Talk:A Message from Janis Goblin (short story)

Validity

As much as I dislike to say it, I'm not convinced that this story should be valid. It, to me, doesn't seem to pass T:VS's rule four, as it is just an in-character social media post celebrating the success of "The Goblin Song" in the real world. It's certainly fictional, but I don't get the impression it's truly meant to be set in the DWU in the same way From the universe with love! is.

I don't think this needs a forum thread, as it has only just been created and, if I had published the article myself like I planned to do, I would've made it invalid upon creation, but I was beaten to the punch.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

23:50, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

100% agree. This really should not be valid. NoNotTheMemes ☎ 21:39, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Though on a personal level, I would inclined to agree - I can't let my personal feelings get ahead of a proper assessment of the piece. We certainly have marked invalid items such as The Naked Truth despite its in-character fictional narrative, as it was used to lay down the details for a charity auction for Children in Need. However, whilst A Message from Janis Goblin does lightly acknowledge Children in Need, it does not distinctly and explicitly 'break a fourth wall'. (And indeed, even then, there does exist examples that complicate our relationship with this rule like Before the Flood and The Daleks' Master Plan.)

Additionally, I would note that one might - on a personal level, as an editor, might have been of the belief that Destination: Skaro is intended to be a Rule 4 breaker for its line about rupturing canon and its apparent discontinuity with previous depictions with the early history of the Daleks & the life of Davros... yet we have seen Russell explicitly denote that as something that counts. As such, I think it is tricky for us to discount another Children in Need-related item so readily.

And to quote from T:VS, "Rule 4 is rarely invoked because there are very few works of fiction which are deliberately set outside the normal DWU continuity." I would think that it is currently hard to say without further evidence of authorial intent that the story is - based on its contents - deliberately set outwith normal DWU continuity. Indeed, I would think that this is something that would need to be handled by a statement from someone on the BBC Studios social team for Doctor Who that could be cited as "extraordinary non-narrative evidence"?

JDPManjoume ☎ 22:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah, but no, there is a clear theory of how fourth-wall-breaks relate to Rule 4, which was worked out at Forum:Temporary forums/Inclusion debates speedround#Part 4: Fourth wall stuff. (Which specifically distinguishes between mere non-diegetic-but-non-metafictional monologues-to-camera and other forms of fourth-wall-breaking.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:06, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Personally I see no reason this should be invalid, but I also think The Naked Truth should have been valid by the very standards in that thread and that Memes' argument was fundamentally mistaken. So it could go either way based on precedent, since the thread clearly disagreed with me. (And I think it's actually relatively similar to that case in some respects.) Najawin ☎ 22:46, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

The story's whole purpose is to celebrate the success of The Goblin Song in the real world. It being a hit charity single makes no sense in-universe, because it is not meant to; it is clearly meant to be an in-character social media post, nothing more. If you remove Janis from this story, it would just be the Official Doctor Who Twitter account Tweeting about the song. I really doubt there is any attempt to convey an actual "proper" story here.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

01:29, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

You don't know that. You know absolutely nothing about the IU version of this song and whether or not it's a hit charity single, except for what this short story tells us. I could easily point to this short story as reason to say it's absurd to think it's not true. Najawin ☎ 02:28, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I almost certainly do know that; the song is from The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"] and from the scene officially released by the BBC... there is absolutely no wiggle room for the Goblin Band to have inexplicably got a song recorded, released, and become part of a fundraiser for Children in Need.

AMfJG is very clearly part of the marketing for TCoRR, and not a legitimate attempt to tell an actual story. The story is an in-character social media post, that is surely self-apparent.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

03:46, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

No, you're assuming that the in-universe "Goblin Song" is that scene release, rather than the song sung by the character of Janis and somehow released to the wider populace. (eg, perhaps it's a traditional Goblin ballad, or perhaps they recorded it during that one performance and then decided to submit it to the pop charts) This is speculation, we don't know that! And, indeed, appealing to contradictions with what might occur in TCoRR is clearly a nonstarter, no? The DWU doesn't care about narrative continuity (Fie, I maintain this, regardless of what you all say!) - we don't need these things to be consistent. You can't just infer R4 intent here because it seems to contradict your specific interpretation of how an episode that hasn't even aired yet portrays these events. At bare minimum we need a real forum thread here, not a talk page discussion. Najawin ☎ 04:01, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Kachow, The Church on Ruby Road has been broadcast. Yeah, I absolutely do not thikk that this short story makes any attempt to be anything other than an in-character social media post, which not only is very self evident, it also brazenly contradicts the story it promotes. Yes, contradictions aren't necessarily indicators of rule four breakages, but this really does just make no attempt to remotely fit in with that narrative, to The point where it is evident that it truly isn't meant to be taken this seriously.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

19:44, 25 December 2023 (UTC)