User blog comment:Pelinal Whitestrake/The true meaning of C0DA/@comment-3362271-20140602043451

i think theres some things that arent really explaining well to people who dont understand.

I dont think a lot of people realise that this thing we call canon, what we know to be true about the universe of the elder scrolls IS an amalgumation of multiple people's thoughts and ideas. theres isnt one author going "yeah, this is whats official." theres a hundred people all with slightly different ideas, some not so slightly. and part of the vagueness and complexity, the contradictions within the in game canon itself, which is part of why the universe feels so alive and real, is a result of the contributions of many. part of the feeling when you play the games and feel like you have choices, feel like you have an effect on the world, comes from this vaugeness and complexity and contradictions.

in a universe this open to individual experience, who is to say what is right. even two people who both worked together on a single one of these games, who wrote lore books that compliment eachother, can have vastly different opinions about what happened.

like MK i feel that we should have freedom to decide for ourselves what our interpretation of happened is. I realise that he was making a statement about broader things than just TES, but in this universe of games and lore, there isnt always a right answer. i personally think if you asked every writer of TES "canon" what happened to the dwemer, you would get as many different answers from however many people you asked. half of those answers would start with "well i think..." or "my opinion is..."

for someone to say that something isnt canon in this universe is really kinda like talking about religion, its as much about what we indiviually believe as it is about what can be proven.

just as an example, say MK has a story to tell of the elder scrolls universe and has been working on it since before writer 2 started working on the elder scrolls universe. But writer 2 currently works for bethesda and wrote a piece of lore that contradicts things in MK's story, or shows the same character in a different way. should one of them be considered more canon than the other? does that opinion then change if MK gets contracted to write again for say an expansion of the same game? if ur answer is well one is official, and the other isnt, and what he writes when contracted is official, but not what he writes when hes not... well first off its sad when money trumps creativity, secondly, no one at bethesda has said that its not official, thirdly at least one person at bethesda is probably deeply inspired by that "non-canon" writing, and lastly, theres always going to be someone who can easily argue that MK's writing is MORE official because even though he no longer works there, he was there first. its all a blurry line that sometimes doesnt need to be marked.

on the other side of this coin is the fact that even if the arguement of canon vs non canon isnt worth making, the established "truth" of the world IS NOT ignored. to those people saying "so ur basically saying everything thats been said and represented in 'official' works doesnt matter? i dont get it," no. no. and more no. that is not what we are saying. nor do i think it was what MK was saying with C0DA. its not that none of it matters. these people who form their own truths and write their own stories and what not still very much have respect for the world they write about, they still love the lore, they believe in whats been laid before them or they would be writing about something else. In fact they believe the world and the lore and the characters and the points these things are used to make are MORE important than who a company is currently paying. remember its a living world that stays that way from the work of many people. so just because you didnt see it in game doesnt mean it cant be true to the world. so quit argueing over whether its "canon," and THAT is about as good as i think i can explain it.