Forum:Is The Infinity Doctors canon?: Difference between revisions

Forum:Is The Infinity Doctors canon? (edit)

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 :::I do agree with Josiah Rowe, that ''TID'' should not be viewed as a single case, cannot in fact, because it is very much incorporated within a release structure of other novels and has not in any BBC-signed off text been stated to be not ''Doctor Who''. ''Death Comes to Time'' has as or an even more chequered history and story than ''TID''. ''Death Comes to Time'' began as a radio pilot, turned into a webcast and does a lot to mess around with continuity, far more in some respects than ''TID'' does. --[[User:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]] / '''[[User talk:Tangerineduel|talk]]''' 12:03, May 19, 2012 (UTC)
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+We haven't as a community debated the merits of ''Death Comes to Time'' or Iris Wildthyme — unless you count [[User:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]]'s summary judgement against the so-called "[[Forum:early Wildthyme books|early Wildthyme books]]".  It has been our apparent convention to handle these exceptions one at a time.  Even within [[Forum:BBV and canon policy]], we were involved in an ''itemised'' discussion.   So mention upthread of the fact that we haven't yet got around to DCTT and IW we can't be used to detract from ''this'' discussion. This discussion is completely consistent with previous practice, and it is in no way appropriate to detract from it by saying that we've ''not'' talked about DCTT yet.
+[[user:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]] is insisting in his latest post to go all the way back to the beginning of the thread.  The question before us is no longer — and hasn't been for over a week — the ''excision'' of TID.  I again turn your attention to [[#A new proposal|the top of this section]].  I have agreed with the majority that ''TID'' is a valid source for the writing of in-universe articles ''so long as'' we clearly have a note on each mention of material from ''TID'' which '''points back to this discussion'''.
+I think TD is misrepresenting the thread when he says that Josiah thinks "''TID'' should not be viewed as a single case".  Josiah has ''actually'' agreed with me, saying, "The point is that the canonicity of ''TID'' is deliberately ambiguous, and we should find a way to respect that ambiguity" and "the principle of letting information from ''TID'' stay in the main-body text but with a boilerplate note seems like a good compromise to me".  He has only ''rhetorically'' asked what the function of the boilerplate should be, in an effort to characterise the discussion so far.  But his initial response to the original proposal of this section seemed to be in the affirmative.  Obviously, Josiah can and should clarify, but I'm seeing that Josiah has said the precise opposite of what TD suggests.
+I think TD isn't being very careful with his other assertions, either. He's saying that my entire argument rests on a single quotation from Parkin.  Not only is that not true, but the one he alludes to is pretty damning.  To admit that you have a Doctor who looks like Paul McGann but is '''definitively not''' the Eighth Doctor is no small admission.  You can't just ignore such a statement.
+TD seems to be ''looking'' for some way to disqualify the statement because "it doesn't cite a date" and because he thinks the "interviewer leads Parkin into the statement he makes".  But we do know the date, basically. The interview dates from no earlier than 4Q 2011, because it was given in aid of the ebook releases that are coming in 2012.  Not that time context is particularly ''important'' to this statement, but the "context" is, for all intents and purposes, "now".
+And the suggestion that the interviewer goaded Parkin into saying something he didn't want to say is, frankly, ludicrous. The interviewer asks Parkin to give four books to put into a hypothetical "Lance Parkin Collection".  He says, [[Just War (novel)|Just War]], [[The Infinity Doctors]], [[Father Time (novel)|Father Time]] and [[The Eyeless]]. Completely unprompted by the interviewer, Parkin then says the reason for his choice is that "they're set past-present-Gallifrey-future; each one's a different Doctor".  Because [[Father Time (novel)|Father Time]] is an Eighth Doctor adventure, [[The Eyeless]] is a 10th Doctor, Just War a 7th Doctor, the interviewer ''naturally'' pricks his ears up and wonders if that means Parkin is confirming that ''TID'' doesn't feature the Eighth Doctor.  And then we get the quote at the top of this thread.  If anybody prompted ''anybody'', it was Parkin himself.  The interviewer merely asked a question that naturally arose out of a '''unforced''' statement that Parkin had made.  The quote from Parkin cannot be disqualified or dismissed on any grounds TD has set forth.  It's Parkin who led the interviewer; it's Parkin who said precisely what he wanted to say.  To believe otherwise is to twist the obvious, common-sense reading of the quote.  Taken in its entire context, Parkin is straight-up telling us it's not an Eighth Doctor novel, but somehow the Doctor looks like Paul McGann, which means that TID isn't "normal" DWU continuity.
+TD asks, "WTF does 'mainstream continuity' mean anyway?"  It's a perfectly straightforward phrase that I'm sure TD has encountered many times before and which he himself may have even used.  It means a continuity other than the one that is typically viewed as one applying to a body of fiction. There is no reason to believe that Parkin meant it in anything other than a denotative way.
+Moreover, I think TD has somewhat de-emphasised the quotes he himself introduced from ''AHistory''.  These are Parkin's words, too.  And they absolutely introduce doubt as to whether the book occurs in the DWU.  And if TD is going to be allowed to quote from ''AHistory'', then my quote from DWM can't be dismissed.  DWM is a valid resource under [[Tardis:Resources]].  The work of criticism there can't be adjudged as "inferior" to the work of criticism that is ''AHistory''.  The words of ''professional'' critics are instructive to the central question of whether the story's setting is ambiguous.
+Finally, TD is still erroneously hung up on this notion that my argument is "based purely on the fact [that] adventures are hard to quantify".  I am not saying "this is too hard; let's not do it".  That's never been my central argument.  Of the five points that started this thread, something ''vaguely'' like that was my '''fifth''' point.  The first four points are squarely about out-of-universe concerns.  As I have said over and over again in this thread, inclusion debates ''must'' hinge on out-of-universe rationales.  They must bring forward statements from the copyright holders or legitimate critics or ''someone'' external to the narrative.
+Thus I have demonstrated that Parkin has flatly stated that his Doctor in ''TID'' somehow looks like McGann but isn't the Eighth Doctor, which suggests we're not talking about the DWU as we know it, or as it will ever likely play out.  I've shown that other industry professionals see the book as a metaphorical construct, equally unable to place it in the DWU.  And I've raised the issue of the fact that it was known that there was supposed to be a second book which would have tied this book back into the "mainstream DWU".  Because this book wasn't written, ''TID'' is therefore completely outside the DWU.
+TD wishes to place the rule, "prove that it's ''not'' in the DWU", at the center of these proceedings.  That's a '''really odd''' way of thinking.  Generally, though admittedly not always, one tries to prove '''positive''' statements, like "this person ''is'' the murderer" or "this chemical reaction ''will'' produce this result", or "I think she'll say 'yes', so I'm going to ask that girl to marry me".  Except in dictatorships, dourt cases are always framed so that the positive assertion is guilt, that you ''are'' the murderer.  Thus, you only have to prove that you are "not guilty".  The scientific method generally holds that you frame hypotheses positively ("I believe that by combining this amount of hydrogen an this amount of chlorine, I'll get hydrogen chloride"), and then note why that hypothesis failed ("That hypothesis was wrong because my ratio of H:Cl was incorrect."). And you don't ask someone ''not'' to marry you, or ''not'' to marry everyone else.
+In the same way, I'm asking, "is this story set in the DWU?" and have created reasonable doubt, based on statements from the copyright holder, that it is. It's '''completely wrongheaded''' to ask, "Is this story ''not'' set in the DWU?" and then to have to prove a negative.  If we applied this logic to a court of law, we would have to prove people were actually "innocent" rather than "guilty".
+Yet even though I think I've adequately demonstrated reasonable doubt, I'm no longer even asking for us to put ''TID'' outside our fences.  I'm ''only'' asking that we alert readers to the fact that there ''is'' reasonable doubt.
+{{user:CzechOut/Sig}}&nbsp;<span style="{{User:CzechOut/TimeFormat}}">16:12: Sat&nbsp;19 May 2012&nbsp;</span></div>