During last year’s Game Awards, I tuned in with a group of friends over Discord. We all had our laundry list of personal wins we’d like to see come out of the event, game announcements and sequels too ambitious to see the light of day. When the screen gave way to visions of space, emergency broadcasts from distressed ships, and the terrifying roar of Reapers, my breath hitched in my throat. A wave of anxiety hit me, hoping it would be the next installment of a series that has long cemented itself as my number one. We all know those moments—when stories that feel deeply personal tease that they may deliver again—and I was feeling it. Then it was there, Bioware is working on another Mass Effect, and it may involve my favorite crew.
“But then they’ll have to choose a canon ending,” comes the frustrating hangup to snap me out of my brief few moments of joy. My friends poked fun for a bit, noting that if Bioware’s plan is to continue Mass Effect where the original trilogy left off, then they’ll have to choose between canonizing Red, Blue, or Green. And honestly? I care zero.
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While a debate raged around me about which one should be canon, I just couldn’t be bothered to get that worked up over it, but existing outside of canon is largely where I’ve experienced most of my fandom days, anyway. There aren’t a lot of stories about queer love out there, so I’m quite used to it. Anyway, obsessively studying lore is all good and fun—ask me literally anything about Final Fantasy 14—but using canon as a bludgeon against every new piece of your favorite stories is going to leave you miserable.
I had the same conversation around Nier, too, and I realize canon really causes some folks to hang up and stop enjoying something. Personally, I really like all of Nier’s weird extended universe junk, like the novels and stage plays. It’s about as silly as you would assume it to be, and I think a lot of it reads like filler in between triple-A games. I completely dig it, though, but when I prompted another new Nier fan about it the other day, they asked me which bits were canon and which weren’t so they could decide what to engage with. Honestly, I have not the slightest damn clue. I think Taro has decided everything is canon? Regardless, as long as it’s all good stuff, just enjoy it.
The examples are endless, but I figure my most hilarious example has always been Star Wars. I spent too much of my university life in a room full of nerds arguing what was canon after Disney, apparently, ruined everyone’s lives and deleted every piece of extra Star Wars lore from existence. What is that? Are you telling me that Disney didn’t actually go into your home, steal your Star Wars novels, and burn them? They’re still there for you to enjoy? Well then, I hope you still enjoy them, regardless of whether or not they’re recognized as “canon.”
Anyway, I love Star Wars, and my knowledge extends to all of the movies, a couple of books, some games, and a cartoon. But, for the most part, my mind hovers somewhere around “lightsaber go vrroom” when watching the movies, and I’ve yet to stop enjoying the novels just because Disney said they aren’t canon. Apparently, some of the games still are canon, though, so I’ll let you do the hard work and figure out which are, because I like almost all of them.
Regardless, I hope you don’t stop liking a thing just because someone comes swooping in to say it did or did not actually happen within said fictional universe. I hope you can always love bits that got so weird the creator was like, “oops, maybe not.” And if you refuse to engage with something until you know whether or not it actually ties into said fictional universe, I don’t know, maybe step it back, give it a shot. Read a little fan fiction or something, because there’s a lot of good stuff out there that’s not “canon,” and someone just made it all up, anyway. You’re concerned about what really happened, whenever none of it really happened to begin with.
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