Help:What is Canon?

From Blaseball Wiki

Unrevised Style Guide Section
This section of the Style Guide has not been revised from early drafts. As a result, this information is disorganized (as you can see) and possibly not representative of current wiki policies. While you may find useful guidance here, it should not be taken as gospel nor used to settle disputes without wiki mod confirmation.

In fictional works, “canon” is the concept of the official story of a fictional work. It can be a useful concept for making sense of especially large fictional universes, where dozens or hundreds of authors are creating stories that may not always perfectly line up. Many fans give canon a very high place in the consideration of stories, and may reject interpretations of a story that do not perfectly align with the canonical story.

In the Blaseball community and on this wiki, we take a less strict approach to the concept of canon. In some ways, community ideas may still conflict with how this wiki operates, and this section of the style guide will attempt to draw a line between various interpretive methods.

In the most free flowing sense, the Blaseball community considers very little to be canon. This is commonly expressed in divergent character profiles, with different visual expressions, histories, or personalities. Because the game of Blaseball does not itself indicate who or what a character looks like, fans have created hundreds of unique and exciting interpretations, all of which are equally real in the Blaseball multiverse.

This wiki takes a slightly more defined approach to canon, specifically in our desire to accurately record the narrative history of Blaseball for historical purposes. We aim to offer a straightforward interpretation of events that may be hard to parse. For events that are plainly evident (such as the champion of a given season), we aim to record that information perfectly.

On this wiki, the official story of Blaseball, and thus the wiki’s understanding of canon, consists solely of events that occur in the game of Blaseball. This includes: unchanging information presented on blaseball.com, statistical information, game and season results, active teams, active players, any events (planned and unplanned) that occur on blaseball.com, and on occasion, community events that the developers of Blaseball bring into the narrative fold of the game. This list is not exhaustive as new categories of events have appeared through the history of Blaseball that expand what is to be considered canonical.

Furthermore, it’s important to note that this wiki is not officially involved with The Game Band in any way, and anything that is claimed as canonical on this wiki may be altered or changed by The Game Band at any time, either with direct communication or more subtle, in-universe means (commonly with communications from The Commissioner).

Similarly to the community at large, we do not consider any player appearance or personality to be canonical, even if it is the only version of a player recorded on this wiki. To that end, should a contributor wish to add their version of a character to a page, it is welcome on this wiki, as long as it fits within our community guidelines. This wiki uses a randomization template we call the Interdimensional Rumor Mill to randomly present readers with any equally legitimate perspectives added to the wiki.

Furthermore, readers are not to leverage what they read on this wiki in arguments with other fans about what is or is not canonical. Heated disputes that arise from the rejection of an interpretation of Blaseball not present on this wiki are not in the spirit of Blaseball, and are not welcome on this wiki or in the community. The only instances where we will entertain a rejection of a particular interpretation is if it violates our community standards or presents immediate harm to the community.

Finally, this structure of Blaseball canon only strictly applies to this wiki. In many cases, we expect that people will defer to our methodology and framework, considering the size and centrality of this wiki. That being said, we are aware of and coexist with alternate interpretations of Blaseball concepts and narrative, particularly among members of the community that participate in roleplay or write fan-fiction offsite. There is room for disagreement and discussion on this topic, but fundamentally, it is fitting within the spirit of Blaseball to allow each and every member of the community to bring their perspective to this vibrant universe.