The Fanon reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Fanon

Fanon is a fact or ongoing situation in Fan fiction stories related to a television program, book or movie that has been used so much by fan writers that it has been more or less established as having happened in the fictional world, but it has not actually been established as having happened on the show, book or movie itself.

The word is a play on "fan canon".

For example, it is "canon" that Donna lied to Congress about her diary (The West Wing), but it has become "fanon" that she lied about her diary to protect Josh (because she had written in it about his PTSD, which-- if anyone knew about it-- could damage his career). Since we were never told WHY she lied about her diary, any reason the fan base comes up with is "fanon," even if it is a pretty darn good explanation.¹

¹ Reference: [1]

Other fanons include:

• Star Wars
  • Emperor Palpatine's first name, Cos
  • Han Solo was formerly a Lieutenant Imperial Navy officer who left the service after deciding to free Chewbacca from slavery. His status as a former Imperial Officer with the rank of Lieutenant was later made into real canon in the Expanded Universe.
• Doctor Who
  • The real reason that Davros survived the betrayal by the Daleks was that he prepared defenses in his life support chair after learning about the treacherous nature of his creations from The Doctor.
  • The reason that the Time Lords never showed disapproval of the Doctor failing to prevent the creation of the Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks was that that they were aware that the Doctor's intervention inadvertantly allowed Davros to survive when his creations turned on him. When he was revived, his presence created profound schisms in the Daleks which crippled their threat to the universe. Thus they considered Doctor's mission accomplished.
  • The Colin Baker era story, The Two Doctors, depicts the second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and Jamie on a mission for the Time Lords. The Doctor's origins and the Time Lords were not introduced until the final Troughton serial (The War Games) where he calls them for help. This resulted in his trial and exile to earth, while Jamie and Zoe are returned to their respective eras with no memory of the Doctor past their first adventure.
    Fans have theorized that the Doctor's exile didn't occur immediately: the Doctor and Jamie were on secret missions for a period prior to exile and this period was erased from both of their memories before the beginning of the Doctor's exile period and eventual regeneration. This is supported by the fact that contrary to most regeneration episodes, the change-over from Troughton to Pertwee occurred off-screen between the end of The War Games and the beginning of the next story, Spearhead from Space. It also provides an in-story explanation for the change in appearance of the second Doctor and Jamie due to the actors being twenty years older. Because season 6 was Troughton's final season, fans often call this theoretical period season 6(b).
  • In the Doctor Who universe, the reason why The Doctor stole his TARDIS was to flee Gallifrey which was consumed with the Prydonian Academy Rebellion which was instigated by The Master.
• The Prisoner
  • Number 6 is John Drake, the hero of Patrick McGoohan's previous series Danger Man aka Secret Agent.
• Star Trek
  • Lt. Pavel Chekov served on the USS Enterprise in the period depicted in the first season of Star Trek before being promoted to the Bridge crew in the second season and encountered Khan Noonien Singh during that time.
  • The reason why Mr. Spock was so emotional during his time with Captain Christopher Pike was that he was briefly dabbling with emotion in his youth.
  • The humanoid being which was shown in an ancient recording which explained that the abudance of humanoid species in the Star Trek universe was their doing in the episode, "The Chase" is one of The Preservers.
• Mario video games
  • Wario and Waluigi are brothers (or at least half-brothers)
  • Mario and Luigi's last name is also "Mario" (alleged to be explained by the title "Mario Brothers")
  • The Mario Brothers were born in the Mushroom Kingdom, but transported to our world and raised in New York (TV shows, movies, and games, are all contradictory on this matter)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Angel sired Spike (despite canon evidence proving that Drusilla sired him)

Fanon is sometimes used pejoratively by purists to refer to such explanations as faulty or illogical given the nature of a story, or 'common lore' copied amongst fans (especially webpage proliferation) that actually contradicts a simpler explanation that was even alluded to in canon.

This is the "Fanon" reference article from the English Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.