Canon is the starting place, the solid foundation for all our flights of imagination, our games of "what if?", our speculations about what happens next.
Well, yes and no. I mean, it's the foundation but which one really? I mean within canon there are already many different interpretations existing (which is why fanfic differs so much). Aside from some rather obvious retcons and glaring inconsistencies within canon, there is also different canon depending on the POV of characters. I mean, what about Dawn for example? Strictly speaking every fanfic based on pre-S5 episodes is essentially AU from the POV of that character. Or more to the point, we don't know what was changed and what wasn't.
The most obvious example of this is the fact that what Andrew said was taken as canon in the first place. First of all, aside from the Immortal thing, there's no reason Xander and Willow couldn't have been exactly where he said, just not for all that long. Second, Andrew was clearly by the end of the episode an unreliable narrator (in fact he always has been). So it's rather interesting that there hasn't been as much fic exploring that issue than assuming what he said was true. And it seems to me Andrew's "facts" simply seemed interesting and therefore inspired storytelling.
I guess what will be interesting to see is if, with people's awareness of the retcon (even if they haven't read the comics) there continues to be fic exploring those possibilities?
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Well, yes and no. I mean, it's the foundation but which one really? I mean within canon there are already many different interpretations existing (which is why fanfic differs so much). Aside from some rather obvious retcons and glaring inconsistencies within canon, there is also different canon depending on the POV of characters. I mean, what about Dawn for example? Strictly speaking every fanfic based on pre-S5 episodes is essentially AU from the POV of that character. Or more to the point, we don't know what was changed and what wasn't.
The most obvious example of this is the fact that what Andrew said was taken as canon in the first place. First of all, aside from the Immortal thing, there's no reason Xander and Willow couldn't have been exactly where he said, just not for all that long. Second, Andrew was clearly by the end of the episode an unreliable narrator (in fact he always has been). So it's rather interesting that there hasn't been as much fic exploring that issue than assuming what he said was true. And it seems to me Andrew's "facts" simply seemed interesting and therefore inspired storytelling.
I guess what will be interesting to see is if, with people's awareness of the retcon (even if they haven't read the comics) there continues to be fic exploring those possibilities?