Is Cornell the worst of the worst?

I honestly feel sick whenever I look on this sanctimonious cretin's twitter page. The way he smugly congratulates himself for blocking someone and then attempts to show everyone what a truly wonderful person he is by white knighting his way up Beth's arse.

When I was a fan growing up in the 90's, he co-wrote The Discontinuity Guide which I frequently turned to as a guide to what stories to go for that extolled the best of the series.

It seemed designed to tell me not to bother and put me off everything about the show by making it all sound as inept and a complete joke as possible.

It really made being a fan that bit more disheartening and miserable that decade.

And to think, he was my favourite NA writer back in the day. Now he's just another cunt, along with so many others.

I once read the Discontinuity Guide. A rather dull, po-faced, dreary read that seemed to spend more time ripping the piss out the series than praising it.

Some of his NA tales were good and I quite enjoyed Fathers Day on initial viewing (Haven't seen it since 2005) but after that I couldn't care less for him or his work....

Also, who is Beth?

Indrid Mercury wrote:I couldn't care less for him or his work....

BLASPHEMY!

I might've said this elsewhere but I was never able to get into the NAs. In terms of pushing Doctor Who in a more adult direction and away from the inviting adventure series it had been, I was definitely that generation of child fans who were left behind by them.

I did like Father's Day and I did like the adaptation of Human Nature. To a degree I bought into the idea of Cornell's Who being beautifully 'new age'.

I think where this began to shatter was listening to his Benny story Death and the Daleks which came off incredibly misandrist (Benny basically spends it treating her boyfriend like just a sex object she has no respect for), and as just an excuse to rubbish the Daleks in the most unsubtle way (to the point some of Benny's dialogue actually sounds like cut, lengthy passages from his Discontinuity Guide shite).

And around the same time I discovered the famous TSV interview with Moffat and the other writers. Moffat's part has almost overshadowed it but it was a group interview in which Cornell comes off as a complete twat too, saying even then how he thought straight male fans were the lesser intellects of the fanbase.

I have to say, even then I still felt moved to take his side over Lawrence Miles, given how low, vicious and poisonous Miles was about him. I don't know if it's true or not that Cornell's really just a phony, predatory macktivist, but it's the easiest and nastiest aspersion to cast on any man who enjoys the company of women, and one that the accused can't win either way around even if he's innocent, because it effectively villainises his good nature and instincts. And furthermore it's a bit of a gross insult of Miles' to the women Cornell has been with, to suggest they're just that gullible and stupid.

I think, however, when I heard about his whole policy of boycotting panels that don't have 50/50 representation, that's when I got a bit more of a slimy vibe off him. I remember one female poster on the IMDB board saying how personally she'd feel insulted and patronised by his gesture if she was one of the picked panelists because she'd have the horrible suspicion he wasn't doing it for her actual merit or talent but simply because of what's between her legs.

So, no I'm not a fan of the guy, and certainly not a fan of his pious, cultish ideas about the show that bear little relation to the show it was.

Indrid Mercury wrote:Also, who is Beth?

I personally don't mind Beth that much. Though she definitely is your typical champagne socialist.

She basically heads the Time Ladies group of young female fans who are into all the SJW stuff, and are certainly behind Jodie. I think she's mainly notable for the time she was invited on stage and offered a Series 11 DVD set as a competition prize at the BFI screening of Logopolis (to promote the Season 18 blu-ray), and got something of a booing for it (which I thought was rather tacky behaviour of the crowd).

My gut tells me she's a good kid that's just sadly come to drink the kool aid.

The wisdom of the crowd.

I am sure there are worse out there.

But I do find him thoroughly unlikeable. Especially after Burrunjor said he denounces anyone who puts a premium on continuity in the show as bullies.  It may seem an odd point to focus on but it really got my goat.

And then there is the TVS roundtable he did with FatMoth, Andy Lane and some other person. He was the worst on that panel in the way he dismissed the old series.

And then to top it all i read some woman on the internet praising him as an author and then compare him favourably to Terrance Dicks. I read Timewrym: Revelation. Its all a matter of taste but i personally found it to be a load of confused rubbish. On the other hand, Dicks' Tomewrym: Exodus was a jolly good read. Then again each to his own I guess.

stengos wrote:I am sure there are worse out there.

But I do find him thoroughly unlikeable. Especially after Burrunjor said he denounces anyone who puts a premium on continuity in the show as bullies.  It may seem an odd point to focus on but it really got my goat.

And then there is the TVS roundtable he did with FatMoth, Andy Lane and some other person. He was the worst on that panel in the way he dismissed the old series.

And then to top it all i read some woman on the internet praising him as an author and then compare him favourably to Terrance Dicks. I read Timewrym: Revelation. Its all a matter of taste but i personally found it to be a load of confused rubbish. On the other hand, Dicks' Tomewrym: Exodus was a jolly good read. Then again each to his own I guess.

Here's the quote

Paul Cornell wrote:There is, of course, and I wouldn’t want to put a stop to this, an entirely benign sort of canonicity discussion, in which a writer, such as Lance Parkin, enters into a game of where and how everything might fit together, if it did. That’s just fun, and the authority assumed is only that of a stage magician, because the intention isn’t to hurt anyone. Also, recently, message board posters have tried to declare a truce by use of the term ‘personal canon’. That is to say, we all have our own version of ‘what happened’. That’s entirely lovely, to say that canonicity is ‘an ecumenical matter’. But I’d like us all to go that one step further.

Because when you say ‘the books just aren’t “canon!”’ or ‘the books “happened” and the TV show can’t ignore them!’ you’re not saying something like ‘for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction’, you’re saying something like ‘the South will never surrender’. You’re yelling a battle cry, not stating the truth. Because there is no truth here to find. There was never and now cannot be any authority to rule on matters of canonicity in a tale that has allowed, or at the very least accepted, the rewriting of its own continuity. And you’re using the fact that discussions of canonicity are all about authority to try to assume an authority that you do not have.

In the end, you’re just bullying people.

Because in Doctor Who there is no such thing as ‘canon’.

It baffles me how this opinion could have ever taken on in fandom. Its a testament to how self loathing DW fans are, and how much of a bully Paul Cornell and the others like him were.

That attitude is cancerous to any work of fiction. By that logic I can write a Batman story where he lives with his parents and when people say "but Batman's parents are dead" I'll just turn round and say "Oh stop bullying me and stiffling my creativity."

PS if Paul Cornell is so fucking creative, why doesn't he go out there and create his own iconic character.

All of his pretentious shit is is essentially "I don't want to have to do five seconds research to see if my story matches up, or I don't want to have to write someone else's charaacter in character" and self loathing fanboys lapped it up as some pretentious, superior understanding of DW.

All I can say is this is what led to Missy, Jodie Pisstaker and now Ruth.

burrunjor wrote:Here's the quote

Paul Cornell wrote:There is, of course, and I wouldn’t want to put a stop to this, an entirely benign sort of canonicity discussion, in which a writer, such as Lance Parkin, enters into a game of where and how everything might fit together, if it did. That’s just fun, and the authority assumed is only that of a stage magician, because the intention isn’t to hurt anyone. Also, recently, message board posters have tried to declare a truce by use of the term ‘personal canon’. That is to say, we all have our own version of ‘what happened’. That’s entirely lovely, to say that canonicity is ‘an ecumenical matter’. But I’d like us all to go that one step further.

Because when you say ‘the books just aren’t “canon!”’ or ‘the books “happened” and the TV show can’t ignore them!’ you’re not saying something like ‘for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction’, you’re saying something like ‘the South will never surrender’. You’re yelling a battle cry, not stating the truth. Because there is no truth here to find. There was never and now cannot be any authority to rule on matters of canonicity in a tale that has allowed, or at the very least accepted, the rewriting of its own continuity. And you’re using the fact that discussions of canonicity are all about authority to try to assume an authority that you do not have.

In the end, you’re just bullying people.

Because in Doctor Who there is no such thing as ‘canon’.

It baffles me how this opinion could have ever taken on in fandom. Its a testament to how self loathing DW fans are, and how much of a bully Paul Cornell and the others like him were.

That attitude is cancerous to any work of fiction. By that logic I can write a Batman story where he lives with his parents and when people say "but Batman's parents are dead" I'll just turn round and say "Oh stop bullying me and stiffling my creativity."

PS if Paul Cornell is so fucking creative, why doesn't he go out there and create his own iconic character.

All of his pretentious shit is is essentially "I don't want to have to do five seconds research to see if my story matches up, or I don't want to have to write someone else's charaacter in character" and self loathing fanboys lapped it up as some pretentious, superior understanding of DW.

All I can say is this is what led to Missy, Jodie Pisstaker and now Ruth.

Thanks for posting the quote Burrunjor.

burrunjor wrote:All of his pretentious shit is is essentially "I don't want to have to do five seconds research to see if my story matches up, or I don't want to have to write someone else's charaacter in character" and self loathing fanboys lapped it up as some pretentious, superior understanding of DW.

All I can say is this is what led to Missy, Jodie Pisstaker and now Ruth.

I have to admit, for all he makes a complete pratt of himself there, I did agree with the principle gist of what Cornell was saying there. That whilst continuity and canon can provide a framework to storytelling, it shouldn't become an inflexible dogma , because dogma almost never makes for good art or imagination.

If the continuity keeners had been listened to and had their way in 1975, then we might never have gotten stories like Genesis of the Daleks or The Deadly Assassin, or at least a lot of their character would've been lost. And the fact Ian Levine was listened to in the 80's is partly what cost the show a lot of its soul and imagination. Because the show and a prominent faction of the fanbase had come to think that adhering to the letter of the show was more important than its spirit. I am at least with Cornell in not wanting the show to return to that.

Tanman wrote:I have to admit, for all he makes a complete pratt of himself there, I did agree with the principle gist of what Cornell was saying there. That whilst continuity and canon can provide a framework to storytelling, it shouldn't become an inflexible dogma , because dogma almost never makes for good art or imagination.

If the continuity keeners had been listened to and had their way in 1975, then we might never have gotten stories like Genesis of the Daleks or The Deadly Assassin, or at least a lot of their character would've been lost. And the fact Ian Levine was listened to in the 80's is partly what cost the show a lot of its soul and imagination. Because the show and a prominent faction of the fanbase had come to think that adhering to the letter of the show was more important than its spirit. I am at least with Cornell in not wanting the show to return to that.

Sorry Tanman IMO that's how they get away with it. The Fitzroy Crowd play on fans fear of the 80s continuity porn driving away new viewers, to justify another extreme of lets have no continuity. (Which they don't really believe hence why they revel in continuity when it suits them like the Hybrid bullshit.)

No extreme is ever any good.

Continuity IS important. No one reasonable is saying that you have to then revel in continuity for every episode. Just keep it as a framework. That applies for all works of fiction.

Having no continuity will drive away viewers as much as too much continuity references. I'd argue that's why New Who has flopped. No one will bother with it as they know that no development matters. Cybermen turned almost every dead person on earth into Cybermen for instance in Death in Heaven, just two series later, Bill has no idea what they are.

And Genesis of the Daleks and the Deadly Assassin are not even that bad examples of changing the past. I do get fed up with both being used as an example of Classic Who having no canon. (Its funny how people always ignore the hundreds of other examples of really tight continuity. Again this is the narrative created by the Fitzroy Crowd.)

Terry Nation justified the changes within Genesis quite well. He said that in the first Dalek story, we never saw the monsters origins. We only heard about them from a second hand account written hundreds of years later, that was very scarce and vague.

Genesis however gives us a first hand account. He pointed out that many of our own historical records are contradictory or exaggerated. History is written by the winners after all.

The basic origin of Genesis matches up with the first Dalek story. Both show the Daleks coming from Skaro. Both show the monsters starting out as a humanoid race who become locked in a war with another humanoid race the Thals. Both say the Thals were total bastards, both say that the war become atomic and destroyed the surface of Skaro. Both say that both species started to mutate, and that the Daleks humanoid ancestors eventually mutated in hideous slimy creatures who housed themselves in casings.

Its just that Genesis shows us there were a few more details that weren't mentioned, which can be easily explained by the Thals history records being wrong. (Maybe the Daleks themselves erased all records of Davros as they wouldn't want people to know they were the creation of lesser creatures? Would make sense as to why the Movellans didn't know he existed in Destiny.)

If Genesis had had the Daleks coming from Venus, and made the Daleks total machine creatures with a totally different origin, then it would be a total contradiction, but as it is, it follows mostly the same origins.

The Deadly Assassin meanwhile also isn't a contradiction either. Bob Holmes wrote a letter arguing with fans who said it was destroying canon, unlike Chinballs whose argument for Ruth was "the show changes all the time."

Holmes argued that the Time Lords always had a devious side, and cited the renegades they had produced, The Meddling Monk, The War Chief, Omega, The Master, and Morbius. He also cited the fact that they have the death penalty in The War Games, punished the Doctor for helping people, and were willing to kill the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe when they trapped them underwater etc. Can we really say they were a totally peaceful race when they kill people? TBH when I was younger I never noticed the changes in the Time Lord's personality.

They were always a bit antagonistic in the Pertwee years and dedicated to withholdingt he rules. The Deadly Assassin just focuses on it to a greater extent, because the Time Lords are the focus for once.

Added to that he said that he felt he was explaining the past, as the Time Lords exiled him in Pertwee's time for interfering and then sent him on missions to interfere? Holmes said that the CIA helped to explain that, as the high council had a policy of no interference to the rest of the universe, whilst the CIA who were above and beyond even the council would send people in secret to deal with problems, and they punished the Doctor to the general population, but then used him in secret whenever they needed him.

Rassilon was an oversight, but even then it was easily explained away. The 13 lives rule wasn't a change meanwhile. It was filling a gap in.

Now you may not agree with Bob Holmes and Terry Nation and argue that they still contradicted the show, but the point is they didn't have the toxic and harmful "I can do whatever I want." They tried to explain their retcons. You can read Bob Holmes biography to see his letter. In fact I'll try and post it here.

No one is saying you can't introduce retcons, but even then there are limits and you have to try and still make them fit to some extent.

Like take for instance you can reveal that Batman's parents were maybe involved in criminals before they were killed, but you can't just magically bring them alive without explanation, which is practically what New Who does.

He is so OBSESSED.

https://twitter.com/Paul_Cornell/status/1221500531153260544

We will be screening The Talons of Weng Chiang on Sat 14 March 12pm
@bfi + Q&A with @Lou_Jameson & panel talking about problematic elements of some archive tv

That's a pity.

I was kind of tempted to go see it until I read that bit.

I'm honestly past the point of caring now. It's over. Done.
I'm only on here to shoot the shit with you fuckers now.

Pepsi Maxil wrote:I honestly feel sick whenever I look on this sanctimonious cretin's twitter page.

Stop looking then.

You must enjoy it, or you wouldn't look.

Ludders wrote:

Pepsi Maxil wrote:I honestly feel sick whenever I look on this sanctimonious cretin's twitter page.

Stop looking then.

You must enjoy it, or you wouldn't look.

Sometimes Burrunjor shares links to his Twitter feed and I look at them so I have a better understand of his posts.

Honestly, if I had any power at all I'd go full-fascist and have the likes of Cornell do a marine-style boot camp, or set them on a remote Island for 6 months with some basic bushcraft tools and a survival book.

If they were still talking about intersectional feminism after 6 months, they'd be my first Mars colonists.

Pepsi Maxil wrote:

Ludders wrote:

Pepsi Maxil wrote:I honestly feel sick whenever I look on this sanctimonious cretin's twitter page.

Stop looking then.

You must enjoy it, or you wouldn't look.

Sometimes Burrunjor shares links to his Twitter feed and I look at them so I have a better understand of his posts.

What's to understand? Just variations on the same theme.

Ludders wrote:

Pepsi Maxil wrote:

Ludders wrote:

Pepsi Maxil wrote:I honestly feel sick whenever I look on this sanctimonious cretin's twitter page.

Stop looking then.

You must enjoy it, or you wouldn't look.

Sometimes Burrunjor shares links to his Twitter feed and I look at them so I have a better understand of his posts.

What's to understand? Just variations on the same theme.

I have a fondness for him so I don't particularly like skimming over his posts especially since he puts a lot of effort into them.

Fair enough then.

I'm not saying I skim over posts in general. It's just that his posts are significantly longer than everyone else's posts and I would feel bad if I didn't take time to read them.

If you laid out all of Burrunjor's posts on here in a single line it would reach right out to Tau Ceti and back.