“The Word Of xmung”
There are some benefits and some downsides to having a long running comic like Magellan.
The key benefit has been being able to really sink my teeth into a project that I love. As it currently stands, I would have a hard time running out of stories – the Magellan universe is so expansive, with so many characters and the opportunity for so many situations… it’s just an awesome sandbox to play in.
On the flip side, that expansiveness has led me to trip myself up on more than one occasion!
The genre savvy of you will be aware of the Word of God trope…
A statement regarding some ambiguous or undefined aspect of a work, the Word of God comes from someone considered to be the ultimate authority, such as the creator, director, or producer.
Readers who have followed Magellan for many years, possible even from it’s early days on Comics Genesis to Graphic Smash and to its current home at this URL will know that I’m prone to making comments under the comic, sometimes explaining some element without it having ever been in the comic itself. The Cast Page is also a pretty good example of this… for example, under Ranger Bill it notes he is not native to the Magellanverse reality but from an “unknown realm”, a factoid never noted, let alone addressed, in the comic itself. Will this ever be explored in the comic? Maybe? I’d like to! In my mind I know what that realm is and what it means for Ranger Bill, whose name is actually Jake Smith-Smith (also never addressed!!)
Anyway, the other day I found an archived page on the Drunk Duck site, where I had apparently been running a mirror of Magellan for long enough to have people reading and commenting. If you check out the page in question you’ll note it is from Chapter 2 where Brelvis, still in Sydney, replies to Kaycee via email to her address @magellan.mg. A reader points out that .mg is the Madagascar domain and asks if there is no Madagascar in the Magellan universe.
Probably I should have just said that Magellan just got in there faster when the domains were being handed out and Madagascar had to make do with something else. That would make more sense! But no! I said, and I quote, “It sank. Atlanteans sank it. Yep, that’s what happened to Madagascar… it’s great to be called out on stuff like that, means I can make up stories to fit over the top. Atlanteans. That’s what happened to Madagascar in the Magellanverse. Really!”
Reasonable enough, except up until I stumbled back across the page I will admit I had completely forgotten writing that. So, is something written and forgotten still count as “Word of God”, even if the ‘god’ in question had farted it out on a mirror site and then promptly totally forgotten it?? And worse, how many other proclamations are there that I’ve likewise forgotten but which might form a reader’s understanding of the comic?
I got a sense of that when I was browsing through the Magellan entries over on TV Tropes and found that I’ve said more than a few things about this, that or the other thing to do with Magellan – possibly on the now dead Graphic Smash Forum, or maybe in the comments section, or who knows where – but which I’ve since forgotten. Oh dear.
Some answers and comments I make will, of course, be based on Magellan facts I already know, and are a concrete part of my narrative structure. Other statements originally aren’t but become so… the backstory about Charisma’s mother and how she came to give birth to Epoch’s daughter being one of those! But I suspect there are many long forgotten ideas.
What I plan to do, to deal with this, is to locate everywhere there is old and orphaned or archived material and then scrape it together and compile it into a Magellan Bibliotheca (I’m not calling it a ‘bible’!). It won’t happen overnight, but I just wanted you to know I’m on the case. Plus, from now on, as I say stuff – whether in commentary or as a comment – I’ll make sure I add it too.
I hate story inconsistencies, I certainly want the logic of the characters, history, and the broader Magellan universe to stack up, something that can’t happen if I’m unwittingly contradicting myself! Anyway… I’m on it!
There are two solutions to Word of God problems:
1. Gods change their minds.
2. What’s not in the text is only God’s fanfic. (My favorite example is whether Dumbledore’s gay. Until Rowling writes a story in which Dumbledore is identifiably gay–by mentioning a boyfriend, perhaps–Dumbledore’s sexuality is whatever the reader decides it is. Until then, if you want to decide Dumbledore is a polyamorous trans man, that’s as valid as the author’s opinion because nothing in the text contradicts that interpretation.)
Regarding point 1, absolutely yes. There seems to me to be plenty of support for this in several worldwide religions. Definitely a part of my personal belief system for long-running works of fiction. On the other hand, as the relevant God in question points out, inconsistencies can hamper the story.
I think a lot of us agree that one of the standout aspects of Magellanverse is how much it seems or feels like a real world with real people in it. Real people and real worlds do change over time, but in a real world any drastic change does not go without notice. Even in a real world history may be re-written, but the people as a whole will need some time (and for those who question authority, believable evidence) to accept the re-write.
So if there were to crop up a significant inconsistency, sure, that would be a bit of a blemish on this great work. However, as discussed below, I personally don’t consider anything outside the main comic significant enough to cause a problem to my view of the world. I’ll still try to point stuff out if I catch it, in hopes that I help minimize the inconsistencies in the creators mind, so that there’s less risk of those making it into the comic.
I suppose it’s a bit like Lucas going back into A New Hope and making Greedo shoot first!!! It was Han, goddamit!!!
Cool as! ‘natch, it’ll get snapped up, should it find it’s way into downloadable or printed (dare I hope!) form.
My 2p is – Don’t worry much about inconsistencies, especially older ones. I’d like to think I’m a fairly typical fan, and I’m more concerned about the current narrative rather than the details of how historical background fits into that narrative. Does that make sense? I love the stuff from History and Legacy, and the current voter reward Families, and it’s fun finding out your thinking on such backstory items, but I won’t raise a fuss if your view changes years later, or the current story reality demands a different explanation than that from a throw-away line in a comments section. 🙂😉
Actually, regarding RB’s origins, in History #8, he mentions that he is from an alternate earth, so that is actual established cannon. So, it is not just in your cast write up. However, as far as I am aware, his real name is never noted within the comic.
haha, and there you have my point brilliantly illustrated. I refer to that History section quite frequently but still forgot I even wrote that!! In the comic! Admittedly I did write it over ten years ago, but still…
Clearly my mooted Magellan Bibliotheca will also need to include “canon” items too, lest I forget.
A good friend of mine, and a reader of Magellan too – Miguel – has a Word document he calls Mig’s Spare Brain, where he cuts and pastes items and tips from all over the place as he writes/reads/learns them. I believe that’s the best approach to take here.
Heh, most of that stuff on the Magellan TV Tropes page is likely a result of moi. I’ve been a long-time reader and seen a lot of stuff written in the commentary and in regards to readers’ questions, probably since the Stairway story, so I occasionally add stuff in there to the tropes pages.
It’s greatly appreciated that you – and all the others – do. 😀
Well, while TV Tropes has Word of God as one of their tropes, they also have Shrug of God and Flip-Flop of God, the latter of which especially shows that a creator’s own views of canon in their work can change regularly enough to be its own trope. But I wonder if there’s something to an idea for official fanon or the like, where the creator speculates as to what the world is like, unsure what will happen when they actually get there.
Your comment about Madagascar is one I would hope people would see as one that shouldn’t be necessarily taken as canon. My opinion is that yes, appearing in the comic does make something canon for sure, but being placed in official supplementary material (like the cast page, not creator responses to fan comments) can be considered just as canon (though less solidly, since it stops being canon as soon as the comic contradicts it).
Agreed, Word of God does not equate to canon. The only hard canon in my mind is what happens in comic, then again if there is an in-comic contradiction it’s not the end of the world. If I see it I will point it out and see if I or anyone else can explain it away in a reasonable or hilarious fashion, it’s a good bit of fun.
And in my headcanon, until disproven in the main comic, the Magellanverse Earth does have a Madagascar, maybe the country code for it is different for some reason.
I would disagree on the whole “Word of God is not canon”, as the entire point of being canon is the ideas and events of a story that come from the creator, i.e. the ‘god’ in the trope.
On the other hand, until an event is actually in the story somewhere, and not just a side note, there is nothing saying ‘god’ can’t change her mind and decide the story needs to go a different route, or it was an idea that doesn’t work anymore, or she was drunk when she said it, or whatever.
Canon is exactly and only what Grace makes it. How we get there, well, that can be as much a surprise to her as it is to us.
Drunk. Definitely drunk.
Big fan of the Flip-Flop concept.