What is canon?

[sorbicCondition]

Lets get down to business. Modern day Homestuck seems obsessed with canon, the meaning of it or lack thereof. I suppose, then, a discussion of canon should be helpful in our larger understanding of the work(s). Let me ask some broad questions.

1. Is canon necessary?

2. Who or what should define canon?

3. What does canon mean in universe?

I personally am aboard team "fandom decides canon." Canon is a necessary tool for communication between fans, so that we may understand each other's interpretations, discussions, and fan works more precisely. Deciding, then, that only Andrew Hussie (or a select group of official authors) choose what is and isn't "real" about the story is a restriction upon our understanding. That's not to say we should throw everything out and do whatever we want, because I believe Homestuck has intrinsic meaning, and to reject all canon is to reject said meaning. Instead, we should build upon one anothers' interpretations, and work towards a common acceptance of what is true about Homestuck, rather than wait for authorial input on "what it means."

That's my take, anyway. I'd love to hear more input on this, especially on the topic of canon within universe since it's something that for me is hard to nail down.

[Generalrabogolfo]

1-. technically speaking no, it isnt.
2-. everyone can define what is or is not canon, but the thing is they can (or should) not force their canons to others.
3-. canon in universe I interpret it as something that is relevant to skaia and paradox space as a whole, which is why it leads to the being relevant to us, because things are happening.

[egg]

1. Is canon necessary?

2. Who or what should define canon?

3. What does canon mean in universe?

1. Not strictly so for a fandom experience, but it's important to me that a story have some sort of internal coherence, whether that be 'canon' or not.

2. I'd want to be optimistic and say 'the fandom', but in reality people have always looked up to the author as a sort of be all end all, which means that I think Andrew will fail in his quest to detach Homestuck from canon. Regardless of what happens, people will treat Homestuck^2 and anything else like it as The Sole Truth, a strict unchanging chain of events that affects their favorite characters irreparably. And also, I personally believe that it is ultimately impossible to fully divorce a creator from their work, no matter how hard you try, because that emotional association will still be there. That's why everyone rushed to talk shit about Andrew when the Epilogues happened and not, say, the reasonably sized writing team behind it.

3. Homestuck Acts 1-7. Everything else is 'post-canon', but not strictly 'non-canon'. (i.e. to someone, this happened, and it's official, but you don't have to count it if you don't want to)

[Dream Muttman]

Personally, I look forward to the Homestuck Reformation of 2025, when the fandom splits and a new one emerges from the old, decanonizing everything after Act 6 Act 6 Act 3 and canonizing Jade and Calliope: Rumble as the true ending.

[nonsenseMnemonic]

1. Is canon necessary?
If canon is just events that actually happened within a story, yeah, I'm not sure you can have a story without that. You need some sort of groundwork. But canon as a single authoritative series of events or characterizations isn't necessary and not even really a concept that makes sense considering how easy it is for events within a story to contradict each other or just be total bullshit.
Authoritative canon to me implies ownership of a series, which I am against; I don't think people or companies should own stories or characters. This kind of authority is much more relevant to big media companies than to something like Homestuck, but hey, Homestuck's the one starting a conversation about it.

2. Who or what should define canon?
No one. Author perspective is not more valuable than individual interpretation is not more valuable than fandom consensus.

3. What does canon mean in universe?
What, like, within the Homestuck universe? Idk, whatever y'all want to prioritize about the work. Not sure it matters. Believing the Epilogues aren't canon doesn't make them go away: HS^2 is a direct continuation of them. Whether or not that's all canon isn't important. It doesn't change the content or its impact. I think the idea that we can disregard the Epilogues as noncanon or subjectively canon is a bit disingenuous, as to disregard them is to shut yourself off to all new Homestuck content -- if you are invested in new Homestuck, they really aren't optional.

[pfeffer-29]

1. Canon is not necessary, but it develops anyway in pretty much every story. It is much easier to write a character when their traits are, for the most part, set in stone.

2.

Ultimately, the author defines what is canon, but they must accept that within the canon there is room for interpretation, and no interpretation is more valid than any other, since the very existence of differing interpretations means that the material has the potential to be read differently than expected.

3.

In-universe, canon means whichever timeline leads to Lord English's creation. And since there is only one as far as we know, that one timeline is the only canon timeline. (This discourages fanfiction because, if one wishes to follow the rules of Homestuck's universe, their timeline can never bring about the birth of Lord English and is stuck inside Ult!Calliope's black hole. Which I find to be a bit stupid.)

Outside of the universe, canon means whatever the writers decide to integrate into their stories, whether it came from them or from the fandom. This is why the claim that the Epilogues (and, consequently, Homestuck^2) aren't canon in the original sense of the word is inherently flawed. They are official Homestuck media and decisions in them have affected the characters in Homestuck proper, Roxy's portrayal being the most obvious example. Like it or not, when someone official writes a character with a previously unknown trait, whether it is "canon" or not, people will have to adopt said writer's interpretation because they're the writer and the media is official.

[Dream Muttman]

I think one of the requirements Homestuck has to meet before it can actually claim to have no canon going forward is to maintain two or more official storylines that receive the same amount of attention, are worked on at the same time and are fundamentally contradictory (which Meat and Candy turned out not to be). There should be no way to call these stories spinoffs.

The easiest way to reach that point would be to make an open license and allow many authors to work on Homestuck content at one time, probably, as the official team is interested in a single narrative and anything contradictory is more liable to be considered a retcon than a branching, truly alternate story.

[JakeMorph]

as far as im concerned the homestuck 'canon' is the whole body of work that allows us to understand homestuck. paradox space, the frienddating datefriendgames, the epilogues + 2 are all canon because they present facts and ideas about homestuck to us in a way that can make us change the way we perceive homestuck itself. problem sleuth, bard quest, jailbreak, despite not being 'homestuck works', are also part of the homestuck canon, because reading them furthers our understanding of the comic. by extension things like the neverending story, lord of the rings, The Bible, etc. are also part of homestuck canon because they directly inform some of homestuck's general themes, but i'm not gonna go overboard here. that would be uncharacteristic of me.

homestuck is a time travel story, and contradicting itself is part of its nature. there arent necessarily any "true" events within the narrative because any number of characters have the power to go back and change what is "true". homestuck is thus less about the "canon events" that happen on the pages and more about the themes. andrew sort of hints toward this idea in the commentary for the books, saying homestuck is more about the meta-narrative than what "actually happens" in the depicted sburb sessions.

so to answer the questions: is canon necessary? it depends, and to certain degrees. to understand, say, spades slick, it is probably necessary to read problem sleuth. if you want to understand vriska more, you might be compelled to play the games that explore alternian society more, or the dating sims where vriska yells at you about her personality traits. in that canon is about enhancing your understanding of the text, the bits of canon that YOU PERSONALLY think will enhance YOUR understanding of the text MAY be necessary to YOU. beyond that its a story and its meant 2 be enjoyed so watever. i guess this sort of answers the second question too.

what does canon mean in universe? it is possible this will become more clear if dirk decides to talk our ears off some more about it, but my opinion is that its in universe meaning is kind of the same as what it means irl. i think this is the stance rose takes about it too. she collates what is "canon" and what is "relevant", but since she is ultimately just a character inside the story, her understanding of "relevant" is different to ours; while candy might not be "relevant" to her journey toward becoming a robot oracle lady in homestuck 2, it's relevant to us if we want to understand her as a character.

[nonsenseMnemonic]

as far as im concerned the homestuck 'canon' is the whole body of work that allows us to understand homestuck. paradox space, the frienddating datefriendgames, the epilogues + 2 are all canon because they present facts and ideas about homestuck to us in a way that can make us change the way we perceive homestuck itself. problem sleuth, bard quest, jailbreak, despite not being 'homestuck works', are also part of the homestuck canon, because reading them furthers our understanding of the comic. by extension things like the neverending story, lord of the rings, The Bible, etc. are also part of homestuck canon because they directly inform some of homestuck's general themes, but i'm not gonna go overboard here. that would be uncharacteristic of me.

you go from Homestuck to Problem Sleuth to the Bible here but skip over a more obvious step: fan work. If an unofficial fan analysis or fanfic helps one better understand Homestuck, would you consider it canon?

[JakeMorph]

feel like im breaking some kind of law bringing up a teevee trope after only 2 posts in a thread, but the Word of Dante comes to mind.

dante was not involved in writing the bible. he was not really considered an expert on the bible, and he certainly wasnt among the people considered to be bible authorities at the time. but today a lot of people consider his work is to be considered "of the Christian canon", even if it is not "Canon" to "The" "Bible".

id certainly say this applies to a lot of fan analysis in particular. bladekindeyewear is a great example. i basically agree with nothing the guy says, but theres no denying his theory is part of what would be called the "homestuck canon" in literary terms. frequently i'll find myself turning to ideas that originated from bkew when i'm analysing the text for myself. mmmmalo is probably a more contemporary example. again, disagree with a lot of their analysis straight up, but their ideas DO help me to understand some of homestuck and a lot of it bleeds into my own work.

i'm more ehhh about fan FIC, personally, but i think this is where the "canon is what YOU consume for YOUR purposes" thing really comes in. i dont read a lot of homestuck fic. but if someone wanted to engage with me in a conversation about, say, vriska, and they said something like "in this fic where vriska dies at an early age and spends her life in the dream bubbles, x and y elements of her personality come to the forefront, and this has informed my personal understanding of vriska as a character" i would think that's great! i dont have to AGREE with it, but i think that counts as an opinion formed by the canon. so yes! in the broader sense of canon, fic - especially fic that, like Dante's, has a wide appeal and influence - absolutely counts. and all of this is me not even bothering to get into the fact that homestuck is now being written by the same people who wrote homestuck fanfic and more and more ideas that originated in what we might call a "fanon" are finding their ways into licensed homestuck media.

[sorbicCondition]

feel like im breaking some kind of law bringing up a teevee trope after only 2 posts in a thread, but the Word of Dante comes to mind.

In regards to fanfiction I'd consider canon, Detective Pony definitely comes to mind, especially considering it HS^2 has now officially referenced it. Which is hilarious to me in this context, because Detective Pony is pretty much constantly referencing Dante's Inferno.

[Darth_Energon]

Frankly, I find all of this metanarrative wank annoying and egotistical.

[egg]

Frankly, I find all of this metanarrative wank annoying and egotistical.

It's essentially useless right now. The amount of work you'd have to put in to turn Homestuck into something like SCP with no canon would be immense, almost herculean. It's just semantics at this point.

[furrylatula]

1. Is canon necessary?

yes. one of the chief defining aspects of canon i haven’t seen people talk about is the ability to freely remix it. anyone can pull a panel from homestuck and draw over it, shop it into somewhere else, print it out and tape it to things, all without seeking permission from the creators and it is perfectly acceptable*.

but what if i did that with a fanwork? what if i googled ‘vriska serket’ and pulled up the first piece of fanart i saw and recolored the background to have the trans flag and reposted it on my own account? id get raked over the coals

i also think it’s important to have information about the work that the majority of the fandom can agree on. if i decided that cronus was a butch lesbian i might enjoy that interpretation IMMENSELY but i would be hard-pressed to find a large group of people willing to make content for it because it isnt canon.

*note: i am not talking in a legal sense. obviously in a legal sense all unlicensed use of copyrighted images is unacceptable

2. Who or what should define canon?

the author and anyone authorized by the author. having multiple continuities is also a good idea

3. What does canon mean in universe?

homestuck’s narrative fabric which is woven out of doomed and alpha timelines in service of universe reproduction. therefore the epilogues are not canon because theyre no longer contributing to a sburb session but homestuck^2 is

[sylvarn]

1. No, and shouldn't be

2. Nothing at all, it should be whatever you understand it to be

3. Anything involved in 'alpha' timelines of universe creation and sgrub sessions

[bathtimebird]

Canon is the words written down, it's what the author says. It's really simple. I don't see why this is a question that needs to be asked.

[furrylatula]

Canon is the words written down, it's what the author says. It's really simple. I don't see why this is a question that needs to be asked.

which author? is it only the author who began the work? does it extend to artwork too? if so, are all the flashes not animated by hussie non-canon? what about works outside of homestuck that are written by hussie? he wrote ardata’s friendsim route, does that mean mspar going to alternia is canon to homestuck? which ardata ending is canon?

[aspiringWatcher]

1. Is canon necessary?

I don't see how a body can exist without a skeleton.

2. Who or what should define canon?

If by that you mean "what is canon and what isn't": the author, or, in HS' case, the interpreter (i. e. reader)

3. What does canon mean in universe?

I'll assume this refers to a canon event:

The same thing a myth means to a whole mythology. It's a story that might have plausibly happened because there is something that can be interpreted in its favour, or did actually happen. Or did it?

[Royaute]

1. Is canon necessary?

Yes.

2. Who or what should define canon?

The IP holder of the original work of authorship. If it happens in the work, it's canon.

3. What does canon mean in universe?

Ideally shouldn't be a point of discussion in-universe at all.