The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Sep 25, 2012 10:32 am

Did you feel something when eating 'em? Like, the rumoured Force? What did it feel like?

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Kane Starkiller » Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:59 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:With the problem here that Hidalgo doesn't speak of any "SW canon", as you put it. He says:
I guess this is the main point of contention between us. To my mind "SW canon" is I put it and "canon of Star Wars" are synonimous. Perhaps I'm missing some nuance of English language since I'm not a native speaker. In any case I'm not sure what you mean there is only canon? There is chatolic church canon, SW canon etc? The word has different meanings depending on where it is used.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:In fact, this very formulation proves that there is another canon, albeit less definitive (authoritative): it is "the less definitive canon" that is implied here. Hidalgo simply identifies the "most definitive" one and explains what it contains. This is the correct interpretation.
Not only because there cannot be true elements without being part of a canon (as I said above), but also because there's no point specifying that there's a most definitive canon if it actually is the only one and that no other canon, holding reliable data, would ever exist alongside.
This is why this is nothing new to me.
I don't see the need to delve into what exactly is the less definitive canon. To me the meaning in this passage is clear: canon is films and SW cartoons. This is what he means by most definitive canon in the context.
To me what matters is that events happened not what exact canon they are. So I guess we'll have to remain in disagreement on this issue.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:41 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:With the problem here that Hidalgo doesn't speak of any "SW canon", as you put it. He says:
I guess this is the main point of contention between us. To my mind "SW canon" is I put it and "canon of Star Wars" are synonimous. Perhaps I'm missing some nuance of English language since I'm not a native speaker. In any case I'm not sure what you mean there is only canon? There is chatolic church canon, SW canon etc? The word has different meanings depending on where it is used.
I see your point of view. In religion, there is one canon and that is all. There is no need to use adjectives and define a canon as "the most definitive" one. It is authoritative by nature, period.
The use of the term canon refers to laws. However, there's not such a thing as laws as far as movies are concerned.
It is an analogy, and one that is badly used at that. The canon also covers many historical events which are presented as truth. Some form of jurisprudence also plays a role in defining laws. So it requires valid events, "recorded" in the texts. Outside of them, events which could have played a role in refining the laws are not considered valid.
Hidalgo made things complicated in a few words, which is a performance!
You typed "canon of Star Wars", but he didn't say that either.
He managed to have a "most definitive" canon, like if there was a "less definitive" one, and even manages to state that events outside of the canon are officially considered to have happened.
This is just so wrong.
Because as far as religious and judicial technicalities are concerned, what is in the canon is valid, reliable and indisputable, and helps defining laws. They're predictions of what will happen based on law, because issues have to be sorted following those laws.
But movies are nothing like that. They're merely recorded events and don't even claim at predicting anything or attempting to cover some issues and offering solutions.

That is why the analogy is not so formidable, because as far as entertainment is concerned, canon here means nothing more than the only body of narrative material that is reliable, and that's all. Anything outside of that narrative canon is unreliable.
This is why it's a problem here, because it should absolutely prevent any narrative material outside of said canon to be officially declared as having happened. It's nonsensical. That's a complete contradiction.

The publishing branch defines the reality of the universe. It is the council which defines what material is relevant, which as far as they're concerned, means narratively factual.

Because the word canon is used so loosely, it actually obtains a flexible meaning from where "the most definitive canon of Star Wars" declaration can suddenly imply that there's a "less definitive canon of Star Wars."

This shouldn't even happen to begin with with a proper use of the concept of canon, which is quite binary (regardless of any hierarchy inside said canon).

Mr. Oragahn wrote:In fact, this very formulation proves that there is another canon, albeit less definitive (authoritative): it is "the less definitive canon" that is implied here. Hidalgo simply identifies the "most definitive" one and explains what it contains. This is the correct interpretation.
Not only because there cannot be true elements without being part of a canon (as I said above), but also because there's no point specifying that there's a most definitive canon if it actually is the only one and that no other canon, holding reliable data, would ever exist alongside.
This is why this is nothing new to me.
I don't see the need to delve into what exactly is the less definitive canon. To me the meaning in this passage is clear: canon is films and SW cartoons. This is what he means by most definitive canon in the context.
To me what matters is that events happened not what exact canon they are. So I guess we'll have to remain in disagreement on this issue.
If what matters to you is to know that events happened, then I suppose you'll go with that canon + other region of material where events also happened.

OK.
The problem here is of another nature. It's that Hidalgo doesn't use the word canon badly.
For Lucas it worked because he really made it clear that outside of his canon, the other stuff was just as good as non-existent (that has never happened as far as he's concerned).
But this doesn't work for an EU staff guy. And it even works less when claiming that all stuff happened, in and out of canon.
:|

It shows that he's using the word canon in a bad way. He should have stuck with the usual Holocron policy, with different levels in the canon as far as EU managers are concerned.
The situation is so awkward that Hidalgo slips and types nonsense, and ends, in substance, saying that there's a canon of SW wherein we know that events happened, and then there's stuff outside of that "most definitive canon" where we also know that stuff happened with certainty; because if there's any contradiction, then we know the event that is contradicted by the canon hasn't happened then, which is just another facet of the certainty.

He's actually managed to type a first part that is totally purist and then sealed the whole statement with a declaration that is totally EUphile.

You just want to tell him: man, if it ain't canon, it can't have happened, you should know that. So make up your mind.

Even the "parallel" stuff doesn't help. You could say yes, it happened, but in that parallel reality, which is not part of the canon.
The problem being that the way the EU is managed and presented, it is clearly exposed as a reality which is its own canon.
Otherwise Rostini and co would be keeping an internal continuity to events which... didn't happen.
Complete WTF.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by mojo » Wed Sep 26, 2012 2:05 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Did you feel something when eating 'em? Like, the rumoured Force? What did it feel like?
O: mojo, what did the fruit snacks taste like?
M: uh, i'm 34.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by mojo » Wed Sep 26, 2012 2:07 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Because the word canon is used so loosely, it actually obtains a flexible meaning from where "the most definitive canon of Star Wars" declaration can suddenly imply that there's a "less definitive canon of Star Wars."

This shouldn't even happen to begin with with a proper use of the concept of canon, which is quite binary (regardless of any hierarchy inside said canon).
i thought it was 'canon' for g level stuff, and 'continuity' for eu and whatever.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Sep 26, 2012 11:37 am

mojo wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Because the word canon is used so loosely, it actually obtains a flexible meaning from where "the most definitive canon of Star Wars" declaration can suddenly imply that there's a "less definitive canon of Star Wars."

This shouldn't even happen to begin with with a proper use of the concept of canon, which is quite binary (regardless of any hierarchy inside said canon).
i thought it was 'canon' for g level stuff, and 'continuity' for eu and whatever.
There wouldn't be any notion of g level stuff if anything of any other level wasn't part of the canon. That's the issue with the Holocron policy. It already has several canons.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by sonofccn » Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:39 pm

My two cents:

To me, and maybe I'm misreading it, it sounds like Mr. Hidalgo is speaking, with his parallel talk and such, of two seperate , for lack of a better word, canon systems. We have Lucas-canon, G and T, which is what he will"...refrence when adding cinematic adventures" and then we have EU canon which, seperatly, refrences and expands upon Lucas-canon. Hence why Lucas's work is the "most definitive canon", doesn't include anything outside of itself as having happened and yet if there isn't a contridiction offical EU material it " can reliably be said to have occured"

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by mojo » Thu Sep 27, 2012 1:47 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
mojo wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Because the word canon is used so loosely, it actually obtains a flexible meaning from where "the most definitive canon of Star Wars" declaration can suddenly imply that there's a "less definitive canon of Star Wars."

This shouldn't even happen to begin with with a proper use of the concept of canon, which is quite binary (regardless of any hierarchy inside said canon).
i thought it was 'canon' for g level stuff, and 'continuity' for eu and whatever.
There wouldn't be any notion of g level stuff if anything of any other level wasn't part of the canon. That's the issue with the Holocron policy. It already has several canons.
but before the tv show, wasn't it just g level for films, and then the film novelizations and radio dramas? and then the eu was 'continuity'. oragahn, you're the one that explained this to me for god's sake.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Sep 27, 2012 1:03 pm

mojo wrote: but before the tv show, wasn't it just g level for films, and then the film novelizations and radio dramas? and then the eu was 'continuity'. oragahn, you're the one that explained this to me for god's sake.
You mean well before the tv show. Back to Sansweet's statements iirc.
In the meantime, the Holocron policy on the management of canonical tiers was revealed.
Then the show made by Lucas arrived and the T canon was added.
Now, following the latest statements, both T and G canon should be the same but I haven't read anything official about the merging of those two categories within the Holocron policy. In fact there's no guarantee that Lucas ever treated the Clone Wars series as a less reliable narrative material. Only the Holocron policy ever decided to create different levels.

Most interesting is that the Holocron policy largely ignores the older policy which Sansweet and Rostoni once briefly described.
The Holocron policy is quite complicated as it deals with the data itself and not the source. It doesn't claim that book A is part of X, Y or Z canon, but that the material inside it either comes from Lucas (officially, even if we all know he has teams surrounding him, but G canon is supposed to represent anything with his final imprimatur of sorts if you want), or from some other author.

However I think there is an exception to that with the S canon, which seems to be less delicate and literally entire books or comics into that canon, without trying to filter stuff out of them. Then, for elements from the S canon to be part of C canon, they have to be mentioned in the C canon. Basically, it's the same relation between G and C that exists between C and S. If a name is mentioned in G canon, only the name is G canon. Any other description is C canon. As I get it, same goes for stuff from S canon. Only what strictly permeates into C canon is C canon. Like, a name.

All of this to say that the novelizations and radio dramas, I believe, have been dumped to C canon safe for the bits inside them which are from Lucas himself. Well, I guess that applies to the recent movies' novelizations. But for the novelizations of ANH (once merely called Star Wars), The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, I'm not sure if Chee and co go as far as to splinter them into different bits to sort them out from then on.
The first novelization literally has Lucas' name on it, although it wasn't totally written by him (it's a sort of expanded material from the script).

In fact, I'd really like to know how OT novelizations are defined in regards to the canon policy of the publishing branch of Lucas' megacompany.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Khas » Thu Sep 27, 2012 1:30 pm

The novelizations of the films are G-Canon.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:02 pm

Khas wrote:The novelizations of the films are G-Canon.
Are you sure of that? I thought that novelizations weren't getting that old special treatment anymore.
I think I read that they actually bothered to sort G stuff from the things written by the novelization's author.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Khas » Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:56 pm

I'm just going by what the most recent update of Wookieepedia says. It said that the novels are G-Canon, but anything that the author just makes up is C-Canon. I don't get it either.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Sep 27, 2012 9:27 pm

Khas wrote:I'm just going by what the most recent update of Wookieepedia says. It said that the novels are G-Canon, but anything that the author just makes up is C-Canon. I don't get it either.
What a mess. Since, iirc, the ANH novelization is the only one to be officially presented as a novel by GL (despite Alan Dean Foster writing it), it's the only novelization to be able to entirely count as G canon.
I suppose it works as it does with the films: G Lucas gave his direct approval after examining the material in detail.
Of course, with that logic, there's like a shit lot of material that would be become G level canon. Ewok movies, The Force Unleashed games, etc.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Khas » Fri Sep 28, 2012 12:30 am

Not the Ewoks, NOT THE EWOKS! Seriously, there's so much stupidity in the Ewok stuff that it makes my brain hurt. Like the seasons of Endor being controlled by four demigods, with the one for summer - the Sun King - speaking like a '90's surfer dude.

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Re: The EU Admits to Being Parallel in Print

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Sep 28, 2012 3:28 pm

The idea of more or less local divinities has clearly been explored in the most recent CW episodes, with those Force essentials, the Ones (and eventually the Celestials). Any variant of lesser potential can still take the form of a god, in theory.

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