Suggestion : Canon-locking Gen 1 (poll)

[Regitnui]

I really think that arguing the status of canon by using fan fiction is like arguing the laws of physics using Dune. It's irrelevant, and that might offend some who like their fan fiction to be close to if not exactly canon-friendly, but fan fiction by definition is a variation on the canon.

[Naota Takizawa]

I get the feeling the admins would vote yes multiple times on this poll, they must have seen tons of petty arguments and flame wars over the tiniest detail in Bionicle's universe.

 

Anyway, I would vote yes, we don't need every detail canonized and I prefer the gray areas in the bionicle lore, they're opportunities for the fans to get creative and interpret those areas in their own way.

[IcarusBen]

I'm going to say it again; it's not our decision. It's Greg's and LEGO's decision. When Greg stops wanting to canonize things, he'll let us know.

 

Would you rather have BZP and the LMB helping out or would you rather have just the LMB?

 

And, BTW, how does having a fanfic where the Toa of Plasma is a guy but canon (will eventually) say he's a she be a problem? Do you know how many FNAF fics there are where Bonnie is either female or genderless, despite Scott Cawthon (the GregF of the FNAF world) going on record saying that Bonnie's a dude? I sure that if your fanfic is well written, people won't care that the ToP is a guy when Greg retconned him into a girl.

[Eyru]

My personal opinion is that G1's canon should stay the way it is, simply because it's five years dead now. I think the community should be focusing their efforts on helping G2 become a great line instead of trying to retroactively fix G1's faults.

 

But I would never PM Greg saying that.

 

I think it's a silly idea to ask Greg to canon-lock G1, especially when you consider that BZP's membership makes up only a tiny fraction of BIONICLE's fans on the internet. What about the LEGO message boards? What about the myriad of other sites? BZP is not the centre of the BIONICLE fanbase and it never will be. So who are we to demand that Greg never canonize anything again? That, to me, seems like the height of arrogance.

[N.S.M.8]

I apologize if this come out harsh, but there is only one answer to this debate.  

BZPower does not have the authority to tell LEGO what to do with their own property.  To assume otherwise is simply arrogant.

I would like to remind everybody that Greg already commented on this issue:

(10-22-2014 08:57 AM)

 

 

There's been a debate going on about the canonization of things for old BIONICLE story, and I thought I would share my thoughts on this.

1) First of all, the notion held in some quarters that I no longer care about old BIONICLE and will just canonize anything is wrong and a little insulting. If I did not care about old BIONICLE (or Gen1 as some people call it), I would not be spending my time answering questions on this board. I invested 10 years of my life in Gen1 and wrote over 800,000 words on it. So yes, I care.

2) That said, one of the reasons NOT to add much to canon in the past was the possibility that Gen1 might come back in some form someday. With new BIONICLE officially a reboot, that option is extremely unlikely to happen. So allowing bits into the story here or there is not going to ruin any official plans for the future. Also, since it is also extremely  unlikely that authorization will ever come to write new chapters of old story, the only additions there can be to  old story are these minor canonizations.

3) There are things I do  not want to do. I am not going to add new Toa elements, and I do not want to start doing a lot of retcons which is why I made the rule that if one of my answers is contradicted by pre-established canon, canon takes precedence. The kind of things I have been canonizing -- an extra Rahi for Mata Nui, a name for a Toa team -- are minor and do not ruin or retcon anything from past story. I think the hue and cry over them is a little overblown.

4) Please keep in mind that I do  not own the story -- LEGO Company does, as they own everything to do with BIONICLE. Anything I do is done with their sufferance, and they can, at any point, declare that nothing else can be canonized if they choose to do so. They are the  only ones with the authority to do that. Any segment of the fanbase can choose to  ignore whatever they like, but they do not have the authority to shut the story down

I repeat:

 

 [Lego] are the  only ones with the authority to do that. Any segment of the fanbase can choose to  ignore whatever they like, but they do not have the authority to shut the story down

Can we please stop making fools out of ourselves?

[Votuko]

Thanks N.S.M.8, this hopefully gives perspective back to those who may have lost it.

 

On a related note, this quote is also the one I was searching for, but couldn't find, in relation to the discussion of retconning Plasma's (or any other element's) gender.

 

3) There are things I do not want to do. I am not going to add new Toa elements, and I do not want to start doing a lot of retcons which is why I made the rule that if one of my answers is contradicted by pre-established canon, canon takes precedence. The kind of things I have been canonizing -- an extra Rahi for Mata Nui, a name for a Toa team -- are minor and do not ruin or retcon anything from past story. I think the hue and cry over them is a little overblown.

As you can see, Greg still remembers, and is sticking by, the rule that he set up a while ago to protect established canon from being changed. Some people who voted to "canon lock" may be reassured by this fact that retcons are still blocked completely (even if those retcons have a slim majority on an opinion poll on one BIONICLE fansite ).

[Nidhiki of the Shadows]

I am glad Greg remembers his rules about canonization. I don't want to lock gen 1, because I don't mind suggestions for names. But this retconning business recently has made me really sour about the whole thing. Whatever, Greg has final say and I'm happy to see that he agrees that retconning is overblown.

 

-NotS

[bonesiii]

As you can see, Greg still remembers

I am glad Greg remembers

FTR, while Greg probably still does, if this is in response to the quote NS posted, that was from a while ago now. NS was posting it because it's relevant to things people were saying here, not as a new Greg quote. (But it's not that far back either. Just so we're clear, since those timestamps can be easy to miss. )

[otter]

While I think it's a great thing that people still want to work with the story here, and continue to add on to it, and interact with Greg about expanding it, I have to say - myself, in my own personal opinion on the matter - that if Greg were to suddenly say he was done with canonizing various things sent to him, I'd breathe a sigh of relief about it.

 

Just a little to go with that - back in the days when the Gen1 story was still going on, we were having contests for things to add on to the story left and right, and there was a whole lot we could do? I was perfectly fine with everybody canonizing things, from the existence of some characters down to what they looked like and everything in between. Since the story has ended, however, it's just devolved into a lot of pointless retconning or other canonizations that don't have much of an impact on the story anyways. And while people will make the argument of "Well if it doesn't hardly impact the story anyways, what's the problem with it?", my response is "If it doesn't impact the story anyways and only serves to bring a small measure of personal satisfaction to yourself and a few others at the expense of others who liked things the way they are, then why are you doing it?" Beyond that, all the canonization debates have served as some of the pettiest, stupidest, and most divisive things I've seen on this site. Long story short, my home-town practical Kansan sensibilities look at it and say "man, this is ridiculous." Disagree with that if you want; I sure as heck can't stop you.

 

And, to step into the fanfiction argument - from my point of view, Gen1 has been over and done since the story was ended, and a lot of the canonizations being thrown to Greg to decide on might as well be fanfiction anyways. Sure, officially sanctioned fanfiction, but fanfiction nonetheless. The same as many fanfictions in just about every story, it doesn't mess with how I myself or a majority of others interpret and understand the story, and as such, ends up being a relatively pointless endeavour in the end. A small group gets their way as regards the story, and everybody else disregards it anyways because it isn't what they had before...

 

Oh, look. That's basically a fanfiction.

 

Am I in favour of canon-locking Gen1? Yes, I am. I think it's long past time we put our urges to have our way with the story behind us. If it's a small grey area in the story, fill it up in the way you see fit, without affecting the understanding of somebody who might not previously have known about it. If we want to chat with Greg about something in the story and find out what we want about it, that's all well and good; if we want to see if he would officially support some view, that's all well and good. If he wants to say for sure that he wants something about the story to be canon, that's okay. My issue is with the fact that a group of the fans seem incapable of resisting their somewhat childish (in my view, again, not necessarily how somebody else might view it) wants and urges to fill in every little thing and make it officially, undisputed, canon, to make it fit with their views on how it should be and ignore everybody else, especially when the story is so long put off and gone that we shouldn't be worrying about it that way anyways. Quite a few people enjoyed it as it was, and came to this site and others because of that, so why is it that we have to keep trying to change it or add on to it in so many unnecessary ways when we could just write our own fanfictions about it and everybody could be happy? If you want female Toa of Plasma, go write a story where Toa of Plasma are female. If you want to fill in x hole in the story or change the y dimensions of the GSR, go for it. In your own story. Don't go around making other people conform to your own personal view of how things should be in terms of what is official. You're not the writer(s), you're not the person/people who made the story, and you're not the ones who own it. Any other storyline and people would be looking at the way you all are acting towards canonization like it was positively weird, if not a little creepy. If you dislike something about the story or want to fill something in, then go and make your own fanfiction where things are the way you want and be happy. Don't do what you're doing, which is basically forcing your fanfiction on others, because with a lot of people, you don't necesarily know - that might dissuade them from writing their fanfiction and making their own story based on the larger one, just because something they want to write about has been decided on by a group of fans who are likely just going to disagree with the fanfiction anyways, which would definitely be a bit of a blow to somebody wanting to make said fanfiction.

 

Other than that - boy, do I miss the days when the S&T forum was filled more with discussions about aspects of the story, and not with pointless debates about canonizing whichever little triviality in some circular discussion amongst a small group of fans who are unwilling to move on and definitely seem unwilling to consider the larger group of fans beyond their little bubble who just might not agree with what you put out. Let Greg decide what is or isn't canon while you discuss with him, but please, give the man a break and stop requesting that he constantly canonize whichever little thing you put out. It's ridiculous and more than a little weird.

[Lyichir]

I do find all these attempted adjustments to the G1 storyline pretty pointless—it's a dead story, and trying to pretty up its most problematic bits through retcons strikes me as about as tacky as bad taxidermy. The story is what it is, warts and all. But at the same time, I could care less about what happens with it going forward.

[Grungemeister]

I do find all these attempted adjustments to the G1 storyline pretty pointless—it's a dead story, and trying to pretty up its most problematic bits through retcons strikes me as about as tacky as bad taxidermy. The story is what it is, warts and all. But at the same time, I could care less about what happens with it going forward.

* I couldn't care less

 

Anyway, I wish I could revote now. I would choose "Yes" as opposed to "I don't care". G1 was great and all, but shouldn't we be focusing on G2 a little more? For example, with the gender ratio debates, why say "let's make Bo-Matoran female! That will help G1's ratio" when you can say "let's brainstorm ways to make G2 more equal! That way our issues and changes can be more relevant". I'm glad "Yes" is winning out over "No", for now.

[Takhamavahu]

If you don't want nw canon things added, just ignore them. You don't have to take part. The story is finished, so nothing that could possibly be canonized will affect the existing story that is already finished and on paper. So why do you care?

Canonizing a new thing isn't going to change the words in your book. It doesn't have any effect on the story that already happened and is finished. Nothing could possibly be canonized that will ruin a story that's already over.

 

So why are you so bent on ruining the one little thing that might bring other fans joy? Why do you have to see that fans of G1 have one tiny thread of feeling like the original Bionicle is still ongoing and have to destroy it? Why do you have to go out of your way to spoil it for everyone else?

You don't get to enforce a restriction on other people having fun and taking an interest in Bionicle just to be secure in the knowledge that nothing is going on while you're not looking.

[IcarusBen]

If you don't want nw canon things added, just ignore them. You don't have to take part. The story is finished, so nothing that could possibly be canonized will affect the existing story that is already finished and on paper. So why do you care?

Canonizing a new thing isn't going to change the words in your book. It doesn't have any effect on the story that already happened and is finished. Nothing could possibly be canonized that will ruin a story that's already over.

 

So why are you so bent on ruining the one little thing that might bring other fans joy? Why do you have to see that fans of G1 have one tiny thread of feeling like the original Bionicle is still ongoing and have to destroy it? Why do you have to go out of your way to spoil it for everyone else?

You don't get to enforce a restriction on other people having fun and taking an interest in Bionicle just to be secure in the knowledge that nothing is going on while you're not looking.

 

I'm the Cyber Controller, and I approve this message.

Edited May 27, 2015 by IcarusBen