Okay, some of our differences lie in semantics. The rest lies in the pragmatic. (And yes I do mean to be good-natured.)
I respect all storylines. Even those with inconsistency. I enjoy the new Star Wars movies (well, not as much as the originals) even though they introduce huge inconsistencies. . . . All are licensed and most are pretty good, and just because certain things don't mesh doesn't mean I consider them entirely separate and don't respect them.
Well, when we like or enjoy a storyline we certainly respect it, even if it has some kind of artistic shortcoming. But when I spoke about “respect” before, I meant that I respect the storyline regardless of whether I like it and especially regardless of any artistic flaws. Think of respect more in terms of blind acceptance; I take EA/Origin at its word. So, for me, when “things don’t mesh”, I have no freedom whatsoever to even consider that such facts are or that I could/should treat them as “separate” or excludable. You, on the other hand, do claim that freedom (at least to some extent). To me though, that’s heresy.
Not necessarily, my crappy Star Wars analogy illustrates what I mean. As far as the movie, I would consider it a separate universe/timeline but still canon. I would just modify it by saying it's movie canon.
But you say “not necessarily”, which can only mean that
sometimes you do regard the given fact as excludable, which is precisely what you do with the movie. I, on the other hand, am not free to do so. The movie is part of one and only one universe, and so any “inconsistencies” stand as facts to be accounted for, not edited away. Also, when I speak of “canon”, I mean all the facts in that single universe. So when you speak of a “separate universe” or “movie canon”, I can only cringe.
I'm gonna have to disagree there. First, I do take it seriously. I'm just more exclusive than you would like. I also don't like making my own judgements about what the creators of (insert any series here) were trying to do. If they have their own answers then that satisfies me greatly, but if it's just a bunch of fans offering up their own ideas (while interesting) I wouldn't consider it canon until the creators either confirmed or denied it.
Now here’s the rub. You’re responding directly to what I’ve articulated as my and many others’ philosophy regarding the WC universe and its canon (something I’ve often described as a kind of game that we like to play). You say you don’t agree with my philosophy (which means you don’t want to play our game) and indeed you don’t. (Still, maybe like gryphon you do like to watch.
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In general, that’s all fine. No one’s obliged to “join the club” as it were; this site is designed to accommodate any variation of interest, wide or narrow, in WC. But I confess I totally lose the sense of your response when you say you take canon seriously and further that you effectively prefer to wait (as opposed to what many of the rest of us do) until EA/Origin gets around (or not) to explaining the inconsistencies. To continue this point . . .
I'm more of a reasonable doubt kind of a guy. If I can still say, "well, that still really doesn't convince me of anything. It just offers up a decent explanation and those are a dime a dozen."
How then do you take canon seriously? From all that you’ve said, I can’t see how canon matters to you at all. Oh sure, you’d be happy (and probably all of us would) if “the creators” always created consistent storylines or always cleaned up any inconsistencies, but it seems you’re just as happy (unlike many of the rest of us) either to live in mystery and doubt or to toss an inconsistent storyline into another universe, which is the same as asserting it didn’t really happen in the first place. (I mean, it’s not like you’ve been busy fleshing out all the other facts that make up your “second” universe or time line. It’s an artifice, nothing more.)
So when you do any of that, what are you doing? What’s the point? The goal? It can’t be to take canon seriously. Canon is supposed to comprise and promote shared understandings. If you (or anyone) feels free to accept an inconsistency “as is” or to cast it off as you see fit, that may be great for you but it’s not going to lead to anything in the way of canon, just chaos. In fact, it’s really no different from fanfic, which is a good thing in its own right, but still not canon.