Where did the "All Doom wads are canon" Idea come from?

[oCrapaCreeper]

I don't think I saw it until the Slayer Testaments from 2016 suggested the Doom Marine crosses through worlds and time. It was still left vague enough people could use their imagination and I guess that's just one of the ideas that floated around.

 

We now know from Eternal that hell is the first world and thus is connected to all of existence, implying Doomguy could have rampaged around space and time for an unknown period after Doom 64. Are they going to bother explaining the "canon" events of what happened after? Of course not, they skip right to when he got warped to Sentinel Prime and was already crazy. We already know what he was doing, same thing he has always done.

 

In my head if they are going with the route that Doomguy has fought demons for literal eons and is literally too angry to be killed, it's whatever canon you want really. It's all ultimately about one man fighting impossible odds over and over again and not thinking too much about why, because it's fun.

Edited April 7, 2022 by oCrapaCreeper

[Kute]

On 4/2/2022 at 6:37 PM, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Everybody is obsessed with what's "canon" these days, and I fucking hate it. id could make a new mobile game about monkeys collecting playing cards in outer space and you'd still see 800 posts on reddit about how "Super Space Monkey Card Collector is canon to DOOM".

 

Personally, I think this mindset really took off when Marvel films started to get popular. I also get sick of hearing the word "multiverse".

This isn't going to be a popular take but I think you guys are looking at "canon" with the wrong implication, that of angry obsessors(is this a word?) bickering about inconsequential things - when in my opinion, it's more about treating a story and its characters with respect and giving structure to the mythos, which IS important. It's not important in the sense of me caring one iota about say, Batman, once I turn the movie off - but it helps you enjoy the medium by giving weight to the background.

 

It's hard to take something serious enough to enjoy, if it doesn't take itself serious enough to keep its facts semi-straight. 

And that multi-verse stuff IS annoying when it's used as a wandwaving mcguffin, and it generally seems to be used as a way to sell more iterations of popular properties, it did allow them to tell some stories I'm glad exist - Old Man Logan, The Dark Knight stuff, these are stories those companies wouldn't let their cashcows near in a million years if they couldn't just use different-but-same characters from other realities.

 

edit: videogames I care less about the story - the gameplay is the deciding factor in my opinion of the quality. I'd prefer the protagonist to be like me - an able bodied Caucasian adult male with brown hair, but that's not a rule, just a preference, and I don't want to be lectured to on politics - but outside of that, it's unlikely I'll even watch the cutscenes

Edited April 6, 2022 by Kute

[xdarkmasterx]

Doom 2016 had something to do with doomguy travelling between worlds which I took for a little reference to user levels, would fit in well with all new doom's reflection of the community (ex: Doomguy going from a normal man just trying to survive to a god who only cares about killing things, which probably mirrors a lot of player's progression in skill and how they see the game :p)

Edited April 6, 2022 by xdarkmasterx

[GraphicBleeder]

I think it comes from the ending of Doom 64/lore stuff in Doom Eternal. Y'know with the whole "Doomguy has been trapped in hell eternally fighting demons" thing. I don't believe it myself but it's a cool idea.

[Gez]

17 hours ago, Kute said:

This isn't going to be a popular take but I think you guys are looking at "canon" with the wrong implication, that of angry obsessors(is this a word?) bickering about inconsequential things - when in my opinion, it's more about treating a story and its characters with respect and giving structure to the mythos, which IS important. It's not important in the sense of me caring one iota about say, Batman, once I turn the movie off - but it helps you enjoy the medium by giving weight to the background.

That's "lore".

 

Canon is about what lore is considered officially true and what lore is considered officially non-existent.

 

The amusing thing about it is that "canon" is originally a religious term. There's the accepted canon and the rest is apocryphal at best, heretic at worst.

[joepallai]

I think it goes all the way back to the original idea in rpg's where the game becomes the story; whatever actually happens in the game is the story, it was just transferred to playing other people's levels in this case.