How to Handle Canon

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Introduction

While the Canon page explains what canon is and how it applies to overall media, it only gives a small bit of clarity on how exactly our standards work. This page will go fully in-depth on how canon should be handled. While one can take this page as how we handle this on the wiki, it will employ things that should universally be used.

Things to Consider

Author's Intent

No matter what is said or how the media is handled, the author's intent will always override any other piece of evidence. If an author believes a work to be canon, even if it seems contradictory or no way for it to fit, then it fits regardless. Many would believe to simply apply Death of the Author to this concept, but as explained in the fictional universes page, this is not a logical fallacy nor officially utilized thing to "disprove" or "debunk" an author's word, it is a proposal that one can use and does not need to use if they don't subscribe to it. Thus it cannot be forced upon one.

Along with this, cases like these are pretty much impossible to simply throw away as "Death of the Author" as the author will always throw references, scenes, callbacks, etcetera, to whatever they deem canon, no matter how contradictory. An example of a contradictory canon/timeline can be seen with the Sonic Timeline, where there are many contradictions and weird placements, however, they are all overall apart of the same canon timeline and the games acknowledge such.

Though an author will normally attempt to make their canon or timeline as cohesive as possible, for most they will do what they want to be canon and not to be canon.

Retcons

While the author's intent will override pieces of evidence, their intent can be retconned by themself. An example of this is with the Castlevania Timeline where initially the Nintendo 64 Castlevania games were removed by Iga, however Cornell and his story showed up in Castlevania: Judgement, with Iga stating in an interview for Judgement that all of the heroes are pulled from different periods of the Castlevania timeline, showing it's officially considered apart of the timeline as this goes past the 2007 Konami Japanese timeline, as Castlevania Judgement was released in 2008. Here the same author retconned their intent, making games go from not apart of the timeline back to being apart of the timeline. Another example can be seen with the Devil May Cry timeline, where Devil May Cry 2 used to be the end of the timeline, but then it was swapped to be before Devil May Cry 4.

Eastern vs. Western Ideologies of "Canon"

The East has very different ideas of canon from the West. For this case, we will use Japan's idea of canon and how it differs from the West. Ideas such as canon and filler are not really as discussed in Japanese media, with contradictions just being accepted as "they happened" and the fans moving on from there. This is interesting as "filler = non-canon" came from Western anime fans believing this is how it's handled. However, as we can see, this is not the case.

Handling Canon

Accept Contradictions

This is the hardest thing for people to do when discussing canon, and it is accepting contradictions. They will believe that something automatically cannot be canon because contradictions exist, but many authors do not think this way. Using Devil May Cry again, they put the anime into the timeline, and completely changed the skin color of Morris, going from white to black. Despite how much people will point this out and try to use this as a point to the anime not being canon, the main creators and studios do not care for this and will keep going.

The most important thing that comes first is the want to tell a story, and sometimes the story that an author wants to tell can't be told in its current form due to what characters are doing, but they want this to be a canon story, so they will just ignore this and make a canon story that has contradictions or plot holes with the other works. However, at the end of the day, this does not affect the quality of the media as fans would believe.

While contradictions can be used to show why something doesn't fit, if an author or writer notes the work is canon then one must accept the contradictions.

Separate Headcanon from Canon

Many fans would like their headcanons of how the canon works to be the way it is, being disappointed with the actual way the canon is. A popular example of this is the Zelda Timeline where fans will claim the timeline was just randomly thought up for the Hyrule Historia and that there was never an actual legitimate timeline in mind, a pretty in-depth document here can be read that dictates how it's clear however that it was always thought out from the start. The reason fans normally do this is to try and allow their headcanon to meld into the canon, creating a point where they believe their headcanon to be the canon interpretation of how something works.

Ironically enough an example of this is the wiki itself, as the Codex Statistics section is heavily headcanon based on using the canon and interpreting ideas or concepts from it not directly said. Though we acknowledge the Codex Statistics is headcanon and not the true canon, we are in fact, separating headcanon from canon.

Spin-Offs do NOT mean Non-Canon

A pretty popular misconception among many fanbases is that spin-offs or "Gaiden" works are non-canon by default. While it is true that sometimes a spin-off can be non-canon, this is not the default. All a spin-off exists as a side story that doesn't focus on the main plot of the world. An example of this would be Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, this is a spin-off work as it's not a typical Link, Zelda, and Ganon Zelda story, but instead introduces a completely new world and villain with new powers and different plots. The triforce is barely brought up in the game, the Goddesses that created Hyrule are barely mentioned, instead only mentions of a figure known as "The Goddess of Time", and more. It would be ridiculous to say this game is not canon, however, this game is a spin-off. What does this mean? It means spin-offs/side stories/gaidens are not non-canon works by default.

Reasonability

Sometimes there should be some reasonable ideas in a work. Some people will go out of their way to argue that something isn't officially stated to be canon or a part of a series thus it cannot be a part of a series. An example of this can be seen with the Megami Tensei series, where there will be people who will argue the YHVH seen in SMT IV cannot be connected to the YHVH from SMT II. Another example from this series is that one cannot say Megami Tensei is a part of the same multiverse as Shin Megami Tensei. Both of these are claimed because they're never "officially said".

However, there's a time when reasonability should come into play. Megami Tensei as a whole is a multiverse, these are all works made by the same company and they will have references and callbacks to each other. Why bother arguing these cannot be connected until said instead of considering that maybe it simply does not need to be said? There's no real reason to say something obvious. Shigeru Miyamoto would never need to come out and tell people that Super Mario Bros. on NES is canon, because this is just something simply acknowledged.

This is when fans take the canonicity of a series far too seriously to the point that they are demanding things that are frankly ridiculous to expect.

Conclusion

Overall this page is here to explain how to evaluate canonicity in a universally helpful way. There will be updates over time as there are more in-depth concepts to explain.