In yesterday’s Daily Reminder, I mentioned the notion of ‘headcanon’, as an example of the Giles Ego Construct’s 📦 reasoning behind where good ideas (might) come from.
And I thought it could be helpful to look a little more closely at this notion of ‘canon’, because it has the potential to help us think less, and live more.
(Which we are big fans of here at the Daily Reminders.)
What’s ‘canon’?
The Chambers Dictionary has several definitions for ‘canon’, one of which is:
“The recognised genuine works of any author”
And in the world of duality, where every concept must have an opposite, that means there must also be stuff that’s ‘not canon’ (i.e. not genuine works that form part of the official story).
An example might be the Star Wars franchise (canon) and then a whole load of offshoot novels (some of which are considered ‘canon’; others of which are not).
Or maybe the Harry Potter books (canon) and then things like stage plays, fan-made continuity pieces or parodies (e.g. “10 Years Later”) and video games, which all have stories involved that are set in the same world, but they’re not ‘canon’.
So what’s ‘headcanon’?
Which brings us to ‘headcanon’ – a delightful term that’s defined, in an interesting little article on the Merriam-Webster Dictionary site, as:
“Something that a fan imagines to be true about a character even though no information supporting that belief is spelled out in the text.”
So, hidden motivations and illicit relationships within a fictional universe abound: Dumbledore knew everything in advance, R2-D2 is secretly steering the events of the Star Wars franchise, Blade Runner’s Deckard is a Replicant etc.
Headcanon is the stories people make up to ‘fill in the gaps’ and help them to get closure on the unwritten reasons why a character behaves the way they do, or a situation unfolds the way it does.
How does this help?
Well, it’s not much of a stretch to see that we’re creating ‘headcanon’ all day, every day, across multiple situations:
- A less-than-favourable response from someone means they must hate you
- A bodily sensation means x, y or z illness
- A text or email goes un-replied to, and ‘reasons’ abound
- Your partner leaves something out, in plain sight, and it’s all about you
- A mistake you made means you’ll never be forgiven
- Someone lets on who they’re likely to vote for, and you instantly know everything about them
- Your kid pushes back against a sensible boundary and they’ll forever hold it against you…
…the list goes on (and on, and on, and on).
It’s easy to see examples of headcanon in the world of fiction, because what’s canon is finite; committed to hardback, or celluloid. Stuff’s either canon, or it isn’t, therefore any extraneous meaning or back-story is obviously headcanon.
But in the world of 8+ Billion separate realities, where everything is, by definition, ‘made up’ and we don’t really know anything—certainly not what’s going on inside other people’s thought-created ‘realities’—it’s very easy to get carried away with these stories and see them as fact.
But they’re no more true than Harry Potter.
It’s all headcanon.
💟
Giles
p.s. Today’s headcanon: It’s May 4th (I honestly only noticed after hitting Publish on this one; coming back to write this post-script) which means it was destiny that I would inevitably write something about Star Wars!! 😯😆
Want to start every day with helpful, insightful content like this? The Daily Reminder is a quick, lighthearted email that arrives in your inbox every morning, to help keep you grounded in reality, so that you get to ‘Think less, and live more.’
“They feel like a moment of stillness in a world of madness.” ~ Neil, UK
“One of those small things with big impact. Honestly, just sign up!” ~ Paula, UK
Related
Giles P Croft
That time a story appeared out of nowhere. Again.