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Canon Contests


Nuhrii the Metruan

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Because of recent events, let me say a word or two about canon contests.

 

Definition

The term "canon contest" is used to describe a competition during which a fan-created work gets selected among other entries to become part of what is considered to be the official storyline of a franchise. That "work" may be the design of a character, species, object or location by means of MOCing, drawing or describing it, or it may be a fan-written story that no longer is regarded "fan fiction" but an official work of canon.

 

In Star Wars

Yes, there is a vast difference between BIONICLE and Star Wars, but technically, the two have one thing very much in common: the interaction between the creators and the fans. While George Lucas may not be answering fan questions in the Hyperspace forum on StarWars.com, those in charge of the book and comic franchise are there and interact with the fans (for example Sue Rostoni and Leland Chee, the latter one even being the "Keeper of Continuity", meaning he is responsible for canon). On some occasions, a "What's the story" contest is hosted on there. The idea is simple - if you watch a Star Wars movie, you see many beings and creatures walk around in the background, e.g. on Coruscant in Episode II and III or in Tatooine in Episode I and IV. The point of the contests is now to allow fans to write a background story for those characters. Among the entries the best one is selected and accepted into official canon. Another example is the "Darth Who contest", during which people had to come up with a decent Sith name for Han Solo's fallen son Jacen. The winner, as you may know, was Darth Caedus, a name finally introduced in Karen Traviss' Legacy of the Force novel "Sacrifice". Other occasions have seen fans drawing Star Wars creatures (e.g. I remember a fan-made, canonical drawing an early companion of Yoda).

 

In BIONICLE

The first canon contests were hosted by Greg Farshtey himself (for example the Treespeak contest), with the most memorable among these early fan competitions being the one where you had to explain how the Bohrok came to be in the Maze of Shadows game, thus giving an explanation for a continuity error. The winner was "Protection" by InnerRayg. The next notable contest took place in 2006, titled "A Thousand Years Untold", with three winning stories describing an event on Voya Nui, Mata Nui and Metru Nui in the time between the Great Cataclysm and the arrival of the Toa Mata. More storyline contests followed, including The Next Chronicler or BS01's "Core War" contest. Regarding character design, the first ones of those were the Rahi and Dark Hunter contests in 2004 and 2005 respectively, hosted by the LEGO Magazine, but the first actual MOC/Artwork design contest on BZPower was Xian Weapons, soon followed by the Aqua Blaster Blade contest. Still, those were only objects. The first characters created during online contests were Certavus, Kirbold, Surel and Kyry, with the two warrior contests hosted by BS01 and the KanohiJournal and the two Agori ones by the Unofficial German BIONICLE Magazine, a fan newsletter for fans from German-speaking countries created by me, Nuhrii the Metruan. Asides from contests, fan suggestions like Psionics, Kewa/Kahu, Makuta Tridax and a whole bunch of Kanohi have found their way into canon, not to mention the Toa Mangai, the meaning of Mangai and Mangaia, Toa Naho and warlord Nektann, which were suggested by me last year (2008).

 

Controversy

Now you may ask, with all legitimation: "So what's this all about?" :huh:

 

Let me answer in the form of Pros and Cons.

 

Pros

* A plothole gets filled (story writing contest, e.g. A Thousand Years Untold)

* A continuity error gets fixed (e.g. Bohrok contest)

* Fans get a canon representation of a character on which they can base their future MOCs and Artwork.

* The "No Image" placeholder in Wikis can be replaced with a proper image of an object or character, making the article look nicer (that is by far the weakest argument on the pro side, of course)

 

Cons/Complaints

* Too many contests at once can become tiresome (frequency) - SOLUTION: Spread the contests over a greater amount of time.

* "No! I portrayed that character differently in my epic/drawing/short story/younameit" - SOLUTION: Where's the problem? Fan fiction is MEANT TO BE non-canonical. You can stay close to canon, but everything you might write now, thinking it is canonical, might geht disproven a month later. Fan fiction is FOR FUN. You are not doing Greg's job - he is the only one who has to worry about canonical portrayal of characters in his stories.

* "That character is not important enough to deserve a contest." - QUESTION: Define "importance"?

* "That character never appeared in story, but was only referenced somehwere"

=> Lein controversy: he was first mentioned in a guide and hasn't appeared anywhere yet. Almost the same could be said about Certavus. He was first mentioned in a children's book and all that exists of his backstory arose from fan questions to Greg. Give Lein some time and the same might happen as well.

* "Designing this character will only create dupes of sets representing characters of the same element/tribe." - SOLUTION: Look at Certavus, Kirbold and Kyry and compare them with Gelu/Strakk, Metus and Raanu/Crotesius. Can you tell them apart? If your answer is no, you might think about getting some glasses. If there is one thing you can always count on, it is the creativity of fans. Of course there always are entries in the contests that are more or less exact clones of some set, but that is what the voting process is for - "survival of the fittest": only the best entries reach the final round, which means only those made by people who thought a little outside of the box.

* "I don't like this character"/"I firmly believe this specific contest is unnecessary" => No solution needed. You are entitled to that opinion and no one has the right to force you to reconsider.

* "I don't like canon contests at all." => For whatever reason you may think so: you are entitled to your opinion and, again, no one has the right to try and change your mind. Tastes tend to differ.

 

Opportunities and importance of canon contests

There was a time when every BIONICLE character/creature had a set form. Those times are over. And the times when at least 80% of a year's main characters are released in set form will be over too, very soon. Greg is about to get approximately 30 new names approved he may use for characters during the 2010-2011 saga. While not every single one of these names is going to be used and those that will be used may not necessarily wind up as character names, these contests very soon may be the only way to get a canon depiction of a new character. As LEGO said in their letter to BZP, Greg will have to continue the saga with us, the fans, and I believe canon contests will be an essential part in this, aside from polls asking us which story we want.

 

Phew, more than just the "one or two words" I promised, but someone had to post this :).

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Actually, I have an idea for a contest - create a comic version of any story not shown in the comics before. Basically, it could potentially give us the chance to get some location art for places that we've been in the story but never *seen*... or even canonizing character appearances. It would probably be difficult, but I think it could yield some pretty great results.

 

-VK-

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Who knows. Maybe Greg will be doing something like that when the comics end. I already thought of this possibility. However, I must admit that this is REALLY far outside of the box.

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