History Main / CanonFodder

* Creator/PeterDavid has said (joked?) that he throws tons of loose ends into his stories deliberately, because he figures it's harder to fire him off a book when he has lots of story points still to resolve. Presumably, this is also what Creator/ChrisClaremont was up to all those years on the ''Comicbook/XMen'', too.
* Dormammu and the Dark Dimension in the ''Comicbook/DoctorStrange'' comics was intended to be just a {{cryptic background reference}}, but the writers had to explain it after getting a lot of fanmail asking who this Dormammu person was, resulting in Doctor Strange finally getting an {{archnemesis}}.
* The ComicBook/DisneyMouseAndDuckComics have quite a few:

** WebVideo/RedLetterMedia did an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVzc20Bm8Xo entire episode]] of Rich and Jay reading the Wookieepedia entry for Darth Vaders suit, laughing at how the armor was polished with "woodoo hide" and how Emperor Palpatine had an entire hospital named after him (the "Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center".)

* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' runs on this trope.

[[folder: Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' is still technically within the boundaries of this trope, much like Pluto is technically within the boundaries of the solar system.
[[/folder]]

* The [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic series]] is absolutely rife with this. Other than Shadow, who had his entire backstory explored through the course of [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 two]] [[VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog games]] (ironically making the one character introduced as "mysterious" the one we know most about), and a few other exceptions (the Babylon Rogues, for one), anyone else's past is virtually a blank, including the title character himself. Perhaps the most glaring example of this is Knuckles, of whom we know close to nothing about, especially going by his [[LastOfHisKind status]] and his lack of any memory from before being alone on the island (''VideoGame/SonicChronicles'''s canonicity notwithstanding).

** Is Appa the last air bison? Heck, did Aang and Katara become the Adam and Eve for a new race of Air Nomads? ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' immediately gives the answers as "no" and "kinda". The Gaang found more bison as some point, and Tenzin was Aang and Katara's only offspring that could airbend. [[spoiler:All four of his children are airbenders, though, and Korra opening the spirit portal at the end of Book Two caused hundreds of former non-benders to develop the ability the following season.]]

** "WesternAnimation/TheUltimateEnemy", from whether the BadFuture really was altered to the nature of [[TimeMaster Clockwork]] to the prospect of [[EnsembleDarkhorse Dark Danny]] escaping.

** The ending of "D-Stabilized", [[spoiler:especially what Valerie plans to do now that she knows of Vlad's true nature and the identities of two out of three of the show's half-ghosts.]]

** Did Azula [[spoiler:stay crazy for the rest of her life]]? WordOfGod is deliberately silent on this.

** Is Appa the last air bison? Heck, did Aang and Katara become the Adam and Eve for a new race of Air Nomads? [[spoiler:''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' immediately gives the answers as "no" and "kinda", since Tenzin was their only offspring that could airbend. All four of his children are airbenders, though.]]

** Speaking of sapient creatures, what ''are'' the changelings? (The most common fanon explanation is that they're a race of ponies corrupted by Discord, but there are other versions as well.)

** Did Toph ever go home to her parents? [[spoiler: She confronts her father face to face, with the rest to be told, in ''ComicBook/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheRift''.]]
** Is Appa the last air bison? Heck, did Aang and Katara become the Adam and Eve for a new race of Air Nomads? Fortunately, both are answered in the sequel series ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra''. [[spoiler:No, and yes.]]
** Why is Iroh so knowledgeable about spirits? Not only can he see them when they're invisible to most people, but he's said to have journeyed in the Spirit World, and the threat to Tui the Moon Spirit is enough to [[spoiler:make him switch sides]]. Nothing else is said on the matter, though in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' [[spoiler:he reappears as a permanent resident of the Spirit World]].

** Equestria itself. How was nature altered to require pony assistance, and why has the Everfree forest remained resistant? (Or is it the other way around?) Is "Equestria" a planet like ours, or like the Literature/{{Discworld}}, or simply one nation? How do other sapient creatures like the dragons and griffins fit in? One very dedicated fan has even drawn an insanely detailed map of [[http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=§ion=&q=equestria#/d46wmzm Equestria and the realms beyond it]] conceptualizing Equestria as one of many lands on a planet where magical quadrupeds are the dominant group of specis instead of bipeds, and [[http://futzi01.deviantart.com/art/Map-of-Equestria-323909537 Hasbro's official map]] seems to point in that direction.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has [[Administrivia/PeopleSitOnChairs of course]] been subject to the intentional version due to how long it can sometimes take to reach a plot thread the writers fully intend to deal with. However, one particular resulting fandom consensus stands out among the rest: when [[spoiler:Jasper]] fell into a crack in the ground and went unseen for some time afterwards, it led the fandom to decide that the generally agreed-upon (and very silly) temporary answer regarding her whereabouts is that she fell into the Underground from ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}''.
* There's a TimeSkip of fifty years between season 4 of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' and the finale season. Even the episode/chapter number skips ahead into the 90's. What kind of adventures did Jack get up to during that time? According to WordOfGod, that's [[InvokedTrope entirely up to the audience]]. In terms of continuity the only things that ''need'' to happen during that time are Scotsman having kids, Aku trying to destroy all the time portals, and [[spoiler: Jack losing his sword]]. Everything else is total free game.

* ''ComicBook/TransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'' has a lot of this thanks to the heavy WorldBuilding, CrypticBackgroundReferences, and JigsawPuzzlePlot. The most notable example is the Simanzi Massacre, a horrific battle that's a hugely important part of the backstory, with a great many of the characters having been affected by it. And yet the battle itself is largely left to the reader's imagination; we never see it firsthand, merely get brief descriptions and flashbacks of things that happened during and after it. Doubles as NothingIsScarier.

** [[WillTheyOrWOntThey Did Mal and Inara finally admit their feelings?]]

* ''Creator/Suda51'''s Kill the Past universe (primarily ''VideoGame/TheSilverCase'', ''VideoGame/FlowerSunAndRain'' and ''VideoGame/killer7'', but even the question of what games are part of Kill the Past relies on this trope) runs heavily on this. Almost every scene and line begs to be expanded upon. The ''Hand in killer7'' companion book is particularly filled with this, including lines like "The chess game between Harman Smith and Kun Lan never ends, fearing HIS apparition . . . . " in the timeline with no explanation as to who "HIS apparition" refers to. It also includes mentions of many missions the protagonists went on that are never even alluded to in the game proper.

** If Gooey is related to Dark Matter [[AllThereInTheManual as implied by the anniversary booklet]], why is he good? Why does he look so much different from all other Dark Matter?

* ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' opened a couple threads in the first season mostly from when John was still attending high school - mysterious paintings around the school, mysterious behaviour from a girl John likes, something about said girl and Wichita, as well as a girl from Carlos's gang named Chola acting mysterious - all of which appear to be forgotten so far in the second season. (Chola does briefly appear in the second season, though there's no explanation of her earlier behavior.) A lot of these dropped threads were probably due to the writers' strike severely truncating the first season; that said, there are so many of them that season 2 almost qualifies as a minor {{Retool}}.

*** He's also lived for centuries that we didn't seen anything of ''between'' episodes, producing yet more fanfic fodder.

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', despite nearly wrapping up every threat every season does have some fodder threads that tend to linger from season to season. For instance, it was a long held question for fans what exactly The Morphing Grid was until PowerRangersRPM gave a token explanation. However the fates of some minor characters, the flow events outside of series transitioning between them, and the constant threats to earth will prompt several theories that might only grow as the franchise continues.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has [[Administrivia/PeopleSitOnChairs of course]] been subject to the intentional version due to how long it can sometimes take to reach a plot thread the writers fully intend to deal with. However, one particular resulting fandom consensus stands out among the rest: when [[spoiler:Jasper]] fell into a crack in the ground and went unseen for some time afterwards... it led the fandom to decide that the generally agreed-upon (and very silly) temporary answer regarding her whereabouts is that she fell into the Underground from ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}''.

* Steven Brust includes {{Noodle Incident}}s in his [[Literature/{{Dragaera}} Vlad Taltos]] series to give him ideas for future books in the series.

* [[Creator/{{Bungie}} Bungie Studios]], creator of the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' franchises, absolutely relishes this; every game series and the canon surrounding it is festooned with little questions, hints, and unelaborated tangents, and Bungie's own attitude towards these questions is to let the fans come up with the answers.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has [[{{Administrivia}}/PeopleSitOnChairs of course]] been subject to the intentional version due to how long it can sometimes take to reach a plot thread the writers fully intend to deal with. However, one particular resulting fandom consensus stands out among the rest: when [[spoiler:Jasper]] fell into a crack in the ground and went unseen for some time afterwards... it led the fandom to decide that the generally agreed-upon (and very silly) temporary answer regarding her whereabouts is that she fell into the Underground from ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}''.

** Pinkie's [[WrongContextMagic unusual magical abilities]], and to a lesser extent, Fluttershy's as well. In canon, Twilight has given up ever understanding how Pinkie does what she does, but fanon has made her everything from an embodiment of Chaos, to a vampire hunter blessed by Celestia, to the descendant of a long line of necromancers who's intermittently possessed by twenty-seven of her ancestors.
*** Other suggested theories: Pinkie Pie is Loki's (Norse god of trickery) great-grandaughter. Pinkie has PowerBornOfMadness and can [[BreakingTheFourthWall break the fourth wall]] because she's insane (or it made her insane), similar to SelfDemonstrating/{{Deadpool}}'s insanity. Pinkie is a benevolent EldritchAbomination. Pinkie is a Warner Brothers cartoon who escaped into Ponyville. The list goes on and on...The WMG page for Friendship Is Magic has an entire section just for her!

* ''TheSimpsons'': Why do Milhouse's parents, Kirk and Louanne, look almost exactly alike even though they're (supposedly) related only by marriage? The key may lie in an episode showing the founding of Springfield in pioneer days, in which a fair number of the settlers did ''not'' participate because they had already broken away to found Shelbyville, which recognized a man's right to "marry his cousins." Hmmmmm...