July 16, 2006

It's surprising how useful the concepts of canon and expanded universe are in describing real life.

Far from only establishing the continuity of a fictional universe, these concepts provide a convenient way to express any conceptual continuity status. For example, I as an American might describe canon pizza as having tomato sauce, mozzarella or provolone cheese, and any of a certain set of toppings including but not limited to pepperoni, Italian sausage, peppers, olives, and whatnot. I might then cite a Japanese pizza with eggs, corn and potatoes on it (or a pizza with rice on it, like I ate tonight) as an expanded universe pizza - valid in itself, and recognizable as pizza, but not necessarily a part of universally accepted pizza continuity. However, a pizza-inspired dish with mentaiko (marinated fish eggs) instead of sauce and mochi instead of cheese is pizza fan fiction. This is not necessarily a value judgement but simply an acknowledgement that the item in question is not what is generally considered pizza, though its heritage is identifiable.

Another example is in the school uniforms worn by my students. One evening, my neighbor Andrew and I happened upon four of my girls on their way to or from cram school, ostensibly still in their school uniforms; however, they all had leather bags instead of either of the two sanctioned bookbags, their shoes were not the standard white sneakers, one had the infamous big socks on, two had black socks, and some wore jewelry. This prompted Andrew to ask whether my school's uniform officially features black or white socks, since the score in this group was tied 2-2. Explaining that the answer is white, I then realized that the official uniform could be called the canon uniform. These girls were wearing expanded universe uniforms. They had their official shirts and skirts on, but their bags, shoes, socks and jewelry were well outside of school continuity. (In winter, cardigans are a popular expanded-universe uniform component.) These four apparently had gone home from school, changed from canon uniform into expanded universe uniform, and then headed to cram school. I guess if they had changed into completely different school uniforms, those would have been fan fiction uniforms.

The best part about applying canonicity to real life is that - you guessed it - it is part of the expanded universe of the concept of canon itself.