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)

Yeah, no, I'm just going to point to our lack of concern with narrative continuity. Moreover, since this story came before the episode this seems to be a wildly circular argument. Najawin ☎ 21:15, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Might I even be so cheeky, now that I'm thinking of it, to compare this to invalidity by proxy? Najawin ☎ 21:21, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

No. The Church on Ruby Road did not attempt to bring this into continuity; this story may have been released before the episode, but the episode was in production far, far earlier than this random short story. And as RTD indicated on Instagram, it appears this story was created without his consultation as it uses an entirely different pun to name the titular Goblin, so there is no attempt by TCoRR to "DWU-ify" this short story.

And, frankly, I cannot help but be reminded of Peter Capaldi and Simon the Shy Cyberman Invite You to Breakfast with 7 Doctors being made invalid in Forum:Temporary forums/Inclusion debates speedround; @Scrooge MacDuck ruled that there is a distinction between "this is set in the DWU" and "this is just the actor in costume". It may not be "Tom Baker in costume as the Fourth Doctor acknowledging Doctor Who", but the principle is the exact same — it's a social media person in-character as a Goblin acknowledging the music video she's in.

There is clearly zero intent for this to portray legitimate events in the DWU, it is merely an in-character social media post that, under current policy, should not be valid.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

23:12, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Don't have time to respond fully, but (without wanting this to be construed as an active ruling toward Goblin validity in any way) I do want to note that the above seems to be misunderstanding my ruling. "Tom Baker in costume as the Fourth Doctor" was the old CzechOuttian paradigm and I ruled it to be largely useless and occasionally nonsensical. Rather the point of that ruling was "there are many many fourth-wall stories stories which are unquestionably in-universe but whose universe is a Roger Rabbitesque meta-world where fictional characters exist as 'entertainers' who play their own parts in some magic-realist way, and those typically do not pass Rule 4". Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:19, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I also note that I'm not seriously saying this is precisely invalidity by proxy as discussed in the all consuming thread. (To those in the future reading this, that refers to when stories refer to both invalid and valid stories through continuity we make a seemingly arbitrary choice, goes the argument, as to whether we interpret references to invalid stories are meant to show that those earlier invalid stories really ought to be valid, or whether the author is signaling instead that this story should be seen as invalid.) I'm saying this has similar DNA, in that you're trying to discern authorial intent from continuity (or lack thereof) with another story. And RtD's failure to write this only underscores that this should be considered independently from TCoRR. Again, I reiterate. At bare minimum this is a discussion to be held in a forum thread, not in a talk page. It's malpractice to have it here. Najawin ☎ 01:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey, wanted to pop in and mention that the link in the OP to "The Goblin Song (song)" is pointed at a now redirect marked for deletion and should probably be edited to point at The Goblin Song (soundtrack) so it doesn't break for future wiki archaeologists. I'd have done that myself but I don't want to accidentally commit vandalism by editing Epsilon's post - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 15:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)