I'm not sure if you can call Brothers Grimm version "canonical" as from my understanding all they did was document in writing single versions of already well known folk tales that were carried through generations by oral memory. Many of which had many different versions depending on who told the story. So I'm not sure you can use the word "canonical" in this case.

Its possible it still fits the word. The bible is canonical too even though it's basically a pieces of disparate texts.

Basically if it's the first and earliest record and the one that everyone looks to as the most accurate source it's canonical.

The whole idea of caring about "canon" is fundamentally bollocks anyway when it comes to stories

Reference?

History? In the days before books were common stories were not told from written pages but memory. This allowed stories to change and adapt on the storytellers whims (or forgetfulness). Eventually they were ossified in books, of which many people think they are the 'canon'.

Perhaps "canon" means something other than "you can't change a story."

I made it up. It's an opinion

The latest commit where the master branch finds itself in isn't any more "true" or genuine than the first commit in history, nor the commits on a fork, nor the commit on branch-1, nor the commit on branch-2

If it's all fiction anyway there is no truth out there for the map to be compared against. All permutations are real, all maps are the territory

I do find it amusing, however, that depending on context people consider the first commit in history to be canon, while on other cases they prefer the newest commit approved by the Authority™

The word has meaning imo. It's used to seperate the fan fiction and maintain consistency during world building. It's quite important for the popular stories of our time, Star wars and the Marvel cinematic universe.

I know some people hate those franchises but like it or not, they are some of the biggest mythologies that came out in our time.

>seperate the fan fiction and maintain consistency during world building

Until even the original author retcons the heck out of their world and goes against established, explicit, well explained lore

Star Wars and the MCU are awful examples to use for the idea that canon can be used for consistency and authoritativeness

That's relevant to the Bible, or Shakespeare, or the MCU, because those works' authors have authority in a way the Brothers Grimm do not have authority over folklore.

Bible does not have authority. It simply has a large following. No one has authority over the content in the bible.

For the MCU, yes, by law Disney has authority over the MCU.

There are multiple competing authorities, but they are absolutely authorities, and their versions of individual texts are extremely close to each other.

Most notably, for the actual list of books there's the Catholic Church for the Catholic canon; the Masoretes for Judaism; Synods for the Greek Orthodox canon; and a broad consensus in the Protestant community.

For the texts themselves, the Septuagint and the Masoretic text are the only game in town for the Hebrew Bible, while the Greek texts of the New Testament were very firmly set in stone by the Imperial Roman Church (as central of an authority as it gets).

Note that some of these authorities (the Masoretes, the Imperial Roman Church) do not exist anymore. THat just means that canon is unchangeable, it still exists.

By authority i refer to lawful authority. Able to execute lawful enforcement and prevent editing and copying.

No one holds authority over the original texts. There is authority over translations though. But the original is open source with no license.

That is not the authority that I meant when I used the concept to explain how the Bible's canon is based on the existence of authoritative texts endorsed by authoritative sources.

You can make an edited version of the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures with whatever changes you want. But no one will agree to call it The Bible, because it does not match the text endorsed by the original authorities.

Same as how there still exists a Sherlock Holmes canon based on Doyle's work, even though you can legally write whatever you want even in contradiction to that canon.

Sounds like polymorph from DND to me.

> The transformation lasts for the duration, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies.

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Polymorph#content

[Edit] trimmed quote

But as he fell, he was changed from a frog into a handsome prince, who then had to make death saving throws for a few rounds but luckily the princess had Lay On Hands, and so they lived happily ever after.

Followed by: But, as he fell, he was changed from a frog into a handsome Prince with beautiful eyes, and after a little while he became, with her father’s consent, her dear companion and playmate. [1]

[1] https://www.pookpress.co.uk/the-frog-prince-story-a-tale-by-...

Which is much more gruesome and makes a lot more sense. I expect more hesitancy in potentially killing the prince than kissing a frog.

From now on, I will switch to this version for my child's story before sleep

Grimmsc version is a bit weird then, because there is a plausibly-sounding "freundian" interpretation of the most common folklore version, in which a frog turning into a prince after being kissed is a thinly veiled metaphor for fellatio.

That said, in the most common Russian folk version it's *Princess* Frog (Царевна Лягушка), and the metaphor is not working that well once again.

How is it even remotely plausible ?

I was expecting this threads to turn into a fire dumpster, and instead it turned into exactly the kind of debate I read HN for.