In Response To: When life gives you canon, make cannonade (Narcogen)
: In an ideal world, yes.
: The problem is that over time, what seems to be a monolithic concept,
: "creators" turns into a many-headed hydra.
: People leave a company. Others join. Who is the "creator"? The
: company? Or the people?
: Companies are bought and sold. Who is the "creator"? The legal
: entity and its ownership at the time of creation? Subsequent owners?
: Whether right or wrong, ultimately the audience itself inevitably becomes the
: arbiter of what is canon and what isn't, and who is considered a
: "creator" and who isn't. Not because this is necessarily
: desirable or logical, but simply because the audience is the group that is
: least susceptible to change over time because of its sheer size. Fans lose
: interest and drop away and new fans join the ranks every day, but the
: shape and character of the audience changes much more slowly than creators
: or owners.
: Sometimes even when the creators don't change, a large audience over time can
: begin to reject some of the additions and changes made to a canon-- look
: at the latter three Star Wars films compared to the initial three.
: Portions of the audience reject those latter three films because, despite
: having the same nominal creator, George Lucas, they are so different in
: tone, content and character, that some are led to reject it.
: Perhaps this is going to sound unnecessarily harsh, but I'd say at this
: moment, with Bungie a different group than it was when Halo was announced,
: having now entered into and emerged from the embrace of Microsoft, and
: having handed over the keys to the franchise to them in exchange for
: independence, it seems inescapable to me to conclude that while Bungie
: certainly still are the creators, the potential conflicts of interest that
: exist between the franchise's creators (Bungie) and its owners (Microsoft)
: as well as its stewards (343 Industries) seem to leave the audience as the
: only remaining unbiased arbiter of what is and what is not canon. Even
: when these three elements were one, during Microsoft's ownership of Bungie
: Studios, materials were created by third parties, in conjunction with the
: creators and with the approval of the owners, the canonicity of which was
: never completely defined and even today is the subject of argument (I Love
: Bees). This was a relatively minor conflict, as ILB was made with, but not
: by, Bungie Studios, and was not a primary source, but rather additional
: materials intended for promotion.
: However, so far we have seen new primary sources created by developers
: separate from the creators but also owned by the franchise owners
: (Ensemble's Halo Wars). With the closure of Ensemble and the divestiture
: in Bungie, it seems likely that if there are to be Halo games published by
: Microsoft after Reach, they will be developed by still other parties,
: perhaps this time third party developers, making them still further
: removed from the creators, regardless of what kind of supervision by 343
: and/or cooperation with Bungie might be possible.
: I don't suppose I disagree with you on any particular point, except perhaps
: to add that anon is decided, created and morphed in partnership with the
: creators and the audience. It seems possible to imagine that at some
: point, a fact might be entered into canon that is decided, created and
: morphed into being by the current incarnations (at that time) of Bungie
: LLC, Microsoft and 343 Industries, but that would not be accepted by the
: audience at large. Should that be the case, in what sense could it be
: called canon?
Well written, Narc. I agree with almost all of this.
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