Duplicate Trope: Canon Marches On

Outdated by Canon and Canon Marches On are both pointing at the same phenomenon of "a work loses its canon-compliant status due to updates in the work from which said canon derives".

Currently, Outdated by Canon is a trivia item for fanfics, while Canon Marches On is a trope for Expanded Universe works. There is, to the best of my knowledge, no other difference between them.

Sorry for the wait, ~wingedcatgirl. Opened.

Merge.

I worked a lot to reorganize the Canon Universe index page since it was a mess before. Most of the descriptions there are mine as I had to study all pages and come up with them, otherwise it would be a confusing page for readers, and I noticed a lot of misuse that I tried my best to correct.

I'll give my two cents about it, but first let me establish some differences, at least from my understanding:

• Canon Marches On: This is when earlier spinoffs and expanded universe works are declared non-canon later because of canon. In a way, it's based on the idea Characterization Marches On where earlier stuff gets abandoned in order to make way for something newer and more established.

And then we have the following:

• Outdated by Canon: Essentially, this is when Fanon gets officially disproven by Canon. The difference here is that this only applies to fanwork, not spinoffs like in Canon Marches On. It's a rather common occurence since every significant fandom has its popular Fanon that eventually gets shot down.
• Jossed: This is more or less the Super-Trope of the above. The term, however, only applies to popular Epileptic Trees that get disproven by Word of God. Fanon is usually something beyond that as it includes fanfics and fanart, shown by the page image. If you want to argue about overlap, then it would be those two, but I think there's enough distinction for them to be just a Sub-Trope of the other (after all Fanon and Epileptic Trees are both their own tropes for a reason).

And then we have:

• Canon Discontinuity: When a supposed canon work gets retconned out of canon. I believe this one has the actual overlap with Canon Marches On, because the line between spinoff that was once canon and formerly canon work is not really easy to understand. Like, if the spinoff is rendered non-canon, wouldn't that mean that it was meant to be canon in the first place? What's the difference between that and an installment/episode that was once considered canon? Does the difference matter to begin with? It's rather confusing.

So my suggestion would be the merge Canon Marches On with Canon Discontinuity instead. I believe Outdated by Canon can be enough of it own thing, especially since it has a specific page image that shows what exactly it entails.

Edited by Drope on May 5th 2020 at 7:53:56 AM

I think the 'fanon' part of Outdated by Canon is distinct enough from Canon Marches On. Fanworks are a one-off thing from people who don't have anything to do with the canon anyway, so it's pretty expected. What's more surprising is if works from the same group of creators are ignored. I think the actual mergeworthy candidate here is Canon Marches On to Canon Discontinuity.

with a better explanation

Edited by Synchronicity on May 5th 2020 at 9:51:09 AM

What makes Canon Marches On distinct from Canon Discontinuity?

Given the origins of Discontinuity, I feel like Canon Discontinuity has a connotation of "the writers got rid of this because they hated it".

I think the distinction there is that Canon Marches On is when something new contradicts something old (whether or not the creator realized the contradiction), with the new thing superseding the old one.

Canon Discontinuity is not only an intentional removal of something from canon (though proving intent is often muddy), it can happen without anything new being added.

Let's say there are two movies and a spin-off. When a third movie comes out, it contradicts the spin-off. That's Canon Marches On.

If there never was a third movie, but the creator decided they hated the spin-off anyway and declared it non-canonical, that's Canon Discontinuity.

For the difference between Canon Marches On and Outdated by Canon, it seems a difference is that Outdated by Canon focuses on fans answering unanswered questions in a story that later get officially answered (like the mystery of who a character's mother is). It's an established question, but one that has no answer at the time.

Canon Marches On is broader, and can have the first source totally invent the situation, question and answer, but the later installment's version of that event supersedes it. In other words, a spin-off invents the mother to begin with, but when a later sequel likes the idea of that character's mother being involved, the mother is a different character.

Edited by Jokubas on May 5th 2020 at 5:37:46 AM

Finding the distinction between Canon Marches On and Outdated by Canon is much easier than that of Canon Marches On and Canon Discontinuity, since Outdated by Canon is exclusive to fandom works, thus being in a completely different area from licensed, official products (which both Canon Marches On and Canon Discontinuity deal wih).

One could say that Canon Marches On deals exclusively with adaptations and spinoffs, but from the examples I'm seeing, Canon Discontinuity does the same (for example, the Star Wars EU is present in both pages). It appears that, indeed, intent is necessary to describe something as Canon Discontinuity, while accidental ones are Canon Marches On, but that distinction is really difficult to prove in certain cases.

So the ideal would be to either merge both pages (Canon Marches On and Canon Discontinuity), or clean them so any overlapping examples don't exist. I can see the merit of keeping both split, but that would require better descriptions to avoid Trope Decay.

Edited by Drope on May 6th 2020 at 6:02:00 AM

"Fan work versus expanded universe" may be an easy distinction, but I feel like it's not a real one? Like, the old Star Wars expanded universe is relegated to "Legends" now, making it essentially fanfic — the only difference was ever Lucasarts's attitude toward it.

Edited by wingedcatgirl on May 6th 2020 at 6:33:11 AM

Because it was licensed, the old Star Wars EU was by definition not fanfic.

From the Canon Marches On, some of the examples are for expanded universe material that billed as the official followup to a story no longer ongoing in its original medium, like a TV series that's off the air gets a comic book continuation. But then there's a new TV series, and its easier to ignore the comic book than try to account for what it did.

Edited by GoldenDarkness on May 15th 2020 at 10:59:38 AM

So if a spinoff was canon until the official work contradicted it, would that go under Canon Marches On or Canon Discontinuity? What would an example of Canon Discontinuity be that isn't Canon Marches On?

The page image for Canon Discontinuity does not show a Spin-Off, it shows Sequels. Superman Returns was a sequel to the second Superman film, ignoring the canon of the previous two films in that series.

Edited by crazysamaritan on May 19th 2020 at 5:12:46 AM

More directly answering the question, the main work ignoring a spinoff is still Canon Discontinuity.

For instance, Torchwood: Miracle Day was immediately ignored by its parent show Doctor Who, despite the rest of Torchwood being canon to Doctor Who; thus, Miracle Day is Canon Discontinuity.

So we really have three levels here:

• Work contradicts a fanfic: Outdated by Canon
• Work contradicts its EU: Canon Marches On
• Work contradicts its spinoff: Canon Discontinuity ^note CD doesn't match one-to-one with the other two; it's about a work, or an element of a work, being rendered noncanon to its series. The other two are about a work, or an element of a work, being outdated by its series.

Looking at Canon Discontinuity, it's not always about spinoffs or EU. Actual episodes or sequels of an work can be rendered non-canon or an Alternate Continuity.

From Western Animation, we have this example:

According to Word of God, the Ben 10 episodes set in the future are canonical, and they portray Kevin as an unrepentant villain. However, in Alien Force (under a new creative team), he is a redeemed good guy and remains that way up until the 2016 Continuity Reboot. In addition, the pop-up edition of the episode "Goodbye And Good Riddance" states that the episode is not canonical, and that the real story of Ben's return to Bellwood is the live-action film Race Against Time. The Ultimate Alien episode "Ben 10,000 Returns" officially established these and future "canon inconsistent" events as alternate universes and timelines.

Edited by GoldenDarkness on May 19th 2020 at 9:22:53 AM

So is the question "is EU vs spinoff/sequel" enough to justify the difference between Canon Marches On and Canon Discontinuity? Because I really think Outdated by Canon is fine as its own thing, since the creators cannot be expected to adhere to fan continuity, but they are generally at least supposed to consider existing canon.

Well, one might argue that spin-offs/expanded universe, unlike a numbered sequel entry, are usually Schrödinger's Canon, and there is less expectation for the later "main" works to follow through with that—especially since the team working on the spin-off are usually independent from the people doing the "main" entry, and the latter might not be aware of the former's works. But I agree that they're kind of splitting hairs, and the details that distinguish between the two are Trivia.

We also have other related concepts with Retcon and Broad Strokes.

Edited by Adept on May 24th 2020 at 4:32:37 PM

Maybe Canon Discontinuity should only apply for works never intended to be canon to begin with, or declared non-canon before the happening of the work make it so.

• Canon Discontinuity: A works officially declared as non-canon.
• Canon Marches On: A work or official word is rendered non-canon by higher canon works (Retcon is for minor changes that don’t render the prior work impossible) regardless of official word.

Alternately:

• Canon Discontinuity/Retcon: Applies to the work causing it (which would differentiate what becomes alternate continues e.g. Star Wars Legends).
• Canon Marches On: Applies to the works effected by it not declared alternate continuity (would also allow works with only parts decanonized).

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jun 24th 2020 at 4:28:29 AM

If Canon Discontinuity were only applicable in advance, it'd no longer be a parallel to Fanon Discontinuity. ...Also it'd probably just end up being the same thing as Alternate Continuity or a What If?.

So that idea's probably a no-go.

Understood, what about my other ideas?

• Canon Discontinuity: A works officially declared as non-canon.
• Canon Marches On: A work or official word is rendered non-canon by higher canon works (Retcon is for minor changes that don’t render the prior work impossible) regardless of official word.

Or:

• Canon Discontinuity/Retcon: Applies to the work causing it (which would differentiate what becomes alternate continues e.g. Star Wars Legends).
• Canon Marches On: Applies to the works effected by it not declared alternate continuity (would also allow works with only parts decanonized).

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jun 29th 2020 at 6:53:00 AM

Clock is up with no progress; closing.