49 réponses à ce sujet

[Al Foley]

I prefer Canon Canon to head canon and defer to it but oddly enough, at least in the case of the Warden, their Canon does not contradict mine.  

[Dai Grepher]

Head canon wins!

 

Personally, I prefer a clear and solid ending that describes the protagonist's fate in black and white. Head canon will still play a part in determining how that fate plays out.

 

The only times I hate canon and replace it with head canon is when it contradicts the storyline ("canon" contradicting canon) or if it takes my character too far out of character. Or when I'm just playing outside the canon. Like in my current solo rogue playthrough where he got to the Gull and the Lantern early with the map hole exploit.

 

So far, my main character and the canon align perfectly. So I'm quite happy with that. I still think BioWare needs to clean up their king/consort inconsistency, but that's a separate issue.

[Al Foley]

Heh.  Its much, to me, how the Star Wars Franchise handles Canon.  I have layers of cannonicity.  I come up with rich, deep, complicated head canons and back stories but usually, if what the creators of DA come up with contradicts mine, I defer to theirs and bend the story.  I find that A. the creators give you enough creative freedom and enough vagueness in their own work that normally this is not a problem, and B.  It has never been an issue up to this point...at least not in the DA franchise.  ME on the other hand...

[Dai Grepher]

^True. I have a head canon for my main character and Anora, as well as a few head canons (fanfics) for Anora in general, and I doubt BioWare will ever release info about her that contradict them, but if so I would obviously defer to the canon and alter my head canon to fit.

[DirkJake]

The problem is not with head canon. There is always a room for head canon since there is no way Bioware can depict everything in games or in novels. As the series continues, some head canons will be confirmed or debunked. New ones will come up etc. 

 

From what I see the problem is with how contradicting canon depiction of characters in each game in the series can be. That really has little to do with head canons.

 

So really I don't really care either way if Bioware decides to make the stories more ambiguous. Just make sure that they are consistent. 

[Killdren88]

The problem is not with head canon. There is always a room for head canon since there is no way Bioware can depict everything in games or in novels. As the series continues, some head canons will be confirmed or debunked. New ones will come up etc. 

 

From what I see the problem is with how contradicting canon depiction of characters in each game in the series can be. That really has little to do with head canons.

 

So really I don't really care either way if Bioware decides to make the stories more ambiguous. Just make sure that they are consistent. 

Well, yes they can't show everything in the books and games. But I think what they be at the very least be doing is wrapping everything up that is centered around the current PC for that game. It makes things easier with everyone leaving no room to be doubted. I mean if the intentionally leave things ambiguous to be touched on in the next game, that's fine. What I don't want are un answered questions in regards to certain story aspects or fates of various characters.

[Kiesae]

I like the kind of vague thing they did with the Warden in Inquisition. It respects the choices you made in Origins and gives a credible (and temporary) excuse for them not being around at the moment. That way they don't have to contradict more. To me, with a self-created character like the Warden, they belong to the player, and changing that later on is just an annoyance to most people, so why do it?

Besides, it's not really head-canon if it's canonical choices you made in the game. It's just one variation of canon. And the game went with everyone's canon; all good.

 

The case of Hawke worked for me this time cause he never felt like my character to begin with, I couldn't make any meaningful choices as Hawke, I couldn't influence his morality much, nothing mattered plot-wise, and so I never got attached.

If the same thing happened to the Inquisitor in the next game, I'd be annoyed. The Inquisitor is much more like the Warden to me. The more open-world kinds of games inspire that kind of thinking in general, I think. The high levels of customisation and personalisation of the PC is part of the formula that makes them work, so it'd be a mistake to mess with that. Let players have their characters.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

I prefer leaving their future ambiguous, letting the players enjoy their characters being like how they played them, even if it is only headcanon. 

 

Hawke in DAI showed that this is preferable to them bringing those characters back. 

[Aren]

If you are referring to the HoF fate or Hawke then the only way to have an absolute canon about their fate is to sacrifice them to end their story arch, otherwise their fate will be head canon.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 While I embrace, enjoy, and adore headcanon, I generally prefer absolute-fact.

 

 

I can build off of the story with my imagination regardless the quality, so better that the story is good and sound.

[Chuvvy]

Uh, excuse me sir, my head canon is absolute fact.

[turuzzusapatuttu]

Uh, excuse me sir, my head canon is absolute fact.

 

Exactly this.

 

There's no way to prevent people head canoning what they desire.

 

If people approve the way devs handled the story, they'll be happy and some of them will even create more fanfictions to continue their hero's story.

 

If they don't like the ending, they will pretend it doesn't exist and create a new one (in their heads) that fits with everything they wanted for their favorite character.

 

Basically: head canons and absolute facts can coexist, because the latter don't exist for those who don't recognize them.*

 

*You can apply that to every fandom you'll ever bump into. Seeing is believing. 

[Korva]

As far as I'm concerned, former player characters should essentially be untouchable -- they're ours, and having everything they did and are at the mercy of the writers just means that it's completely pointless to even pretend to have any choices or influence on the stories, and therefor pointless to get attached or involved in any way. Worst case scenario is what they did with Revan and the Bhaalspawn, i.e. force a particular name/gender/personality/outcome on a character as canon. Might as well just write a book from the start, not make a game.

 

I'm also not at all keen on "franchise fiction", since that essentially requires such a retroactive canon if a book or comic remotely touches on the events of a game. Plus, if events from said tie-in are later picked up by a game, it can easily lead to lazy writing on the (wrong and preposterous) assumption that everyone has read the tie-in.

 

So as far as I'm concerned, I want either an unambiguous and definite official end to my characters (like the sacrifice, which is my canon for Origins), or for them to be left alone in future titles and leave room for personal headcanon. Either can work very well. Of course, merely not mentioning an ex-protagonist again can be unsatisfying or impossible with a protagonist like the Inquisitor, who heads a new world power ...

 

Overall I'm REALLY not a fan of changing progagonists during a series. As glad as I am for the awesome sacrifice ending, at this point in the series I just want to keep my Inquisitor instead of having to dread how she'll be rendered irrelevant and abandoned by all her friends just to make fan-favourite NPCs re-useable in sequels and tie-ins without a care for or even mention of the bonds she forged with them.

[Killdren88]

Uh, excuse me sir, my head canon is absolute fact.

Ech...getting flashbacks of Synthesis zealots who treated Synthesis like a cult.

[Medhia_Nox]

"I don't want to have to imagine."   That statement left me so hollow inside for a moment.

 

My headcanon is preferable to anything they can provide me with.

 

"Absolute fact" - my PC's virtual existence is a series of small, incomplete vignettes where I bounce from dreamlike state to dreamlike state with no filler in between to suffice for long map journeys, stretches of time, or "deaths". 

[zambingo]

The only thing Head Canon is for is our personal gratification. Bioware should do whatever they want.

[Miss Golightly]

I think when it comes to any work of fiction, it's natural for fans to come up with head canon. I think that's healthy and it shows that people are thinking about what they're experiencing and not just letting it wash over them like river water.

 

But I prefer absolute fact. I'd rather know the definitive answer than have to sit around and wonder. There's a part of me that knows that whatever I cook up in my mind probably isn't even true. That's what still troubles me about the ending of ME3, I'd like to think that my Shepards found their way back to their LIs and lived happily ever after, but we were never shown that.

[Potato Cat]

So long as I feel the absolute fact doesn't contradict how I've built my character and their personality, I don't really care once we move on to the next game. They're no longer my character. I feel the Warden's quest was a good example of how this can be done well, (with the possible exception of a Cousland who married the ruler of Ferelden, but even then...). I can't really think of a good reason why any Warden wouldn't want to the Calling cured, and it fits well enough for people whose Wardens didn't want to be a Warden or embraced the idea. Personally, I'd rather they disappear, but with a character like the Inquisitor, that's much more difficult. But so long as my Elidri isn't going around hugging blood mages and Tevinters, or my Hissra isn't running about making deals with demons, (etc), I don't really care.

 

I never really headcanon ahead anyway.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The objective reality of our protagonist exists whether we know it or not.

But if we don't know it, it can be whatever you want it to be.

 

I choose headcanon.

[Daerog]

The main character in this franchise is Thedas.

 

That in mind, I don't mind things being concluded or left to head canon, because what I'm doing is unfolding a history and bending it how I can, like some greatly influential Spirit of Destiny. If a PC is dropped off and their story done, I can headcanon if I want.

 

Still, it would be nice to have later events not contradict a person's previous actions/character. Like a character who was all about mages, was all for being a blood mage, and supported other people practicing blood magic to suddenly become a kind of witch hunter who thinks all blood mages are monsters... (which was never an issue for me, but I hear was an issue for others).

[Mykel54]

I don´t mind headcanon for linking events together that receive little or not explanation in the game (ex. Stroud and Anders relationship, their owed debt), or to simply fill up the story that is not shown on the game (ex. the few years my hawke was viscountess, what her policy was, her relationship with Gamlen and Sebastian, how eventually the red templars thrown her out, etc.). All of that isn´t showed in the game, so it isn´t really invalidated.

 

What i don´t like is when Bioware leaves open plots that pretty much force you to reject the game´s story and imagine something else instead. For example, i really despise how my forever alone DAO warden (no romances), duty-bound, practically the epithome of wardenhood. When he decided to go and find a cure for the calling, because he wanted to live longer. He isn´t even a mage - i thought Avernus was workin on those things? or at least warden mages.

It makes no sense for him to abandon his VIGILANCE of the darkspawn (In Peace, Vigilance), and instead go to some faraway land following some hints of a cure.

 

Going for a cure makes some sense if your DAO warden had a romance, specially with Alistair or Morrigan (with son), but for the others characters it feels forced because it assumed that your warden´s top priority is to keep living.

 

Bioware should just leave old protagonists alone: either have them die, or have them doing something the player picks at the ending. So say if my DAO warden said in the epilogue "I´ll go back to my clan", then i there is any mention in new games of him, he must be with his clan or with other dalish, doing dalish themed things like finding old lore or going hunting, just a background character, until he dies or goes missing. If the player instead picked "i´ll stay with the wardens", then this dalish elf would be sent to Weishaupt, to do secret warden things you dont hear much about, until he goes to his calling or dies too. All of this offscreen, but it respects the player´s wishes on the character.

[Killdren88]

If we get a good story out of it, I wouldn't mind giving up head canon. Honestly I prefer it that way. Being made to head canon is a sign of lazy writing to me. I want a satisfying where all the big questions are addressed and then tied off with an ending that doesn't spit on your face.

[In Exile]

Pure headcanon. I also don't want NPCs to feature unless their role is foreshadowed. In the game I loathe headcanon with a passion. But once the character is done I want the writers to stay hands off.

[PsychoBlonde]

They should not have all those books, comics and animes anyway.

 

Quest like Wicked Hearts and Wicked eyes suffered greatly for it, because I had no idea who the three major players was and only a superficial idea of what they stood for, yet I was expected to be able to judge between them.

 

And then we had characters like Michel and Ismhael and somehow should properly have felt something there too, but didn't...

 

 

At least in da:o, I knew Anora and Alistiar and had a somewhat good idea at what they stood for.

 

It didn't help even if you DID read all the books and comics and so forth, because the characters that appeared in the game were completely flat and bore no resemblance to the ones in the books/comics.  The stories of Loghain, Maric, Duncan and Cailan was mostly developed via books but they were all fully-realized characters in Origins and you could love or hate them purely based on playing the game.  Briala, Celene, Gaspard, Michel and Imshael were not characters and all of their "story" was delivered in empty infodumps.

[PsychoBlonde]

I don't really care about headcanon, but I DO want them to be scrupulous about NOT CONTRADICTING POSSIBLE GAME STATES.  If someone can die, there should be a possibility for them to be dead.  If it's too much work, then don't make them a major character in a later installment.  And I say this even though Cullen is probably my all-time favorite series character to date.

 

Of course, with Inquisition this shouldn't be much of a problem, since there weren't really any new characters that could make some kind of sensible reappearance in a major role except (maybe) Scout Harding.