, carelessness, laziness, or some combination.

However, one reason for appearing to violate canon is not in fact violation: sexual realism. Despite the network censors, does anyone believe that over 400 people shut up in a ship for five years will do nothing more intimate than play chess? The Writer's Guide actually covers Star Fleet contraceptive policy, but the network censors allowed nothing on the air that was more suggestive than a certain scene with Kirk pulling on his boot. (Which is in fact pretty explicit, but only for those who can recognise an allusion in context.) As with "Way to Eden" and "Johanna," since the primary canon (the show-as-aired) has nothing and says nothing about the subject, fanwriters are free to go to the secondary canon, which does.

In addition to sexual realism, there is sexual unrealism: to wit, slash. This is completely uncanonical, but a very popular subgenre. The writers generally post warnings, so readers who don't care for it can easily avoid it.

Satirical stories, or stories criticising an episode or something about the show as a whole, usually do violate canon in some way. Or else reduce it to absurdity, like having the captain canonically beam down with his entire senior staff to an unsecured landing site on an unknown planet, whereupon the local yeomen wipe them out with a couple of flights of arrows. The only survivors, of course, are the redshirts.

To repeat: a deliberate divergence from canon, if well written, is clearly divergent for a reason. Literate readers will have no trouble telling this from failure to abide by canon because of ignorance or carelessness.

ONLINE FANFIC

The second major shift, online fanfic, began with another influx in the 90s, the rush of non-technonerds into the InterNet. With everybody and his uncle Netsurfing, fanwriters naturally got into the act. At first, online fanfic appeared on mailing lists and newsgroups.

Today, the Google/Deja listing of the alt.tv* hierarchy shows ten groups whose names end in *creative (the standard fanfic newsgroup name), one ending in *fanfic and one in *mstings; two of the *creative newsgroups have subgroups named *creative.mature, and one has a tangle of groups with *subtext permutations. The Star Trek fanfic newsgroup is in the alt.startrek* hierarchy (a.st.creative), and has a subgroup *creative.erotica which has its own subgroup, *creative.erotica.moderated. And not all mailing lists are tied to newsgroups; no telling how many of those there are.

Later, as everybody and their uncle began setting up their own websites, the fanwriters got into that act, too. Fanfic sites abound; they've joined into webrings. Yahoo lists a hundred shows with fanfic webrings, and that's just theirs. With hardware becoming ever cheaper, there are even fanfic web site hosts.

Don't think for a minute that hardcopy 'zines are gone. Some of them advertise on the Net! But the heavy action has shifted online, if only because it's cheaper. Editors of hardcopy 'zines have to buy ink, paper and the use of a copier; 'zines that are snail-mailed to subscribers cost postage as well. It costs no more to post a story to a newsgroup than it does to lurk.

II. Canon and X-Files

One of the first TV shows with a strong online fan base was The X-Files. The cyber equivalent of word-of-mouth (word-of-keyboard?) is credited with keeping the show alive through first season. There are five XF newsgroups listed today in Google/Deja, all in the alt.tv* hierarchy: the main group, three subgroups and one sub-subgroup. XF is one of the shows with a *creative.mature newsgroup, though it's hard to say what could be more explicit than some of the NC17 fanfics posted on alt.tv.x-files.creative.

Again, don't forget all the mailing lists and websites, the latter including archives, personal sites, rec (recommendation) pages, and pages of links. The Yahoo listing I mentioned earlier has six XF fanfic webrings, with from two to thirty-eight sites. There's a lot of fanfic on the Internet.

EXCUSES, EXCUSES

Every show has viewers determined to defend everything about it, and X-Files is no exception. There are two common excuses offered for the failure of continuity:

1) "Picky, picky, picky!" Consistancy and continuity are equated with nit-picking. Who cares if Fox and Samantha's birth dates change from "Conduit" in first season to "Paper Clip" early in third? Who cares if Samantha's middle name changes, and then changes back in "The End" at the end of season five? Who cares if Scully lives in Annapolis or Georgetown? Naturally, the examples offered are minor and often insignificant; and there is no mention of the many significant inconsistancies.

(The inconsistency between the "Pilot" date stamp and those of the first season pretty much has to be forgiven, since the time lapsed between the filming of the pilot and starting to film the show itself make it well-nigh inevitable.)

For instance, how much emergency medicine does Scully know? In "Fallen Angel" (1st series) she assists an overwhelmed emergency room; in other episodes, she doesn't even know CPR. Either one can be justified, but not flipping back and forth. Is she the sort of person who would learn What to Do Til the Paramedics Arrive? or is she a pathologist, period? In parallel to this, Vince Gilligan makes Mulder a fairly fast draw and a crack shot, while the rest of the scriptwriters make him incapable of even hanging onto his gun. Which is he? the sort to visit the range weekly, or the sort to do last-minute catchup when requalification time comes around?

The several episodes in which Scully explains to Mulder things that Mr Psychologist ought to be explaining to Dr Pathologist are capped by "Terms of Endearment" (6th season). Agent Oxford-degree-in-psychology says, "I don't know, I'm no psychologist."

[much on this topic snipped]

III. Morgan and Wong

Time for more history:

The strongest episodes of the first season and a half of X-Files were written by the team of Glen Morgan and James Wong. Morgan & Wong episodes are consistent and congruent among themselves, and they go in for characterisation. M&W invented a lot of the supporting characters: Skinner, the Lone Gunmen, Captain & Mrs Scully and Melissa, Matheson, and X. They also gave CSM a persona beyond what he was originally hired for -- to smoke a cigarette. And they are credited with the Anima Shift.

This is an extension of the headstander technique: take some hackneyed stereotype and stand it on its head. Morgan & Wong took a series of gender stereotypes and switched them. The man is intuitive, the woman is analytic; the woman is the skeptic, the man is the believer; the man is more likely to cry, the woman more likely to swear; the woman slices and dices, the man turns green and sidles out of the autopsy bay. This gave the viewers the initial impression of a strong woman and a sensitive man -- and first impressions tend to last.

In the middle of the second season, the M&W team left to produce their own show. They returned to do some scripts for the fourth season, then became the showrunners for Millennium in its second season while Carter did both fifth season XF and the movie. Then they left again, this time for good. Or bad.

Some viewers cite fifth season (following the final exit of M&W from XF) as when X-Files started to go downhill. Some put it at third (following their first departure). Some got through seventh season insisting that all was well and the show better than ever. By eighth season, though, there was no denying that X-Files was in serious trouble.

Attrition from the audience has increased, and become increasingly vocal. Carter now makes a habit of bringing up ratings, insisting that eighth season is doing better than seventh, and critics accuse him of statistical slight-of-hand to make it look so. First fan reviewers and then commercial reviewers have become increasingly critical of the show as a whole. Viewers' discussions have become more heated, with accusations of childishness, prejudice, scapegoating and the like. And the fanwriters . . . .

IV. Alternate Canon -- at last!

Now we finally get to the Alternate Canon, or Mixed Canon, or M&W Canon, however one choses to think of it.

An important factor in understanding all this is that fanfic is not tied to the show that inspired it. People are writing Star Trek Classic fanfic to this day, three decades after it went off the air, nor is it the only case. So "attrition" means something different in fanwriting.

For one thing, there is always turnover. New fanwriters are always turning up, and old ones drifting away. People no longer have the time, or outgrow the taste, or simply find they're not wordmasters. Sometimes a former fanwriter will continue as a reader, sometimes just leave altogether.

Eighth-season attrition would simply blend into this, were it not that fanwriters are part of the vocal cohort. Perhaps there are nonvocals who do blend in, and who can't be sorted out from the normal turnover. We'll probably never know.

Now: What *is* the alternate canon?

In a nutshell, it's the rejection of 8th season *as* canon. The refusal to look to 8th season for events, characterisation, dialogue, and whatever else a given fanwriter depends on canon for.

It comes in varying intensities. There are those who just stop watching, and base their fanfic on earlier seasons. There are those who accept the events of 8th season, but refuse to base their characterisation or dialogue on it -- except, of course, for characters that exist nowhere else. There are those who accept only some of the events and reject everything else.

For that matter, there are people who extend this events-but-nothing-else to earlier seasons. Some reject characterisation and dialogue from 5th season onward, some take it back to 3d. From these variations, "alternate canon" can also be described as "mixed canon," with varying doses of standard and alternate.

And just where does the vocal part come in?

Sometimes, in the stories themselves. Satire is an ancient and honorable practice in fanfic. Sometimes the satire takes place entirely within the secondary, X-Files universe; sometimes the characters comment on their writers, or have it out with them mano a mano.

Sometimes it goes into the auxiliary matter.

Online fanfic doesn't start with just title and byline and then into the text; in a hardcopy 'zine, the editorial pages are attached to the stories, while with hypertext, the reader can stumble onto a story with no idea of its context. So the online story generally has quite a bit of front matter, both to cue the reader what kind of story it is, and to make the archivists' job easier. Not that everyone puts it all in -- that wouldn't be fannish -- but most fanwriters put most of it in. And a lot of them look for ways to make even the front matter reflect their own personalities.

While things like ratings and category and the like are seldom tweaked, the disclaimer attracts author personalisation. And of course there are authors' notes, both before and after the stories. Disclaimer and notes are most commonly employed to announce that the story in question does *not* follow season eight canon, but reverts to an earlier season, whenever the writer regards as Before X-Files Hit the Skids.

Some writers specifically invoke Morgan and Wong. While not all fanwriters are sophisticated enough to check the byline, it is common knowledge that the strongest episodes of the first two seasons were by M&W. When critics made nice on an episode in those early days, they almost never said who wrote it, but it was almost always Morgan and Wong. And some fanwriters simply declare that they are going to do the characters as Morgan & Wong shaped them.

References

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