What is canon? Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (SPOILERS!)
Is it a book? Is it a play? Is it even canon?
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a new play by the BAFTA winning writer Jack Thorne, with JK Rowling credited as co-writer on the story. The play has been praised as thrilling, ground-breaking and a triumph.
But the script has received mixed reviews from fans.
Can the fans define canon? Or is that privilege restricted to the author? Is it still canon when an author licenses another author to write a story set in their world? Does it make a difference if the original author is overseeing the new story? Is a story only canon when it’s in the original genre – do only Harry Potter novels ‘count’, rather than the play or the films?
This is a discussion blog about the nature of ‘canon’ – and, inevitably, discussion involves SPOILERS. However, if you haven’t read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, feel free to use examples from Doctor Who. This is, after all, a Doctor Who site. đ
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@Mersey
Starting off the discussion: there is an argument that the play isn’t ‘canon’ because it’s in a different genre. However, that gets very wobbly indeed when the author has as much input as JK Rowling was able to get – she was, for example, able to delete Dumbledore’s ‘girlfriend’ from the movie scripts because she knew the Dumbledore in the books was gay. You can tell from Alan Rickman’s performance that he knows Snape is working undercover (especially in Prisoner of Azkaban).
So I’d suggest that it’s very difficult to argue that Cursed Child ‘has nothing to do with Harry Potter canon’, because it’s a story where the original author has been involved in story discussions, script discussions and rehearsals. It may be a story by another writer that she has licensed for her universe, but it’s just as much canon as – say – the Honorverse stories written by Eric Flint are. Because, again, the original author (David Weber) was involved in story discussions, in authorising new characters, in suggesting plot lines and in approving the finished story. The result is canonical (and the ‘canon’ established was used in later Honorverse books by David Weber).
I’d certainly say that it’s extremely difficult to argue about the canonical nature of a story from a plot summary. It’s like judging a book from the blurb – yes, you can use it to decide that you possibly won’t like the story. But you can’t make an absolute judgement on the quality of the story from the blurb, and it’s very difficult to judge a play from a quick summary. For example: ‘too much time travel’ – there are, as I recall, a total of four visits to the past, each of which affects the characters present. The Day of the Doctor zipped between Elizabethan England, modern day Britain and Time War Gallifrey – each of which affected the characters’ present AND past AND future. That was over 1 1/2 performance hours.
Cursed Child is three times the length of Day of the Doctor: 4 1/2 performance hours. What appears cramped together when you’re reading a plot summary is unlikely to feel cramped when you’re watching it over an afternoon and an evening, with a three hour break in between.
It’s equally difficult to work out why characters are doing what they’re doing from a plot summary. A lot of the impact of Cedric’s death on-stage will come from its on-stage effect on his father. If you know the books very well, you’ll know that Harry is responsible for Cedric’s death in a way that he wasn’t responsible for Snape’s. Because Cedric was willing to let Harry win the Triwizard Tournament; he thought Harry had genuinely earned it. And if Harry had only said okay… Cedric would never have been portkeyed. Would never have died.
Harry didn’t do a thing wrong – in fact, Cedric died because both he and Harry did the good, fair, even noble thing. But it’s certainly not out of character for him to feel that if it hadn’t been for Harry Potter, Cedric Diggory would never have died.
Similarly, you might feel from the plot summary that Draco is acting out of his previously established character. In the script, however, there are lines that support the idea that Draco is a man who, by the end of Deathly Hallows, has seen exactly what sort of man, what sort of father, he doesn’t want to be. He is acting outside his previously established character – because he’s decided that he wants to change.
One thing I would agree with is that I don’t think this prophecy is as good as the one in the books. Maybe Sybill was having an off day?
The question about canon is the least controversial thing in this discussion. Everything about Harry Potter written by J.K.Rowling is canonical. Full stop. But that doesn’t mean that I have to agree with that so I’m going to close my eyes, cover my ears and pretend that this story doesn’t exist.
But such cases as Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes’s premature death and his revival forced by fans and the series How I met your Mother and its ending made me think that it’s not so easy. HIMYM had 9 season but the producers knew how they want to end it from the start so they shooted its ending in the second season. But it didn’t fall in place really so under the preassure of the fans they prepared another canonical alternative ending.
I think there will be no such preassure on Rowling but certainly most fans won’t accept that story.
And there’s a big difference between Doctor Who and Harry Potter. Harry Potter has one author who decides about everything. Doctor Who has had many creators and writers. But I think every tv episode is canonical (except such rubbish as Kill the Moon). There’re other productions as Big Finish which are considered as canonical. But Big Finish productions don’t interfere into tv series so I don’t think people mind.
Yes, it’s certainly the case that endings can be changed. But when Conan Doyle revived Sherlock Holmes, he did it by ‘what happened wasn’t what you thought had happened’ – which is also what they did in Sherlock.
I never watched How I Met Your Mother, but my understanding is that the fans were deeply annoyed to discover that the story wasn’t about Ted meeting the kids’ mother at all; it was an explanation of why the kids were going to get a new stepmother even though Ted had loved their mother – and the ‘alternate’ ending is tucked away on the DVD.
I’d say that Sherlock Holmes isn’t an example of a changed canon in the same way that How I Met Your Mother is; Conan Doyle didn’t change his already published story. Instead he gave it a tweak, so that Watson hadn’t seen that Holmes had survived and Doyle could create new Holmes stories. But in How I Met Your Mother, the ‘alternate ending’ basically says ‘oh, that bit never happened at all.’
So how can you have two ‘canonical’ alternate endings unless How I Met Your Mother has two canonical timelines?
Authors do change their endings before publication: Great Expectations has a changed ending because Dickens’ editor disliked the downbeat original; Robert Heinlein’s Podkayne of Mars similarly had an editor firmly saying ‘this ending is crap’. But what you seem to be suggesting is that fans are entitled to ‘force’, or ‘pressure’ the author into changing their already-published story into the story that the fans (not the author) want.
Is that according to Twitter?
Fans can do some very weird things: there was a section of Buffy fandom that refused to accept Series 6 & 7 ever happened. To me, that’s an example of what @JimTheFish (or was it @Phaseshift?) called A Raging Sense of Entitlement. Fans are perfectly at liberty to say they don’t like a story, an ending, a play, two entire series – but to pretend that it doesn’t exist? Isn’t that simply another way of saying ‘oh, yes, everything written by J.K. Rowling (or every T.V. episode of Doctor Who) is canonical – except for Cursed Child and Kill The Moon, because I don’t like them.’
And what do we mean by canon for Doctor Who? Given that The Big Red Reset Button is, itself, canonical and alternate time-lines are equally canonical?
Having read Cursed Child, I’d say there’s absolutely nothing in it that can’t follow from the characterisation in the books. So I’d be interested to know if you’re rejecting the very existence of the new story simply because you don’t like it, or because it went in a direction you hadn’t expected? You mentioned characters not behaving in-character – which characters are they, and why? Or was it the plot you didn’t like?
@bluesqueakpip  I am fairly new to the whole canon thing but it seems to me that if the creator of these characters want to change, age, regenerate or even kill them off then that is their artistic right. J.K. Rowling wrote these books and now co-wrote a script about her world and so they must be canon.That just makes sense to me.
Doctor Who is different because I suppose the BBC own it and certainly there are many different writers and genres  so I don’t know who decides whether something is canon or not. Is it the BBC? Again I feel if they decide it’s canon it must be because they created it.
I am a viewer or reader of these books and TV shows and if I don’t like them I can stop watching but I can’t change them because I don’t own them. They create them and I enjoy them.
@Winston
I’d agree that the author has the final artistic decision about their creation. Authors can change their mind – but I’d hate the idea of an author feeling forced into disavowing something because of fan reaction.
Doctor Who is definitely different; both Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat are on record as saying that they don’t think there is any canon for Doctor Who. I suppose they’d except the idea that there has to be the Doctor, and his TARDIS (though there are episodes where the Doctor has barely been there, and episodes where the TARDIS hasn’t been there). But otherwise, it’s a story about time-travel, and we’ve seen the Doctor change both past and future. Every established ‘fact’ is up for grabs: time can be changed.
I think your last idea – that we don’t own these characters or these stories – is also mine. I may not like Face The Raven, say, but I don’t own it. It’s not a story that I wrote; it’s not my story. I don’t have the right to insist it never happened.
@Bluesqueakpip I’m sorry I wast to write that there will be no such preassure on Rowling as most of the fans will appreciate the story but certainly many wonât accept it. And few reflections on why:
Rules
Every universe has its rules no matter if it’s Doctor Who, Harry Potter or Twin Peaks. The rules exist to convince the audience that the world in a book, tv series or movie is real. Every change of a rule is a failure. Failure of the author who failes to create a story which sticks to the established rules. (Minor failure is making up new rules about which none has ever heard).
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter’s soul is sucked by the dementors. No, wait. Harry uses a time-turner to prevent dementors to suck his soul. He shouldn’t be capable of doing if there were multiple timeline but it’s magic and he saves the day in a single timeline. Not the most gentle way to change the future but better than none.
But in Cursed Child there are plenty of alternative timelines. The more the merrier. Shame it doesn’t fit really. If it was Back to the Future Harry should started to fade away when Delphi travelled back to 1981 but it’s the Cursed Child’s effect not Back to the Future. Or maybe Hermione’s time-turner was the cheap one. To stick to the rules there should be a single timeline in which the first task of the Triwizard Tournament takes place, Albus and Scorpius disarms Cedric, Scorpius conjures the shield charm and everything is on its right place. But how boring is that. I really would like to see this alternative timeline in which Harry and Hermione’s soul is sacked. What a drama.
Delphi
The fact that Voldemort had an intercourse with Bellatrix Lastrange is completely out of the character. I’m amazed that rebuilding his body from Harry’s blood, the hand of Peter Pettigrew and his father bones he was still capable of producing a body with testicles full of healthy semen. That put the question about Harry’s blood relationship between him and Delphi. Of course the idea that Bellatrix was pregnant is completely far-fatched. On the same basis I can claim that Lavender Brown was pregnant with Ron and Angelina Johnson with Fred. Rowling didn’t mention that in the books but that means nothing really.
Harry is not the father of the year
What’s wrong with that? Nothing, unless you have read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and you believed the author that Harry really was the best dad in the world. Very sensitive, very supportive and understanding. Mrs Perfect. But it seems that it’s was only a false impression. And it seems that such silly chap as Arthur Weasley turned out to be much more better father than the boy who loves. What a cliche. A hero who fails as a father. I’ve seen it in the Legend of Korra.
Oooh, a canon discussion. Excellent.I’ve not read the Cursed Child yet so I’ll probably veer more towards Who and the other works cited in my replies. Largely though I agree with @bluesqueakpip and @Winston. We don’t own the canon and the writers probably gets the final say in what is or isn’t. (I say probably because if you were of a postmodern bent you could argue that authorial intention is ultimately irrelevant and that we each perceive a work through our own network of influences and perceptions. We each have our own canon, so to speak. And if you take that approach then presumably anything goes and you can pick and choose what you like.) Personally, I’m going to stick with an if it ain’t on the page… approach.
So it’s irrelevant if what impelled Conan Doyle to write The Empty House was fan pressure, or a particularly distressing tax return. It doesn’t matter. It exists, it fits into the over-arching narrative and that’s that. With regards to Who, I’m pretty sure that somewhere on the site there is a blog discussing the knotty problems of canonicity, but just to reply to a couple of the points above:
As pip and winston say, I’m afraid you don’t get to make that call. KTM is canon whether you like it or not. Same goes for Pip and Face the Raven. And that’s as it should be, if I have to live with the fact that The Twin Dilemma and The Horns of Nimon happened, then you sods can deal with those. It’s a fan’s prerogative to not like or enjoy particular aspects of show but not to deny they exist. That way ARSE lies…
Well, it’s a very vexed question as to what extent spin-offs in other media ‘count’ as canon. However, Moffat gave Big Finish a very big name check in Night of the Doctor so to my mind that means they’re definitely canon (unless you don’t count the webisodes as canon, which frankly I think you have to.) But in general, I’d argue that anything authorised by the BBC probably counts as canon, whether explicitly referenced or not. That means, to my mind, that the Fourth Doctor did defeat the Iron Legion, that the Seventh Doctor did meet Bernice Summerfield, that Ace did die and so on. (I do realise this is highly contentious and it leaves you with problems like how does Peter Cushing, or indeed Trevor Martin for that matter, fit into the narrative but hey ho.)
Well, yes, I don’t think Who has ever had anything resembling a series bible and has never really had a single guiding hand. But at the same time, it’s not as anarchic as people might think. The core concepts of the TARDIS and the Doctor come largely from Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert, David Whittaker (and possibly Anthony Coburn, if you’re feeling charitable). I’d argue that the essential character of what we understand the Doctor to be now comes largely from Terrance Dicks, Robert Holmes and Barry Letts, who also gave us the Doctor’s backstory of Gallifrey, Omega, Rassilon etc. Everyone else since then have essentially been scribbling in the margins of their ideas.
Who is probably unique, in fact, in having such a ‘loose and baggy’ format. Which is why this:
doesn’t apply in Who’s case. Certainly if you had a Sherlock Holmes story solved by time travel when it’s never been a thing before, you’d be entitled to give a howl of anguish. (Twin Peaks is an odd one to throw in because it did throw in utter curve balls all the time. That was what made it so disquieting.) But as Pip said, neither RTD or Moffat really consider Who to have a strict canon. In fact, Moffat went one further and made it explicit in the Name of the Doctor. The Impossible Girl jumps into the Doctor’s timeline after the Great Intelligence and essentially rewrites the Doctor’s history. We see glimpses but the clear inference is that Clara is now a presence in every single Doctor Who story of the past 50 years. They might have happened the way we have previously seen them but on the other hand they might have gone down with subtle (or not so subtle differences) in their resolutions. We can take nothing in the show’s history for granted after that episode. And it’s a true masterstroke by Moffat. At one fell swoop, he rendered canonicity irrelevant and freed writers and showrunners of the next 50 years from the burden of an ever-expanding backstory. The show’s canon wasn’t wiped out or erased but it was rendered not necessarily relevant.
Finally the question of fan pressure and fan input is an interesting one. I’m inclined to side with Pip and say that it would be a worrying development if creators were unduly hectored into pleasing the fans. And yet. And yet. Sometimes fan input does work. Look at the ending of the Mass Effect 3 computer game. A big controversy a couple of years ago. To sum up briefly, in the ME games you play Commander Shepard and battle a galactic invasion but it’s not just shooting, the game is heavily invested in character and narrative arc. Your decisions throughout all three games affect how you are perceived, what your abilities are, and who is still standing around you at the end, who you’ve romanced and so on. However, after all the investment the player has put into these relationships all came to naught because as it was originally released, there was no chance for Shepard to survive. You were going to die and that was it. However, fan fury was so vociferous that the makers Bioware had to release an update with a different ending in which it was made possible (just) to survive. Would it have been better if Bioware had stuck to their guns and their original vision? Or were the fans right to insist that their investment in the work had the right to pay off? I’m honestly not sure.
Maybe it’s too easy to dismiss Twitter, fanfic and the like. Maybe we’ve gone past that and there is now a symbiotic relationship between fan and creator of a kind that just didn’t exist 20 years ago. And maybe it’s not wholly a bad thing. Certainly one thing I don’t think Steven Moffat has ever got enough credit for is the extent to which he has clearly listened to the fans. If there has been a consistent complaint in any given year — too complicated, not two-parters etc, he’s clearly taken it on board and amended it the following year. Bearing in mind the sheer level of abuse he seems to get online, I’ve always considered it admirable, if perhaps a little masochistic that he continued to be this attentive over the years.
Well, if the creators cease to pay attention to fan input about canon, as in at least the majority of fans, the whole franchise might just get shot down with a cannon. đ
As for what’s canon, I’ve given up, I really have, as even before the Intelligence thing (Hmm, “Intelligence,” is there perhaps some irony there in the use of that word? đ ) there have been so many inconsistencies that it seems like anything goes. Then again, as I keep reminding myself, it’s science fiction not fact. And too, even looking back on accounts of so-called history, i.e., that which passes for non-fiction in this world, is there any canon there either? Sometimes I wonder. So then, is it realistic to expect consistency? I wonder about that too.
Hello all! If I can step in please? Anything I write is mine and not my mum’s so send any lasers my way.
Miss @Mersey
Yes, You absolutely should not write “kill the moon was rubbish” That’s not your call. I’m having a discussion with another member right now about the politesse of writing on Forams (fora I suppose). To say, “look this is strictly my opinion and I personally didn’t like it.”
How hard is that? đ
I think it’s easy, I think it has merit and I, personally, think it’s kinder -to those who did like it- I adored it and welcomed that episode. The acting by the astronaut who stayed alive at the end was fantastic. Hermione Norris (from Spooks?). So a big tick for that.
@mersey
But how do you know? I accepted it and my teachers accepted it and all my friends accepted it! We’re fans of Potter. But that isn’t enough, is it? Not if my teacher’s an idiot, I’m a fool and my two friends are total nutjobs. In which case, we need to recuse ourselves and work outwards. Except that’s exactly what has happened. And it’s still been accepted. đ
Miss @Stitchintime
To me, Dr Who is not Science Fiction either -it’s never been seen as that, as far as I can deduce. It is, however, a combo of fantasy, adventure, comedy, tragedy (in the Greek sense as @Bluesqueakpip has mentioned) and sci-fi (a lot of that).
Mr @Jimthefish
Yes, I agree. I have listened to quite a few of the Big Finish materials at school (cool teacher) and they were name checked by Mr Moffat. At the very least what was written by him or accepted by him or Mr Russel Davies as continued creators means that those writers employed by Moffat fit under Moffat’s hat or his ‘umbrella’. I think that goes for the minisodes we saw with Paul McGann and yet we had one member who said “I hate him.” (back to that in a tick).
Back to @Stitchintime.
The “intelligence” thing to me IS the issue. How do we deal with canon? How can we allow some things not others? Why are we prepared to absolutely hate a particular issue as @Mersey stated with the pregnancy of Bellatrix just because we don’t like Voldemort and Voldemort is evil -or because it means Harry is actually related to him?  I think it’s not that hard to start and it isnt too difficult to continue. It’s a discussion like anything else and it cant be down to fans either (or ‘only’) for to do that would be to “hector” (1) writers into following fandom.
And yet that’s happened too. Moffat has followed the fans -as @JimTheFish noted and Bluesqueak -and there’s good in that. I think canon is very very fluid these days. The comment about McGann could easily be picked up by Moffat -maybe others don’t like that particular actor. Perhaps he doesn’t ‘gel’ with certain viewers. Either way, Â I believe we may need to change the way we think about canon. And I think its progress that we can.
Thank you,
Son of Puro
(1) “hector” was mentioned in the discussion above.
(the Ipad is deciding not to patch in names for whatever reason. It’s having canon trouble too)
@puroandson
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t use such harsh words. I should said that Kill the Moon is utter nonsense. Ok, joking aside. I agree that no one should formulate such opinions as Peter Capaldi is the best/the worst Doctor ever without adding I think, in my opinion or for me. But in case of the Kill the Moon is not the matter of opinions but the facts. Doctor Who is a science fiction drama not fantasy drama with elves, magic and dragons like The Game of Thrones. Doctor travells through time and space using Time Lord physics not magic. The rules of Newtonian physics still appy to Earth. But in spite of it we are told that the Moon is not a rock, but a big egg with Dragon inside and its surfaced is inhabited by spiders. As ar as I know in this party of the Universe you need at least 3 things to produce life: water, carbon and DNA. None of the you will find on the Moon. Not to mention that there’s no gravity and no conditions to survive for any living creatures. You can believe that in Doctor Who Universe the Moon is an egg but that’s not science fiction that’s rubbish.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in my country in 2000 when I was 12. My peers and I grew up with Harry Potter. These 7 books are probably the most important books of our childhood. One of my friend was awaiting for the letter from Hogwart and when she moved to another town to study at university she took all seven books with her. I have all seven books, Quiditch through the Ages, Fantastic beasts and where to find them and the Tales of Beedle the Bard. Such people like me don’t want to change our memories. This time of our life is fixed. So we don’t want our beloved story to be change even in a such slightest way as Harry watching with his son hie parents’death or other impropable things.
@jimthefish
I think it does. There are the rules which even Steven Moffat haven’t dared to break:
Time Lords have limited number of regenerations. 11 was prepared to die and he would die if his regeneration supplies weren’t recharged. That’s why River didn’t expect to see another Doctor’s incarnation.
Time Lords can’t choose their appearence.12 didn’t choose his face, it was some kind of psychic interference of Donna’s consciousness.
The fixed points in time are fixed. That’s a bit controversial as they are fixed as long as Steven Moffat want them to be unchangeable but it’s a rule.
And more minor things.
@puroandson I don’t know why did you take my commen so personally.
Apparently you are in this first group as your friends and teachers.
@Mersey
Okay, let’s take this from the top:
No, it isn’t. You have to distinguish between a change of rule, a further development of science (or in the case of Harry Potter, magic) and additional information about the rules.
If every change of rule is a failure, then the Doctor’s ability to regenerate is a failure and Missy is a failure. Both represent rule changes: the rules were changed under the ‘oh, did we forget to mention…’ get-out clause available to all authors. That is, the audience presumed there was a rule (only one actor can play the Doctor, regenerations are male to male or female to female) and the authors realised that such rules had only ever been implied, never specifically stated.
A point which is carefully explained in the script. Hermione was given an hour Time-turner. She can go back in time a few hours (they go back three) – and we now discover in Cursed Child that short journeys like that will not affect time, or the time traveller. Longer journeys can and will.
The other point carefully explained in the script is that ‘magic has moved on since we were kids’ (Harry). A time-turner has been developed that can go back years – and it’s considered Dark Magic because it’s so dangerous.
The rules didn’t change. They developed. Hermione’s time-turner wasn’t powerful enough, couldn’t go back far enough to create alternative timelines. Now, in the twenty-odd years since Azkaban, a time-turner powerful enough to do that has been developed. And we get informed about a law of magic that incidentally explains why the Ministry of Magic was willing to hand a time-turner to a schoolchild. The law of magic doesn’t change anything in Azkaban; it fits perfectly with that story. It’s just that things were a bit more complicated than we needed to know then – and magical technology has now moved on.
The alternative time lines owe more to Doctor Who and A Sound of Thunder than Back to the Future. The rule followed is that someone goes into the past, alters events in the past – and discovers the change caused by those altered events on their return to the now altered present. So certain characters no longer exist in the new timeline, have never existed in that timeline. There has never been any such thing as stars… (The Big Bang).
Generally, in Doctor Who, we see the timeline altering because we can see characters in the ‘present’ being affected by the changes being made in the ‘past’. There is, however, no ‘fading’ in The Big Bang. People just vanish. They never existed. In Cursed Child, we don’t see the vanishing – in the alternative timeline, they’re either there – or they’re not.
A Sound of Thunder uses very much the same technique as Cursed Child; a character steps on a butterfly (it’s referenced in The Shakespeare Code) and on their return to the present, they discover a changed present.
It’s definitely Nightmare Fuel. Complete bleahgh. Even urrgghh. But out of character? Even snakes have intercourse – and Bellatrix was certainly bonkers enough to go for it.
I’m not sure why your mind is boggling about the ability to produce semen – he’s just recreated a body with a working heart, lungs, brain, pancreas … a pair of testicles really isn’t that tricky; even we muggles have successfully grown testicles in the lab, and the current estimate is that a sperm-producing regrown testicle is about ten years off.
He is very sensitive, very supportive, very understanding – and doesn’t understand Albus at all. Hasn’t got a clue about this boy who’s in Slytherin, who has no talent on a broom, seemingly has nothing in common with him and resents being ‘Harry Potter’s son’. It’s strongly implied that Harry hasn’t the slightest problem being a father to James and Lily – the problem is with Albus. To be precise, the problem arises when Albus hits his teenage years and this lovely little boy turns into a surly, uncommunicative, resentful teenager who is nothing like his father. đ
Harry points out that his most basic problem is that he has no clue how a father should behave. He’s an orphan; he’s flying by the seat of his pants with this whole fatherhood thing – and while he certainly had his own ‘angry teenage’ phase, he was having to fight Voldemort at the time, so probably wasn’t taking notes on how his various father figures dealt with the teenage boy stage. Does he advise Albus like Dumbledore, act abusive for Albus’ own good like Snape, die like Sirius? He seems to try out all three…
But he doesn’t fail as a father – he struggles through. The play isn’t about Harry failing as a father as much as it’s about Albus feeling he’s a failure as a son.
I would say that your definition of canon – every change of rule is a failure – doesn’t allow the characters or the story to develop. Harry and Albus have a good relationship when Albus is eleven, so they have to retain that good relationship even when Albus is fourteen. That isn’t real life. Almost everyone knows parents who have great relationships with their kids – until the kids hit those teenage years and everything becomes incredibly angsty and difficult.
However much you love a story, you cannot insist that ‘canon’ means that any further stories can’t develop characters and the story-world beyond the original stories. Stories are about major events in people’s lives – even in Doctor Who, the story is usually about a major event in the guest character’s life (frequently the final event in the guest character’s life…)
You can’t say that we aren’t allowed to discover more about the Wizarding World’s laws of time, you can’t say that the Wizarding World can’t develop more advanced time-turners, you can’t say that Harry and Albus’ relationship has to stay set in aspic at the point when Albus went off to Hogwarts for his first year. That is not true of the original books; Harry’s relationships with Dumbledore, with the Dursleys, with Snape – all change between The Philosopher’s Stone and The Deathly Hallows. We know nothing about Horcrux in Philosopher’s Stone; is that a rule change?
‘Canon’ is a way of acknowledging back-story. We may have altered time in The Day of The Doctor – but the Doctor, Clara (and the audience) will always know that Gallifrey was once destroyed. By the Doctor. No one else in the universe might remember that, but the Doctor (and Clara) will always know that he committed genocide on his own people. I might not be hugely fond of series 9, but it never ignored what had come before.
Similarly, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child may develop what’s come before, but it never ignores it. The very last scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows deals with Albus’ great fear; that he’s going to be a Slytherin. Harry thinks that, if that happens, it will make no difference to his family life.
As it happens, he’s wrong But if there is one thing that is most definitely canon in Harry Potter, has been canon from the very first book, it is that Harry can get things completely wrong…
@Mersey
Definitely not the case in the universe of Doctor Who: silicon based life forms crop up a lot. Stones of Blood, for example. In addition, the Doctor specifically says that the Moon is an ‘egg’, which means that the nutrients, water, etc are INSIDE the Moon, not ON the Moon. A creature which has evolved to lay Space Eggs isn’t going to lay an egg that requires external nutrients or water. Everything will be inside that Moon-sized shell.
Variable gravity is also a feature of the canonical Whoniverse – it’s amazing how many times the Moon’s gravity has become strangely earth-like, so I don’t quite see the problem when it gets decreased instead of increased?
It’s fair enough to say that you don’t like Kill The Moon, but there’s nothing particularly uncanonical about it. There’s infected zombie-creating water on Mars, giant space-liners nearly flatten Buckingham Palace, the Moon’s an egg. This definitely isn’t our universe, even though it often looks very similar.
@mersey—
Well, I won’t dwell on the Kill the Moon too much. Partially because it turned into such a colossal bunfight last time and the discussion of that episode is still there for all to see. Suffice to say I like it and if you venture over to that thread, I think it’s (to my mind) convincingly argued why the physical objections to the episode don’t convince. As Pip says, there’s nothing particularly uncanonical about it. Or at least no more so than creatures of living plastic, primords, clockwork robots or fish people.
But a couple of things:
Nope, it’s definitely opinion. Like pretty much everything else on this site. However…
No, I don’t think so. Who might not have the trappings of High Fantasy a la Tolkien or Game of Thrones, but that doesn’t mean it’s science fiction. It’s science fantasy if anything. But really it is a fantasy show, that wraps itself in the trappings and jargon of science. Star Trek and even Star Wars can be described as science fiction but Who really can’t. The TARDIS, from its structure to its function, conforms to not one established law of physics. The Doctor’s powers of regeneration disobey most of the established laws of biochemsitry. Hell, even the sonic screwdriver directly contravenes what we understand about sonic radiation. It might be wrapped in pseudo-scientific terminology but when you get down to it, the TARDIS is a magic door, the sonic is a magic wand and the Doctor is a wizard. When you get down to it, you could argue that the show has more in common with Mr Benn than it does with Asimov.
Very few actually, I’d say. He obviously (as a fan) has a respect for the core concepts — the Doctor, the TARDIS, Gallifrey — but I’d argue that he considers anything else fair game. Time Lords have limited regenerations — except now they don’t. Time Lords can’t choose their appearance — except they can, as is seen from the General. The rationalisations — psychic projections and the like — don’t matter. What matters is that there’s little in the canon that can’t be changed. It evolves over time. Much more, for example, than you’d find in any other TV show. I think it was Marc Platt that said what he viewed to be Who’s real strength is that it was such pliable format. I think Moffat is of that view too.
Take Star Trek for example. There’s been numerous iterations now. But all are pretty much bound by much the same structure — Enterprise (or Enterprise-like structure), Starfleet, prime directives, and essentially diplomatic dilemmas. There’s not much wiggle-room within those confines. Same with, say, Buffy, the X-Files or BSG within their respective universes. Who is not like that. It’s evolved almost since day one — which is why we no longer have to worry about the Doctor coming from the 51st century or the fact that Susan ‘invented’ the TARDIS.
And as we near the end of the Moffat era, I think we can start to see that the over-reaching theme of his tenure has actually been an examination of what the show is, what it can be distilled into. Who is the Doctor and does it really matter if we know or not? What is his relationship to the TARDIS? What is his relationship to his companions? And it basically boils down to ‘he’s a madman in a box’. He’s the Doctor and he saves people. Everything else — pretty much everything in the show’s 50-year history, as I’ve argued above, is pretty much up for grabs.
@Mersey
I don’t think I took your comment personally. If you write “it’s rubbish” then you might be saying everyone else ought to think so too. If you then go to say “this is fact” -in reference to the moon then you could be considered incorrect as in the story the moon is like a giant womb where all the stuff a baby needs is deep inside it and we hadn’t mined the moon at the point.
I think it was explained away that the last space shuttle was used as a toy or climbing game for children. At that point in that Dr Who history, no-one had continued to study the moon. That these things are not facts in the world of Doctor Who is important in my opinion. Why? Because it is very much a show about adventure, magic (yes, magic!), sci-fiction and fantasy. The articles I read clearly distinguished this show from other sci-fi programmes like Star Trek for example.
To incriminate the producers by stating they didn’t adhere to rules is like saying that a man must go to work, earn money, pay for his wife’s needs and have several children. There are no rules about family any more unless certain individuals in the family decide they are going to do things a particular way together -which is a good thing. It’s good because it’s fluid. There are rules about people, about the way they behave and that’s clarified through the justice system and equally there are rules as to how a programme like Dr Who evolves and progresses.
Anyway, I am trying to be discreet and patient. At no point did I write “this is wrong” or “definitely this is not the case because you have to see this show in this particular light”
I always try to write “this is strictly my opinion and ….” But I will try to write more appropriately to avoid any offence at all. So in my opinion, the Kill the Moon ep was really good. But it wasn’t sci-fi. The posters on the Guardian pages really went to town on this episode. We had many members who only joined this forum because they hated Kill the Moon due to the science. And yet I believe they missed the point of the programme. It wasn’t about the science, but something much deeper and less clinical than that.
So, when I wrote about my teacher, two friends and myself -I was joking there! I indicated the joke by saying this:
What I was attempting to say was that if only two friends accepted it (and I only had two friends in this particular world of the joke), and one teacher, who ‘happens’ to be an idiot and if I am also an idiot, Â then any acceptance is nullified (just checking with Mum if that’s a word!).
I then stated that if we don’t use the two friends, the teacher or me, but look outwards we find that the reviews by other people in Australia have shown that the Cursed Child has been accepted. Mum has stated that it’s a ‘tentative acceptance.’
When we love Harry Potter, and adore all seven (and I found a couple of the books seriously problematic. In year 5 I reviewed the fifth book for an English competition and won it. Basically I stated Book 5 was overwritten and confused. I stated it would benefit from less narration and an enthusiastic editor) we tend to assume they are our possessions. In many ways they become so don’t they?
I think that’s where the canon argument comes in. If something is dramatically altered and we like it, we applaud and say “that’s unusual and not what I expected but I love it.” If we dislike it, we tend to say “this is not following the rules.”
If we have to apply rules to the canon argument or to any book or film I wonder if we might be barking up the wrong tree?
There does need to be rules in writing and in re-presenting a book like The Cursed Child. But these rules are ones where the universe of those characters makes sense. In Kill the Moon it was a very important decision for Clara and it also formed part of the future story where Clara is becoming like the Doctor. It was a story about the magical powers of belief and how that was supported by both the episode in the forest (where Clara and Danny wake to London covered in trees) as well as meeting Robin Hood.
In that episode it was stamped as “we’re all stories in the end.” This is an over arching theme of Moffat’s in the past few years. That the moon has its own peculiar story is one part of something woven into the whole. Mum found Kill the Moon beautiful in different ways. She noticed the ‘power of woman’ as well as the role of the Doctor who virtually abdicated himself from the entire episode -on some level people might say that’s a ‘broken rule’ or didn’t follow canon because the show’s about the Doctor and the Tardis but those ‘weren’t used much.’
The magical feeling about Kill the Moon and Robin Hood was shown further when the Doctor took Clara to find Danny after death. That should have been considered ‘nutso’ because the Doctor doesn’t interfere with death. He knows what happens if you do -if you alter something that shouldn’t be touched and yet he did it anyway. For Clara. I think Kill the Moon actually helped set that decision up in various ways.
As Mr Davies saw Mr Moffat’s Weeping Angels episode with Martha, we also found that the Doctor, the companion and pretty much everything else we’re used to with Dr Who just wasn’t there. There was some time travel but not as much as we’re used to. Somebody else helped solve the problem. And yet, in searching the internet it looks like that first episode which introduced the Weeping Angels won many awards and is considered one of the best Dr Who episodes of all time. And yet it seems to break every common rule we’ve ever believed about the show đ
I was interested to read these ideas you wrote:
Time Lords have limited number of regenerations. 11 was prepared to die and he would die if his regeneration supplies werenât recharged. Thatâs why River didnât expect to see another Doctorâs incarnation….Time Lords canât choose their appearence.12 didnât choose his face, it was some kind of psychic interference of Donnaâs consciousness…The fixed points in time are fixed. Thatâs a bit controversial as they are fixed as long as Steven Moffat want them to be unchangeable but itâs a rule.
Thank you. Yes, I understand that argument. It’s seems to be true that TLs have limited regenerations except that Doctor Eleven had another 12 bestowed on him. And that was on Trenzalore a place which the doctors are not supposed to go at all until they die and yet Eleven found himself there.
Any of the fixed points were often changed once the great intelligence man jumped into the doctor’s timeline and then Clara jumped in –Â in order to help all the Doctors. And we also found a completely different doctor -the war doctor who appeared in between doctors 8 and 9. This was all new. I would think those things were a break from the rules and yet the key was they were supported really well in the story. It didn’t cause the story to break or turn into a completely different story that we can’t recognise. I think that’s one way to measure canon and stories as we know them.
Do we recognise the story? Is it close to the one we know but still original? If so, and if what the characters are doing doesn’t change their behaviour completely (in other words it’s accepted as part of how the character could develop) then I think canon’s been adhered to. I guess I’m saying “almost anything goes. Not everything but anything that’s plausible.”
IÂ am doing a debate this week on canon – we had to chose something ‘english’ and something ‘musical’ in the one debate. Some people are doing ‘interlude’ or ‘The Ring.’
Anyway, thank you for reading. I hope I have been appropriate in my writing and @Bluesqueakpip I am studying the two posts you wrote above. Mum is going to ‘cast’ an eye over this before I post. :_)
Son of Puro
@JimTheFish
I think our posts ended up crossing  in time? I also  discussed Star Trek -it was the first drama show I ever ever watched. I was 4 and sick of Thomas the Tank Engine by then (I still think Thomas the Tank is  great television). I loved Star Trek but it had certain concrete ideas and they stayed that way forever. As far as I can see.
Thankyou,
Son of P
This is a test. I keep trying to post and it is not working. This is only a test.
This is nuts. It still won’t let me post what I intended; so, let me try this piece at a time and see if I can discover what it is about this post that the site does not like.
First off, I was trying to respond to @puroandson who wrote:
“To me, Dr Who is not Science Fiction either -itâs never been seen as that, as far as I can deduce. It is, however, a combo of fantasy, adventure, comedy, tragedy (in the Greek sense as @Bluesqueakpip has mentioned) and sci-fi (a lot of that).”
Peachy. Now here is the first part of my response:
It’s all the same to me really and these days it’s often all mixed up together. I regard sci-fi and Science Fiction as the same or at least it was that way for my generation. When I looked it up just now, however, I found that it depends on who you ask.
Nope, it is still not working. I will have to try something else. It will not accept my links at all; so I will have to do it the hard way, putting the dot and com, etc. in parenthesis instead.
See, for example:
www (dot) pajiba (dot com slash) trade (underline) news (slash) scifi (dash) vs (dash) science (dash) fiction (dot php)
and
www (dot) jvoegele (dot com slash) literarysf (slash) scifi (dot) html
And finally…
But, what I meant was that it’s just a TV show and therefore I am not that concerned about what canon is or is not. Either I like it or I don’t and others are free to do the same or debate what is canon and what is not. Perhaps it is like how some folks enjoy discussing football results for hours but others don’t even understand what the former find so interesting about it.
(I apologize for the inconvenience.)
I just wanted to say that I’m disappointed with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child story and ask what you think about it. And I ended up as a punchbag. I was to write that it’s humiliating but I won’t risk another lecture on why it isn’t.
@puroandson Thank you for your patience. You are very generous for me.
@Mersey
my apologies for the mistake I didn’t pick up in my Son’s first post above. Where he writes: “At that point in that Dr Who history, no-one had continued to study the moon. That these things are not facts in the world of Doctor Who is important in my opinion.” should be this instead:
“….no-one had continued their study of the moon. That these things are seemingly ‘facts’ in the world of Doctor Who but different to what actually exists in our current world is important in my opinion..”
Certainly he wrote a lot about Kill the Moon but I’d agree with Jim that the KtM thread contains abundant discussion about the episode and veers towards perilous arguments at various points!
It occurs to me that the dragon pictured in the two -parter, Under the Lake, is a call back to Clara’s almost death snatch from the Moon’s dragon, at it were. Very nearly destroyed there (though some would say the Doctor was watching all the time) she was soon to be killed by the Raven and once brought back, still standing between heart beats, she remains close to the jaws of death (providing the Tardis diner doesn’t falter).
I personally think that the Sleep No More episode was interesting canonical intervention. Here, cameras as small as dust particles claimed the audience’s perspective. In other episodes and particularly this one, there were examples where the fourth wall was broken. How we view the show ourselves and how one person watching the same episode at the same time in the same family can see two very different outcomes suggests that the authenticity of canon is up for grabs. It’s no news that I’m not swayed by post modern belief systems. I also hold with Jim’s “if it aint on the page…” idea but an episode like Sleep no More provides more questions than answers.
If those answers effect canonical decisions then it says a great deal about the norms, operative dilemmas and writing techniques around which the Doctor Who dialect is embraced. Perhaps the concept of dialect is interesting as a way of defining the genre of the show and how canon works within it.
Kindest, PuroSolo
@Mersey
Dear Mersey -this is Mum speaking. I don’t think anyone here would really treat you as a punching bag but yes, it’s good to write “in my opinion” rather than “no that’s wrong”. Certainly the points you brought up make for excellent discussion and I think that’s what happened rather than any upsetting words although sensitivity to individuals is very important and I think the moderators take that seriously.
I respect your position entirely and I hope on this Forum you consider that you’re a vital part of any discussion and if people do ‘argue’ with you, they do so out of respect in the knowledge you are wise and absolutely, definitely worth the discussion that emerges -it might be worse to be ignored, I believe? đ You most certainly present all your reasons for liking or not liking something. I know on different fora people will simply write: “I disagree” but they don’t actually provide reasons why? I know you and I have talked about that and how it’s annoying at times! I don’t think you ever do that: I imagine you are fluent in Polish and probably other languages as well? This is a terrific skill -I have some Czech but I’m pretty handicapped in that department!
Regards to you,
from Puro Solo
Miss @stitchintime
Well, if you don’t mind what is or isn’t canon that’s terrific! đ I believe @Bluesqueakpip started the Blog because the concept of canon is something we all (some of us) like to discuss. As @JimTheFish said: “ooh a canon discussion.”
I’m 15 and I find football which to me is soccer really interesting. I’m playing in the A division at the moment and I love talking about the tackels, whether they’re legal or not and how to stay composed on the ball. I also think canon is a good topic. So good that the teacher in my advanced English class has asked us to come up with a debate for practise before the English debate finals and I said let’s do ‘canon’ and she said “yup, works for me.” Others like to talk about “adversary” and what that means (adversarial meaning so much, doesn’t it?), the concept of “rote” and “coda” all which might be boring until we learn about it.
The linking should work if you use the ‘insert link’=which is the paperclip symbol? Failing that, when you go to a youtube or google site you might need to click ‘yes’ allowing access to an internet ‘folder’ -then it should work immediately.
I hope that helps you.
Thank you,
Son of Puro (Puro’s gone back to sleep!)
Oops; PS: I don’t know what you mean by “peachy” but it’s a point I thought worth noting. When I wrote about the idea of Dr Who I said that it was sci-fi (which is science fiction to me too) as well as fantasy, adventure, drama, comedy etc… I think Mr @JimTheFish has said the same thing essentially. I believe that the genre actually affects the canon too.
@puroandson
There are no rules about family any more unless certain individuals in the family decide they are going to do things a particular way together -which is a good thing. Itâs good because itâs fluid. There are rules about people, about the way they behave and thatâs clarified through the justice system and equally there are rules as to how a programme like Dr Who evolves and progresses.
In my experience there are rules in every family, most unwritten, many unspoken, some by tradition, some imposed, some negotiated. Also, as I think we discussed on this forum before at great length, it depends on the family, as well as the society. As for rules about the way people behave in general I think many of those are worked out in the same way, without recourse to the law, although through that too. The justice system also has quite a lot to say about things that go on in families. In fact, I believe there is a whole specialty called “family law,” which deals with some of that, at least in some jurisdictions.
Back on topic: Are there “rules” for how DW evolves? Hmm, I’m not so sure about that, nor if so, what those might be.
@stitchintime
Yes there are rules. What I meant is that family rules are fluid now. The so-called nuclear family of the 50s has changed. Tradition is still observed but like my parents, families often create new ‘traditions’ for their future. Regarding my parents they both changed their surnames by making one up. My mother is a very different age to my father -to the extent that in the 50s or the 80s this would have been frowned upon.
What is actually tradition -or taken up by families –Â is changing faster than anything else. And indeed, as you say, unspoken rules may or may not exist. Generally democracy is the golden measure applied to individuals rather than how people behave in ‘family.’ Certainly I know of Family Law -I’m studying that right now in Legal Studies. It’s excellent, thank you.
Such law applies to individuals within the family, how they behave and how that is read through the eyes of the constitution from which all laws derive. Precedent -which I suppose could be equivalent to canon (trying to stay on topic here as the family issue was a small analogy) also defines each individual family law case. But again I’m in the minority where I believe, personally, that democracy should be first and family second as effectively if we say “my family is the most important thing and I would do anything for my son; anything at all” has ramifications for society. Various philosophers and architects of ‘family theory’ espouse these ideas really well. They would be socialist in political terms.
As to rules in Dr Who, I suppose that’s being discussed upthread by me and Mum (who is either awake or not and therefore a bit spacey)  @Jimthefish and @Bluesqueakpip. Also @Mersey and @Winston who also wrote some concise ideas about that. It’s a worth a good read. Anyway, we’ve veered off topic here <ducks from mods!>
I hope the link suggestion worked for you? It can be very iffy at times!  đ
Thank you.
Son of Puro
@puroandson
“Iâm 15 and I find football which to me is soccer really interesting. Iâm playing in the A division at the moment and I love talking about the tackels, whether theyâre legal or not and how to stay composed on the ball.”
You know, when I used to play that as a teenager I never got the ball and so all I ended up doing was running back and forth across the field. LOL It was kind of tedious really, but it was a very good work out! đ The same thing happened to me when I played guard in basketball but one of the forwards told me that I was really difficult to get away from, which I suppose made me feel a little bit better about it. đ And perhaps it was all that running back and forth across the field that enabled to keep up. đ
“The linking should work if you use the âinsert linkâ=which is the paperclip symbol?”
Thank you. I did try that, however.
“Failing that, when you go to a youtube or google site you might need to click âyesâ allowing access to an internet âfolderâ -then it should work immediately.”
If I understand you correctly, I don’t think those two sites were either of those. Oddly enough, I have never had a problem before when I’ve posted links; so, maybe it was something about those two sites? I don’t know. Thank you for trying, anyway. đ
“PS: I donât know what you mean by âpeachyâ but itâs a point I thought worth noting.”
Noted. American expression, I think I picked up from Big Finish, 8th Doctor, “Minuet in Hell,” means, “fine,” “excellent,” something like that.
“When I wrote about the idea of Dr Who I said that it was sci-fi (which is science fiction to me too) as well as fantasy, adventure, drama, comedy etc⌠I think Mr @JimTheFish has said the same thing essentially. I believe that the genre actually affects the canon too.”
I would agree that there is a certain variety or diversity and I certainly haven’t seen/heard/read it all either.
@stitchintime
This is what I actually wrote. In other words, I’ve said exactly what you said. Decisions are made by family (negotiated /decided) and then the Justice system can clarify the rest.
Therefore there’s a smell of a straw man argument. Perhaps discussions about football and families can go to the Pub.
@puroandson
“What I meant is that family rules are fluid now. The so-called nuclear family of the 50s has changed. Tradition is still observed but like my parents, families often create new âtraditionsâ for their future.”
If that is so, perhaps it is a good thing, although it’s not all that well reflected in my own experience. As often as not, I have seen more family break down, break up and estrangement as some people refuse to change or exploit the changes at the expense of others or even feel that all they can do is walk away. In fact, the fastest growing demographic in these parts nowadays is single individuals living alone. As to whether that is a good thing or not, I’m not sure.
Anyhow, getting back on track, it does seem that the canon is evolving. As for myself, I just try to enjoy the show (or not, as the case may be) one episode at a time. đ
@puroandson
This is what I actually wrote. In other words, Iâve said exactly what you said. Decisions are made by family (negotiated /decided) and then the Justice system can clarify the rest.
There are no rules about family any more unless certain individuals in the family decide they are going to do things a particular way together -which is a good thing. Itâs good because itâs fluid. There are rules about people, about the way they behave and thatâs clarified through the justice system
You wrote, “There are no rules,” and I disagreed with that and explained why. You then reversed your position, stating, “Yes there are rules,” and further clarified it by stating, “What I meant is that family rules are fluid now.”
I then responded above, a little while ago, not disputing the validity of the observations I quoted therein, in principle, but noting that my own experience has been somewhat different in certain ways.
Otherwise, no, I do not think we are too far apart. If I may take the liberty of coining a phrase: “the devil is [only] in the details.” đ
Now, at last, hopefully, we can get back to discussing canon, hopefully without the necessity of resorting to cannons. đ
@stitchintime
you are very fond of harking into areas where the analogy was part of a much larger discussion which was canon. About which I spoke. Repeatedly. I then stated this: There are no rules about family any more unless certain individuals in the family decide they are going to do things a particular way together -which is a good thing. Itâs good because itâs fluid. There are rules about people, about the way they behave and thatâs clarified through the justice system”
I did not reverse my position as I referred to rules about people. I did not further clarify it. What I’ve re-printed is what I actually wrote. The key word is “unless” (which I’ve underlined) for you.
As for head cannons I’ll be churlish and say “you started it”. đ
Anyway, all’s good.
Puro’s Son
nope the underlining thing didn’t happen. Ah well, shoot me đ
Canon is a veritable minefield and often confused with issues to do with plot. And characterisation. Mum’s in favour of talking about her favourite all time TV show, The West Wing wherein one of the main characters completely changed his ideas and acted so very differently: the volte face was astounding and somewhat nuts. It occurred during the 6th and 7th season of this particular series. In this situation canon probably doesn’t apply. It might be helpful for @Bluesqueakpip to explain what canon and may not entail?
A large series containing audio books, plays, creative writing, fan fiction, a movie and different actors/ show-runners will be subject to a canon or history of writing to which the watchers will adhere -noisily if certain papers are to be believed (like scripture canon!). Something like Star Trek will have canon and so will the Potterverse and no doubt Buffy due to the comics and other presentations. West Wing was a different beast but still worth a mention if only to get rid of The Family Guy đ
Also that hilarious episode where Josh is pummeled by CJ because he attempts to argue with posters on a Josh Thread and is ultimately accused of impeaching democracy. I always go back to that episode on youtube whenever arguments on the Forum turn volatile.
@mersey — please don’t feel like you’re being made a ‘punching bag’. I may not agree with your comments but I for one definitely do value them. Your ideas are always thoughtful and interesting ones. And the whole raison d’etre of this site is discussion. It’s all opinion (and on an often rather silly TV show) in the end. It should be taken as read that everything on here is prefaced with an ‘I think’ but it’s often easy to forget to do so….
@Stitchintime
Yes, some people aren’t bothered about canon at all – which is probably the best of states, because it means you can sit back and enjoy the show without that niggling little voice saying ‘hang on, but three series back they …’
But as @puroandson said, some of us just find it fun to argue about it. As Jim says, that’s why this site exists. đ
@Mersey
I’m sorry if you feel you were being made a punching bag; especially if I made you feel that way. If you notice, while I may be disagreeing with you about whether the events in Cursed Child are canonical, or are out of character, I’m agreeing with you about some things.
For example – you don’t like Voldemort plus Bellatrix. Neither do I; I just think that, in fact, it isn’t out of character. To use a Joss Whedon quote:
And I wouldn’t be writing such very long replies unless I found your ideas worth discussing.
@purosandon
“I did not reverse my position as I referred to rules about people. I did not further clarify it. What Iâve re-printed is what I actually wrote. The key word is âunlessâ (which Iâve underlined) for you.”
Yes, thank you. I got that. What I quoted was cut and pasted directly from your posts, however. Based on that, your amendment was, âYes there are rules,â and the clarification was, âWhat I meant is that family rules are fluid now,â and so I did understand this had to do with family rules, not the more general ones. In any case, as I said, in the end I think we are actually on the same page, more or less. đ
“As for head cannons Iâll be churlish and say âyou started itâ. :)”
As for that, my comment was not meant to be a cheap shot at you or your posts or anyone else’s but an expression of my hope that the canon discussion could resume amicably from there. And I hope that my amendment clarifies that. đ
@puroandson
Oops, sorry, temporary dyslexia. Please see above post.
@puroandson
nope the underlining thing didnât happen. Ah well, shoot me đ
BANG!!! đ
But then I spelled your @ wrong. So, now we’re even. LOL
@Bluesqueakpip
Yes, some people arenât bothered about canon at all â which is probably the best of states, because it means you can sit back and enjoy the show without that niggling little voice saying âhang on, but three series back they âŚâ”
I used to care but I have given up as there has been so much messing around with this and that. There are just so many examples of this that I’ve lost track. With so many writers and stories on TV, in print, in audio, in comics, in theatre, etc. (just in case I missed something), I would think it would be difficult to keep abreast of it all, although I am sure lots of people have tried in various ways.
@jimthefish  Certainly one thing I donât think Steven Moffat has ever got enough credit for is the extent to which he has clearly listened to the fans.
I agree, strongly. Â In fact, I suspect that a good deal of the improvement (as I see it) in Mr. Moffat’s writing of and for female characters is due to having been hectored furiously by a very vocal sector of DW fandom — female viewers with a feminist awareness that’s (IMO) sane and reasoned (not hysterically over-dramatic and extreme). Â I think we got Clara speaking up for her memories as her own and the Doctor admitting she’s right and acting accordingly, for example, as a corrective to some previous resolutions of the companion-departure issue that have been (arguably) pretty awful, because Moffat listens, and thinks about what he hears and probably talks it over with actual women, not just other guys. Â And kudos to him for that, in my book (although many fans, including both men and women with their own pet ideas of how the Doctor should be properly done, slate him tirelessly for not listening to “the fans” or for being incorrigibly sexist, or romantic, or given to fantasy and magic, etc. etc.).
Of course, when he addresses the issue of TLs changing genders via the transformation of the General in Hell Bent, Â he gets jeered at for “pandering” to the fans (i.e., responding instead of ignoring them and their concerns). Â Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don’t!
@mersey  You can believe that in Doctor Who Universe the Moon is an egg but thatâs not science fiction thatâs rubbish.
Or, for viewers with more accommodating imaginations, it’s science fantasy for the sake of the story the writer wants to tell. Â Which is why KtM has its champions, too, and the ones I’ve seen speak up for it in various places don’t seem to be stupid people. Â I’m with Son of Puro here; mileage varies, and should vary, with individual taste.
@mersey  You can believe that in Doctor Who Universe the Moon is an egg but thatâs not science fiction thatâs rubbish.
Actually Kill The Moon was a fun riff of the first Silurian story from BG Who, which used the then-prevalent-now-discared theory that the Moon is a captured asteroid, so had only been there for about (iirc) 200m years. Â All Moffatt did was retcon this so that it is the most recent Moon that arrived back then. Canon, respected and developed (per @bluesqueakpip).
Anyway, pardon the drive-by, but @JimTheFish and @puroandson have covered all the ground I would have.
To summarise:
If it is on screen, it is canon, no matter what contradictions and paradoxes this creates;
If the author says it is canon, then it is canon (although the sight of ARSE-y fans trying to correct JK Rowling is one of the joys of Twitter. She rocks.).
Everyone is entitled to headcanon (or fanwank as it used to be called) to explain away things they didn’t like or didn’t understand. (Toby Zeigler leaked a state secret? Nope. Never ever. In my headcanon he did it to protect someone else, probably CJ). But that is all it is. Headcanon. Fanwank. As viewers/ watchers/ readers we are no more entitled to tell creators what is canon than we are to tell a strawberry what flavour it should be.
And the retcon is where much fun with those contradictions and paradoxes can be had. It is brand new and ancient, big and little, and it was stolen…well, borrowed … and a story, in the end.
This is an interesting discussion so I thought Iâd weigh in. I should point out that like (I think) @mersey, Iâve only read a synopsis of the plot. Iâm not heavily invested in the Harry Potter stories, so I hadnât even been aware of this production until reading about it here. Thanks @Bluesqueakpip for clarifying the length of the play, my first thought on reading the synopsis was that this is a lot of stuff for a single script!
Just a few random thoughts:
Iâd say it was perfectly in character for Voldemort to want to father a child, as like many dictators he would want to found a dynasty. And who better than Bellatrix, who was insane enough and loyal enough to go along with it?
The “hero who fails as a fatherâ is a bit cliched, I suppose, but it rings very true to me. Why wouldnât a hero, whose worldview is forced to be so big, fail at the small things that are critical to being a good parent? However, Iâm not sure that Harry making mistakes as a father is the same as failing. He can love his son and not get it right all the time, this is normal in families. And itâs quite common for a father, when he sees his son growing into someone with different views and priorities than his own, to have a difficult time knowing how to handle that. We all want to pass our values on to our children, but the problem is that our children arenât us, and sometimes itâs hard to see the grey area between core values and specific opinions. (There have been some lively âdiscussionsâ in our house as our teenage son has learned to formulate his own views and express them; he and his dad are both pretty passionate in their beliefs!)
âMagic has moved on.â Naturally, it would. Just like telephones have moved on, and cameras, and how we watch TV. If someone wrote a play set in 2016, that was a sequel to an earlier one set in the 80âs, if all the technology and so forth was portrayed 80âs style, we would laugh. (I recently came up against this exact problem, in pulling out a novel I had conceived in the eighties and partly written in the nineties. Iâve had to reimagine it to some degree simply because certain things that were fundamental to the story just donât work the same way anymore! đ )
@Mersey   Seconding (thirding, etc.) others here. If you have followed this forum for a long time, you will know that the people here donât hesitate to dispute the statements of others. They donât mean it as a put down, itâs more like a vigorous debate in a pub, where everyone argues with each other about sport or politics, and then they all get drunk together and go home friends! đ
@JimTheFishâs excellent points about canon: The complicated thing about the multiple worlds of Doctor Who is that there have been, I believe, plenty of times in the show where AG stories have directly contradicted things that happened in spinoff media. Obviously, expecting the TV show runners to keep track of everything ever produced in novel, comic, or audio form would be a big ask. So Iâm not sure how those people who have a lot invested in reconciling the different media handle those conflict. Personally, I tend to assume that only the bits specifically referenced in the series would have to be considered as canon. In fact, I really like @JimTheFish‘s description of the âImpossible Girlâ arc having rendered canon a more fluid thing. As stated, it was a move of pure genius.
Hereâs a thing regarding fan reaction (and feel free to laugh at me). Way back in the day, when the original Star Wars film first came out, I loved it to pieces. It just took over my entire imagination. And then came The Empire Strikes Back, and I hated it. I just hated the idea that Darth Vader was Lukeâs father, I thought it was stupid and awful and unbelievable, and ruined everything as far as I was concerned. Then, with the conclusion of the arc in Return of the Jedi, I came around to accepting it, as I liked the whole redemption theme, and so on. And I came to appreciate the complexities (such as they are) in that story line, which elevates the whole thing above being just a fairly simplistic adventure story. But it never occurred to me, of course, that Lucas or anyone else should be listening to me shout, âYou got it wrong!! It sucks that Vader is Lukeâs father!!â I didnât get to pick. If I hadnât come round to accepting the arc as Lucas conceived it, I would have written it off as a great idea gone wrong, never watched the sequels again, and continued to enjoy the original film as something that gave me loads of pleasure as a teenager. It isnât necessary for your original experience to be spoiled by anything people produce later on.
One more and done, this time directed to Son of Puro.
@puroandson   Bang on about what Kill the Moon, and Doctor Who generally, are and are not. Frankly, if DW was all about hard core science, I doubt Iâd care all that much about it. Iâm not hugely interested in that sort of fiction (although I read a fair bit of it in my teens). My son, on the other hand, doesnât watch the show, but probably would if it were more scientific. Thatâs him and what he loves. So rather than come on forums and gripe about a lack of science, he sticks to what makes him happy. This, frankly, is what iPads and Netflix accounts are for. đ And you make a good point about the Robin Hood story, which (as I am a historian) would have driven me mad if I came to it expecting a plot rooted in verified history. I had no such expectation, and I loved that episode, it delighted me. It made me smile, it was gorgeous-looking, and it made a beautiful point about legends.
@Arbutus
Oh, love your, Star Wars, comments, as I had just the opposite reaction. I thought, The Empire Strikes Back, was the best one, followed by the original, and I had a lot of problems, with, Return of the Jedi, which you have described pretty well actually. Of the new ones, I think I only saw the first one and didn’t like it much. I read the book for the second one and it put me to sleep. The third I have not seen either. As for what is canon there, I don’t really have any problems though. I have particularly enjoyed the abridged audio versions of some of the novels that carry on the story from the original three films. I tried reading one of the books but I think the editing to audio actually made them better, at least from my
point of view.
Thanks to @jimthefish   and @bluesqueakpip for helping me to better understand what being canon is. With my better understanding I still feel that what the creator or author says is canon is just that. I can then either love it or leave it.  I did love Kill the Moon and the heck with the science or lack of it because I believe that Doctor Who is a fantasy\ sci-fi drama and anything is possible. Others don’t feel the same and I respect their opinions because that is what this forum is for- a safe place to voice your opinions.
@ichabod
I think you need to have a bigger immagination to create something that will be harmonizing with other elements of the story. Kill the Moon is a science fiction episode with people who travelled to the Moon in a space shuttle and not using a broom or a magic carpet or a dragon, who were using spacesuits and not the Bubble-Head Charm and in which the increasing mass of the Moon was causing some disturbances on the Earth. And we are told that the Moon which was in 1970 a captured asteroid is now an egg with a souless dragon inside which dissappears after a few seconds. Kill the Moon would be a brilliant story if the writer came up with something more convincing and not necessary scientific.
Kill the Moon unmistakably bears the resemblence (in my opinion) to one of my favourite episode of all time which is The Beast Below. The Beast Below is a beautiful, epic story about a big fantastic creature, a terrible choice, responsibility and compassion (in my opinion). It’s a drama, a horror, a science fiction and a commedy at the same time. And this big, fantastic or even legendary Star Whale who came to rescue people when he heard crying children is a beautiful creature with his own soul. And I don’t care where did he come from or how he breaths (it’s a vast universe and maybe he has a big forest in his stomach and uses photons to power the photosynthesis). I don’t care because everything fits here and has its meaning. And it’s not some far-fetched story about a creature who was hiding all the time behind the Moon and suddenly reappeard. He wasn’t there. He came from the space like a miracle.
I never said that people who appreciate Kill the Moon are stupid.