Fun With Canonicity
Jan. 21st, 2018 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcSo there was the reveal at the end of "Twice Upon a Time" that (SPOILERS!) The Captain's name is Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart. And the fandom understood (er, those of us that could count, at least) that this was intended to be the Brig's grandfather, and one of his two boys that the Doctor was going to check in on was the Brig's father, and that was cool.
But not so fast, say the owners of the Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart intellectual property, because our Lethbridge-Stewart novels from Candy Jar books say his grandfather was also named Alistair. But maybe Archie could be Alistair Conal Hamish's brother, and the Brig's great-uncle? It means "look in on my family" becomes extended family, but it still works, sort of.
So that gets pretty much accepted by fandom, or at least the part of it that cares enough about this sort of thing to update TARDIS Wiki.
And then Candy Jar publish an online short story ("What's Past is Prologue") that kind of suggests Archie is in fact the biological father of Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart after all, which is all kinds of weird, because it doesn't really address the issue, since that's still not really the family the Doctor said he'd look in on. The Lethbridge-Stewart team issue a statement that fans may or may not accept this interpretation as they see fit.
And then almost immediately, publish another online story ("The Note"), which not only spells it out, but also says Archie only had one son by his marriage at this time, and when he was talking about his two boys, one of them was Gordon. Which still doesn't work any better than leaving it as "the Doctor interpreted it as extended family", because how would the Doctor have known that?
And this has all happened in less than a month.
But not so fast, say the owners of the Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart intellectual property, because our Lethbridge-Stewart novels from Candy Jar books say his grandfather was also named Alistair. But maybe Archie could be Alistair Conal Hamish's brother, and the Brig's great-uncle? It means "look in on my family" becomes extended family, but it still works, sort of.
So that gets pretty much accepted by fandom, or at least the part of it that cares enough about this sort of thing to update TARDIS Wiki.
And then Candy Jar publish an online short story ("What's Past is Prologue") that kind of suggests Archie is in fact the biological father of Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart after all, which is all kinds of weird, because it doesn't really address the issue, since that's still not really the family the Doctor said he'd look in on. The Lethbridge-Stewart team issue a statement that fans may or may not accept this interpretation as they see fit.
And then almost immediately, publish another online story ("The Note"), which not only spells it out, but also says Archie only had one son by his marriage at this time, and when he was talking about his two boys, one of them was Gordon. Which still doesn't work any better than leaving it as "the Doctor interpreted it as extended family", because how would the Doctor have known that?
And this has all happened in less than a month.
