beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2007-02-12 07:50 pm
beccaelizabeth) wrote2007-02-12 07:50 pm
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http://paulcornell.blogspot.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who.html#links
Doctor Who has no canon, contradicts itself every which way, has an excellent set of excuses, and is generally a game anyone can play.
Okays.
But when I'm wondering if something is canon I'm wondering how to write a particular character. I mean the Doctor changes personality on a semi regular basis, so it isn't like there's only one answer to that. But there's stuff like him being a father and a grandfather, or who he's travelled with, or how he died all those other times, that seem sort of significant.
I quite like the idea that characters can be living in different versions of history. Like, history worked one way for the Doctor, who travelled around in it and kept making changes. But the people who stay still are living in another version, which is subject to change that retcons them along with everything else. And other time travellers are each living in their personal timelines and so remember things that didn't happen that way from the point of view of other people.
It would all get utterly insane to live in and you'd have to kind of give up on the whole concept of history and/or consensus reality.
It would also be possible to meet the love of your life and find out they never met you before.
Actually now I'm thinking Time Cop, where he comes back to base and there's a different president and stuff.
But any time traveller that gets split up from the people they care about would *know* that it's possible everything changes for them while they've been apart.
Nasty.
Add to that memory alteration technology and... I think I'd end up really really insecure and possibly using those stretchy don't run away thingies just to make really sure of people.
Or, to look at it another way, it's difficult to figure the emotional arc of a character who might have had their entire history rewritten since last time we saw them.
Doctor Who has no canon, contradicts itself every which way, has an excellent set of excuses, and is generally a game anyone can play.
Okays.
But when I'm wondering if something is canon I'm wondering how to write a particular character. I mean the Doctor changes personality on a semi regular basis, so it isn't like there's only one answer to that. But there's stuff like him being a father and a grandfather, or who he's travelled with, or how he died all those other times, that seem sort of significant.
I quite like the idea that characters can be living in different versions of history. Like, history worked one way for the Doctor, who travelled around in it and kept making changes. But the people who stay still are living in another version, which is subject to change that retcons them along with everything else. And other time travellers are each living in their personal timelines and so remember things that didn't happen that way from the point of view of other people.
It would all get utterly insane to live in and you'd have to kind of give up on the whole concept of history and/or consensus reality.
It would also be possible to meet the love of your life and find out they never met you before.
Actually now I'm thinking Time Cop, where he comes back to base and there's a different president and stuff.
But any time traveller that gets split up from the people they care about would *know* that it's possible everything changes for them while they've been apart.
Nasty.
Add to that memory alteration technology and... I think I'd end up really really insecure and possibly using those stretchy don't run away thingies just to make really sure of people.
Or, to look at it another way, it's difficult to figure the emotional arc of a character who might have had their entire history rewritten since last time we saw them.