Canon vs Fanon
Feb. 19th, 2026 10:09 amFrom Fanlore:
I would love to know your favorite piece of Fanon. Or many pieces of Fanon. There's no need to pick just one!
Fanon is any element that is widely accepted among fans, but has little or no basis in canon.
Sometimes it's a small event in canon that gets exaggerated; sometimes it's something in a fanfic story that gets picked up on and repeated by other writers until it's so common that newbies might think it's a canonical fact.
A variation of fanon is "personal canon" or "headcanon," which is a set of "fanon"-like facts that are accepted as canon by an individual fan or a smaller group of fans, sometimes in the making of a shared universe.
I would love to know your favorite piece of Fanon. Or many pieces of Fanon. There's no need to pick just one!