"Best of Megatron" compilation

[Sparky Prime]

From now on I'm going to insist that the sky is green. Because it's my own "personal green" which may or may not be the same as your personal green.

I'm color blind, so my "personal green" has a tendency not to be green anyway...

[Onslaught Six]

Not lost... Side stepped perhaps. At any rate, it seems that most of us are of the opinion there is such a thing as "personal canon".

From now on I'm going to insist that the sky is green. Because it's my own "personal green" which may or may not be the same as your personal green.

Dude now we're getting into issues of personal interpretations of reality and that can be a really deep mindfuck conversation or a cool song idea.

Maybe the sky isn't actually "blue." Maybe it *is* green. But we've all labelled it "blue," and maybe when I see blue I see green.

I mean, what about colourblind folk?

[Dominic]

No, no it is not. The point was Roddenberry was an influential authoritative figure over Star Trek, especially as its creator regardless of who owns the franchise. Granted, Paramount as the owner holds the final say, but that's not the point.

Rodenberry had not authority over 'Trek that Paramount did not give him. Paramount's discretion gave Rodenberry what power he did have, thus Paramount ultimately decided what mattered and what was canon.

Besides, the issue of a fan's interpretation being "official" is a possibility as stated in my Constructicon example 2 pages ago (and actually, that example has TWO fans' interpretations being official). No one has come up with an answer to that conundrum yet.

Actually, there are 3, not two, legitimate readings of the Constructicons' origins from the cartoon. (Of course, that does not help find any real answer in terms of what is the right origin....)

Stan Lee: I like him, but I'm horribly unfamiliar with his work, if not his influence.

How can you like a writer and be unfamiliar with their work? Their work would be the basis for liking them, right?


Dom
-will answer Anderson's point next...

[Dominic]

I think that Anderson's real problem here is two fold.

One, Anderson is *not* a fan of deconstructionalism and imposing one's own reading on a story. Like me, he tries to follow author intent whenever possible. He may not always like the official source, but he respects and follows it. (Or, he gives up and walks away if it is really bad. But, he does not question its legitimacy as official.) Anderson has probably lost more than a few hours of sleep over the Constructicons. (And hey, who among us has not?) I can actually picture his kids talking to him about it. "Daddy, it is 3 in the morning. Why are you scibbling on the walls? What is a robot smasher paradox?"

Along similar lines, Anderson really hates self-indulgent readings of things.

On this front, I agree with him.

Two, Anderson is a big one for preserving the meanings of words as they were. "Personal canon" has a newer, and looser definition of the word "canon", and it often is a synonym for "self-indulgent reading". That some fans think their reading is official only adds to his annoyance.

I partly agree with him here. Words do need meanings. And, self-indulgent twerpery among fans is annoying. But, the term "personal canon" is what it is. Even Anderson, who dislikes the term, can see what it means.


The fact is that some kind of "personal canon" is needed when official sources contradict each other. Anderson prefers the idea that Megatron was lying about building the Constructicons in the caves. I might argue that Megatron is a damned lunatic and Starscream just did not want to point out that the Constructions were build on Cybertron years before. There is no evidence to support or refute either theory. (Of course, at this point, I just call a mistake a mistake and move on.) Now, if somebody wants to argue for one of the 3 origins, "they were built in a cave" is the hardest to reconcile with other episodes. But, the line itself is there, in an episode, making it a legitimate preference for a viewer.

Dom
-woudl rather see better editing of course.

[andersonh1]

I think that Anderson's real problem here is two fold.

One, Anderson is *not* a fan of deconstructionalism and imposing one's own reading on a story. Like me, he tries to follow author intent whenever possible. He may not always like the official source, but he respects and follows it. (Or, he gives up and walks away if it is really bad. But, he does not question its legitimacy as official.) Anderson has probably lost more than a few hours of sleep over the Constructicons. (And hey, who among us has not?) I can actually picture his kids talking to him about it. "Daddy, it is 3 in the morning. Why are you scibbling on the walls? What is a robot smasher paradox?"

Yeah, that scares the kids. But if I write in crayon, I can usually get away with blaming them for writing on the wall so they have to clean it off.

Along similar lines, Anderson really hates self-indulgent readings of things.

On this front, I agree with him.

Two, Anderson is a big one for preserving the meanings of words as they were. "Personal canon" has a newer, and looser definition of the word "canon", and it often is a synonym for "self-indulgent reading". That some fans think their reading is official only adds to his annoyance.

I partly agree with him here. Words do need meanings. And, self-indulgent twerpery among fans is annoying. But, the term "personal canon" is what it is. Even Anderson, who dislikes the term, can see what it means.

I understand what is being said, yes. But to me it all boils down to this: words are what they are, and mean what they mean. That's what allows communication, because we accept and use the same word definitions when speaking, and this is why slang can make communication difficult sometimes. I'm not a big fan of someone imposing their own personal likes or dislikes on what ought to be a settled set of word definitions. Language does change over time, certainly, as groups begin to alter spelling or word meaning, and in time society may or may not adopt those changes as official. Look at the English of Shakespeare and compare it to the English of today. Words evolve. Language evolves. But it doesn't follow that we can arbitrarily change the language to make words mean whatever we like.

Hence my crack about a "personal green". We all know what blue is (with the exception of the color blind among us, and no offense was intended. Color just made for a convenient example). But if I look at the blue bar at the top of this page and insist that it's green, and that I'm putting my own personal reading into the color, I'm just talking nonsense. The bar is blue whether I choose to acknowledge that or not. And when applied to a body of fiction, canon has a specific meaning, whether we acknowledge that or not.

The fact is that some kind of "personal canon" is needed when official sources contradict each other. Anderson prefers the idea that Megatron was lying about building the Constructicons in the caves. I might argue that Megatron is a damned lunatic and Starscream just did not want to point out that the Constructions were build on Cybertron years before. There is no evidence to support or refute either theory. (Of course, at this point, I just call a mistake a mistake and move on.) Now, if somebody wants to argue for one of the 3 origins, "they were built in a cave" is the hardest to reconcile with other episodes. But, the line itself is there, in an episode, making it a legitimate preference for a viewer.

What you're talking about here is trying to make sense of contradictions within a fictional context. By trying to make contradictory Constructicon origins make sense to me, I am in no way establishing canon, personal or otherwise. As Shockwave rightly pointed out, both origins are technically canon, even though both can't have occurred as shown (unless history was altered, or Megatron was crazy, or there were multiple groups of Constructicons, or the Matrix was inaccurate, or whatever). I'm just trying to make logical sense of events. By attaching the word "canon", there is automatically an assumption of "official imprimatur", which simply can't be the case when a fan is making the explanation.

Yeah, I'm probably Don Quixote here. Look out windmills, here I come!

[Dominic]

The problem here is that "personal cannon" is the word we know and understand. The change has, for good or ill, already happened to the definition of "canon".

And, linguistic quibbles aside, there is nothing wrong with confusion over official contradictions, provided people are not trying to warp things for their own self-indulgent purposes.


Dom
-and his Armada....

[andersonh1]

The problem here is that "personal cannon" is the word we know and understand. The change has, for good or ill, already happened to the definition of "canon".

Within the Transformers fanbase, sure. And within the Doctor Who fanbase, for that matter, since I've seen the same thing on Doctor Who messageboards. From a practical standpoint, I understand exactly what's being said when the term is used. It's just that the word canon itself is being misused, and that bothers me.

The question is, has the term penetrated the larger societal lexicon? If or when that happens, then we're well on the way to seeing the term adopted as an official part of the language. As it is, it's fan shorthand and my criticisms stand, even if it's a known and useful term.

[Dominic]

What term would you propse instead though? I have tried to use "fan speculation", but that has not taken hold even among people I talk to regularly.

Dom

[Onslaught Six]

I still say my definition is totally the best.

If I ran the franchise, Optimus Prime would look like this or that. All the time. Also, he'd probably be a coward and a martyr and Jetfire would lead the Autobots.

The problem with this whole thing is when fans 'become' the authority, like with IDW. Older fans like M Sipher are now 'writing official canon fiction,' albeit restricted to club comics and stories. So what was once their fan interpretation (or personal canon) is now official on some level.

[Dominic]

When a fan is writing for an official license holder, their writing is official. There is no ambiguity.

The only problem that arises is when the fans/pros in question are given to fits of self-indulgent whimsy.


Dom
-but bad writing is no less official for being bad.