VMars

I was impressed.

( Spoilers )

Repeating What I've Been Saying Forever, Again

Context: What is Canon?

So, what is canon? Or, to phrase it differently (and, IMHO, better) what does the term "canon" mean?

None of the traditional definitions of "canon" apply: it's not a bunch of books considered (by people) to be Holy Writ (as in the Bible canon), or a bunch of books written by one person (Shakespeare's canon), or belonging to an era (the Modernist canon).

There is only one definition that makes any sense to describe Buffy: a bunch of works assumed by fanfic writers and other fans to include information about a fictional universe [or else, and I prefer this usage, the actual set of facts about the fictional world, but its clear in this discussion that canon=text]. It's us (we, if you want to get prescriptivist) who are doing the assuming. It's a term that makes absolutely no sense outside the context of the fanfiction community, or at least outside the context of people who like to imagine a coherent fictional world (which is basically the same thing, except maybe not written down), to play "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?" (Admittedly, Joss falls into the category of people who(m?) we would want to think of the Buffyverse as a coherent fictional world, and he has every right to have his own opinions of what he thinks is canon or not.)

As such, the question of "what is canon?" using canon in this fanfic sense falls very clearly into the hands of the relevant interpretative community, i.e. fanfic writers and other Buffy fans, to be negotiated among them.

X-posted to whedonesque.

*

What I conveniently neglected to mention at whedonesque is that in the canon negotiation process going on within an interpretative community, "What Joss says, is canon" is a perfectly legitimate rule to adopt, because there is (after all) no wrong way to respond to a text. That said, I don't like that particular response and am glad there's no real worry that this corner of Buffy fandom (i.e. my flist) is going to adopt it, regardless of what scores of whedonesque posters might think.

But, argghhh! The queer metaphysics (and in philosophy, unfortunately, "queer" isn't a good thing) of some of the "Joss said it" people is really approaching Platonism in its absurdity. Buffy is inside his head screaming to get out. Yes, she is also in mine but not because she lives there rather because Mr. Whedon put her there? I mean, really. This idea that there is One True Buffyverse (O imagine it sort of floating pristinely in the Platonic Heaven, maybe all compact like the Bottle-City of Kandor?) and only Joss Whedon has access to it . . . well, can anyone convince me that it's not utterly absurd?

And that's what it comes down to, I guess. I'm a post-structuralist, so it makes sense to me that canon would be infinitely constructable. But I suppose I should fear pity for those folks who have to have their One True Meaning.

*thinks about how this world has been frakked up by fundamentalists*

No, I really shouldn't.

( ETA )

Into the Woods: "Beauty in the Dark" (Cinderella/the Witch)

Title: Beauty in the Dark
Fandom: Into the Woods
Pairing: Cinderella/The Witch
Summary: Their beauty doesn't matter in the dark.
Word Count: 266

( Beauty in the Dark )