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Which is more canon?

Joined
Dec 10, 2020
The intentions of the developers who worked on a game or whatever Nintendo is saying in ancillary material now? Because I imagine they won't always be the same as new generations rise through the Nintendo ranks and the old timers retire.
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
Joined
May 5, 2012
Location
American Wasteland
actually we saw this w/ link being originally 10/17 in ocarina of time, but an interview w/ aonuma had that change to 9/16

similarly, weren't the koopalings originally bowser's children? now they're just henchmen

it's tricky b/c I want to say it comes to what the individual thinks is canon, but that becomes a problem w/ online discussions
 
Joined
Dec 10, 2020
I know whatever Nintendo says now is the official answer. I should have phrased my question better. Which do you personally take more seriously?
 
It depends on the statement, to be honest. Retcons that only exist in order to make new material work is a bit irritating to me, because they could have thought out implementing the new material into the old material, instead of the other way around, especially when you consider the new material isn't official until they release it. For example, they altered a lot in order to make Skyward Sword serve as a prequel, which in my opinion defeated its purpose as an origin story to the existing material. That's not to say the stuff in Skyward Sword is bad or uninteresting but it just created too many continuity issues to give the world the context it probably should have.

But, anyway, my lower investment in Zelda theory these days is the byproduct of me disagreeing with a lot of decisions they made regarding the current canon, so I suppose you could say I take a lot of the original (pre-retcon) stuff more seriously.
 
Joined
Dec 10, 2020
One thing that inspired this thread was a question someone had about redeads. Are they zombified villagers or a purely magic creation? Apparently one of the Smash Brothers games said the latter.

I'm kind of on the death of the author train. Ie, once creators release a work of art into the wild, it's up to the audience to interpret it. But I'd be much more interested in what the original creators have to say about the thing than what some uninvolved custodians of the intellectual property say years later.
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
Joined
May 5, 2012
Location
American Wasteland
One thing that inspired this thread was a question someone had about redeads. Are they zombified villagers or a purely magic creation? Apparently one of the Smash Brothers games said the latter.

I'm kind of on the death of the author train. Ie, once creators release a work of art into the wild, it's up to the audience to interpret it. But I'd be much more interested in what the original creators have to say about the thing than what some uninvolved custodians of the intellectual property say years later.
melee came out a few years after ocarina, so that feels like a really quick time to retcon something if the zombie angle was their intent, but who knows
 
While Smash Bros is considered non-canon material, it is still licensed material, same as the "canon" Hyrule Historia. If the Zelda team disagreed with the statements put in the trophy descriptions, they could have corrected them. The Hyrule Historia was not written by the Zelda team, either, for the record.
 

Uwu_Oocoo2

Joy is in video games and colored pencils
ZD Legend
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I would say that the reality of canon depends less on technicalities and more upon what a person prefers. Generally when information is retconned, it becomes the new official explanation. We don't care if Batman used to have a slightly different origin, this is his origin now. If someone doesn't like that it becomes pure head canon. Even though I prefer the HH timeline over the ZE one, the ZE is the official canon timeline. So when making claims about a series, you should use the most recent information. Even if it makes more sense the other way, it isn't official. If you don't prefer it, you don't have to believe it. It's just important to make sure you use recent information for recent claims.
 

DekuNut

I play my drum for you
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Jan 30, 2011
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I prefer to go with the contents of the games for my personal headcanons. They're set in stone, while developers and books can change their mind and forget things and cause major inconsistencies that just make things more confusing than they're worth. Though if those later thoughts get put into a more recent game or remake I'll accept them, since, at that point, it is again set in stone.
 
Joined
Dec 10, 2020
melee came out a few years after ocarina, so that feels like a really quick time to retcon something if the zombie angle was their intent, but who knows

Gotcha. I thought it was in a more recent game, made decades after OoT's release. So that example isn't a good one.
 

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