Fanthropological

It’s fair to say that fans can take things too far, right? To the point of taking certain facts of a series and canonizing (a _biblical_ term) them, deciding which elements are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’? Or even mixing up canon and tradition and requiring long-running media to follow old rules because that’s the way it’s always been! In this episode, we dig a bit into what canon means, in fandom, and try to answer the question… as fans, who needs canon, anyway? Also covering topics as: * Curative fandom, and the appeal of consistency and meaning * How canon justifies fan investment * A bunch of nonsense about intertextuality, worldbuilding, mythology, prescriptivism and descriptivism And more! All in under thirty minutes. ## Episode Outline **Topics:** Avoiding chaos via canon, consistency and rules in stories, the reality of multiple truths and perspectives, a brief tangent on the origins of the word canon, canon as ‘integrity’ of media, how canon imbues meaning, curative fandom, canon as constraints