And what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can’t fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?
Make a new franchise and story.
Fucking This.
Reportedly, when George Lucas coudn't get the rights to Flash Gordon, he made a little fantasy sci fi movie called Star Wars. You may have heard about it.
It was a risk. A huge gamble. A challenge to create something new, inspired by other sources, sure, but not a sequel or a reboot or a reimagining with Flash Gordon slapped on the box.
I don't even mind a reimagining or a reboot or a sequel. Some of them turn out rather well. But we've got the modern, corporate machine cranking them out according to a formula gleaned from algorythms and focus groups. A crutch for less creative people to make cookie cutter films that are quickly consumed and forgotten.
Should Superman still be an aggressive guy beating up reporters because of wrongthink? Because the truth, justice, and the American Way boyscout is a retcon.
As far as I can tell, people are fine with retcons as long as they're done well. It's only when they're not done well that people start complaining about purity and canon.
Krynn is a weird example, because it sounds like the canon has become a huge mess. On top of that, it's a setting that's specifically a reaction to other settings. It doesn't seem as moored in canon in the first place.
It’s also a case of “canon, like history, begins the moment you start following it.”
For example, I didn’t start reading Superman comics in earnest until the early 90’s so, from my perspective, Lois Lane had always known Clark Kent was Superman and was his fiancée/wife. Sure, I reasoned there was a point early on when she didn’t know and that’s the point the movies were referencing... but the Lois & Clark tv show did the reveal at the end of season two so that just reinforced my assumption of the “Love Triangle for Two” being mostly “early installment weirdness” that people doing new versions jusr played with for a bit before moving on.
Of course I later learned about all the previous things; how the love triangle for two had been THE story for decades...
But I also that Jimmy Olsen and Kryptonite were only added because of the radio drama (wherein Superman arrived on Earth full grown) and that Clark and Lois originally worked at the Daily Star of Cleveland under editor George Taylor and, far from being the world’s greatest reporter, Lois Lane was a 19 year old girl stuck writing a love advice column for the paper and kept getting into trouble because she took risks trying prove she could get and write real stories and that Clark (who was in his very early 20’s) was his real identity, he had only normal human abilities turned up to 11+ by Earth’s low gravity and he was a vigilante hunted by the police...
... and that Superman’s original writers had originally planned for Lois to learn Clark’s secret and become his full partner as an ongoing part of the story all the way back in 1941 (so barely three years/36 issues after Action Comics #1) only to have it nixed by executive meddling.
So tell me again, what’s the canon for Superman?
I tend to doubt it’s the vigilante crusader whose powers were just human ability turned up several notches, who stands up for the little guy against corrupt government and corporate figures, is teamed up with Lois Lane who knows his secret (and no red-headed kid sidekick to be found), works for George Taylor at the Daily Star in Depression-era Cleveland and whose greatest enemy is The Ultra-Humanite (who was actually the main character of S&S’s original Super-man story).
Rather, I’m going to guess that for each person its whatever version you first encountered that you really paid attention to.
I’ll admit though... the original recipe with no executive meddling actually sounds Kickass and if adapted as a period piece would probably be an amazing film.
And by the same token; someone give me the definitive canon for King Arthur and Robin Hood. Remember, by the standards some hold it must include every story organized in such a way that there are no contradictions.
And that’s the situation for all the various fantasy gaming worlds that have now been around for 30-40 years too. I’d wager just a tiny fraction of Realms fans have even looked at the original Grey Box and the vast majority didn’t even start into it until the Time of Troubles novels or the first Drzzt novel and most gamers under the age of 35 are only familiar with its 3e and later incarnations.
“Canon” has its uses (mostly for continuity within a single author’s story) but it’s not the end all and be all. It makes even less sense for RPGs where each DM is making the world their own and each FR campaign is probably mutually exclusive of every other FR campaign in terms of continuity.