This is essentially (a part of) a short essay on fanfiction, based on a few thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for the past three or four years (ever since a woman named Hannah suggested I was good enough to present an actual paper at a convetion in Canada. I didn't get round to doing that, but still - it was quite a nice suggestion).
Around a decade or so ago, I wrote a story called "Be Careful What You Wish For" in which Xander Harris uses very, very dark magic to completely strip the free will from Buffy Summers.
A few people liked it, but two or three people really, really hated it. And not because the title should really be "Be Careful For What You Wish" (because you should never end a sentence with a preposition).
Their basic objection was that Xander would never do this. That he is a good guy and that he would never try to domniate Buffy, let alone use dark magic to strip her free will and use her as a sex toy.
And, to be honest, while I tried defending my position (citing the fact he wanted Amy Madison to use some pretty dark magic to strip Cordy's free will so that he could then humiliate Cordy to get back for her humiliating him), the simple fact is that the people who said this were right.
Xander was an heroically good guy who only did two very bad things during the entire run of the series (his "affair" with Willow in S3 and his entirely mistimed proposal to Anya at the end of S5 and the subsequent clusterfrak that was him and Anya during Series 6).
But that wasn't the point of the story. Nor is it the point of fanfiction in general.
The point of the story was that I am not a big fan of Buffy/Xander as a couple (they are, in my view, too close to brother and sister to be a viable couple), and when someone repeatedly posted comments to get me to write a Buffy/Xander story, I wanted to teach that person a lesson by writing a Buffy/Xander story, but writing it my way.
(I also posted a sequal because - for reasons that were not clear - I got a lot of comments demanding a sequal. I think that the people demanding it thought there would be a happy ending. Suffice to say, there wasn't, because again - my story, my rules).
Which is essentially the topic of this essay.
"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" - or, in fanfiction terms - the hand that pens the story rules the world of that story.
There are a group of people who think that canon is above all. Not necessarily the specific exact canon, but that the foundation (for want of a better phrase) of the canon must be adhered to at all times. And that anything that deviates from the base canon is wrong and should not be part of a story.
Needless to say, this does present some problems for writing even the most simple fanfiction stories. Partly because if you limit yourself to only the established facts, you have very little scope for the imgination. But mostly because it is very hard to find two people who agree on what exactly the established facts are.
Possibly the most obvious example of this is one of biggest "holy wars" in the Harry Potter fandom.
The war between the people who believe Harry and Ginny are meant to be together, and the people who think Harry and Hermione are meant to be together.
The Harry/Ginny group will tell you that it is based in the books (the only canon that really matters) and that it is obvious when you look at it - Harry thinks of Hermione as a sister, he longs for Ginny in a way that he never does for Hermione, he even breaks up with Ginny to keep her safe (while taking Hermione into the danger).
The Harry/Hermione group will tell you that Ginny is pretty much a "fan girl" (like a Belieber, only slightly more manic) who doesn't love Harry but just wants to use him for his fame and fortune, that Ginny stays out of the stories until Year 5, and even then doesn't appear a lot so how could Harry possibly be in love with her, that Hermione is his true soul-mate who sticks by him through sick and sin.
(With JKR's recent announcement, the entire war has been thrown in to chaos, which - to me - is hilarious).
Which means that if you think Harry and Ginny are meant to be together, there are people who will tell you that "that clearly isn't canon" (despite it being published canon). But write Harry/Hermione and you will get told "that clearly isn't canon" (despite it apparently being JKR's one true pairing).
So - if it is that complicated to write a simple story, imagine the flack/problems/chaos you get when you want to put Harry together with Luna, or Cho, or Lavender, or Ron, or Draco or Neville.
But that is where I (finally) get to my point.
The fandom term for these stories (and many others) is "Alternate Universe" (or sometimes "Alternate timeline"), which basically means that you have diverged from canon so greatly that you have to point out that is what you've done.
(Apparently, if you write a perfectly sensible story that hits all the major points of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" but you have Edmund going to Narnia first - rather than Lucy - then you get some fairly abusive reviews telling you you are a moron who doesn't know the first thing about the stories. But put the Alternate Universe tag on and the same people will praise you for a truly inventive and intersting tale. Go figure).
But what it comes down to to is this - canon, to all intents and purposes, is just a suggestion. It is not the be all and end all of writing stories, but merely a set of building bricks from which you can build whatever you want.
Because fanfiction is - as the name suggests - stories made up by fans of the show. Stories that the original author (JKR, Joss Whedon, Stephan Moffat, CS Lewis and so forth) either didn't tell (What happened in Hogwarts during Year 7, Faith's back story, what Spike did at the school disco, what happened between The Silver Chair and The Last Battle), didn't want to tell (Luna's first three years at Hogwarts, Faith's complete back story, whether Rory hit on Mels or not, what happened to Susan after The Last Battle) or simply couldn't tell (because of laws about taste, decency and the desire to get published) can now be written by people who have pretty much nothing to lose.
If JKR had put as much explicit sex in the Harry Potter books as you get in some of the fanfiction, they never would have sold to the audience she was writing them for. TV censorship laws (both here and in the US) mean that Joss Whedon and Stephan Moffat were somewhat limited as to the range of stories they could tell. And CS Lewis was far too good a Christian to write some of the stories that the fandom has created (because I think the idea of Lucy/Tumnus would have been so far beyond the pale that there are not words to describe it).
But in the world of fanfiction - when amateur authors can use the existing elements to create new stories - then there are very few limits as to the stories they can tell.
The purpose of canon is to provide the world in which new stories are written. And more importantly, it provides a commonly understood world in which new stories are set. If you have read JKR's works, then telling you a story is set in Harry's third year will mean something to you. Telling you a story is set after The Pevensies became Kings and Queens of Narnia will mean something. Telling you that it is set in Avonlea after Davy and Dora came to Green Gables but before Anne left for Redmond would mean something.
But don't have to use all the elements in the prebuilt world. You can set the story in Harry's third year, but have a different Prisoner of Azkaban. You can have a story about the Four Kings and Queens, but instead of the Golden Age described in "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" you could have civil war breaking out. You can have a story set after Davy and Dora come to Green Gables but with Anne being Andrew.
People would still know the original stories, and so the general world in which you are writing, but they would also read the stories with the changes.
And none of this is possible if you stick to canon with an almost religious devotion. None of this is possible if you think that canon is above all.
You can't replace Sirius with anyone else if you want to stick to canon, because it is a major story arc that runs through to the end of the series. You can't have a civil war in Narnia because Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are the ones who bring the peace. And you can't make Anne into Andrew because otherwise the words "you don't want me because I'm not a boy" would make NO sense.
The canon of a series of stories is just the background to new stories - just the building blocks that authors can pick up and use or disguard at their own leisure.
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