(no subject)

[gement]

In the wake of Torchwood fan reactions to events in Children of Earth, and just on general principle, I am delighted to support this thesis: Doctor Who has no canon.

It's a lovely essay, with no spoilers and lots of quotes from Doctor Who bigshot writers, and I just kept nodding like a bobble-head the whole time. It's a valuable piece of reading if you're a fan of some other geek franchise or like thinking about what makes stories Real, even if you're not Whovian.

This note in the comments actually made my eyes well up:

"The Doctor remembers every Doctor Who story ever told. Every episode, target book, comic strip and every game of companions and TARDISes that you played as a kid. The universe he lives in has no record of it, because of paradoxes and divergent dimensions and the Time War have reset things... but the Doctor remembers and sometimes when he is sad it's because you've stopped being 8 years old and he can't run around the school playground with you anymore."

Yes. Just like that. I'm still playing. Are you?

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've been following these essays, mainly because I know Paul in passing from con panels we've been on together, but THANK YOU, because in pulling that quote out, you've just helped me figure out how to answer an extremely difficult email I received, that utterly merits my answering, but which I have felt unqualified to deal with based on life experience and somewhat unwilling to deal with based on current emotional place. Perfect!

Thank YOU!

[gement.livejournal.com]

As one of two major sources* of my Torchwood fanon, thank you.

I've meant to write on this subject for a couple years, since Making Light did a few brilliant posts on the nature of canon and authority and the history of adaptive storytelling (these days called fanfic), but I could never quite pull it into shape. I'm delighted to highlight someone more articulate than myself on the subject.

* I was going to write "three," but the other two are Sam_Storyteller and, heaven help me, ask_aboutcoffee who turned to be Sam.