Devil's advocate is the best part of online conversation! :)
I've always held the anything not in the original show -- books, games, comics, radio shows, etc. -- are "optional canon" at best. You can take it or leave it, and no one can force you to accept it as canon. Word of God is just another form of optional canon, with even less clout, honestly. It's also far less satisfying. Like in your other fandom. Redeemed off-screen at a con? Not hardly enough. (Was it Buffy? Which character? 'cause I can think of two off the top of my head that didn't satisfy me, but I haven't watched in a long while...)
Of course, the problem always comes in when fandom at large embraces some factoid and you personally don't want it, or don't feel you should have to accept it. Or you just want to write a story that ignores it, even if you like the optional interpretation in general.
(See it here in Torchwood. Someone writes a story that mentions how many people survived Canary Wharf and everyone recites the number from the website, 27 I think. But what if you want to write a story with 100 survivors? Or four? You shouldn't have to warn for AU, it's not mentioned in canon. Oh, fandom.)
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Date: 2011-08-16 04:16 pm (UTC)I've always held the anything not in the original show -- books, games, comics, radio shows, etc. -- are "optional canon" at best. You can take it or leave it, and no one can force you to accept it as canon. Word of God is just another form of optional canon, with even less clout, honestly. It's also far less satisfying. Like in your other fandom. Redeemed off-screen at a con? Not hardly enough. (Was it Buffy? Which character? 'cause I can think of two off the top of my head that didn't satisfy me, but I haven't watched in a long while...)
Of course, the problem always comes in when fandom at large embraces some factoid and you personally don't want it, or don't feel you should have to accept it. Or you just want to write a story that ignores it, even if you like the optional interpretation in general.
(See it here in Torchwood. Someone writes a story that mentions how many people survived Canary Wharf and everyone recites the number from the website, 27 I think. But what if you want to write a story with 100 survivors? Or four? You shouldn't have to warn for AU, it's not mentioned in canon. Oh, fandom.)