Fanon
Fanon is a fact or ongoing situation in fan fiction stories related to a television program, book, movie, or video game that has been used so much by fan writers that it has been more or less established as having happened in the fictional world, but it has not actually been established as having happened on the show, book or movie itself. Fanon is a portmanteau word of fan and canon.
The term is sometimes used pejoratively by purists to refer to such explanations as faulty or illogical given the nature of a story, or "common lore" copied amongst fans, especially in webpage proliferation, that actually contradicts a simpler explanation that was even alluded to in canon. This is especially common for foreign works which are sometimes mistranslated or to when backstory and exposition elsewhere in a work has not been ported over (for example, manga that was associated with a commercial anime, but of which only one has been translated.)
Fanon is sometimes well known by creators and may even be accepted as true (or at least a reasonable explanation as any) to something they have not explicitly explained. On the other hand, some creators of serial works specifically introduce facts in subsequent installments of their work which invalidate fanon.
A list of fanon facts
- Doctor Who
- The real reason that Davros survived the betrayal by the Daleks was that he prepared defenses in his life support chair after learning about the treacherous nature of his creations from the Doctor.
- The reason that the Time Lords never showed disapproval of the Doctor failing to prevent the creation of the Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks was that that they were aware that the Doctor's intervention inadvertantly allowed Davros to survive when his creations turned on him. When he was revived, his presence created profound schisms in the Daleks which crippled their threat to the universe. Thus they considered the Doctor's mission accomplished.
- The Colin Baker era story, The Two Doctors, depicts the second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and Jamie on a mission for the Time Lords. The Doctor's origins and the Time Lords were not introduced until the final Troughton serial (The War Games) where he calls them for help. This resulted in his trial and exile to earth, while Jamie and Zoe are returned to their respective eras with no memory of the Doctor past their first adventure.
Fans have theorized that the Doctor's exile didn't occur immediately: the Doctor and Jamie were on secret missions for a period prior to exile and this period was erased from both of their memories before the beginning of the Doctor's exile period and eventual regeneration. This is supported by the fact that contrary to most regeneration episodes, the change-over from Troughton to Pertwee occurred off-screen between the end of The War Games and the beginning of the next story, Spearhead from Space. It also provides an in-story explanation for the change in appearance of the second Doctor and Jamie due to the actors being twenty years older. Because season 6 was Troughton's final season, fans often call this theoretical period season 6(b).
- The reason why The Doctor stole his TARDIS was to flee Gallifrey, which was consumed with the Prydonian Academy Rebellion instigated by The Master.
- The Jon Pertwee era of the series, featuring UNIT, takes place in the 1980s. This is actually a case of fanon supporting facts that were initially established but later ignored by canon. The UNIT stories were originally to have been set about 10 years in the future, and there are references to this in a number of episodes, however a number of episodes place the stories as happening in the 1970s.
- Mobile Suit Gundam
- The demise of the high ranking Zeon officer Makube (or M'Quve) is depicted in the TV series but, like many other scenes, was cut out for the movie compilations. Many fans have specualted that the battle resulting in Makube's death never happened in the movies. Thus he survived the entire war and took Dozul's (Dozuru) widow and infant daughter Mineva, the last surviving members of the Zabi family into hiding (Mineva would play a small part later in Zeta Gundam), though there are no lines in the movie that clearly state this as the sequel series Zeta Gundam still had yet to be conceived.
- Mario video games
- Wario and Waluigi are brothers (or at least half-brothers).
- The Mario Brothers were born in the Mushroom Kingdom, but transported to our world and raised in New York (TV shows, movies, and games, are all contradictory on this matter). Furthermore, the ending to Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island shows both Mario and Luigi held by parents in a Mushroom Kingdom style house, suggesting they never came from Earth.
- The Prisoner
- Number 6 is John Drake, the hero of Patrick McGoohan's previous series Danger Man aka Secret Agent. McGoohan has publicly denied it, although series co-creator and script editor George Markstein always maintained it was true. There are some minor hints in established canon that Drake and Number Six are the same person. Most obvious is the Prisoner episode The Girl Who Was Death which sees Number Six sent on a mission by a character named Potter. Potter was one of John Drake's associates in Danger Man and was even played by the same actor in both series. It is also true that the officially sanctioned novels based on The Prisoner establish clearly that Number Six is John Drake.
- Star Blazers: The Quest for Iscandar.
- The first Gamilons (Gamilus) seen during the battles in the Solar System (including Major Bane and Colonel Ganz) had the skin color of ordinary Earth humans, in this case Caucasian skintone. Also, in the first appearances of leader Desslok, he had a more mauve skin tone. Like the Klingon issue on Star Trek, this has never been explained but a widespread postulation (found on some fan web sites) jokingly suggests that the Gamilons were originally filmed under bad lighting and that Desslok had that film crew shot.
- Star Trek
- Lt. Pavel Chekov served on the USS Enterprise in the period depicted in the first season of Star Trek before being promoted to the bridge crew in the second season and encountered Khan Noonien Singh during that time.
- The reason why Mr. Spock was so emotional during his time with Captain Christopher Pike was that he was briefly dabbling with emotion in his youth.
- The Klingon homeworld is also known as Klinzhai.
- The ridged forhead Klingons that debuted in Star Trek The Motion Picture are sometimes unofficially referred to as Imperial Klingons thus denoting a difference between them and the more human looking Klingons of TOS.
- Fleet Captain is a rank between Captain and Commodore.
- The events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture were followed by a new five-year mission. (The movie was based upon a script for a never-produced second Trek series).
- Uhura's first name is Nyota. (Although some novels have chosen Nyota and some reference guides give this as her first name, no first name for the character has ever been mentioned on screen, and Gene Roddenberry said that Uhura had only one name, which meant "Freedom" in Swahili.) In the early 1980s, a fan-produced book series, The Best of Trek suggested that Uhura's first name is Penda but this was not widely adopted by the fan community. On the other hand, Sulu's first name, Hikaru, which was considered fanon for years, became part of official canon when it was mentioned in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The fact the writers didn't take the opportunity in that film to officially give Uhura a first name, too, is seen as confirmation she doesn't have one.
- Star Trek: Enterprise
- Fanon clashes with canon on many aspects of this prequel series, with many fans alleging the series violates continuity with the rest of the Star Trek universe, even though many of these facts are based upon fanon, and not accepted canon. An example is the treatment of Vulcans on this series, which goes against the culture developed for the race by many fans which has never been officially confirmed in canon.
- Star Wars
- Emperor Palpatine's first name is Cos.
- Han Solo was formerly a Lieutenant Imperial Navy officer who left the service after deciding to free Chewbacca from slavery. His status as a former Imperial Officer with the rank of Lieutenant was later made into real canon in the Expanded Universe.
- Grand Admiral Thrawn, who is featured in the major follow-on novels to Star Wars, was an active Vice Admiral in the Imperial Fleet during the time frame of the Star Wars movies.
- Anakin Skywalker's penultimate duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi ended with him falling into a volcano which traumatically aggravated his wounds received from his former teacher, necessitating the massive medical protheses that would be part of his signature identity of Darth Vader. This comes from a brief paragraph in the Return of the Jedi novelization which describes this event. Will be proven or disproven with Revenge of the Sith.
- Marathon
- The main character is the 10th Mjolnir Mark IV cyborg covertly brought aboard the colony ship Marathon.
- The main character is also a 'battleroid', a cyborg created through processing dead soldiers into cyborgs. The solider used in this process is none other than the main character from an earlier Bungie game Pathways Into Darkness.
- Halo
- The timeline (and possibly events) are tied to the earlier Marathon series, in some way. Dates Halo takes place in match a strangely blank section in the Marathon timeline. Some of this may become actual canon due to the upcomming release of Halo 2, if Bungie's hints are to be believed.
- James Bond
- There are only nine 00 agents (001-009). In fact, Ian Fleming mentions a 0010 in his novel, Moonraker and a later book by Raymond Benson mentions a 0012. On a related note, some fanon states that M is in fact the original 001, the first 00-agent; nothing in Fleming supports this.
