This is the third time I’ve tried writing this response. I’ll keep my response limited, lest the gods thwart me again.
: Very interesting. Thanks for going through with this.
You're very welcome, Sili.
: In the following post, "canon" is being used
: according to the subjective definition, under my
: criterion for "approved," which is
: essentially "that which sheds light on the world
: of Myth which resides in Bungie employees'
: heads." If you prefer a different meaning of the
: word, substitute the aforementioned much longer and
: weightier phrase for it. :-)
I already have. Some even agree with me.
: Andrew Meggs is certainly not to be gainsaid on the
: nature of the design docs. On the other hand, I'm not
: certain that he's fully qualified to state how much
: attention Bungie paid to the story.
But he did. I think it was Scott, Meggs, and a couple others who met with Bungie, months ago, and talked to them. It’s easily conceivable they talked about the story at one point, but we cannot be sure.
: Should Bungie have had a more coherent and complex
: backstory than he believes, it must clearly have been
: more in their heads than written down in the design
: docs.
The design documents are empty of what we want. Equally is any other piece of material. There is nothing that exists which has any information beyond what we already know. It’s impossible to remember all the little miniscule details of the full “true story” that we think exists. If such a story did exist, it couldn’t exist soley in the minds of the creators (and then, each creator would have a different story). It would requiredly be scribed. Therefore, since nothing was written beyond what we have already been presented, such a story cannot exist. (more on this in a different post, including our future)
: In that case, the only way anyone other than Bungie could
: write "canon" material is if they extracted
: some of that additional information from Bungie
: employee's heads
being either non-existent or extremely fragmented
: by asking them questions.
of which I believe most likely happened during that meeting with Bungie.
: Gene
: Seabolt did this,
Not he didn’t; he sent his book to be reviewed by Bungie. Bungie only reviewed to see if its proper titles were mentioned. It sent the book back, its story untouched (or merely grazed). Why else would they let so much slip? Otherwise, it can be directly seen that Bungie didn’t care about Myth or its story, so there is no other information.
: but obviously there were quite a few
: communications glitches.
to say the least.
: So, for me, in this scenario, TFL and Myth
: II and Tales would be high-level canon; GURPS and
: pre-release info would be low-level; and there could
: never be any other canon materials unless someone goes
: back to the original creators of the story and
: interviews them.
Giving “levels” to the definition of canon is absurd. Nothing is more canon than something else. It either is or it isn’t; yes or no. It’s equally ludicrous as saying one article of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution is more valid than another. They are each and all solid laws that are valid equally, despite the origins of their creation.
: On the other hand, should Meggs be entirely correct--in
: that even in the minds of Bungie themselves, there
: isn't really a coherent Bungie backstory--then that
: pretty much removes my purpose for being at the
: Asylum.
Actually, it doesn’t. I’ll post separately about this.
: (Other than hanging out with people and
: ranting about dead languages and quantum mechanics, of
: course.) Nothing, in that case, could really be canon
: in my eyes, since even the games don't represent a
: world which actually exists out there in someone's
: head.
Of course they do. They represent nothing more than what they are. However, they were meant to conjur images in our head, a complete story that we all write ourselves. The Asylum is still valid in existing because we have to figure out what the best interpretation is. That’s where the fun comes in.
: Canon doesn't really have a meaning that in any
: way connects with the innate quality or consistency or
: accuracy of the material.
Then you mean your opinion is flawed?
: In other words, if there's no right or wrong, then story
: theorizing is a subset of fan fiction--or, as Meggs
: says, creative writing in general--and I've got
: Seventh God for that. :-)
I’m looking forward to it, btw.
: That doesn't mean, of course, that theorizing about the
: world of Myth III wouldn't be rewarding even if
: theorizing about TFL and Myth II was not. But that
: would require--for me--that MJ *did* have a large
: amount of consistent backstory that didn't make it
: into the game, so that extensive analysis of its story
: did *not* become creative writing.
I think that MJ will do this, actually. It certainly sounds like it to me. They should be around after they release M3, and I would count on getting some steering onto the right course from them in our efforts.
: And I don't get the
: impression that that's planned. MJ seems fairly
: comfortable creating Myth III as they believe Bungie
: created earlier Myths...an interesting, complex story
: within the game, and tempting hints and further
: knowledge, but little additional info left out.
I think, since you can’t get everything into a game as story-filled as m3 sounds it’ll be like, and because my impression of Scott is high and that he is willing to tantalize us for real (unlike Bungie, the tease), we can expect a lot to be unsaid that’ll be saved for Myth IV, made by Mumbo-Jumbo Games.
: --Silicon"50% chance that my life has been a
: lie"Dream
I think to free ourselves from Bungie is good anyway, as they don't exist anymore and MJ does exist and seems willing to help us. A lie? Perhaps. For naught? Never.
