“Your Father He Is”: ‘Canon’ Reveals and Timeline Divergences

Right now, my Twitter timeline is full of outraged reactions to Avengers: Infinity War: without giving away spoilers here, a lot of these reactions are deeply personal hurts to a lot of people. 

I’ve seen innumerable posts to the effect of “If X happens in (Y franchise), I’m DONE. That’s it. Game over. I won’t accept it. They can’t do (X thing)... can they?”

And for once, my wife and I share their anxiety. Not because we’re outraged fans, though, and not because we feel like we have any right to anyone else’s creative direction; which some people might think is odd considering our daily lives. (We may be us, certainly. But we’re still not in charge of other people’s interpretations, for better or worse.) 

No, we share their anxiety because in some of our people’s lives, some major, life-breaking, irreversible events have occurred... but in their “canon” timelines, these things have not happened yet. And they may happen, may not happen... or may be shut down hard because of other apocalyptic occurrences. And when these things happen, “in-universe” events with the potential to upend everything we’ve come to know, we bear the brunt of the fallout on the lives we’ve made for ourselves in this reality.

Let’s use what is probably the most dramatic example of the concept, here: let’s say you’re someone whose “origin media” is unfinished in the public eye. You’ve spent a year, three years, or however long dealing with your memories, working on your issues. You’ve developed your relationships, both with your “own” people and with “outside” people: people who aren’t “fictionkin” or the such but have nevertheless become your friends. You have a life.

And then, the season premiere/next installment/last novel comes out. And in it? You die.

Maybe graphically, maybe uselessly, maybe as a plot device, perhaps “heroically”. But nevertheless, “you” are killed. 

Now... you know you’re not dead. Obviously you’re not dead: you’re still sitting there, a bit taken aback but still existing. And you’re not going to magically wink out of existence like an LED with its battery yanked; it’s not some mystic incantation that will immediately cause you to cease to exist. Just like that “Based On the Life Of” biopic I keep using as an example: if the directors decided that you dying dramatically would “tell a better story”, that doesn’t mean that it’s the way the events they’re describing actually happened. 

This is where timeline divergence happens.

The idea isn’t difficult: simply the understanding that whatever happened in your “original timeline” since you left it, since you came here to exist in this world, isn’t what you actually endured, what you actually remember. The many-worlds theory is a sound jumping-off place from which to consider this phenomenon: the idea that there are multiple timelines, where the consequences of multiple decisions have created alternate paths. And with every major event or decision, another life is diverged.

(Sometimes, there are exceptions to this; sometimes events that occur in the “original” timeline are sort of absorbed into people’s lives and memories, often through bi-location. See my previous post about that. But the divergence and the judging-reality-by-canon problem is still deeply relevant.

My wife likens this to buying a computer system: it is its own thing, it does what it’s supposed to do, it has information on its HD and it exists in real-time. And then there are periodic updates; some are mandatory, some are optional, and some just aren’t compatible with the hardware and modifications you’ve got. Sometimes you’ll wake up and the system will have updated without your knowledge, and the information will simply be there; sometimes the updates can’t be installed and stall your system until you figure out a fix; sometimes they’re purely cosmetic or useless — or would make your everyday functions impossible — as well as voluntary, so you deny the download; or your default settings do. 

This is a much better explanation, and I wish I’d thought of that first. But.)

It’s kind of like if you went through life with a doppelgänger shadowing your every move, until the day you decided that a dramatic change was in order — or, more accurately, a dramatic change was forced upon you — and you left to live a life somewhere else, while your doppelgänger continued living as you in your hometown, getting most of the recognition for “your” life. Most of the time you’re only a little bitter about it, but when people start judging your “reality” by how closely your life mimics his — even though you’re living in completely different places and circumstances now — and believing things about “you” based on their actions... then it becomes a problem. 

Then it really causes trouble.

Kind of like if he dies, and you don’t.

But let’s get back to our original thought, here. Now, according to “canon”, you no longer exist. You’re no longer a factor. People mourn you almost like they would mourn a friend, and depictions of your “death” abound everywhere. In this age of social media, you can’t avoid them without becoming a literal recluse. It’s painful at best, and seriously disturbing at worst. (Much like a lot of fandom occurrences when you’re like us. Haha.) So what happens then?

If you’re living in relative obscurity, not much. The “canon” change doesn’t affect your day-to-day life, or your interactions. Often it’s upsetting, but it can be worked through, moved past. But what happens when your people are high-profile? When millions of people are now discussing your life again, only this time with the new events as 100% gospel?

I’ve seen this very thing used so often to attack/dismiss/discredit “fictionkin” as “fake” or “role-playing” or any fucking other of many hurled insults: the difference between what someone remembers or experiences and what their “canon” selves do. I’ve even seen Internet comments claiming that to “shut these freaks down”, creators should “include an unknown detail about their characters, then demand these people describe it. Then when they can’t, you’ll know they’re fake”.

Uh, sweetie, that’s not quite how that works.

(Also, even your mother doesn’t know every detail about you, I bet. I’d take odds on that one, actually.)

Theoretical physics aside, no one can judge the validity of someone else’s memories, experiences, or existences. These people are obviously flummoxed by the idea of diverging timelines. But it isn’t the haters that are the worst part of this phenomenon.

It’s the fandom.

Because from that moment onward, what people have chosen to portray about your life will be considered 100% true. It will enter into discourse about your actions. It will become the focus of articles. People will dissect it to say “Ahh, this is because he did this.” 

And meanwhile, you’re sitting there feebly waving a hand and saying, “But.... I didn’t do that.”

In the middle of writing this post, I ran across a tweet that conveniently illustrated the point I’m trying to make perfectly:

Now, as the film has not been released as of this writing, imagine what will happen if this is actually true. An entire generation of moviegoers will see a film about the life of an amazing human being... while being misled about one of the biggest aspects of that life. They’ll come away with a warped picture of what he was really like, one that doesn’t accurately reflect the entirety of who he was... and in this era of “fake news”, it’s likely that even if some of them are later corrected on the facts, they still won’t believe it: because screen is gospel. Some viewers might not even realize he was a real person at all.

Sound familiar?

(And holy shit, I’m not comparing myself to Freddie. Just the biopic concept.)

Unfortunately, the further your existence diverges from “canon”, the less likely people are to believe you exist. Meanwhile, as you’re being increasingly isolated, and profoundly disturbed, living your life in the view of anyone else becomes impossible. Because from that point on, your difference is seen as a choice, as proof that you’re “not real”, as proof that you’re faking/wish-fulfilling/whatever. 

Never mind that sometimes the things you remember are more serious, that sometimes people with happy endings on-screen don’t get them in reality, or any number of other things: it doesn’t matter to them, screen is gospel. And in some cases, you’ll be judged for how your life actually turned out based on these new stories. 

You committed some heinous act in your previous life, but came here and through years of emotional work, a thousand conversations, physical suffering, and struggle you’ve tried to at least make amends? Nope, you’re irredeemable. A million people say so. Spent time with someone else from your “origin universe”, and a relationship developed, organically and to both of your utter surprise, but it happened? Nope, you’re paired with this person, it’s canon, and if you protest and say “But...” it’s completely disregarded.

(Or even worse, you’ve put in the emotional work and evolved and grown and fought every step of the way to “be a better person” and you’ve been in a relationship with someone for a year? Nope, surprise! Plot twist: you’re siblings/cousins/aunt and uncle. And now, even if you’re on a completely different path — a timeline, say, where this isn’t necessarily true — you’re forced into feeling like your relationship is dirty, wrong, unnatural, and like it’s always been that way and you should have known. Never mind that you’re not static characters, you’re real, dynamic people: and that love is not an emotion you can simply “turn off”: if you talk about it at all, if you choose to just ignore the pop culture representation completely, well... I’m sure you can imagine the blowback, in this age of social media.) 

I think there was even a House, M.D. episode with a similar theme, except of course for the metaphysics. Let me see... 

Yep: “Fools For Love”. “The wife figures out that the reason people say that she and her husband have the same eyes and she is lighter than both of her parents is that they have the same father. Foreman reveals both Jeremy and Tracy are agnate half-brother and half-sister; Jeremy's abusive father had an affair with Tracy's mother. The wife becomes angry, the husband resigned. Foreman tries to tell them they still feel for each other, ("There's no way you could've known, you didn't fight during car rides together or change each other's diapers, you just met and fell in love and the bond you two share isn't going change anything") but the wife can't be consoled and eventually gets her own room.” (House M.D. wiki)

And Foreman’s reaction is pretty close to what it’s like: we haven’t had the “sibling reveal”, but other timeline divergences of similar import have happened. And we do live with a degree of fear, every day, of events like this taking place. Because there’s nothing like being told you can’t possibly be who you are because someone in a little room somewhere decided that it would make a better story if you didn’t exist.

Too many people already think that.

So we wait in anxious suspense like the rest of the fandoms: only most people will never understand why that is. All I can say to that is: a bi-erased Freddie Mercury pic would be an abomination. 

I know the feeling.