tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post5341889973682822867..comments2012-01-09T09:31:33.579ZPaul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-72786966135794144322010-11-08T18:00:15.657Z2010-11-08T18:00:15.657ZThanks very much, Graeme.Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-64900011621476186272010-11-07T18:16:28.473Z2010-11-07T18:16:28.473ZThis is a rather late reply, or early depending on when you&#39;re reading it, or when I&#39;m posting it.<br /><br />Great read, Paul. Wonderfully put together and thought out. I absolutely agree, and I&#39;m just a casual DW fan. Brilliant.Graeme Sharpehttp://www.twitter.com/GSharpenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-10819872735358496082010-08-14T07:44:59.572+01:002010-08-14T07:44:59.572+01:00Thank you!Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-23992156874826328052010-08-13T20:35:05.498+01:002010-08-13T20:35:05.498+01:00Since no one sane is still reading comments at this point, I&#39;ll take this opportunity to say that I considered you to be the best of the NA/MA authors (canon or not!), with Kate Orman coming in at #2, and I was very happy to see you involved with the new show.<br /><br />p.s. Can you PLEASE get them to stop resurrecting the Daleks? :)<br /><br />p.p.s Nathaniel, I miss rec.arts.drwho!John S. Adairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07576442283779749848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-59818347607733270412010-04-06T10:52:35.942+01:002010-04-06T10:52:35.942+01:00Thanks very much, and glad you&#39;ve sorted your own canon issues! Cheers.Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-80276535127836237012010-04-01T12:57:13.807+01:002010-04-01T12:57:13.807+01:00Hi! I don&#39;t know if you&#39;ll ever read this, but I&#39;ll post it anyway.<br /><br />After giving myself headaches over the whole Loom/children thing, I&#39;ve decided (for the time being) that it really doesn&#39;t matter. None of it&#39;s real, anyway. If it must be explained away in the show, then time travel did it.<br /><br />Because I like the idea of the Doctor being Loomed fully-grown, growing up with his Cousins in the House of Lungbarrow.<br /><br />And I like the idea of him knowing his mother and father and having been a child.<br /><br />I like the idea of him being half-human (to a certain extent) and I like the idea of him being totally alien.<br /><br />And I can accept that they&#39;re all true, and I would say that the Doctor doesn&#39;t even know himself.<br /><br />Haven&#39;t read any of your novels, but I love the end of The Family of Blood - I love it when the Doctor is really powerful. And Joan&#39;s damning condemnation of him - &quot;Would anyone here have died?&quot; - is absolutely superb.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11944269383546698847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-41793889414497032802010-03-04T22:49:03.296Z2010-03-04T22:49:03.296ZThanks, I appreciate that!Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-73742598145346698312010-03-03T10:19:52.550Z2010-03-03T10:19:52.550ZPaul, you keep wondering why people keep finding this post, out of all of your blog posts?<br /><br />It&#39;s because of the links to it, of course. Most notable, it&#39;s the first External Link in the Doctor Who Wiki page on Canon. But it&#39;s also been linked from Wikipedia talk pages, and who knows where else.<br /><br />Whenever an argument about canonicity within Doctor Who comes up, someone reminds everyone, &quot;Here&#39;s what Paul Cornell has to say about it.&quot;<br /><br />Partly, this is because your answer is so good, or at least you frame the question so well that it can derail a pointless quest.<br /><br />But there&#39;s also the fact that any fan geeky enough to argue about canonicity knows who Paul Cornell is and wants to know what you have to say about it, and you (along with maybe Lance Parkin) are the closest thing to that &quot;authority&quot; that people are looking for.<br /><br />Having that authority say, as authoritatively as possible, that there is no authority--well, that&#39;s a great contribution!barnerthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07390113222049541617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-81075662104215992432010-01-20T13:02:57.609Z2010-01-20T13:02:57.609ZThanks very much.Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-76295775934711458572010-01-19T18:20:04.435Z2010-01-19T18:20:04.435ZNo problem - I can see why it&#39;s so popular, such an interesting topic to talk about. <br /><br />I&#39;ve linked this to a fair few friends since I belatedly discovered it, and the majority have found it just as insightful as I have (:<br /><br />Not signing off with my name this time, because I just realised it&#39;s at the top of the comment anyway. Bit slow of me.Alicenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-21959117661538647912010-01-16T07:53:36.872Z2010-01-16T07:53:36.872ZThanks for taking a look, Alice. This is one of a couple of blog posts of mine that get attention way after the fact!Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-30157347956867993152010-01-15T21:37:08.027Z2010-01-15T21:37:08.027ZBy the time I&#39;d gotten to the end of the comments on this post, I completely forgot how I found the essay in the first place. I&#39;ll take that as a sign that I should read this again and again (:<br /><br />Yeah, I basically agree with you on the canon/continuity thing. My friend phrased it well to me a few minutes ago: &quot;It&#39;s all real and fake at once.&quot; <br /><br />Not sure if that&#39;s how you perceive it, exactly, but it&#39;s a way that I make sense of it all. <br /><br />Confusing but making perfect sense at the same time, I think!<br /><br />I think a huge part of the issue is that people feel lost without hard evidence and facts. It&#39;s as if you don&#39;t really know anything about the subject at all, when you thought you did. Unnerving, but exciting. <br /><br />Alice.Alicenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-44419943174290438502009-08-13T09:38:13.091+01:002009-08-13T09:38:13.091+01:00Interesting stuff guys, particularly about the TMNT. This really is the blog post that keeps on going!Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-37297136133011684612009-08-10T22:12:44.973+01:002009-08-10T22:12:44.973+01:00Very good article. I agree with a lot of what you said. To me, Who&#39;s canon can be completely jumbled and mixed because of the nature of the show. The only thing that could be brought into debate is the TV movie and since it included McCoy and was licensed by the BBC it obviously wasn&#39;t like a remake or something that can be tossed away. He is the 8th Doctor.<br /><br />Some other canon and continuity interests.<br /><br />The Godzilla movies. Originally they follow a strict continuity, but then it breaks down into eras. Even the eras don&#39;t follow the same continuity. In the 1990&#39;s move they go through some time travel elements and rewrite the entire history of the characters. <br /><br />In 1998 they licensed America to make that dreadful Godzilla movie. Is it canon? Well Toho (Godzilla&#39;s parent company) believes it is canon... It&#39;s just not Godzilla. They renamed the monster and settled the debate. It is canon, just not the same character.<br /><br />But here&#39;s an even more puzzling one for you. The Ninja Turtles. Founded by two men, Eastman &amp; Laird, they decided to try and keep track of what was canon and not realitively early on. They would occasionally say &quot;This isn&#39;t canon&quot; and said that the original TMNT cartoon was a complete seperate entity from their comics.<br /><br />HOWEVER, in early 2000ish, Eastman sold his shares and control of the turtles to Laird. Now Peter Laird decides what is canon and has went back and changed some things as he sees fit.<br /><br />This has brought down a huge bunch of anger from certain fans as Laird is redoing the entire canon to his liking. Unlike some of the other mentioned franchises, this is a case where it has a single creator (or at least dual creators) but now that the one has control things are being changed.<br /><br />Laird&#39;s stance is that any changes he makes is the official canon, but he reminds people that &quot;those other stories exist, how else do you know about them?&quot; thus basically saying canon is what you make of it.<br /><br />I tend to believe that philosphy. Obviously my fan stories aren&#39;t official parts of any canon, but fans can basically pick and choose what we believe is canon. No one can make us believe otherwise.Newton Gimmickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03123592172997157224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-84418662340747716292009-06-13T01:27:28.972+01:002009-06-13T01:27:28.972+01:00As far as I am concerned regarding this issue of &#39;canon&#39;.<br /><br />The Doctor is a time-traveller, and has meddled with history for quite a while now. Everything is &#39;canon&#39;, because all the stories are true. <br /><br />How? They are the myths and legends of the Timelords, The Doctor, the Daleks and the Cybermen. <br /><br />Simple - myths and legends, therefore the books, the TV movie, the classic and new series and anything else that gets thrown in, all count!T-Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10991403860374344401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-47289026847376096532009-01-28T07:42:00.000Z2009-01-28T07:42:00.000ZPeople can never resist this one! I do wonder how you find it!Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-84782703038553780612009-01-27T19:54:00.000Z2009-01-27T19:54:00.000ZI do love the idea that every tv show, comic strip and novel takes place in the same endless saga. It's strangely wonderful to watch William Hartnell and think that some day he's going to become Matt Smith. There's an odd kind of thrill to (pointlessley) trying to figure out if the Tenth Doctor is making a sly reference to Bernice Summerfield when he told River Song that he 'laughs at archaeologists'. It's fun to imagine that the Ninth Doctor might be refering to events in 'The Left Handed Hummingbird', (or even that comic strip with the Sleeze Brothers) when he's telling Rose about the time he was on the Titanic. Trying to make everything fit into the same frame is all part of the fun of Doctor Who for me. As for the argument against the New Adventures-- it's something one should be able to take or leave at personal convenience seeing as there will never be any 'official' record of the seventh Doctor's later years. <BR/><BR/>From my point of view something had to have happened between the end of 'Survival' and the beginning of the 1996 movie. A whole lifetime of the Doctor had to have taken place between the end of the movie and 'Rose'. We're never going to get an episode where the Doctor just stands in front of the camera for 45 minutes and explains, using diagrams where necessary, precisely what took place during all the years he wasn't on the telly. Likewise it's shoutingly unlikely that the BBC will ever commission a 'Doctor Who: The Missing Years' in which and ageing Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred pick up where they left off in Perivale. Still, something had to have happened during those gaps-- and it might as well be the novels/comics/audios because that's all there is! Most of the aforementioned spin-off media was authored by some of the splendid people who now write the TV show (including the writer of this blog) which gives it a big shiny stamp of authenticity as far as I'm concerned. However, if the thought of 'Sky Pirates!' being a 'real' event is too much for you, you can simply allow yourself to believe that Ace decided to move back in with her Mum minutes after the end of 'Survival' and the Doctor spent the next six years redecorating the TARDIS before picking up the gooey remains of the Master. The show leaves it open that way.<BR/><BR/>Ultimately, Doctor Who canon is and should be a personal fantasy. Once the makers of any show start getting too concerned with it, something dies-- hence the unravelling of Star Trek as it tried to rewrite and then later tip-toe around continuity with 'Enterprise'.<BR/><BR/>Obviously this thread died off a while ago but I just wanted to add my two ha'penny.Mike Mnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-15003149885696076712009-01-13T13:18:00.000Z2009-01-13T13:18:00.000ZWelcome to the blog, Sam. This post is the most visited next to the BBC Space Themes one!Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-76201246270455881512009-01-12T21:27:00.000Z2009-01-12T21:27:00.000ZBeing a reasonably new Who fan, I have this rose-tinted view of wanting everything to have happened in that world. That's why I love the stories that play with time. Showing ways of including everythingSam Spencerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17251868442359616689noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-580778243274062782008-10-16T01:47:00.000+01:002008-10-16T01:47:00.000+01:00Canonicity can be explained quiet easily with a bit of ancient Hindu philosophy. Everything occurs at the same moment. It is our limited perception which perceives time as linear. Time is, in fact, a single point. In such a universe, nothing can be non-canonical.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-1590209851885378102008-07-12T14:40:00.000+01:002008-07-12T14:40:00.000+01:00I understand the thought behind this post, stories can change, especially because Doctor Who is a show all about time travel.<BR/><BR/>But that's just the stories!<BR/><BR/>The doctor itself is exempt from this rule, is he not? All of history can change but, since the Doctor always sees time itself in his head, he does not. <BR/><BR/>So stories could be changed from our point of view but the Doctor will still remember them the way he first lived them.<BR/><BR/>And isn't that what people want? For the Doctor to be able to say "Oh yeah, I remember that one" or something.<BR/><BR/>There are other things which just can't be "erased", like scientific stuff.<BR/>Events can change, but the laws of physics can't. For example: If they start drilling through the earth's crust and the entire world explodes you expect the same behavior to occur should they try it in another story.<BR/>So if any non-tv story makes some bold claim that "you can never do this or that because it would destroy the other thing" then that needs to be true in every story.skerithttp://skerit.kipdola.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-46134249028766228862008-04-28T10:59:00.000+01:002008-04-28T10:59:00.000+01:00Hi<BR/><BR/>It is a very nice and good post and I really like it.Θεμις Μαντζαβινοςhttp://www.embryoland.gr/en/mantzavinos.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-60721483355674154772007-10-02T09:06:00.000+01:002007-10-02T09:06:00.000+01:00I'm still amazed this is the post that's still attracting new readers. And very pleased to see them. Nat, my attitude remains thus: there is no such thing as canon in Doctor Who.Paul Cornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07366796946594435087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-46523561764125963542007-09-30T05:58:00.000+01:002007-09-30T05:58:00.000+01:00Aargh, let's see if I can actually get that link up:<BR/><A HREF="http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.drwho/browse_thread/thread/da90438e52602afc/14af5f8a005dc5b8?lnk=st&q=canon&rnum=81#14af5f8a005dc5b8" REL="nofollow">Kate's reaction to Ground Zero</A>Nathanaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07475686367097445497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20125944.post-70167608155822836012007-09-30T05:57:00.000+01:002007-09-30T05:57:00.000+01:00Found Kate Orman's message!<BR/><BR/>http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.drwho/browse_thread/thread/da90438e52602afc/14af5f8a005dc5b8?lnk=st&q=canon&rnum=81#14af5f8a005dc5b8<BR/><BR/>I really do think this sums up what most fans really mean by "canon". (Personal canon rather than working canon.) Do you believe it?Nathanaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07475686367097445497noreply@blogger.com