>From: "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...>
>
>So when you worry about whether you should do this, or wait for
>so and so supplement, I say, in the spirit of the xmen, follow the
>express rule of Heroquest extrapolate, change things to make a great
>story and don't let your creativity be shackled (is that a reason Greg
>is sometimes circumspect on certain subjects, I wonder).
>
>Well said that man.
I swear, honestly, I was watching Batman Begins on HBO last night, and this came up. At the end of the movie, Gordon gives Batman a card that indicates that there's some guy giving out Joker cards as his trademark. And it occured to me again that this is different from the first Batman movie where Joker is the killer of Batman's parents.
I pointed out to my wife that, prior to this latest slew of movies that this was one big difference between Marvel and DC comics. That DC had always had differences in the continuity of their characters in different stories or versions, and that in Marvel Stan Lee had always tried to remain the lynchpin on which the continuity hung, editing away errors with tenacity so that there was only one version of each character. While in one version of Superman Lois Lane was dead, in another she was married to Superman, in another she didn't even know Clark Kent was Superman, yadda, yadd.
Interestingly this seems to have lead to Marvel becoming more popular than DC, to the point where DC tried to put all of their storylines back into continuity by claiming that each storyline was a different universe, and that they were all going to be straightened out in an event called the "Crisis of Infinite Earths."
Superman couldn't long remain in just one continuity, however, and so he was killed and brought back in several incarnations. It seems that the Man of Steel is simply too big for one story. Note that I've always found it fascinating that there are DC lines that have been in existence longer than my father has (notably Superman and the "Detective Comics" from which the company gets it's name and in which Batman first appeared). These characters have been living in their 20s and 30s for over 80 years! How's that possible in any sane continuity. To say nothing of having the same characters fight both Nazis and Columbian Drug lords?
Why hasn't Batman retired yet? Actually he has in some continuities (Batman Beyond). He was relatively old in The Dark Knight. But usually he's young, fashionable Bruce Wayne, millionaire playboy. OK, Billionaire now. In fact, it's interesting watching Batman Begins, and trying to attach a timeframe to it. I mean supposedly it starts in the depression, but then you have Batman getting all sorts of high-tech toys meant for the military (but too expensive). And a monorail that simultaneously looks too high tech to be produced today, and yet, also Art Deco like it's right out of the depression era. I'm sure this is all intentional. After all, Batman was first written in the depression and the movie is supposed to be about his origins.
In some ways, this reminds me of the begining of the movie Brazil, where Terry Gilliam brilliantly decides to tell us when and where things are occuring in text, like so many movies do, but lists it as, "Somewhere in the Twentieth Century. Why is this sort of lack of continuity acceptable in these cases?
Because Batman is mythic. And I use that term quite intentionally. When Mr. Bullfinch published his Mythology book (1913, IIRC), he was constrained in that he couldn't tell every version of every myth that he came across. Thus he chose a single set of myths for each mythology that hung together the way we expect a novel to hang together today; namely with no continuity gaps. Well, obviously that's not how myths were prior to Bullfinch's enumeration (I think he makes this clear, in fact).
Myths, such as they exist in cultures that really have a living mythology, are not at all consistent, and largely don't even resemble modern stories in that they often have no plot at all, but are just lists of event after event. The reason for this is that myths were used as a way to convey meaning from person to person directly, and not as permenant narratives meant to be transmitted to everyone. Myths were transmitted by the giver, and took on some of the giver's values. Even before Bullfinch, that tradition had been lost in almost all of Western culture.
But we've got something very similar nowadays. I don't think that it's coincidence that it was playing wargame scenarios related to Tolkien's work that ended up producing the first RPG (no matter how primitive it was). I think that Gygax et al were tapping into a need to create myth.
So I not only agree with Rory about not worrying about canon, I'd go much farther and say that a person has an obligation when creating meaning with an RPG to manipulate whatever part of it that they have to in order that they get their meaning across.
Ironically, perhaps, this is also then why I don't like the tons of canon available for Glorantha. It tempts me to read it, and to go back to that Marvel Comics like grasping for continuity. Oh, yes, I'm largely a Marvel fan, too, because I have loved the way that it all hangs together as one big story. But I find that's something to be avoided in RPGs (as we're all agreeing here). I shouldn't feel like I have to be careful with my additions to Glorantha as though they, too, are canon. Very simply, theres' far too much Glorantha canon. Or, rather, if Greg makes up a new bit about what's going on with Orlanth, then isn't that just him making myth of of the pre-existing base? Put another way, shouldn't that be considered as non-canon as any other player making a myth.
This is what I think YGWV should mean. There is no canon, none. There are only the other stories told by others, and they will all contradict each other, and that's just fine. I think it should.
At the moment "canon" means that what Greg writes will be consistent with what Greg writes. But, as people are fond of pointing out, Greg Gregs himself. I don't have a problem with that. I think that if we stop even requiring Greg to be consistent, that, for once, everyone will realize that the "canon" is just more myths. Information for you to take and modify to make it mean what you need it to mean.
I know this probably horrifies some people who want to adhere to their pre-movie Spiderman (who's webs were from shooters he built instead of bestowed upon him by radioactive spider bite), and Stan Lee style continuity as it applies to Generally Accepted Glorantha. But, in my opinion, that's an entirely different hobby than RPGs; keeping track of the "real" Glorantha. Which, I'll admit can be intersting. It just has nothing to do with Myth ceation of your own, the social transmission of your values that occurs when playing a RPG. It's the difference between making myths, and writing books.
If I wanted to do the latter, well, I'd do the latter. I want to play RPGs.
Mike
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