Canon and truth in-universe

[Faultie]

I prefer the type with 2 'n's.

[Melissia]

Normally, it's spelled with two. But in this particular case and with this specific meaning, it's one.

No, "Canon", "the set of all canonical material in the fiction's universe", is spelled with one N. Always.

"Cannon", meaning "a large gun on a tank", "an artillery piece", etc, is spelled with two.

They are two completely different words. Do not try and claim that Canon is normally spelled with two Ns, because it is not. Cannon is, but Canon isn't. That's like trying to claim that you normally should spell "water", the layman's term for the molecule H2O, "Waiter". No, you should not.




... anyway, where were we....

[Gotthammer]

Canon has two Ns, cannon has three.

Just sayin'...

[david5th]

Canon has two Ns, cannon has three.

Just sayin'...

Correct.

[Inquisitor Soren]

I make a typo at 12am and we now have more posts about spelling than we do about the original topic. *facepalm* Alright Mel you get the award for epic topic derail. Besides I think I would rather have a Cannon at this point... =p

I'd like to move the discussion on towards 'Canon' in the 40k 'verse. What does each person consider 'Canon' and what piece(s) of fluff would they personally disregard in the 'Canon'. What is each persons view on the several major events that could be disputed?

I personally like to think that it was the Lion who fell rather than Luther. I haven't finished the Heresy Books on them, as they are floating in Limbo at the moment, but the Lion always feels -to- secretive, far to withdrawn from everyone else. And with a temper that swings from happy to rawgh faster than I thought was normal for a supposedly cool headed warrior. He seems to regard his 'friends' at arms length at best, even his close advisers. He was obviously an extremely troubled man, but even when he met with the Emperor he seemed distant at best in the books. He seems to know Horus' plan intimately and he is able to move to thwart his concept to have a Forge World flip while the Dark Angels are there with a well timed and deployed squad of warriors led by his adviser an Chaplin.

At the very least I feel that Horus may have approached the Lion and offered him a place in the new Regime, but he simply left and never gave an answer. We know he is a master strategist but from the reading he knew how Horus would move and deliberately moves to counter him while leaving the majority of his forces to continue a campaign in the Halo Stars. He refuses to commit his Legion to the war but he himself moves to do battle this seems really odd to me...

Okay that is it for me, I obviously regard the Lion as person who knew at the least and a true traitor at worst. =p

[Kahoolin]

I think your confusion, Kahoolin, comes from the misunderstanding of the word "canon", or the body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding in a field of study. You seem, however, to be confusing canon with the historical record of the 40k universe. These two are not the same. Canon is handed down by an authoritative body, an arbiter of what is an isn't, and generally only exists in fictional worlds and religions

Ah, that's not what I'm saying though. Or at least not what I was trying to say. I'm saying that canon is 40k is precisely NOT the historical record of the 40k universe. The historical record of the 40k universe doesn't exist anywhere in our world, but 40k canon does. Canon is just the catalogue of real-world works that are agreed to make up what we know about the 40k universe, the same way that the three books that make up The Lord of the Rings + the Silmarillion, Hobbit, etc. are the canon of the universe of Middle Earth. This is not the sense the word canon is used in terms of religious scripture, but in pop culture, which I agree could be confusing. Religious canon carries connotations of Truth (with a capital T). Canon in terms of pop culture does not. It has nothing directly to do with the historical record of the universe it describes, it is simply all of the information the creator of the fiction has provided us about that fictional universe. That is not the same thing as the historical record of that universe.

To prove that's not what I meant I'll say this, if canon = truth in-universe then imagine this hypothetical case:

Ghazkull Thraka is an Ork.
Ghazkull Thraka is two Tau in an Ork suit.

Clearly these claims cannot both be true in-universe. Ghazza can't literally be an Ork and two Tau in an Ork suit at the same time. Now what if two different GW produced sources made these two different claims? Would only one of them be canon? How would you tell which one was canon? The answer is they are both canon, but one of them is not true in-universe. Therefore, canon does not equal true in-universe. Canon equals everything produced by GW, or everything written by a member of the design team, or some other real world criteria. Truth in universe is different.

Suspension of disbelief, in this case (and, sadly, many others in the 40k universe) actually lies in believing what GW writes is true (in-universe).

Some of what they write is true in-universe; the fun is going in-universe and finding out what! Not everything GW writes can be true in-universe because some of it conflicts. Are Salamanders white or black? The current codex says they're black. My old White Dwarf (equally published by GW) has a picture of them and they are most definitely white dudes.

I don't think I get what you're saying though. How would you decide whether Salamanders are black or white? Would you reason that one source is not valid for some real world reason (e.g. 21st century fluff beats 1980s fluff), or would you do something like find all the examples you could and add them up and pick the one winner? If the former, then it means you judge truth in-universe by the real world status of the canon and that means you have to deal with the fact that the fluff could change at any time. If the latter it means you judge truth in-universe by suspending disbelief and analyzing the canon material as if it were conflicting historical sources. That's the distinction I'm getting at.

[Melissia]

You forget, Kahoolin... history is written by the winners.

This applies to 40k as well as the real world.



By the way, look up the definition of retcon.

[Faultie]

By the way, look up the definition of retcon.

In GW's case, it's a sort of continual form. Real-time, as it were.
More than that, I think it's a case that GW is a bit willy-nilly with how they go about creating fluff. There are different writers, and they produce different codices. Beyond that, there are Black Library books, Fantasy Flight publications, Relic/THQ games, etc., and they (seemingly more-often-than-not) contradict one another.

To prove that's not what I meant I'll say this, if canon = truth in-universe then imagine this hypothetical case:

Ghazkull Thraka is an Ork.
Ghazkull Thraka is two Tau in an Ork suit.

Much as I wish this were true (two Tau in an Ork suit would be fantastically hilarious), there are few such blatant(ly funny) contradictions in the GW lore.

[Melissia]

GW retcons all the time. Possibly far too ften, making ti confusing.

[Faultie]

GW retcons all the time. Possibly far too ften, making ti confusing.

...off-topic, I know, but why are you a Chapter Master?
Shouldn't you be a Canoness (one-n) Preceptor at the least, maybe a Canoness Superior?