C3PX said:When the term "canon" is used in context of a work of fiction, it typically means any work related to the original and created by or accepted by the original creator as an authentic part of the over all story of the fictional universe he created. All this crap about a-canon b-canon c-canon is BS used to legitimize the fact that ol' boy George wants to pull in more dough by accepting royalties from the selling of liscened SW novels, but also doesn't want to be confined by rules or events related to those novels. Which is fine, but why not disregard them as canon altogether, instead of this "different levels of canon" stuff. Canon is suppose to be what is offically accepted, it either is or is not.
That said, when we talk about real canon, it is what Lucas and official sources make it out to be. Sure, I mentioned my personal canon, but that is just a fancy way of saying the works I wish to accept as having happened in my own personal experience of the franchise. When we start changing the meanings of words, such as "canon" to mean what is most plausable or what makes the most sense, or what was set out first, we muddle the meaning to the point where it is no longer a useful word.
I agree that the creator defines canon, not the fans. I have my own personal canon as well, but I realize that in a debate, I have to adhere to the one held by the responsible parties. I don't know what VaderHayden's rant was about, but it seems he thinks himself able to judge what is "real" Star Wars and what is not. I think we can agree that he is mistaken. He simply doesn't have the right to make that decision.
Anyway, I agree that the whole GTCSN canon scale was contrived for the sake of appeasing both GL and the EU fans out there, but I think that to say that it betrays the meaning of "canon" is not necessarily true. The whole point of fictional canon is to define what is part of the story and what is not. Since such a designation is up to the creator (or his cronies), that means he/they can define such a system however they want, either in black-and-white terms like Star Trek (series and movies are canon, nothing else) or with a multi-tiered system that can throw out contradictory elements and rewrite itself (the canon scale used by LucasBooks). If a piece of information is not contradicted by another piece of information on a higher level (or by a decree from LucasBooks), it is "truth", just like the series and movies in Star Trek. The only difference is that this "truth" can be overwritten at a moments notice if a contradictory piece of information from higher up on the scale appears. Seems more orderly than the black-and-white approach, actually.
For example, what if there is a contradiction between a later ST series and an earlier ST series? There's no real precedent for which series holds the "truth", so it's really up to the fans. With SW, a lot of those concerns (not all, of course) are easy to sort out. Couple this with the fact that the writers for the EU are trying more and more to make everything gel, and the only wild cards SW deals nowadays are when GL tries something crazy (like the new TV series, which completely fucked the whole Clone Wars timeline up its ass) or when trying to reconcile really old EU information (like from the Marvel Comic series).