When the Dragonlance Nexus was first founded and we got the “official Dragonlance fan site” designation, we were asked by some fans to decide what books and other products were canon. They wanted us to decide what was true and what was false for the setting.
Of course, we quickly declined. Despite the official designation, it was not our place to make such decisions.
Whose job is it? Well, let’s first figure out what canon means in the Dragonlance context.
What is Canon?
Established or agreed-upon constraints governing the background narrative, setting, storyline, characters, etc., in a particular fictional world
Dictionary.com Canon Definition (#10)
In other words, it’s “truth.” Or at least what one person or a small group of people consider to be truth.
Who Decides Canon?
Before we can decide what is canon, we have to agree upon who has the right to determine what is canon. Who, then, has that authority?
The Authors?
The authors craft the stories we love, so why not look to them? Again, we have the issue of authority as we determine which authors have that say-so.
The obvious choice would be Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. As the authors of Chronicles, Legends, and most of the world-impacting stories beyond, they would be a logical choice. This sounds good at first, but we soon run into problems.
Let’s take a hypothetical look at the story of Huma, for example. Many fans love Richard Knaak’s The Legend of Huma. In fact, it’s a New York Times best-seller. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have also written about Huma in the Destinies trilogy. Both stories are great, yet they don’t agree. So which is canon? Does Richard Knaak decide or do Weis and Hickman? And what of the fans of the story that is determined to not be canon? How do they feel? How do the authors feel?
Author’s Note: For the record, I think both Huma stories can be true, as they are both legends within the world. It’s much like trying to figure out which story of King Arthur is the one true story.
The Game Designers?
The game designers are charged with making sourcebooks detailing the world of Krynn. Surely they can decide.
The problem comes, then, in that Dragonlance is 40 years old. There is not a solid continuity. Throughout the history of Dragonlance, the gaming and novel departments did not communicate well. Had they done so, then maybe there could have been better continuity. Alas, that was not the case.
Wizards of the Coast (and TSR before)?
Perhaps, then, we look at the owners of Dragonlance – Wizards of the Coast. Certainly, they have every legal right to say what is and isn’t true, but their eyes are facing forward, not to the past. Likewise, they are focused on a bigger D&D multiverse rather than the single world of Krynn.
On top of that, WotC has said that every iteration of D&D settings have their own separate continuity. In other words, novels can have one continuity, games another, movies another, and so on. One setting can have multiple continuities based on how we experience it.
Had TSR and later Wizards of the Coast maintained a single continuity through all iterations of Dragonlance, with everything fact-checked, then maybe they could have determined a single continuity. Yet the opportunity for that is long gone and no longer viable.
The Nexus?
No. We are a fan site dedicated to keeping Dragonlance alive. We don’t decide what is and is not “true.”
We do, however, give you resources to examine Dragonlance closer and to come up with your own head-canon.
Who, then?
The answer is quite simple, though it may sound unsatisfactory to some. The only person to decide what is canon is you.
The thing is, we all have different tastes. What works for one of us may not work for another. My canon is different than your canon, and that’s okay.
Decide for yourselves what you like and celebrate it. Share that love with fans and listen to what they love.
Conclusion
Only we, the fans, can make the choice, and we can only make that choice for ourselves. Telling other people what is true and not will simply lead to internet arguments and hurt feelings.
Instead, let’s celebrate our differences and share our love for Dragonlance.
VERY well said, from beginning to end. Thanks for your calmness and sense of nuance.
Very well stated, Trampas.
This mirrors my general approach: there’s always going to be issues in canon and continuity in shared-world settings and IP, especially as real-world time creeps on into decades, authors number in the dozens, and the mediums engaged differ so widely (from novels to art to comics to graphic novels to children’s books to films and animation and computer games, oh my!), and this is a thing hardly limited to Dragonlance.
My advice for READERS, who are not also gamers: enjoy the stories! Recognize that at least a lot of them can be best understood as “stories WITHIN the setting itself”, as you state in this article. Whether they’re stories told around a pub table at the Inn of the Last Home between travelers and locals, or stories recorded by Astinus (or the Aesthetics) and shelved in the library, or shared in-universe as bard tales and songs professionally iterated through the world. Variation is not contradiction, necessarily; it is realism.
My advice for GAMERS, whether they read the novels as well or not, is to remember that EVERY SINGLE GAME SESSION effectively spawns “its own unique Dragonlance timeline”. MY Dragonlance is never going to align with YOUR Dragonlance, because at our tables, different choices were made, stories told, songs sung— even if we were running the same modules, or even if we had the same GM. This is fine.
Canon is a TOOL which should enhance our enjoyment, not detract from it, and “at our tables” we can choose what we do or do not include in “OUR Dragonlance” setting, history, and lore. But, also, canon is itself a very fun interest, which can drive research, good-faith debate or discourse between fans, and so on, not because there is necessarily “one true interpretation” one must thump as gospel, but because what’s the point of being fans connected around a shared love of this thing if we can’t sometimes find appreciation for different views than our own? The whole point of shared-author IP, like DL settings, et al, is that there is never just one view or approach or authorship authority. This is fundamentally a different medium than that which has sole/closed authorship. Both approaches are fine, and great— but for another example George Lucas fundamentally changed Star Wars when he agreed to let other creators “play in the sandbox” he’d built, through comic books, video games, novels, and more.
Up until reading this, I did not know there were any stories in Dragonlance that contradicted each other. Now I know of one (the two different versions of the history of Huma). I do NOT want to know of any others. There are so many different stories, characters, and histories that I’m able to remain blissfully unaware of most contradictions until another “Fan” ruins it for me. I’ll be more careful in the future about reading anything combining the words Canon and Dragonlance.
I hope this article didn’t ruin the experience for you. If so, then I deeply apologize.
I wish we all could just sit back and enjoy, but some “fans” take things a bit too seriously.
I’ve always tried to follow Tracy Hickman’s words on this topic: “Some of those stories are true, some of them are almost true, and some of them are Kender Tales, in other words, they’re probably not true, but they sure were a hoot to hear.”
I’m on a journey to read every single Dragonlance novel. I delight when a character describes some events Ive read in other novels.
I’ve not yet noticed disparities in continuity aside from gaming modules containing entire events forgone from the novel. I look forward to thumbing through the vast amount of material provided in that medium while enjoying the novels.
I think I will see more of the details in the contradictions especially moving between 2e, 3.5, 5e etcetera aligning with the new direction Krynn is taken on. I do not think new material will be made moving forward with PC content, nor do I think they will linger on with much War of the Lance material. I feel all signs point towards this new era of mortals (though it should be stated that the same idea was done in a similar WotC product line where cosmic beings were “desparked” only to see a trickling of it return).
Ever the optimist, I am also biased because I live the War of the Lance material and am uncertain whether it will hold the same weight. Perhaps like Raistilin, Caramon and Tanis I will need to yield to the new generations of avid reader.
Lastly, the supplemental material being released in accordance with Nexus and online outlets like Dragon Masters Guild infuse enough of the familiar that it lifts my heart to ease the fear of uncertainty of the future.
One small point of contention: When you put the word fan in quotes, thereby designating certain people as not-actually-fans, what you really mean to say is that they are gatekeeping. To call them not-actually-fans is an unfair designation. They are fans. They just have a hard time allowing other people to enjoy the material in their own way. They believe, “If you’re not [playing/understanding/reading into/talking about/supporting] this material the same way I am, then you’re doing it wrong.” This kind of article is an excellent bastion against such gatekeeping, and for that I applaud you. Very well done. I’m running a Dragonlance campaign right now, based on the Shadow of the Dragon Queen adventure and the Warriors of Krynn game, and I’ve found myself having to do some mental gymnastics to adjust to the new “canon” of this published content, but I’ve also enjoyed finding a pathway through it and pulling in old content (from reading Weis/Hickman novels years ago) to blend it and make a satisfying world I can enjoy and help my players (many of whom had never heard of Dragonlance) enjoy. I agree with you; canon is what we make it.
The answer is clear , only me, The High God knows the full content Of the Tobril …
As a fan of Deagonlance, I personally would love Canon and let me give a simple explanation why.
I am also a huge fan of the movie Highlander, and all things highlander. When I try to share that fandom and people see how each movie rewrites the lore, they usually opt out. It is a sign of lazy writing and lazy planning. In the end it makes it harder to draw fans into the fandom because people need starting points and consistency.
Who decides Canon, we’ll at this point we should just make it a fan poll.