Changing Canon
In alternative universe stories, characters' known motivations may vary considerably from their decisions in the canonical universe. The author of an alternative universe story thus can use the same characters, but send them down different paths for a different plot.
On occasions, a fan fiction writer will create a character that is supposed to be there from the beginning and does not exist in the actual story that inspired it. Gertrude 'Danger' Granger in Anne Walsh's Harry Potter AU series, the "Dangerverse," is an example of this. It is also not uncommon for fan fiction to deliberately explore what could have happened in the original fictional universe had certain events played out differently. Changing canon can also mean taking a canon couple that was hinted at, but didn't actually happen, and expanding on it.
Read more about this topic: Alternative Universe (fan Fiction)
Famous quotes containing the words changing and/or canon:
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)
“The greatest block today in the way of woman’s emancipation is the church, the canon law, the Bible and the priesthood.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)