Halopedia:Canon policy: Difference between revisions

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{{Policy}}
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{{Policies}}
{{Policies}}
==What is Canon?==
This page details the wiki's stance on the issue of canon in the Halo franchise.
''Canon'' is defined as characters, locations, and details that are considered to be genuine (or "official"), and those events, characters, settings, etc. that are considered to have inarguable existence within the fictional universe.


[[Halopedia]] operates strictly as a collection of ''[[Halo Universe|Halo]]'' canon information. "Official" ''Halo'' canon can only be created by developers of the ''Halo'' universe. Therefore, any material added to Halopedia ''must'' be official, sanctioned canon that can be [[Help:Ref|cited]] from a work created or sanctioned by ''Halo'''s creators, [[Bungie Studios]] and 343 Industries. Better put, [[Halopedia: What Halopedia is not|Halopedia is '''not''' a site for fanfiction]].
== What is canon? ==
''Canon'' is defined as characters, locations, and details that are considered to be genuine (or "official"), and those events, characters, settings, etc. that are considered to have inarguable existence within the fictional [[Halo universe|''Halo'' universe]]. "Official" ''Halo'' canon can only be created by developers of the ''Halo'' franchise. Therefore, any material added to Halopedia, which seeks to document the ''Halo'' universe, ''must'' be official sanctioned canon that can be [[Help:Ref|cited]] from a work created or sanctioned by ''Halo'''s creators, [[Bungie]] and [[343 Industries]]. Better put, [[Halopedia: What Halopedia is not|Halopedia is '''not''' a site for fanfiction]].


==What are the sources for Halo Canon?==
[[Halopedia]] seeks to operate strictly as a collection of ''Halo'' canon information. The general rule of its canon policy is fairly simple, as explored in the case of [[i love bees]], that ''"the content should be considered canonical unless contradicted by more authoritative sources"''. For weighing each source's authority, there is the [[#Hierarchy_of_canon|hierarchy of canon]], which is covered below. But it is only one tool in discerning the canon from the non-canon, and oftentimes the relationships of authority may overlap or not be clear. In vague cases like those, determining which contradicting fact should be posted on Halopedia may come down to the editors' interpretation. For this, one must know how to interpret that canon.
Here is a list of sources that (currently) are sources of Halo canon, and thus any material from these sources is content that can and should be added to Halopedia:
 
{{col-begin}}
== How do we interpret the canon? ==
{{col-2}}
{{Quote|When a painter starts, they have an idea. They sketch, they doodle, they make strokes on canvas and paper with pencil, pen, brush, charcoal, whatever... Until the painting is finished, any previous stroke of the brush can be covered by a later one, altering the position of a tree, the color of the sky, a reflection in the water, the placement of a person, the existence of anything.... until the artist says "fin", it is not up to others to determine what is "so" and what is an "alteration".|Recon Number 54<ref name="quote">[http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=64821913&postRepeater1-p=1#64846806 '''Bungie.net''': ''What is Canon in this Situation?'']</ref>}}
===Video Games===
There are various ways of interpreting canon but in most cases, they will typically refer to two modes of interpretation: Watsonian and Doylist. The most common approach in most fanbase would be from a Watsonian perspective, that is to interpret the information from the standpoint of the text. This is sometimes called an in-universe perspective. The Doylist approach refers to the real world perspective. As Fanlore puts it, ''"[t]hings that happen in canon happen because of decisions made by the author or TPTB; inconsistencies are probably authorial error. These explanations will sometimes be written right into the canon."''
*[[Halo: Combat Evolved]] (not including Legendary Ending)
 
*[[Halo 2]]
A Watsonian perspective seeks to amend canonical inconsistencies by presenting an in-universe plausible explanation. To do this, fans will examine the available canonical information about the subject, look at other similar cases in the canon, and put themselves in the minds of any characters involved to guess their decisions. For instance, a Watsonian would look at the changed appearance of the Master Chief's Mark VI Mjolnir armor in ''Halo 4'' and say ''"Obviously Cortana redesigned the entire suit using nanomachines while the Chief was in cryo. We see the Spartan-IIs wearing similar armor in the [[Prologue]], so there must have been a Mark IV variant that looked the same as the Chief's new armor. That variant is probably what Cortana modeled the Chief's suit after."'' A Watsonian perspective is very helpful to solve inconsistencies, but can risk veering into fanfiction, and without an official source behind it cannot be considered to be on the same authority as canon.
:*[[Halo 2: Collectors Edition DVD|Making of Halo 2 - The Collector's Edition DVD]]
 
*[[Halo 3]]
But a Doylist perspective handles canonical inconsistencies by an explanation of what the creators were likely thinking. They will examine from an authorial point-of-view, read up on behind-the-scenes information, seek for story meaning, try to put themselves into the minds of the authors, and keep in mind that human creators are often fallible. A Doylist would address the same issue of the Master Chief's and the ''Halo 4'' Prologue Spartans' appearance by saying ''"The Master Chief's armor looks different because 343 Industries' artists wanted to give the character a new design that suited the art direction they were going for. The Spartans in the Prologue look the same because the developers didn't have the resources to build the fictionally appropriate Mark IV assets and instead reused the Master Chief model for every Spartan in the sequence."'' Doylist perspectives ground the work in the real world and let us see what the authors may have been thinking, but it too can often involve just as much guesswork as Watsonian theories and sometimes is misused as a platform for complaining about the story direction.
:*[[Halo 3: ODST]]
 
*[[Halo Wars]]
As such, editors can use these perspectives to determine which elements remain part of the canon framework and which elements could be discarded to accommodate it. But the path to the outcome is rarely simple, and there is no guarantee that the inconsistency will be amended by the creators at a later date. Only with the community's participation can each theory be weighed, so as to ensure Halopedia continues displaying the most accurate and consistent of ''Halo'' information.
*[[Halo: Chronicles]]
 
*[[Halo Reach]]
== Hierarchy of canon ==
Here in Halopedia, the editors work tirelessly to present information in the best possible light: these Halopedians strive by interpreting canon in a way that makes the most sense in the context and causes the least problems and allowing readers to thrive with the interpreted information. As such, the wiki often gets criticized for not able to present the information as the franchise developers intended it to be.


====Soundtracks====
Often times, one source of canon may say something different than other sources. There are many reasons why this may be so; ranging from a typo to a line taken out of context. Therefore, a policy of "superior canon" is in act to make sure that the content of Halopedia reflects the most accurate canon of the Halo universe. Thus, a "ladder" of canon sources exists, with the sources higher on the ladder having "superior canon" which is considered more "official" than the sources below them. The hierarchy of canon can be presented as such: the games would be superior, followed by the novels, other literature, the marketing campaigns and other promotional items, in that exact order. Because Halo is essentially a game franchise, game titles would be the superior source of canon in each category.
*[[Halo: Original Soundtrack]]
*[[Halo 2: Original Soundtrack]]
*[[Halo 3: Original Soundtrack]]
*[[Halo 3: ODST Original Soundtrack]]


{{col-2}}
Do note that the hierarchy is merely a helpful guideline for weighing the authority of sources in general rather than a strict policy that can be applied for every individual instance. For example, [[Lord Hood]] states that ''"the fleet that destroyed Reach was fifty times this size"'' in ''Halo 2'', ostensibly suggesting that the Covenant fleet at the [[Fall of Reach]] had 750 ships rather than 315 as stated in ''[[Halo: The Fall of Reach]]''. Because of the context, however, his line is taken as obvious hyperbole rather than an accurate statement on the fleet's size.
===Literature and Media===
====Novels====
*[[Halo: The Fall of Reach]]
*[[Halo: The Flood]]
*[[Halo: First Strike]]
*[[Halo: Ghosts of Onyx]]
*[[Halo: Contact Harvest]]
*[[Halo: The Cole Protocol]]
*[[Halo: Evolutions]]
*[[Forerunner Trilogy]]


====Comics====
{| style="margin:0 auto; border-radius:6px; -o-border-radius:6px; -ms-border-radius:6px; -moz-border-radius:6px; -webkit-border-radius:6px; background:rgba(20,20,20,.7); text-align:center; width:200px; color:#FFF;"
*[[Halo Graphic Novel]]
|Games
*[[Halo Wars: Genesis]]
|-
*[[Halo: Uprising]]
|↓
*[[Halo: Helljumper]]
|-
*[[Halo: Blood Line]]
|Print and film works
|-
|↓
|-
|Promotional materials
|}


====References====
== What are sources of canon? ==
*[[The Art of Halo]]
As the Halo franchise is ever expanding, it is impossible to list out all of the sources of canon. The easiest way of knowing what would identify whether the content was released by an official party of the franchise. Thus, for example, any content released by Bungie throughout their contribution to the franchise from 1999 to 2010 will be considered as sources of canon.
*[[The Art of Halo 3]]
*[[Halo Encyclopedia]]


====Other Media====
The following is a simple list of sources that are sources of Halo canon, and thus any material from these sources is content that can and should be added to Halopedia. Do note that this list does not present the entirety of sources of canon, but simply a general overview of sources of canon.
*[[Action Figures]]
*[[Transmissions]]
*[[Cortana Letters]]
*[[ilovebees]]
*[[Iris]]
*[[ViDoc]]s
*[[Halo: Landfall]]
*[[Halo Legends]]
{{col-end}}


==Superior Canon==
{{col-begin}}
Often times, one source of canon may say something different than other sources. There are many reasons why this may be so; ranging from a typo to a line taken out of context. Therefore, a policy of "superior canon" is in act to make sure that the content of Halopedia reflects the most accurate canon of the Halo universe. Thus, a "ladder" of canon sources exists, with the sources higher on the ladder having "superior canon" which is considered more "official" than the sources below them.
{{col-2}}
;Video games
*''[[Halo: Combat Evolved]]''
**''[[Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary]]''
*''[[Halo 2]]''
**''[[Halo 2 Anniversary]]''
*''[[Halo 3]]''
*''[[Halo Wars]]''
*''[[Halo 3: ODST]]''
*''[[Halo: Reach]]''
*''[[Halo 4]]''
*''[[Halo: Spartan Assault]]''
*''[[Halo: Spartan Strike]]''
*''[[Halo 5: Guardians]]''
*''[[Halo Online]]''


The concept of superior canon is as follows:
;Tabletop games
*''[[Halo: Fleet Battles]]''
;Novels <ref group="note">The literature project was under Microsoft Game Studios Franchise Development Group (FDG) with some creative control/supervision under Bungie Studios. The literature project was designed for wider audience apart from the general fanbase, and to establish an expanded universe for future content. For more, see [[User:Subtank/Archive|"MGS Development Group Expands" (Archived)]]</ref>
*''[[Halo: The Fall of Reach]]''
*''[[Halo: The Flood]]''
*''[[Halo: First Strike]]''
*''[[Halo: Ghosts of Onyx]]''
*''[[Halo: Contact Harvest]]''
*''[[Halo: The Cole Protocol]]''
*''[[Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe]]''
*''[[The Forerunner Saga]]''
*''[[Kilo-Five Trilogy]]''
*''[[Halo: Broken Circle]]''
*''[[Halo: New Blood]]''
*''[[Halo: Hunters in the Dark]]''
*''[[Halo: Saint's Testimony]]''
*''[[Halo: Last Light]]''
*''[[Halo: Shadow of Intent]]''
{{col-2}}
;Comics
*''[[Halo Graphic Novel]]'' <ref name="HGN">'''[[Halo Graphic Novel]]''', ''Editor's Notes''</ref><ref group="note">Halo Graphic Novel was a stand-alone project led by the Art Team of Bungie Studios with the approval of Microsoft and publishing support of Marvel. With the success of HGN, Microsoft soon took charge over Bungie's creative control and played an active role in the literature project.</ref>
*''[[Halo: Uprising]]''
*''[[Halo Wars: Genesis]]''
*''[[Halo: Helljumper]]''
*''[[Halo: Blood Line]]''
*''[[Halo: Fall of Reach]]''
*''[[Halo: Initiation]]''
*''[[Halo: Escalation]]''
;Films and television
*''[[Halo Legends]]'' <ref group="note">The ''Legends'' short film ''[[Odd One Out]]'' is a satirical interpretation of the ''Halo'' universe and has been confirmed as a non-canon entity by 343 Industries.</ref>
*''[[Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn]]''
*''[[Halo: Nightfall]]''
*''[[Halo: The Television Series]]''


'''Current Bungie Employees''' are the highest source of Canon. They design, authorize, and sanction every detail about Halo that is revealed to the public. Their statements take the highest authority among Halo canon because, obviously, they created it all.
;Live-action trailers
*''[[Starry Night]]''
*''[[Believe]]''
*''[[Halo: Landfall]]''
*''[[The Life]]''
*''[[Birth of a Spartan]]''
*''[[Remember Reach Webfilm]]''
*''[[Deliver Hope]]''
*''[[The Commissioning]]''
*''[[Scanned]]''


'''Halo Games''' are, with certain exceptions, the most elaborate of the Halo works and, as they come directly from the producers of Bungie, they are the largest creations of the Halo universe. The information in the video games was produced by Bungie employees directly. This gives them the most credit as canon sources.
;Marketing campaigns
*''[[i love bees]]''
*''[[Iris]]''
*''[[Remember Reach]]''
*''[[Hunt the Truth]]''


'''Halo Literature, Soundtracks, and Other Media''' are below the games as sources of canon for various reasons. Some of this media is presented by Bungie Affiliates and thus not direct canon from the studio, and some is for promotional purposes or Halo ideas that were released in incomplete development. Bungie Studios has given great creative license to its affiliates as long as their material falls within basic guidelines, and may not be what Bungie itself wanted for the Halo universe.
;Reference books
*''[[The Art of Halo]]''
*''[[The Art of Halo 3]]''
*''[[Halo Encyclopedia]]''
*''[[Halo: The Essential Visual Guide]]''
*''[[Halo: The Great Journey: The Art of Building Worlds]]''
*''[[Awakening: The Art of Halo 4]]''
*''[[Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide]]''
*''[[The Art of Halo 5: Guardians]]''
{{col-end}}


'''Bungie Affiliates''' are just below Bungie employees. This group includes companies and people who work on Halo products but are not part of Bungie studios. This group includes [[4orty2wo Entertainment]] employees, [[Joyride Studios]] employees, and Halo novelists like [[Eric Nylund]] and [[William C. Dietz]].
== Notes ==
<references group="note"/>


<nowiki>*</nowiki>'''Announcement Trailers''' are usually considered not to be canon, as details in an announcement trailer are usually a very early draft of the storyline, and do not necessarily contain content that made it into the final game. Thus, Trailers are considered to be canon ''until'' the official game is released.
== Sources ==
<references/>


'''Halopedia Canon''' The lowest form of Canon, Halopedia Canon is the result of heated debate among the Halopedia community to arrive at conclusion and decision on said piece of Halo Universe. Halopedia Canon is trumped by all other higher Canon unless it is determined that a mistake by Bungie has been made. Some examples of "mistakes" can be found [[List of Inconsistencies in Halo|here]].
== See also ==
=== Development of canon ===
*<span class="plainlinks">[http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/112/1126799p3.html '''IGN''': ''Beyond the Ring: Bungie's Renegade Development of Halo's Fiction'']</span>
*[[List of inconsistencies in the Halo series]]
*[[:Category:Letters of Canon|Halopedia's Letters of Canon]]
*[[:Category:Halopedia Canon|List of canon debates on Halopedia]] (closed)


==See Also==
=== Interpreting canon ===
*[[:Category:Letters of Canon|Letters of Canon]]
*<span class="plainlinks">[http://fanlore.org/wiki/Watsonian_vs._Doylist '''Fanlore''': ''Watsonian vs. Doylist'']</span>
*[http://forums.bungie.org/halo/archive28.pl?read=847640 Comments by Joseph Staten] on Bungie's internal canon policies
*<span class="plainlinks">[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WatsonianVersusDoylist '''TvTropes''': ''Watsonian vs. Doylist'']</span>
*[http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=33630397 Guide to Canon in the Halo Universe]


[[Category:Help|Canon Policy]]
[[Category:Help|Canon Policy]]

Revision as of 04:43, April 21, 2015

Template:Shortcut

Main-Forerunner.png
This page is an official Halopedia policy
Please read through the policy below to familiarize yourself with our common practices and rules.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or complaints, please post them on the talk page.

Template:Policies This page details the wiki's stance on the issue of canon in the Halo franchise.

What is canon?

Canon is defined as characters, locations, and details that are considered to be genuine (or "official"), and those events, characters, settings, etc. that are considered to have inarguable existence within the fictional Halo universe. "Official" Halo canon can only be created by developers of the Halo franchise. Therefore, any material added to Halopedia, which seeks to document the Halo universe, must be official sanctioned canon that can be cited from a work created or sanctioned by Halo's creators, Bungie and 343 Industries. Better put, Halopedia is not a site for fanfiction.

Halopedia seeks to operate strictly as a collection of Halo canon information. The general rule of its canon policy is fairly simple, as explored in the case of i love bees, that "the content should be considered canonical unless contradicted by more authoritative sources". For weighing each source's authority, there is the hierarchy of canon, which is covered below. But it is only one tool in discerning the canon from the non-canon, and oftentimes the relationships of authority may overlap or not be clear. In vague cases like those, determining which contradicting fact should be posted on Halopedia may come down to the editors' interpretation. For this, one must know how to interpret that canon.

How do we interpret the canon?

"When a painter starts, they have an idea. They sketch, they doodle, they make strokes on canvas and paper with pencil, pen, brush, charcoal, whatever... Until the painting is finished, any previous stroke of the brush can be covered by a later one, altering the position of a tree, the color of the sky, a reflection in the water, the placement of a person, the existence of anything.... until the artist says "fin", it is not up to others to determine what is "so" and what is an "alteration"."
— Recon Number 54[1]

There are various ways of interpreting canon but in most cases, they will typically refer to two modes of interpretation: Watsonian and Doylist. The most common approach in most fanbase would be from a Watsonian perspective, that is to interpret the information from the standpoint of the text. This is sometimes called an in-universe perspective. The Doylist approach refers to the real world perspective. As Fanlore puts it, "[t]hings that happen in canon happen because of decisions made by the author or TPTB; inconsistencies are probably authorial error. These explanations will sometimes be written right into the canon."

A Watsonian perspective seeks to amend canonical inconsistencies by presenting an in-universe plausible explanation. To do this, fans will examine the available canonical information about the subject, look at other similar cases in the canon, and put themselves in the minds of any characters involved to guess their decisions. For instance, a Watsonian would look at the changed appearance of the Master Chief's Mark VI Mjolnir armor in Halo 4 and say "Obviously Cortana redesigned the entire suit using nanomachines while the Chief was in cryo. We see the Spartan-IIs wearing similar armor in the Prologue, so there must have been a Mark IV variant that looked the same as the Chief's new armor. That variant is probably what Cortana modeled the Chief's suit after." A Watsonian perspective is very helpful to solve inconsistencies, but can risk veering into fanfiction, and without an official source behind it cannot be considered to be on the same authority as canon.

But a Doylist perspective handles canonical inconsistencies by an explanation of what the creators were likely thinking. They will examine from an authorial point-of-view, read up on behind-the-scenes information, seek for story meaning, try to put themselves into the minds of the authors, and keep in mind that human creators are often fallible. A Doylist would address the same issue of the Master Chief's and the Halo 4 Prologue Spartans' appearance by saying "The Master Chief's armor looks different because 343 Industries' artists wanted to give the character a new design that suited the art direction they were going for. The Spartans in the Prologue look the same because the developers didn't have the resources to build the fictionally appropriate Mark IV assets and instead reused the Master Chief model for every Spartan in the sequence." Doylist perspectives ground the work in the real world and let us see what the authors may have been thinking, but it too can often involve just as much guesswork as Watsonian theories and sometimes is misused as a platform for complaining about the story direction.

As such, editors can use these perspectives to determine which elements remain part of the canon framework and which elements could be discarded to accommodate it. But the path to the outcome is rarely simple, and there is no guarantee that the inconsistency will be amended by the creators at a later date. Only with the community's participation can each theory be weighed, so as to ensure Halopedia continues displaying the most accurate and consistent of Halo information.

Hierarchy of canon

Here in Halopedia, the editors work tirelessly to present information in the best possible light: these Halopedians strive by interpreting canon in a way that makes the most sense in the context and causes the least problems and allowing readers to thrive with the interpreted information. As such, the wiki often gets criticized for not able to present the information as the franchise developers intended it to be.

Often times, one source of canon may say something different than other sources. There are many reasons why this may be so; ranging from a typo to a line taken out of context. Therefore, a policy of "superior canon" is in act to make sure that the content of Halopedia reflects the most accurate canon of the Halo universe. Thus, a "ladder" of canon sources exists, with the sources higher on the ladder having "superior canon" which is considered more "official" than the sources below them. The hierarchy of canon can be presented as such: the games would be superior, followed by the novels, other literature, the marketing campaigns and other promotional items, in that exact order. Because Halo is essentially a game franchise, game titles would be the superior source of canon in each category.

Do note that the hierarchy is merely a helpful guideline for weighing the authority of sources in general rather than a strict policy that can be applied for every individual instance. For example, Lord Hood states that "the fleet that destroyed Reach was fifty times this size" in Halo 2, ostensibly suggesting that the Covenant fleet at the Fall of Reach had 750 ships rather than 315 as stated in Halo: The Fall of Reach. Because of the context, however, his line is taken as obvious hyperbole rather than an accurate statement on the fleet's size.

Games
Print and film works
Promotional materials

What are sources of canon?

As the Halo franchise is ever expanding, it is impossible to list out all of the sources of canon. The easiest way of knowing what would identify whether the content was released by an official party of the franchise. Thus, for example, any content released by Bungie throughout their contribution to the franchise from 1999 to 2010 will be considered as sources of canon.

The following is a simple list of sources that are sources of Halo canon, and thus any material from these sources is content that can and should be added to Halopedia. Do note that this list does not present the entirety of sources of canon, but simply a general overview of sources of canon.

Video games
Tabletop games
Novels [note 1]
Comics
Films and television
Live-action trailers
Marketing campaigns
Reference books

Notes

  1. ^ The literature project was under Microsoft Game Studios Franchise Development Group (FDG) with some creative control/supervision under Bungie Studios. The literature project was designed for wider audience apart from the general fanbase, and to establish an expanded universe for future content. For more, see "MGS Development Group Expands" (Archived)
  2. ^ Halo Graphic Novel was a stand-alone project led by the Art Team of Bungie Studios with the approval of Microsoft and publishing support of Marvel. With the success of HGN, Microsoft soon took charge over Bungie's creative control and played an active role in the literature project.
  3. ^ The Legends short film Odd One Out is a satirical interpretation of the Halo universe and has been confirmed as a non-canon entity by 343 Industries.

Sources

See also

Development of canon

Interpreting canon