Tuesday 4 June 2019

Chapter 4: Loose Canon: What Black Library Thinks of Their Readers (Part 2)



Part 2. Canon Bear It: The Myth of Selective Canon
So last time, we talked about Aaron Dembski-Bowden's little Apologist piece in which he singularly failed to address contradictions in Black Library Fluff by espousing two contradictory maxims as his apologetics. In this part we're going to talk about Canon in general (mostly as it pertains to Black Library), and to disparage the idea that there are any different kind of ways to handle it beyond the common sense of “Don't contradict shit, you worthless Mercenary Hacks” (which as we learned last time is more about avoiding criticism than anything else). Selective Canon, in any form, is not only bad for the Industries it is used to protect, but also not great for the writers themselves. I mean, this is GW we are talking about, so it's not as if they have a massively discerning audience to turn away, but we are without doubt living in an age where more gamers couldn't give less of a shit about what the lore of GW's works actually is. That is principally because GW and BL have done so much damage to their brand that their lore literally and figuratively scrapes the bottom of the barrel.

So before we begin, let's recap. The last time GW and BL willingly admitted their own attitude to Canon was through Aaron Dembski-Bowden. He gave voice to an edict that GW's IP Manager uses as an overall attitude to their brand. He did this poorly, and I dissected it thoroughly last time. For the purposes of this recap, we will recall Edict Version 2: “all of it's true and one of it's true” to be “fair” to the guy who spent more time writing passive aggressive shade at his own audience than he did proof reading. This edict basically leaves the door open for all forms of author and company based deniability, which I have no doubt is its principle function. It's basically moving the goalposts of what makes a successful story onto the reader. The reader is allowed their interpretation, and it's as valid as everyone else's, as it is with people who have never read any GW fluff whatsoever. The intention is to promote the idea that the only right of discernment of what is true in that setting is either nobody ever, or GW's official representatives. They can thus use this same edict as an alibi to not research; to not answer questions; to not accept criticism, and to not accept any responsibility of any kind. They can also use this edict to reinvent the entire wheel of everything to do with their universe for no reason other than to sell it again. Naturally a lot of GW fanboys think this is great. This is why they get Mat Ward, G.S. Goto and Aaron Dembski-Passive-Aggressive-Bowden.

Black Library has always had a dodgy attitude to Canon. Most of the company's heads have gone on to say that there is no canon, or the canon is in one way or another selective. Their logic is that they have too many writers to regulate that kind of continuum, and that it fits the unreliable nature of truth in the setting. Whilst these issues are true, they fail to denounce Canon. Canon comes from the Greek for “Rule” and it usually denotes the standard, the current accepted and authentic works of something. I mean, call me picky, but if you're dodging the most basic yardstick of what legitimately matters in your setting, and are thus unwilling to attach anything to it, you're giving far too much away about your opinion of your own brand. Canon can naturally mean different things to different people, and for me that's because in the modern age, Canon seems most commonly used by fans in a different manner to that of people who produce material for them. For the people in authority, they seem worried that they are being tied to a permanent contract of standards, and for the fans, it's a pragmatic way of figuring out the truth. GW and BL's response is, there isn't any. The problem with that is, that's not their call.

Obviously, the battleground over who gets to call what “The Truth” is going to be fought over. The one thing I would point out is to look at what is at stake for the victor, because that's the real secret behind these kinds of denouncements in all material written for any IP. With Black Library and GW's “approach”, they claim a Grimdark Universe legitimately gives them an alibi from responsibility of truth, and thus any determination is of equal validity but none of it is legitimate in any permanent sense. In a sense, this is also pragmatic. Fans try to pragmatically build a complete picture, the big corporation pragmatically responds: we are always going to have an unstable picture for a multitude of reasons. The trouble with this response is that they are endeavouring to create a totality of freedom from any consistency or standards, and that can just never wash. The reason is actually quite straightforward: there will always be a limited number of legitimate, logical conclusions from any of BL or GW's work, because their own material makes it impossible for it to be otherwise, because they do stick to some (not many, but enough) points of unalterable consistency. For instance, the Emperor is never going to have a gay, effeminate cousin called Eddie who lives in a bedsit in St. Ives. You could never, by the Selective Canon Edict argue categorically for or against “Cousin Eddie” in a definitive sense, but the amount of information standing against it defeats the notion more or less permanently. In essence, the idea is so absurd, that if BL had wrote a novel legitimising the existence of this character, it would immediately be denounced wholesale by pretty much the entire fucking 40k audience. Because the very idea of it is objectively absurd within that context. The corollary is thus: there are only so many valid interpretations, because we know enough to know what does and does not fit. The reason for this is because any work cannot help but have Canon. Black Library's very idea that they can decide their material has no Canon or even selective concepts of it is as absurd as it is arrogant.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I get it. Writing is hard, especially when you aren't entirely in control of the direction of the material you're writing for. But here's the nub, writers have a choice. If you're not keen on the whole idea of sharing a setting with potential quicksand if you are not tuned into the material that came before you and that surrounds you from other writers, why put yourself in that position? Attitudes like Selective Canon allow writers like this the best of both worlds: all the privilege of the existing IP and basically none of the responsibility, the implied deal of that being “You produce material that is ours and we pay you, neither of us asks too many questions about that arrangement”. That is ultimately what it's for, and that's Black Library's admission of intent. They see a market, they have the monopoly on that market, and they intend to fill it. Their desire to fill that void to cash in on it is obviously far, far greater than any conception of the actual literary value of the stuff that's there. It's cheap sales fodder, because why wouldn't it be? The alternative is setting standards, it's a bar most writers would flunk, and it's a bar you can't reasonably set, because what self-respecting writer with the talent, time and consideration to do such a thing expertly would attach themselves to such an idea? Naturally, they have a few big names, mostly Dan Abnett and Bill King, who have done this Merc Writer thing for a long, long time and do it well. It's not as if individual writers cannot approach things with their own standards (not that they do consistency, but I find it more tragic that writers of theircalibre have some level of insecurity of thinking that they need other people's IPs to put out good work).

Of course, to the Black Library writers, they find themselves concerned that Fans think “Canon” is the legitimate all-encompassing truth beyond doubt. They seem to think that the few fans who are incredibly picky and observant represent a threat worthy of a status that reinforces an artificial construct of their setting that their own writing style usually pays less heed to. Most readers though, just don't care about that (perhaps BL counts on that, but readers are not apathetic). They do care, but they care more that the writers are convincingly considerate of the setting and thoughtful about writing for it. That's why if you look at fan communities that talk about Canon and IP fodder providers like Black Library, they discuss the individual merits of particular writers from positions of trust: i.e. to what extent they are willing to trust that the particular writer gets it and thus whether they are willing to bother reading it. They are irritated by obvious signs of bias and preference for particular factions or individuals, of clear indications that little research has gone into the making of it. The trouble with claiming that only those making the content know which of it is right or true is the very fact that this is not remotely, nor has ever been true, and that is demonstrated in simple facts, such as the varied reputation of individual writers (the popularity of Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell versus the outright hated writers such as Ward and Goto). The audience already knows what it wants. It already knows what 40k represents, and what drives GW's consumers. That is not to say that GW's fans are always right about everything, but when you set up your entire book selling business model about assuring that basically fans are technically always wrong, you have a problem there. In fact, you just told your fanbase you're functionally irrelevant.

Human Beings by nature look for patterns. Sometimes those patterns aren't there, but we desire to understand. One of the advantages of fiction is that it offers some semblance of constructed understanding. Naturally, it can be as artistic and interesting to defy the expectation of understanding with a setting that cannot be so, but it risks a dangerous and distressing possibility. Because it's pretty hard to get invested in something you can never count on at least to a significant portion understanding. So how does GW and BL get away with this, if that's the case? Well, the answer is two-pronged. Firstly, well, they don't. Many potential readers are just turned off by the obtuse nature of the fluff, particularly its abstracted nature. Many readers have long since abandoned GW's lore simply because they're sick of waiting around for contradictions and change that generally detract more than they add to the setting. This itself has driven my disinterest and removal of investment in the lore. I am tired of reading something principally handed to writers I do not respect, trust nor appreciate. Thus, I'm out. But in a way they do get away with it, because their opinion on what is or is not Canon does not remotely matter.

I do find it kind of cute that Black Library has a suite of writers who get behind the Selective Canon argument, given that one of the most well-known semantic think-pieces on literature is Roland Barthes' coinage of Death of the Author. It's so well-known that it eclipses the rest of his work, and has made its way into public consciousness. I find it rather depressing that writers would be fine deciding for everyone else what their takeaway from any media they produce is, even if said audience ask for it. Because their opinion could not matter less, and not just because connotative interpretation has the capacity not just to see conscious authorial intent but also unconscious authorial meditation; readers themselves are the same sorts of human beings as the ones who write this shit, and they form their own ideas because why wouldn't they. The only perplexing thing of this whole enterprise is why there is even any need to denounce Canon at all, when its concept is a metaphysical impossibility as anything rigid in any form, and any setting? Once again, I fall back to motives. A corporate company hates criticism, writers hate criticism. Writers hate getting harassed for a handful of sentences they wrote when they were sleep deprived trying to push this horrendous beast up some more words to meet that fucking publishing deadline that was entirely off the cuff to add a bit of flavour, and more keenly to satisfy the editor, or whatever overseer BL uses, if any. But when your endeavour to address the handful of people who pick up on minor issues like that ends up fundamentally undermining the very medium you write for, was that small bit of passive aggressive “We don't do Canon here, because fuck you guys” …well, was it worth it?

What is most tragic about Black Library is its irrelevance. It is the only source of additional, detailed narrative within the Games Workshop brand, or at least, it was, and now it spends more time as a prospect for the miniscule handful of people who bother with Black Library at all, which is actually a minority within that gaming circle as far as I can see. It has its fans of course, I'm sure plenty of the literature BL has is literature enough in at least the way Twilight is literature, but that also highlights that any old shit can have a big audience and quality is not immediately assured by the number of eyes that read it. Whilst it is difficult to discern precisely whether Black Libary does well or not, I can't particularly see them basically removing themselves from the standard of standard acceptability doing them many favours amongst anyone worried about parting with £8 for some entertaining fodder. Maybe they're onto a winner, not worrying about it, but they do seem to spend a lot of time chafing about criticism and being denounced for not getting things right for a bunch of writers who promote the idea that there is no right or wrong in their circle. But there is a right or wrong. Black Library exists because a fandom exists. They exist to give that fandom more of what they already like. That's your Canon right there Black Library. Go on, you go and put out a novel that violates some of the basic expectations of what 40k is, and you tell me all about how you're above that shit.

Oh wait, you did. It was C.S. Goto's short, unpopular career.

Well, that's unfortunate for you guys.

40k has Canon. That's just tough. You mercenary writers need to grow the fuck up and do your fucking job.

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