I want to talk about mythology verses dogma.

And no, I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about fandom. (I know its hard to tell the difference sometimes.) The difference between a mythology and a dogma is that the mythology is alive. It's growing, changing, adapting, being re-interpreted, being taken up by new groups who find new meanings. A mythology is always in flux, and that's why it has so much power to shape lives and give meaning. 

A dogma on the other hand, is dead. Still. Fixed in stone. Unchanging. To even think about changing it is heresy. It cannot grow. It cannot adapt. It cannot be updated.

Mythologies are very hard to contain. They're about being alive and finding meaning. Growing.

Dogmas are meant to contain. They're meant to enshrine one way of being. One way of thinking. One interpretation. Dogmas are about protecting the status quo.

Franchises like Star Wars, Start Trek, Doctor Who are, at their best, living mythologies. They grow and change and adapt and are taken up by new fans and new generations who give them new meanings and interpretations.

When we moan and cry about "cannon" (and I've done it too) we're trying to reduce those mythologies to dogma. We're trying to protect some status quo that probably never existed in the first place.

We're trying to pin the butterfly to the board. We're killing the thing we say we love.