#but it becomes annoying when they argue their hc is The Canon (tm)

[randomnameless]

"even if IS just said she was the villain and needed to be stopped, clear as day, people would reject it." Let's be real: the moment people started using "death of the author" to reject the Nintendo dream interview where IS confirms Supreme Leader is the villain, that's when we should've realized that people have already made up their minds and don't care anymore. It's like telling a flat-earther that the earth is not flat or trying to debunk a conspiracy theory to believers of that theory.

Tbh, I agree sometimes with disregarding the author's intent, especially in some games where the "author" wants to push "feels" and tells the olayer how they should react.

Take Berkut for instance, for a reason I still don't understand, SoV wants to paint him as a tragic figure, who ultimately redeems himself dying. You're supposed to feel bad for Berkut and sad for what happened, to the point where Alm, the Hero - who was challenged on earlier opinions - plainly states Duma is the reason why Berkut turned sour, and no one is here to tell him "uh no sorry to tell you but your cousin was a bona fide asshole".

Ditto for the devs's lunar interview about Clout's story being a "heart-warming story", like no, sorry, no matter how much you push for it, I personally don't think his story is heart warming, rather it's blood boiling.

Does it mean I use the "death of the author" like the people we're talking about?

Yeah, maybe!

But what is more gratting about those people isn't how they use DoA to make up their own canon and story (everyone can make headcanons!), but how they push their headcanon on everyone's lawns and asking for everyone else to treat it as the truth - the Aeneid is the perfect example, people really rec this fanfiction to have a "better understanding" of canon characters, or some people said it understands the characters better than the canon does. For a fanfic, sure, it's cool and all*, but to treat this as canon?

Like, there is no discussion possible between people who argue canon and others who argue using headcanons and imo that's the crux of the discourse bcs FE Fodlan is vague about 70% of its worldbuilding.

I don't like Berkut and believe he toasted Rinea because he loved being Rudolf's heir more than he loved her, but FE15 makes it uwu clear that Berkut apparently loved Rinea a lot and apparently torched her just because Duma promised him power, which makes somehow Duma the reason why Rinea was Bernie'd.

But you won't see me pop up in a discussion about FE15 or people talking about their favourite ships in that game to point out how Berkut burnt his fiancée at stake for "power" on his own volition - canon is canon - even when it blows - I'd rather rant about it and have my own HC in this space rather than piss canon-lovers/users with it.

Saying in your hcs Supreme Leader isn't the villain of the game?

Sure, do whatever you want, have a nice day, eat a sandwich, whatever. Maybe some people will join you, share your sandwich and you'll have fun developping hcs!

Saying in canon Supreme Leader isn't the villain and disregarding the dev's interviews?

That's going to be more problematic, in a way that this specific interview isn't subjective or open to interpretation (thus hcs, like Sylvia being FE4!Claude's relative or not), so people are going to disagree and be more vocal about it.

Some other blogs already explained it, but it seems like FE Fodlan attracted a lot of persons who aren't used to fandom, as in a place with transformative works and where making OCs and fics and having headcanons isn't "BaD" - so they try to retrofit canon in their headcanons because "fanfics" and transformative works are BaD etc etc (insert the general dislike for fanfictions from the early 2000s (?) and the regular/usual insults towards people who write fanfiction from the same era (them being fujos, etc etc)) so they're not writing fanfictions or arguing headcanons, no, they're just writing "totally meta pieces that are better than the canon".

Imo, the second you're disregarding canon to write something about a work, you're writing a fanfic (let it be a "real fic", random hcs, etc etc etc) and that's totally fine! You're not a "fujo degenerate" for not liking the canon and "rewritting" scenes, or building more stories about a character your like!

What's not "fine" is forcing everyone to adopt your headcanons and fanfictions - if the flower is red, you cannot force people to admit the flower is blue, otoh, if you write a story where the flower isn't red but blue, it's your story and you can whatever you want with it! Ditto with fanfic writers when someone argues canon against them, dude, you're reading a story where the author wrote the flower to be blue, like they gaf about the flower's canonical colour to be red - it's a fanfic!

Don't like, Don't read!

*not withstanding with the actual quality and body of the Aeneid, which isn't something I'd personally call cool or "alright", but that's another debate.