November 17, 2016 10:00 AM EST
The way I see it, Kirkbridian lore is basically the "Legends" of TESLore. For those familiar with Star Wars will know what I mean.
Or if you want another alegory, the "MLP Comic Canon" of TESlore.
No, it's not really "canon" per se as none of his more "advanced" stuff is actually in the game in any form (IE Landfall, C0DA, Histships, time traveling robots, etc).
One thing I notice from these anti-canon people is the inability to seperate "canon" from "truth"/"fact". They are not synonomus. TES Canon, by the creators own admission, is very much opinion based. This is in contrast to Fallout lore which is very much fact-based.
Canon is simply what appears in-game as ingame events, or is written in books or spoken is dialogue (but even then, only in the sense that these books and dialogue exist. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not a statement of fact. In game main quest events aside, of course.
Example: The Lusty Argonian Maid is canon, because there is a book in the games called "The Lusty Argonian Maid". Whether or not there actually was an Argonian Maid that did lewd things with her lord polished spears and baked bread is where canon ends and opinion begins.
The Towers. This is arguably canon. There is a book that explicitly mentions towers (Book of the Dragonborn). The existance of this book is canon. The words written in them are canon. The fact that there is at least one author that refers to them as "towers" is canon. What is not canon however is their effects. It merely mentions them, it doesn't mention what they do or mention any thalmor plot to destroy them or any way to "shut them off" or whatnot, nor does anything else. All of that is out of game lore, which isn't anywhere in any of the games in any form and therefore is not canon.
The same can be said of the "Lessons of Vivec" series. These books are canon, meaning they exist in the world. In morrowind, you can buy or go to certain places and read them. However, the fact that these books are canon doesn't mean they're true. Just because you can find and read these books in game doesn't mean Vivec actually built a house out of Poetry or got married to molag bal.
Then there's the other stuff. Landfall, c0da, 5th era loveletter, etc. These are explicitly not canon. They do not appear anywhere. They are not refered to by anyone or anything. The events they describe do not occur in the game(for obvious reasons). There is no reason to assume they're canon (much less true), and more importantly don't have any real place in serious lore discussions.
(Rant)
This is why I think the people here and on /r/teslore who want to "end canon" or say that "there is no canon" really have no idea what they're even talking about. Canon is not a big scary boogyman that wants to tell you that you can't have a certain opinion or how to write your fanfiction. If anything it allows more freedom by removing the kirkbridian elements that would take the mystery of TES away and introduce all sorts of unrelated strange nonsense. Canon simply tells you what items exist in universe and what doesn't, not what opinion or interpretation to form about them.
Otherwise from what I've seen, it pretty much just becomes "Kirkbride's fan club", and I tend to notice that a lot of these places tend to develop a "totally-not-canon canon" of their own around this and tends to pass it off as the absolute, 100% truth on forums and fansites. For example, the thalmor and their goals are hotly contested and controversial. Any time someone tries to have even a slightly positive spin on the Altmer much less the thalmor, the first thing you usually get is someone saying "but teh thalmoarz want 2 destroyeez teh wurld cuz teh kurkbried sed so lawl towers lawl c0da". And if you disagree with them, then you're a filthy causual who doesn't know elder scrolls lore. Ironically, I find that these are often the same people who often are the first to spout "there is no canon cause c0da". You really have to read between the lines with this whole "no canon" thing. From what I've seen of them, they don't really want to get rid of canon, they want kirkbridian canon to be the canon unquestioned by default.
Seriously, /r/teslore has gotten so bad with this that it might as well just be called /r/testowersandchim, since that's all they ever talk about over there.
(/Rant)
This post was edited by Rylasasin at November 17, 2016 10:00 AM EST