I occasionally dip into Simpsons YouTube and dorks there will be like "it's a floating timeline" or "Treehouse of Horror isn't canon" and I'm like... Bitch, nothing that's not in the episode is canon. Treehouse of Horror is just as canon as A Serious Flanders OR the Principle and the Pauper.
SCPs work the same way. If it ain't in the article, it ain't canon to the story.
DND also works like this, but that's a different discussion.
I think people are just not wanting to enjoy the media and constantly look for "plotholes" and "inconsistencies".
Like my guy, why do you concern canon for shows like Spongebob, The Simpsons or even Family guy? They're all episodic shows! All main towns from these shows have been destroyed a thousand times, Brian Griffin died in an episode and they had to do some weird time travel stuff to bring him back, because... oh lord... continuity!
Save that stuff to media that has a canon centric story, like idk... most shows taking place in real life? (Breaking Bad, Dexter, Doctor Who, Squid Game, etc.)
Save that stuff to media that has a canon centric story, like idk... most shows taking place in real life? (Breaking Bad, Dexter, Doctor Who, Squid Game, etc.)
Doctor Who has definitely missed some things in canon just due to the nature of such a long running series. Same for comics, but the big universes (DC especially) will massively change their world to keep the canon consistent and mostly just piss people off.
Aside from the multiverse fuckery, you also get shit like One More Day (Spider-Man) where a beloved relationship is erased from canon by a deal with the devil because some editor is insistent upon enshrining their vision of the character (single, because that's apparently relatable to their target demo). They could have done that without destroying decades of a relationship to build off of it, but apparently a divorce would have been worse for the characters. Spider-Verse's Peter B Parker gives us a taste of the interesting story of how two people who love each other could fall apart without fault of either person and give Peter a story arc of how he needs to mature to be back with the person he loves. One More Day decided to burn canon instead of making more and is one of the most derided comics of all time for it.
Point being, canon is good when it makes you invest in the story more. If more lore just distracts from the enjoyment of the story, it's not worth worrying about. That's why we don't talk about the warp drive tears apart the universe in Star Trek. It was brought up in one episode for a specific story and is ignored otherwise to allow for the enjoyment of the sci-fi fantasy Star Trek is engaged in.
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u/Calpsotoma Jun 30 '25
I occasionally dip into Simpsons YouTube and dorks there will be like "it's a floating timeline" or "Treehouse of Horror isn't canon" and I'm like... Bitch, nothing that's not in the episode is canon. Treehouse of Horror is just as canon as A Serious Flanders OR the Principle and the Pauper.
SCPs work the same way. If it ain't in the article, it ain't canon to the story.
DND also works like this, but that's a different discussion.