[HPforGrownups] What is Canon?

[Patricia Bullington-McGuire]

No: HPFGUIDX 55469

On Wed, 16 Apr 2003, Diana Williams wrote:

> Then there's a third level of canon which are authorized books
> such as the Quidditch and Fantastic beasts books, which are supposedly
> written by people in the know and approved by The Powers That Be, so they
> should have things right.  Sometimes these forms of canon will contradict
> each other, in which case the primary canon wins out.

Actually, in this case, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts 
and Where to Find them can probably be considered primary canon.  Though 
put out under psuedonyms, both books are in fact written by JKR herself.  
While they are not necessary to understand the events in the main series, 
they are part of the official background of the Harry Potter world.

----
Patricia Bullington-McGuire	<patricia at obscure.org>

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered
three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the
purely hypothetical.  They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each
nonexisted in an entirely different way ... 
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"