Sure, Why Not? - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Sure Why Not; Promoted Fanon; Ascended Fanon

"Do to them what you do to us at times like that. [...] Tell them what you're doing but not why. Then let them speculate. Listen to them as they speculate. When they come up with an idea you really, really like, tell them 'You finally guessed right. That was my reasoning all along.'"

—Hobbie Klivian, telling his boss how to make the Adumari respect his desire not to kill them in duels, X Wing Series

The case of the fan's explanations becoming Canon.

Fanon is "promoted" to Canon mainly because the theme or subject of the fanon had not been planned out by the author beforehand. Whether it's officially shown in a canon work is another matter, but most of the time the author sees some minutiae they hadn't thought too much of themselves as a decent enough explanation that they don't mind and don't want to joss it into oblivion. This is much more common in amateur works, such as fanfic and webcomics, which often aren't planned from the start.

Small Doujin companies are infamous for this sort of thing, as their characters are designed and occasionally modified accordingly to appeal to their fanbase.

If a particular work has a long and continuous run, fanon may be promoted to canon because a Promoted Fanboy is now calling all the shots.

When this happens between fictional characters, it's a Sure Lets Go With That. When it's built into the story, it's Schrodingers Gun. Compare with I Knew It, where the crazy fan explanation happens to match the one the author had planned all along, and Ascended Meme, where this happens to memes. Contrast Jossed, when popular fan theories are explicitly sunk by Word Of God or onscreen events.

Examples

Anime

The author of One Piece has a question and answer column, but half of the time when someone asks about a fact he'll agree with any reasonable guess the writer makes (for instance several of the main characters' birthdays).
The authors of Kinnikuman routinely adapted fan suggested characters into the story, both minor and major.
During the first season, fans of Code Geass joked that Lelouch's maid Sayoko was secretly a ninja, explaining the occasional flashes of competence seen behind her quiet exterior. Between seasons the staff acknowledged the joke, and in R2 it's revealed that she is in fact the heir to the Shinozaki ninja clan.
The author of Saiyuki, previous to the Animated Adaptation, wrote down in Cho Hakkai's character profile "voiced by Akira Ishida" as a joke, not expecting to be taken seriously, and was pleasantly surprised that her casting suggestion was accepted.
Dragon Ball fanfiction has given Vegita enough long-lost siblings to populate a galaxy (and then some), so the most recent Non Serial Movie went ahead and ran with that premise.
The opening scene of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was what the last story arc was originally planned to be like, but re-writes ended up making it a total mystery. When the staff was asked the fan-theory that the opening was an Alternate Continuity where Simon ignores the Anti-Spiral's plea to stop overusing spiral power and the scene is right before he causes the Spiral Nemesis this was reportedly their response.

Comic Books

Marvel Comics would often get reader mail that would try to explain away some of the continuity or logical fallacies in the stories. A sufficiently clever explanation would win the fan a "No Prize". When some apparently-not-so-clever fans started writing in asking when they would receive their No Prize, Marvel responded to them by mailing them... an empty envelope. Sadly, this practice has fallen to the wayside, though oddly, the empty "No Prize" envelope is considered of some value by the more hardcore fans.

Film

Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End featured one of these when Keith Richards was written into the film as Captain Teague, Keeper of the Code and Jack Sparrow's father after, as Terry Rossio put it, "the world collectively woke up one day and decided that Keith Richards was going to be in these films." This was likely due to Johnny Depp discussing it in interviews, since he was an influence of Depp's portrayal of Jack Sparrow.
- It happened again in the same film with Barbossa's first name becoming "Hector", an idea that was worked out privately with Depp and Rush while filming Curse of the Black Pearl, and caught on with fans after Depp mentioned it in the DVD's commentary.
In Transformers (2007), a very common fan theory was that Starscream was among the F-22s that fire on Megatron in the climax. The producers haven't said definitely that it's canon, but their stance so far has been "Sure, why not?"
- The tie-in comic The Reign of Starscream acknowledged this by having Starscream consider it, but decide not to.
Star Trek XI canonizes Uhura's first name of Nyota, which was actually invented by Nichelle Nichols and had been generally adopted for years. Though, technically it's only known to be her name in the alternate timeline of the movie, not the original one...

Literature

In Piers Anthony's Xanth series, Prince Dolph (who is still a child) manages to find himself engaged to two different women, both of whom have to marry him Because Destiny Says So; one, Nada Naga, because of a prophecy, and the other, Electra, because she's under a curse that will kill her if Dolph doesn't go through with the marriage. Obviously, he can't marry them both, and to make matters worse, although Dolph prefers Nada, she would much rather be Just Friends, while Electra really does love him. Piers Anthony's originally planned resolution, to occur in a later book in the series, was to have him marry Electra, divorce her one day later, and then marry Nada, who will get around the whole "not in love" thing by voluntarily drinking a Love Potion. However, a reader spotted a loophole in the prophecy — to "marry" someone can also mean to perform their wedding ceremony. After reading this fan's letter, Piers Anthony quickly rewrote the ending, and Dolph and Electra lived Happily Ever After.
- Anthony has openly allowed the Xanth fandom to run the asylum through write-in submissions for years, so there are many other examples of readers' suggestions becoming Canon.
- It would be remiss to mention Xanth Fanon and not mention the puns, which are a form of Ascended Fanon all of their own. Early in the Xanth series, a few puns worked their way into the stories. A few young readers sent in pun suggestions, which Piers Anthony included in the next novel in the series and mentioned the readers by name in the author notes. Now Xanth is known for being full of these puns, which have directly and completely shaped the world, taking it from a rather static fantasy world to something decidedly more, and Piers Anthony is now known for his ungodly huge (chapter-sized) author notes thanking every single reader for every single pun he uses.
In later Harry Potter books, after The Movie makes "I shouldn't 'ave said that!" into Hagrid's Catch Phrase, it become one in the books as well.
- Also in the Potter Verse, JK Rowling revealed after the publication of the last book that Dumbledore was gay. Some believe this was an example of her conceding to fan theory; however, it's more likely that this is an example of I Knew It.
  - Half the characters in the series have been speculated to be gay. The law of probabilities say the fans would have to get it right eventually.
- This has also been used for more minor errors, like when it was brought to her attention that Marcus Flint seemed to have repeated a year. Her response: "Either I made a mistake or he failed his exams and repeated a year. I think I prefer Marcus making the mistake."
- The name "Malfoy Manor" was (most likely) first used in The Draco Trilogy. It immediately became fanon and eventually made its way into The Deathly Hallows.
Terry Pratchett has, in the past, used the example of football as being a fan-suggested topic for a Discworld novel that will probably never be written. There is now (Aug 2008) a DW novel in the pipeline that is reportedly going to be about football.
In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, The Powers That Be wrote out Callista because of the huge fanbase for Luke and Mara's relationship.

Live Action TV

In Star Trek, the Klingons' gaining forehead ridges between the original series and the movies and later series has long been a subject of fan speculation. In a Deep Space 9 Time Travel episode, two popular fan theories are brought up by two non-Klingon characters, but are told by Worf that Klingons don't discuss the situation with outsiders. Eventually, the prequel series Enterprise, which had ridged Klingons, had to tackle not just the "how'd Klingons get ridges?" question, but "how'd Klingons lose their ridges and then get them back?" A multi-part episode shows it happening in a way that actually incorporates both theories.
Doctor Who:
- The popular fan theory about a series of unaired adventures known as "season 6B" that is used to plug up continuity holes has been used in some of the spin-off media.
- Eve Myles' characters Gwyneth and Gwen Cooper were originally meant not to have any relationship to one another, but fans continued to speculate about it. The Series 4 finale briefly explains the resemblance as "spatial-genetic multiplicity".
Torchwood:
- Canonically, after thousands of fan fiction stories, Ianto Jones now makes the best cup of coffee in the world, to the extent that it's one of the reasons he got a job at Torchwood in the first place.
- The name for Torchwood's pet pterodactyl, "Myfanwy", started as an off-screen joke by cast and crew but made it onto the extra-textual website canon if not the show itself.
Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter of Stargate SG-1 were originally not intended to have romantic feelings for each other. Only when the fans began the Jack/Sam ship did the show writers realize that, indeed, the chemistry was there, and began working this into their story. Whether or not it was actually to the benefit of said story, though, is another question.
A version of this is said to have happened on Friends. Chandler and Monica were not originally intended to be a couple, but after a few (quite innocent) hints at flirtation between the two characters, a large Shipping fanbase grew sometime during the third season. The two characters had a one-night-stand in the fourth season and ended up marrying.
Supernatural: Shortly after he first appeared in the Season 4 premiere, "Lazarus Rising," Castiel earned the Fan Nickname "Cas." Much later in the season, in the 16th episode, "On the Head of a Pin," everyone—Sam and Dean as well as other angels—started calling him "Cas."
On Heroes, the Haitian's ability was originally to erase memories, but could also suppress Parkman's telepathic powers, making some fans assume he could stop all superpowers at will, despite the fact that he never displayed this ability many other times where it would be useful in his job as a Super Hunter. Then, in the second and third seasons, the writers decided to go with this theory, and made it crucial to Volume Three's resolution.

Music

The song "Alive" by Pearl Jam, wherein the lyrics are about a widowed woman who grows sexually attracted to her son because she looks just like his deceased father, a textbook example of Lyrical Dissonance. This hasn't stopped fans from embracing it as an anthem of celebrating life. The band adopted the Sure Why Not stance presumably after trying to explain the song's meaning again and again and got fed up with the whole runaround.
'Purple Haze' by Jimi Hendrix; the lyric "excuse me while I kiss the sky" was so commonly heard as "excuse me while I kiss this guy," that Hendrix changed it. He was also known to point and kiss in the direction of a guy (usually his tour manager) immediately after singing the line.
Music software, but music nonetheless. Crypton's Rin and Len Kagamine Vocaloids were originally supposed to be mirror personalities of each other, but fans interpreted them as twins. Crypton responded accordingly.
- Don't forget Haku Yowane and Neru Akita, fan-created Vocaloids that have been acknowledged by Crypton as semi-official, to the point that they're making an appearance in Miku's game, Project Diva.

Tabletop Games

Warhammer 40000 had the Eye of Terror campaign, where three Disorder players advised other players where best to attack. They called themselves the Triad. The next campaign newsletter detailed the lore of what happened, especially the Galactic Conqueror ... and his advisers, the "mysterious group known only as the Triad." Another fan, on the Tau Empire Third Stage Expansion front, posted messages as "Sa'Caea Sally", a human sympathizer urging the citizens of the Imperium to join the Tau. This also got a mention in the newsletter.
- Not to mention a reference in the 4th Edition Codex.
- There was also one particular Order player, Canoness Astra, who had a Sisters of Battle army that coordinated the defense for one of the sectors of the war and got special mention in the game newsletters and in the summary at the end of the war.

Video Games

Silent Hill 3's plot, which explains what was going on behind the largely Mind Screwy first game of the series, bears a remarkable resemblance to several of the predominant fan theories with the same purpose. Whether this was a case of Sure Why Not or I Knew It has never been confirmed by the developers, but the original Silent Hill really is trippy enough the writers may not have known what was going on.
The DS originally stood for "Developer's System", and was just meant to be a code name. But the press kept insisting it stood for "Dual Screen", so Nintendo just made DS the official name.
This is more or less how the Touhou characters Koakuma and Daiyousei got their names: they originally had no official names, so fans called them by descriptive terms (respectively, "little devil" and "great fairy"). Then series creator ZUN started referring to them by those names in interviews ...
Fans of Chrono Trigger still aren't sure whether the DS version's reveal that Dalton was the one responsible for the Porre rebellion that killed Crono and Marle prior to Chrono Cross is this or I Knew It.
SNK example: when Real Bout Fatal Fury Special first appeared, fans dubbed the True Final Boss version of Geese Howard that was found in the game as "Nightmare Geese", due to the fact that you not only fight him in a nightmarish version of his stage, but he literally IS a nightmare due to his overpowered moves and naturally aggressive AI to go with it. When The King Of Fighters Maximum Impact 2 was released, SNK adapted the moniker of Nightmare Geese to the form of Geese that appeared in that game, and the meaning of the term was changed to mean any form of Geese that is canonically dead.
Mortal Kombat games would develop new kinds of fatalities based on false rumors of their existence in earlier chapters.
- This also lead to the creation of the character Ermac, despite messages in the second game which Midway used to deny his existence.
- The revelation of Noob Saibot being the specter form of the original Sub-Zero from MK1 was actually the result of a Midway employee taking suggestions from a fan.
Dragon Quest's Yūji Horii explained that the "Zenithia" trilogy (Games 4-6) was never intended: "Each Dragon Quest title represents a fresh start and a new story, so I don't see too much of a connection between the games in the series. I guess it could be said that the imagination of players has brought the titles together in a certain fashion." Judging by some of the commentary and bookshelves in the DS Video Game Remake, they've gone "Why not?"
Team Fortress 2 fans have suspected every major class update of being the Spy update since Goldrush, on the assumption that Valve would "disguise" it as another class's update (since, after all, that's exactly what the Spy does). That's exactly what they ended up doing.
The long used {{Pokémon}} term Eeveelution appears in the second {{Pokémon Ranger}} title. While a previous use existed in the TCG (as a deck name), it was the first "in universe" use.
The story behind the abbreviation for Blue Mage in Final Fantasy XI is as follows:
1up.com: First, what is the abbreviation of the Blue Mages — will it be "BLU?"
Hiromichi Tanaka: Thanks, the check's in the mail. We're going to borrow your abbreviation. We didn't have one yet. [laughs]
There is an interview with David Hayter regarding Brawl, where he said that he and Christopher Randolph would always be joking around and "discussing [their] gay relationship." Not sure if they consider it canon, so it may just be a subversion. The clip in question is right here.

Web Comics

Penny Arcade's Gabe and Tycho are commonly confused for actual avatars of its two designers, fueling a common joke that artists will never draw characters who actually look like them. Both real life creators mention this was never their intention; very early strips even give the characters different names, and in podcasts they talk about them as distinct people. Eventually they got tired of correcting people and decided to roll with it, incorporating more of their personalities into the characters, though at this point any real similarities are The Artifact.
Many fans claim that Order of The Stick's author originally intended Vaarsuvius to have a specific gender, but deliberately made it ambiguous after a few fans started bickering about V's gender early on. The author confirmed this in the first compilation book.
- Oddly, however, that same author hates fan speculation, because if the fans guess what he was intending it makes him want to change it.
Mega Man's Crouching Moron Hidden Badass behavior in Bob And George was originally just an unexplained joke. Then some continuity-minded fans noticed that an earlier strip gave a surprisingly plausible reason for this behavior, and Dave Anez ran with it.
- A less important detail, mentioned here, was that Bob's scarf was burned and tattered, due to his suit being a scorched Proto Man costume.
This page of Darths And Droids shows the process in action. So that's where the midi-chlorians came from.
Terinu's author, Peta Hewitt, borrowed the title of the "Department of Social Harmony" the Doublespeak name for the Varn Dominion's secret police/propaganda division, from a reader's fanfic, along with the idea that the Earth was beaten using a giant tractor/pressor beam to induce earthquakes and tsunamis.
The Wotch: Compare the first canon appearance of the character Anibelle with the second. Now consider this non-canon filler done by a guest artist in between those two appearances. Yeah, exactly.

Western Animation

The Predacon's ship in Transformers: Beast Wars was unnamed, but Terrorsaur once told Cheetor "Welcome to The Dark Side" when he ended up on the ship. Though he was just being theatric, fan use of the name lead to the name being used for the Bot Con 2006 (convention run by the officially Hasbro-licensed fan club) exclusive toys and the accompanying comic book (as Darksyde), and thus the official name.
- Similarly, Marty Isenberg like the Fan Nickname for Lugnut's exploding-rocket-fist-thing ("Punch of Kill Everything") so much he had the name used in the fourth issue of the comics.
  - Supposedly, he tried to use it in the show, but Never Say Die reared its ugly head, and no other word really worked there (with the possible exception of "Krush") to make it abbreviate to POKE.
Many fans of Kim Possible theorised that the first name of Kim's brain surgeon mother, Dr. Possible, was "Anne", because it was Kim's middle name, and her father Dr. James Timothy Possible, extrapolated from his sons Jim and Tim. The name was used in the series' two-part finale. Of course, to make this work, one must mention that the creators would occasionally visit fan forums.

Real Life

A strange example: In the You Tube debate during the primaries, Barack Obama was asked if he would meet with the president of Iran. His response? Sure Why Not; a variation of that proposal eventually became a plank of his campaign in the 2008 elections.
- The transition Web site had a place for suggestions from citizens; it remains to be seen how, if at all, Obama acts on these.
After Gary Larson made a cartoon about the spikes on a stegosaur's tail being called a "thagomizer" (after the late Thag Simmons), paleontologists realized that no one had ever actually given that spike structure a name...and so it's now semi-officially the thagomizer.
While it overlaps with quite a few tropes, a recent XKCD strip influenced the development staff at Google's You Tube to provide a vocal 'preview' of comments - which doesn't contradict the comic, as this troper now wants to create a virus which automatically triggers it before an actual post.
- XKCD is also responsible for the /r9k/ board of 4chan.
Isaac Asimov invented the term "robotics" to refer to what the people at USR do in his novels. This is now the official name for the science of robots, and USR itself became the name of a modem manufacturer.
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