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The preceding paragraph is all stuff I just made up. But it's canonical now. — Sarah Monette
A statement regarding a controversy in a series. The Word Of God is considered inarguable because it comes from someone thought to be the ultimate authority, usually a creator or executive producer. Such edicts can even go against events as were broadcast, due to someone (a director, most likely, or a bullpen writer) having got it wrong. Can lead to Creative Differences.
On a similar note, the term Bible is sometimes used for the definitive guidelines for writing an episode of a TV series. Where a show might have a lot of details, there can sometimes be a book which contains rules about the show, backstory, forbidden interactions, etc. that book is referred to as the show's Bible.
In the case of Adaptation Decay, fans look for the Word Of God to settle Fanon disputes, but the Authority may have moved on and doesn't care to respond. In many cases the authority does not feel the need to respond; further pressure simply leads to suggestions fans are Completely Missing The Point and that Viewers Are Morons.
Note that many people reject the notion of Word Of God, considering something to be canon only if it appeared in the original source material, and that if the creator wanted a certain fact to be canon that s/he should have included it in the work to begin with. Some people go even further, considering the uncertainty and ambiguity of canon to be a good thing and decry the Word Of God as shackling the imagination and interpretations of the fans — a belief supported by some modern literary criticism, notably in Wimstatt and Beardsley's "The Intentional Fallacy" and Barthes' Death Of The Author essay, both of which argue that the author has no right to control what other people think of his or her work.
It's important to remember that if you disagree with the Word Of God, there's nothing wrong with writing fan fiction that contradicts it, just don't try to foist your preferred Fanon on fans who acknowledge the official canon or on the actual creator of the work.
If a work has more than one creator and the they disagree with each other on a crucial point, you'll likely see fans embrace conflicting statements. What happens when multiple fans are equipped with the Word Of God?
Bible fight!
See also Re Vision, Dis Continuity, Creator Worship. When the word does not come from the original creators but over time is still treated as such it is Word Of Dante. Contrast Lying Creator, Flip Flop Of God, Shrug Of God, Death Of The Author, and What Could Have Been. Word Of Gay and Jossed are subtropes.
Note: We don't require citations like The Other Wiki does, however, since this trope is about comments made by a creator about a work of media outside of said work of media, it is highly recommended that citations be provided. We don't particularly want to slander anyone by accident, but more importantly, citations will allow for full-context interviews and thus broader summations of the Word Of God, since we can get it straight from the God's mouth instead of secondhand.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Eiichiro Oda, creator of One Piece, jokes with this explaining things about the series such as how Zoro can speak with a sword in his mouth (because "it is his heart that allows him to speak.")
- In an interview in the "How To Read" volume of Death Note, Tsugumi Ohba expressly states that the random girl at the very end is not in fact Misa Amane and is just stuck in there for the sake of something pretty. Many actively ignore this for the sole reason that they think that's how it should be. Whatever floats your boat, dude.
- Ohba also states that she wanted it clear that dead characters are dead forever and can't come back to life. Sorry, guys, they're not hiding.
- The Misa issue is somewhat justified since Misa was killed off-screen; no one mentioned her in the epilogue and the author casually said how she died a bit later in the supplementary material. Fans feel this is cheap considering Misa was once a major character of the series.
- The author of the Sailor Moon manga has affirmed that the characters of Haruka Tenou (Sailor Uranus) and Michiru Kaiou (Sailor Neptune) were intended as a lesbian couple. This is heavily hinted at in both the anime and manga, but never stated outright and occasionally a point of contention among some fans.
- Ironically, her husband, the creator of Yu Yu Hakusho, has stated that Sensui and Itsuki are a gay male couple. He experiences as much backlash as she does, because the only open affection shown is on Itsuki's part.
- Masaki Kajishima, the original creator of Tenchi Muyo and the main writer for tje Ryo-Oh-Ki OVAs (even called "Kajishima canon" in Japan) is very fond of releasing tie-in novels, factbooks, doujinshis and other infodumps, where he explain his 'verse in more depth — mainly because he couldn't readily obtain funding for the next series, but still has something to say. These infodumps are generally treated as canon by Japanese fans, but tended not to appear in the West, which, for example, made third series a Wall Banger for many fans, as it derailed years of Fanon.
- The odd translation errors like "New Yark" and the "Great Canyon" from the dub of Mobile Suit Gundam were not actually errors. According to one translator, Yoshiyuki Tomino himself (or "a little bald wizard," as the translator put it) requested the changes; this would not be surprising at all considering the same little bald wizard requested that one episode be taken out of the US release, for very obvious reasons.
- Apparently, Cloverfield's odd little manga, with monsters being controllable by people, a cult, and Slusho.
- For Code Geass Word of God has stated that Lelouch is, in fact, dead, despite a popular fantheory that he is 'the cart-driver' in the final scene. Many fans choose to discount this with the theory that his identity as Lelouch vi Britannia is dead, but he lives on under the pseudonym of RR.
- To add onto the mess, in a few places Sunrise have been actively encouraging the second theory, even to the point where suggesting otherwise. See January 2009 Animedia for an example.
- Eventually put to rest by having C.C say that Lelouch is dead for good in the special addition DVD
- That didn't put it to rest. The fandom is still heavily divided.
- Fandumb aside, Word Of God has spoken.
- Hideaki Anno, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion, does not often comment on Eva unless he feels it is an important issue. The most famous of his statements is the one jossing the theory that Misato shot Kaji. He specified that it was a nameless security agent.
- Hellsing creator Kouta Hirano grew tired of fielding questions from detail-obsessed fans about Alucard never being shown reloading his guns in the manga. He got around this in a question-and-answer omake by saying that "they're all cosmoguns that hold a million rounds."
- Ranma 1/2 has had Rumiko Takahashi state that the Jusenkyo Nanniichuan (Spring of Drowned Man) will cure Ranma and the other cursed men. It's possible that this clarification would never have needed to have been made, if not for an early plot hole (the Saotomes not getting cured right there and then, and then following the guide to the Joketsuzoku) that then developed a Fanon theory of its own, and, worse still, a villainous character returning with an extra curse having been "merged" into his original one.
- Similarly, the reason many fans of the series deride Akari Unryuu as a Relationship Sue is because the author has admitted she was created solely for the purpose of giving Ryoga a "happy ending" and someone else to chase after besides Akane when The Rival managed to become so popular with the fans.
- And then there's the WordOfGod regarding the endless fan speculation about whether girl Ranma can get knocked up. "I don't think about that, and you shouldn't either!"
- The creator of The Slayers has insisted that Idiot Hero Gourry Gabriev actually has the potential to be a sorcerer of power perhaps equal to Lina Inverse.
- Dragonball author Akira Toriyama has provided a fair bit of information outside of the manga, ranging from the ages of characters to the structure of the afterlife to how Gods are chosen to Saiyan biology. He's also provided some hard facts that help ground the numerous discussions of "who's stronger than who" (such as saying Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks is roughly on par with Super Saiyan 3 Goku, though the way he said it added even more confusion), though not enough for most fans.
- The director of Revolutionary Girl Utena is rather infamous for answering fan questions about "what something means" with Blatant Lies. Of course, this is Ikuhara we're talking about ...
Comic Books
Video Games
- The Metal Gear Solid series contains a great number of mysteries, many of which are introduced in one game, with potential answers hinted at in that game or its sequels, only for the true (and completely different) answers to be revealed in even later games. To this end, in the voice credits for Metal Gear Solid 4, the final game which answers all important questions, Hideo Kojima (the series' longtime writer/director) is credited as the "Voice of God".
- To be fair, that wasn't a joke, he actually has a single line in the game: When the ghost of Psycho Mantis appears after Screaming Mantis' defeat, you can hear Kojima scream "Traitor!"
- The Japan-only video game Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 had a set of unlockable files, supposedly based on those of the shadowy organization SEELE and revealing the deep secrets of the series, based on a series of interviews with the show's creator, Hideaki Anno. These include such never-revealed-in-the-anime facts as Yui Ikari being the daughter of a member of SEELE, Asuka's mother's soul being split in two, the maternal part of which was inside EVA-02, and the Moons actually being terraforming agents left behind by a Precursor race. The White Moon and the Black were examples of two different seeds of life (Angels and Humans respectively) which were never intended to exist on the same world, with both crashing on Earth by pure accident. This extra information might not allow Neon Genesis Evangelion to make complete sense, but it certainly does help...
- Shigeru Miyamoto made a statement in an interview regarding the timeline of the Legend Of Zelda series which contradicted game canon such as in-game text, fueling the ongoing conflict about the chronology of the games.
- Then again said comment was made before the creation of 4 swords and The Minish cap.
- That comment also might have been a mistranslation, or he might have simply misspoken. The general consensus among Zelda fans is that Eiji Aonuma's Word Of God overrides Shigeru Miyamoto's, because Miyamoto admittedly doesn't care that much about the storyline of the games, preferring to make a solid game first, and then writing a storyline around said game. Eiji Aonuma is the one who usually works out how where a game fits into the timeline. It's his Word Of God that confirmed the timeline split.
- You've got real trouble when one Word Of God contradicts another. The Mega Man Zero series ran into this with the character of Harpuia, who was supposed to be male but looked and sounded rather girly — girly enough, apparently, to fool Capcom of America, who said the character was female. Capcom of Japan corrected this, and later games helped by using pronouns for him more often.
- And then there's the enemy character Poison and Roxy from Final Fight, who were designed as male-to-female transvestites with breast implants (as one can tell by their masculine faces and voices), apparently because the game designers thought it was acceptable to have a male hero punch female enemies as long as they're not actually real women (yeah). Needless to say, they got Bowdlerized into effeminate-looking punks in the localizations of the SNES versions. When Capcom USA later made Final Fight Revenge, the designers weren't aware that Poison was actually supposed to be a man, so they addressed "him" as a "her" in the game. This was corrected in the Japanese localization of the game. Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono later clarified that Poison was still a man in the Japanese continuity, but that he had a sex-change operation in the American continuity. To add even more to the confusion, Poison's partner Roxy, who is also a transvestite, is identified as a woman in the character profiles of Capcom Classics Collection (possibly due to Blind Idiot Translation).
- The Super Smash Bros. Dojo includes a lot of clarifying information about the storyline of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, since all the characters are Heroic Mimes.
- And a major framing scene was cut for time... and because most of the story is reserved until after the end of the mode by hiding it in trophies.
- There's still a Fallout 3 fan controversy over whether Fawkes is male or female or asexual. Many take Wes Johnson's publicized comments as the Word Of God because he was the voice actor, and the interview with those comments were printed with a shot of him standing with Todd Howard and Pete Hines of Bethesda.
- Shadow Of The Colossus featured sixteen colossi that are not named in-game. Eventually names started to pop-up with sources claiming to be from either Dengeki or Famitsu, which are usually Word Of God sources for Japanese games. Fumito Ueda eventually states in the official artbook that none of the colossi have names — only nicknames given by the staff during development. Who came up with the reportedly "official" names... nobody knows for sure.
- Nasu and the Nasuverse. Most fans chose to simply ignore Nasu's official statements since the Nasuverse is complex enough as it is. It also doesn't help that officially he isn't sure if the Forest of Einasshe thing in Tsukihime is canon or just cool fluff.
- Every Myst fan agrees that there is nothing in the world more annoying than having Word Of God specifically contradict onscreen canon.
Film
- The film Sunshine has tons of backstory that appears nowhere in the film itself, including the reason why the sun is burning out five billion years ahead of schedule.
- It also explains why the Sun is "Burning out" instead of "Burning up", that's what supposed to happen to the Sun.
- It also explains why such questionable characters for the Mission, such as Harvey and Searle. The former aparently was a Jack-of-All-Trades who could substitute pretty much any of the other members of the tripulation, AND cheated his way into the mission at a psychological exam. Searle on the other hand was the one that (correctly) theorised that the first mission failed because of a psychological reason and thus was sent to keep the psychological state of the crew in check, except that he then was shown to be a bit too excentric to really keep the crew mind as a high priority.
- Ridley Scott has been very clear in interviews in stating that, in his film Blade Runner, Deckard himself was a replicant. The only clue that this might be true in the movie, though, was the origami unicorn created by Gaff (Edward James Olmos) after Deckard dreamed of a unicorn. Unfortunately for anyone who saw the film in theaters and was trying to add up the clues, the unicorn dream was one of the victims of the Executive Meddling that the film underwent after leaving Scott's hands. The final half of a line by Gaff at the end of the film ("You've done a man's job sir... but are you a man?"), which raises the issue even if it fails to resolve it, was also cut. (It appears in its entirety in "Dangerous Days," the documentary about the making of the film in the 5-disc Final Cut collector's edition.)
- The 2007 Transformers movie left plenty of questions unanswered and a few Sequel Hooks, and with Transformers fans being who they are have asked a lot of questions. One in particular was whether or not Starscream took part in the F-22 assault on Megatron hiding in his alternate form. It would certainly be in tradition with the character, and the writers have said Sure Why Not so far. Another question was the unexplained absence of Barricade from the final battle. The comic book depicted him being killed by Optimus Prime, but the writers said they did it deliberately to bring him back in the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen. Despite this, Barricade makes no appearance.
- The tie-in comic series "Reign of Starscream" features Starscream considering firing on Megatron, but deciding against it.
- There's an interesting twist on this in Star Wars. Pretty much every character to appear in the Cantina Scenes in A New Hope and the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special has his or her own species and backstory. Some of this came about through various authors, some of it was composed by fans and put on the databank, meaning that fans get to make their own Word of God. Of course, most of this will never be used, and the people who write the books will blithely ignore it if they want.
- Some of them are pretty formulaic, but there are some gems in the Databank. Like the entry for Slyther Bushforb, which is basically Noir IN SPACE!
It was a dark night, one that would have undoubtedly been stormy had Coruscant's Weather Control Network permitted it. Not many Nuknogs ever left the filthy swamps of Sump, which is why he knew the dame that walked into his office was trouble with a capital trill.
- A better example is Lucas stomping on the idea that "bringing balance to the Force" involved equalising the Light and Dark sides — apparently, the Dark Side is inherently an imbalance.
- Lucas has also said the Jedi have sex, but cannot form a romantic attachment, not surprisingly a major issue in fanfiction. Karen Traviss has similarly said two Mandalorians are a male couple, and married, but you don't even need to call that Word of God; you can put it together if you read Boba Fett: A Practical Man and LOTF.
- Toho has stated that King Kong won in both the American and Japanese versions of King Kong VS Godzilla.
- Pan's Labyrinth left it ambiguous whether the fairy tale stuff was real or all in Ophelia's head, as if it was intentionally open to interpretation and left for the viewer to decide. However in the DVD commentary, the director Guilermo Del Toro says that it was real, or at least that he believes it is.
- In Mr. Brooks, it's implied that Mr. Brooks' daughter killed a man and hid it from him, but it was off screen and never shown. We never find out definitively whether she did it or not, and some viewers don't accept that she did. However, the DVD commentary says definitively that she did.
Literature
- Painfully averted with A Series Of Unfortunate Events: Daniel Handler never clarified anything about the series since its aesop is that you can't solve all the mysteries of the world. Back when the series was still ongoing he still indicated that them ite carried on in various places by the truck was a coffin, and that the thing Olaf had shown at the VFD reunion was a box of matches or a lighter. He also indirectly confirmed that Mr. Poe really was that stupid and wasn't pulling an act. Other than that, no plot explanations whatsoever, and considering we're talking about a Kudzu Plot there, that's saying something.
- JRR Tolkien was notorious for constantly reworking ideas and being disorganized, especially considering the scope of his work. Much of what is commonly "known" about The Lord Of The Rings is actually gleaned from Tolkien's authorial notes and letters to others, leading to the oft paraphrased quote that he could spend whole pages describing trees, but never mention if elves have pointy ears.
- Much of the information regarding what happens to the characters after the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has come from interviews with JK Rowling. Among the "highlights": Ginny's career as a professional Quidditch player; Harry and Ron being high-level Aurors; Luna Lovegood's eventual marriage to a character never even mentioned in the books; Dolores Umbridge being thrown in prison for crimes against Muggle-borns; who killed Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin (Antonin Dolohov and Bellatrix Lestrange, respectively); and that Dumbledore was gay. JK Rowling is also writing a Harry Potter encyclopedia which will contain background information which never made it into the novels, thus turning Word Of God into Word of the Printed Word when it's published.
- Ginny's full given name — Ginevra — was also revealed by Rowling in an interview before it was printed in any of the books. This led to tension among fanfic writers, specifically between those "in the know" and those who still insisted on calling the character Virginia.
- Actually, Ginny's name and a lot of other similar details were presented on Rowling's eponymous web site. Some, like Ginny's full name and a smidgen of Dean Thomas's backstory, made it into the actual novels. Other things were addressed just to satisfy the curiosity of her readership.
- On the subject of Word Of God, JK Rowling is a bit of an interesting case, as she is somewhat notorious for contradicting her own writing in the various and sundry interviews she sits for. For example in a "Pottercast" (a podcast produced by the fan site "The Leaky Cauldron") interview given shortly after the publication of The Deathly Hallows, Rowling stated that the Slytherins all ("quite reasonably") run off to get re-enforcements before joining in the "Battle of Hogwarts" against Voldemort. However, in the actual book, when given the choice to stand by their fellow 'Warters or get the hell outta Dodge, the Slytherins, en masse, make a hasty dash for the exit. None are ever described as having returned to join in the battle. In fact, though Rowling often asserted that there were "good" Slytherins amongst the student body of Hogwarts during Harry's time there, she never actually illustrated this with even a single character from Slytherin House within the novels themselves.
- Apparently when the current Head of Slytherin came galumphing back with a crowd behind him, said crowd were Slytherins. (Still would have helped to have a named Slyth student among the non-evil.)
- Keep in mind, however, that part of the confusion comes from POV: the story is written in limited omniscient view of Harry. And Harry doesn't exactly care for Slytherins, so for all we know the crowd could've been Slytherins, other Hogwarts students, or family members of students.
- The Dragonriders of Pern fandom could be considered a subversion. Several Word Of God proclamations from Anne McCaffrey herself have been worked around or outright ignored in fanworks: most notably her proclamation that all Blue riders and all male Green riders were gay (born or made that way).
- The Dresden Files: "Justin's dead! D-E-D dead!", frequent reply of the author to fan theories that Harry Dresden's Evil Mentor (whom, canonically, Harry burned to death) may somehow still be alive, and involved in the events of the various novels.
- This might be because the TV series did bring Justin back... sort of, it's a Xanatos Gambit or similar plan he set up before his death. However, the books and TV series both inhabit their own separate continuities, so if Jim Butcher says that Justin's dead, then then he's not coming back, people.
- David Weber, writer of (among other things) the Honor Harrington series, occasionally makes proclamations on points of confusion by fans, on the newsgroup featuring him (alt.books.david-weber) and the Baen Bar, a forum maintained by the publisher of many Science Fiction and Fantasy works. These are occasionally collected, and posted here for perusal by those not reading the forums and/or newsgroup, maintained by Joe Buckley (who's a regular Red Shirt in various Baen-published novels; the Honorverse has had several Buckleys killed in and of itself).
- In the Wheel of Time book series, many fans speculated that Demandred was disguised as Mazrim Taim. This theory persisted until Robert Jordan himself discredited it.
- Neil Gaiman has said in interviews that he intended Silas from The Graveyard Book to be a vampire. On the other hand, he also said "If you miss it, that's fine. You'll just get a slightly different book."
- Aaron Allston, writer of part of the X Wing Series, in his faq posits what he thinks happened to his characters in the twenty or so years between Wraith Squadron and the Vong War, as well as some details that never made it into the books, like ship names.
- Ironically, The Bible is one of the least Word-of-Godded books there is. Which is kind of a shame, really.
- Mainstream Christian belief is that it doesn't really need any more clarification since it is Word Of God.
- Catholics believe that when the Pope or all the Catholic Bishops as a Whole make Infallible Statements or otherwise appeal to official Church Teaching throughout the ages, it serves to clarify matters that may be the source of significant theological/moral disagreements when using the Bible alone. Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit Himself directs this process, making the phrase "Word of God" a very literal one in this case that acts as a Divine Version of this Trope at work in Real Life.
- Much like there are orthodox and liberal Jews and Muslims, there are differences within the Catholic church (you just can't force one billion people to agree on everything, after all). Not every Catholic believes in the Infallible Statements (which were implemented in 1870); a great many Catholics, including priests and even bishops, disagree with it. When Benedict XVI broke the excommunication of the Lefevbrist bishops, many Catholics thought that this time Panzer screwed up.
- Well, The Lefebvrite issue is more of a procedural issue than a Papal Infallibility issue, so it's perfectly fine (as of now — it changes somewhat if the Lefebvrists get their old jobs back) to criticize the Pope's actions on that regard.
- Warrior Cats: Though only hinted at in the actual books (most notably Cinderpelt's fight with Leafpool in Twilight), Word Of God has revealed that Cinderpelt and Firestar is a canon pairing... sort of. Firestar, being a complete idiot when it comes to she-cats, still thinks he and Cinderpelt were "Just Friends".
- The author(s) often give out Word Of God statements. Though many questions are answered with a "why, I can't tell you that" response, fans have learned such things as Firestar and Scourge being half-brothers and Leopardstar was in love with Tigerstar.
- In the Dragonlance series of books, it is rumored, debated, and shot down by a character, that Usha is Raistlin's daughter. The books never revealed the truth in certain terms however, and debate among readers raged for years until the authors, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman answered the question definitively: That she is not Raistlin's daughter.
- John Scalzi parodied the controversy over the canonicity of J.K. Rowling's Word Of Gay for Dumbledore by posting a list of facts about the protagonist of Old Mans War on his blog and declaring them canonical. They included "He is allergic to blueberries" and "He is distantly related to Dwight Eisenhower".
- Orson Scott Card's book Empire (a prequel, of sorts, to the X Box Live Arcade game Shadow Complex) ends with an interesting, and quite apt, afterward written by the author about the problems of extremisim in the American Political Parties, which we're told is what moral of the book was meant to be. It's undermined however, as the book that preceeded it was not quite so neutral.
Live Action TV
- In later seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, questions not answered in the actual show tended to be addressed only in Joss Whedon's interviews. Some fans considered anything Joss said in an interview to be canon, while others did not and were annoyed by this practice.
- The Doctor Who episode "The Brain of Morbius" shows the faces of several actors who, depending on your interpretation of the scene, may be Doctors predating the canonical first Doctor. Despite the fact that the canon is very clear on the fact that the Doctor's lives are all accounted for, some people on the production staff have affirmed that they intended the faces to be earlier Doctors. In any case, it has been enough to prompt most fans to prefer wild theories to the very simple and valid obvious alternative explanation that the faces belonged to someone else. Say, Morbius.
- To be fair, what today is regarded as canon in Doctor Who was actually only settled on relatively late in the day. For example, it wasn't even established during "The Brain of Morbius" that Time Lords are limited to twelve regenerations (that was first mentioned in "The Deadly Assassin", broadcast the following year). Terrance Dicks, onetime script editor of Doctor Who and man who introduced the concept of the Time Lords themselves to the show, famously once stated that canon was what the production team could remember on any given day.
- Responding to a message board request, Coupling creator (and sole writer) Stephen Moffat wrote a breakdown of the characters' lives several years after the fourth and final season. This gave Moffat the chance to write an "ending" for the character of Jeff, despite actor Richard Coyle leaving the previous year.
- The new Battlestar Galactica has occasionally relied on this, such as producer Mark Verheiden confirming that Six was released from prison as part of President Lee Adama's amnesty to the rebel and Final Five Cylons in the episode Revelations, explaining why she appears in famous final shot of nuked-out Earth.
- However, the Word of God has occasionally not been helpful. In the episode "Hero" it is revealed that Tigh and Adama served on the battlestar Valkyrie one year before the series begins and were moved to Galactica as punishment after a vital mission failed, contradicting multiple statements that Adama had commanded Galactica for 2-3 years prior to the series. A document seen on-screen in the very same episode suggested he'd actually been in command of Galactica for six years. When asked about the problem, producer Ronald D. Moore said there wasn't a problem, they'd worked it out behind the scenes and it all tracked, but didn't share this explanation with fans, leaving the situation unresolved.
- Many people resolve this by assuming they were moved back to Galactica from active duty on the Valkyrie, the punishment being command of an inactive ship.
- In weekly podcasts, the producers of Lost have occasionally clarified plot points, such as confirming Jae Lee's death in "The Glass Ballerina" was a suicide. However, they are not always to be taken at their word: before season 3, in a long list of things we wouldn't see, they named "time travel" and "Desmond running naked through the jungle." Both were seen.
- And both were directly related to each other, making this troper suspect that this was some misdirection on the producer's part. Somewhere out there someone is growing Epileptic Trees at the possibility of this revelation.
- Nearly two decades after the series finale of Family Ties, and after a couple years of speculation from fans, Gary David Goldberg (the creator of the sitcom) has finally given his own input on Alex P. Keaton's current political leanings. Quite naturally, his response has managed to alienate certain fans of the show. The speculations have arose during the 2006 US elections, where Michael J. Fox (who played Alex P. Keaton) was lobbying for the legalization of ESCR. Furthermore, Michael J. Fox has also given his input on Alex P. Keaton's current political leanings (and place of residence).
- TV execs had told creator Ryan Murphy he had the greenlight for season 3 of Popular, which is why the season 2 season finale was a cliffhanger. After the series was cancelled, Murphy released the rough outline of season 3 that he'd already worked out.
- Dan Schneider who runs iCarly is very active in this regard. In addition to twittering, set pictures and livejournal discussion, he also posts episodic fact sheets. Some of these contain Word Of God interpretations of events on the show, one example from the iFight episode, is that Carly was at least a little jealous when Freddie made some comments about Shelby being hot and future wife material.
- The 2008/9 series champions of University Challenge were officially disqualified after the show aired for including an ineligible player on their team, and the title was thus retrospectively awarded to the former runners-up. However, there has been not a mention of this on the show itself (no doubt the producers are keen to leave the whole sorry business behind them and never speak of it again), so the official outcome is still the opposite of that seen on screen.
- No matter how many times Word Of God states that Robin is not the titular mother on How I Met Your Mother fans keep speculating on how Robin can end up being the mother. Not even the fact that Ted keeps referring to her as Aunt Robin seems to matter to the die hard Ted/Robin shippers.
Newspaper Comics
- The creator of Krazy Kat, George Herriman, officially stated that the title character was "something like a sprite, an elf. They have no sex. So that Kat can't be a he or a she." Despite this, the 1962 animated series made Krazy explicitly female, to avoid controversy.
- Charles Schulz of Peanuts stated that Linus' belief in the Great Pumpkin is not and was never intended to be a metaphor for faith. There's no reason to think he was that secular... or religious for that matter. Of course, strips later in the run (featuring such things as Linus going door to door to spread the word of the Great Pumpkin, convincing Marcie before she is sent to be "deprogrammed" by her parents) suggest he was open to playing with the idea.
Other
- Bionicle story writer Greg Farshtey keeps a good relationship with the fan community. Not only does Greg provide Word of God for any question a fan might have, but he sometimes distributes advance information and occasionally allows fans to influence minor details. (Word of Fans?)
- Blizzard Entertainment had a press release to clear up years of endless debates on their forums, declaring that, in fact, 0.999... = 1.
Tabletop Games
- The CCG Yu-Gi-Oh game has what's known as "BKSS — Because Konami Said So", a phenomena where certain cards are given rulings that make no sense whatsoever, but are rendered iron-clad enforcable, because Konami — the game's creator — said that's how it went. This has become painfully obvious after UDE, the English Yu-Gi-Oh distributer, refused to administer a ruling on the card "Elemental Hero Rampart Blaster" that completely contradicted the card's text itself; when this discrepancy was pointed out to them, even Konami themselves admitted that the ruling was in error, yet still refused to change it.
- Collectible Card Games are a kind of shaky ground, as they're part board game and part tournament game. Magic The Gathering has a seasonally updated database that updates the wording of every card in the game, to the point that year-old cards already have official wordings that differ from what is printed on the cards.
- While these changes do not usually affect how the cards work, every so often the game is given a major overhaul that changes many things at once. (Changes to timing rules with the advent of 6th Edition, and the Grand Creature Type Update of 2007 come to mind)
- Gary Gygax, in the years before his death, did go onto a number of Internet forums and served as something of a Word Of God in that he offered rules clarifications and design justifications for the Dungeons And Dragons rules system he created (though he often resisted doing so due to the fact that he had moved on to a succession of other game systems, namely Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventures). His working with Troll Lord Games on their Castles And Crusades game, mostly through sage advice, seems to have constituted among old-school gamers almost a Celebrity Endorsement of God.
Theatre
Web Comics
- Order Of The Stick creator Rich Burlew has outright stated that Belkar is Chaotic Evil (and no other alignment is remotely compatible with either his observed behavior or things like the effects, or lack thereof, of various spells on him); this doesn't stop some fans insisting that he is Chaotic Neutral.
- If there were any remaining doubt, this comic not only explicitly states that Belkar is Chaotic Evil, but lampshades it by making it the literal Word Of
God Archon (angel).
- And if you still don't believe it (fool), Belkar even says so himself here
- Similarly, Eight Bit Theatre creator Brian Clevinger has had to repeatedly enforce the idea that Black Belt was Killed Off For Real to the point where a strip which was (presumably) created to actually shoot down a fan theory was titled "Now shut up!".
- Tom Siddell, author of Gunnerkrigg Court, is very helpful about providing background info and answering fan questions. So much, in fact, that it's become necessary to make an index to keep track of it all. And there are two threads on the forum (54 combined pages, and counting) consisting of nothing but Tom answering fans' questions.
- In an Irregular Webcomic forum thread:
Does that mean, that every Death was originally the first person to die by that method?
No, it doesn't mean that at all. In #1970: "ACCORDIN' TO THE LAWS OF THE OONIVERSE, CHOO'RE NOW DEFF OF GOIN' BACK IN TIME 'N' MURDERIN' CHORESELF." But what exactly the relevant law is, is not explained. It may or may not have anything to do with being the first person to have gone back in time and murdered oneself. Word Of God.
- No, Gail Curmen is not a closet lesbian, masculine as she may be. Sharon is bi, like she said. There are no secrets in that arena.
- MSF High: There are no incubus in the msfhigh universe and there never will be. This is the only known race to be directly stated not to exist in the MSF High universe. Though it is for good reason.
- Averted in the Erfworld IRC. According to a "news" post on the main site, "You may NOT quote what I say as Word of God. There's a lot of thinking out loud. Anything I say in there is not canon, and may be changed, ignored, or totally reversed."
Web Original
- Tales Of MU has a lot of this, possibly driven by the blog format.
- Dorf Quest basically requires Word of God to make sense — casual statements said after each section end up being important plot points later on.
- Stuart Slade, author of The Salvation War, will answer just about any serious question about the logistics of his versions of Hell and Heaven and their relationship with our universe that isn't explicitly spelled out in the story itself. Pretty much none of these are necessary to following the story, but they do make a great display of how much thought he puts into it.
Western Animation
- Regarding the Avatar The Last Airbender Ship To Ship Combat and the subsequent Zutara Ship Sinking, Bryan and Mike have said multiple times that Aang and Katara were always meant to be the Official Couple as far back as when season one was still coming out.
- They have also divulged that Aang does, in fact, have a tattoo there.
- What. I need to see that link.
- This Troper wonder if a context and reference can be provided for this, as the mind boggles at how such a detail could be legitimately brought up in any interview regarding a Kid's show.
- The two of them also confirmed that Jet really is dead. In commentary, they laughed that he's now in "Hot Guy Heaven". The in-series lack-of-clarity on the issue is later Lampshaded in season 3.
- They've also confirmed that no, the Air Nomads as a people aren't gonna make a comeback. (which tends to fall on deaf ears.)
- Butch Hartman stated in an interview that the ghosts in Danny Phantom are really monsters from a different dimension, that is the Ghost Zone. Explains why they can have offspring and apparently age, but doesn't explain why some were once human to begin with.
- Which contradicts some of the actual dead ghosts in the series. However, Danny's mom once described them as something like "ectoplasmic manifestations of post-human consciousnenss", which implies that they're simply monsters that think they're dead humans.
- Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman split with Disney and later cited Creative Differences at a third season made without his input. Greg himself has addressed many obscure questions otherwise unanswered by show material and is considered the authoritative source, to the point most fans do not consider the last season canon.
- The comic book moreover continues where the second season left off and completely ignores the third season.
- The creators of Hey Arnold! have purportedly stated that Helga's mother is an alcoholic, although they knew that saying so directly would never fly on Nickelodeon. Incidentally, they said in the same interview his last name is Shortman.
- The creators of The Simpsons often explain the "real meaning" of various episodes on DVD commentary—such as "Homer's Enemy" being about how a "normal" person couldn't survive in Springfield, or (more recently) "The Principal and the Pauper" being a jab at the Jonas Quinn idea.
- The creators of Kim Possible, Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, have stated on numerous occasions that Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable will be together forever and that they were always meant to get together from the very beginning of the series. The Director Steve Loter has said that the alien villains died, and that Shego and Drakken are definitely dating, at the end of Graduation.
- Christy Marx, the head writer for Jem And The Holograms, interfaces frequently with the fans.
- Dwayne McDuffie, creator of Static Shock, has stated that Richie, Static's sidekick and best friend, is in fact gay, as is his comic book counterpart. When asked if Static knew, he replied "Not yet."
- Dwayne also also runs a Q&A thread about Ben 10 Alien Force, where he (among other things) clarifies such contested points as Gwen's magic and Kevin's powers. Some fans like to ignore it, due to the fact that he lied once, about Grandpa Max's fate, though it could be said that lying was the only way to preserve any suspense when asked that question.
- Teen Titans provided very little backstory for most of the main characters and none at all for the characters created specifically for the show who never appeared in the original comics. However, Word Of God from Amy Wolfram has given us an origin story for the Amazing Mumbo: he was an ordinary Stage Magician who got his hands on a real magic wand, which gave him Functional Magic at the expense of his sanity. Yeah, it's a little vague, but still better than nothing, right?
- Transformers has featured numerous instances of this, but in particular, Transformers Animated featured a cameo by an unnamed red Bumblebee-like robot. When character designer Derrick Wyatt saw that TF Wiki.net, in accordance with its policies on nameless characters, was referring to the character as "Little red Autobot," he wrote in and told them that the character was indeed named Cliffjumper and the page should be moved to that name.
- Wyatt has become quite a well of information recent, for example heavily implying Highbrow (who was only seen in a flashback) was secretly killed by Shockwave.
- Also, he clarified Alpha Trion's role in the Autobot government (He's the civilian leader, as opposed to Ultra Magnus' military leadership).
- Recently, a book called The Allspark Almanac was published. It is a book comprised of almost nothing but Word of God. Including...
- The name of the planet Sentinel, Optimus, and Elita visit in "Along came a spider" Archa-7
- The name of Ultra Magnus' hammer The Stormbringer
- What Meltdown's creatures were before they were mutated his lawyer and stock broker and the name of his company Biotech Unbound
- The name of the Street racers at the beggining of "Velocity"
- Zak from The Secret Saturdays is 100% Kur. The Antarctic Cryptid wasn't, his parents aren't, he isn't part Kur, or whatever strange ideas the fans have.
- Dan Povenmire and "Swampy" Marsh, he creators of Phineas And Ferb have responded to questions about a few issues, including the first names of the Fireside Girls. Povenmire also commented that Isabella and Phineas would eventually date when they're older, even if it doesn't happen on the actual show.
- If you want some Word of God relating to The Venture Brothers, swing by the official site and watch some of the authors' appearances at conventions. (Beware, the third season finale is relentlessly spoiled.) They are just as likely to provide background information as they are Shrug Of God and Sure Why Not, and are very entertaining while doing it. The DVD commentary also has tons of info that didn't make it into the show.
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