Canon Events, The Multiverse and Miles Morales
Most theories about Canon Events, discourse about the ATSV's plot holes and BTSV prediction started pissing me off. Decided to summarize ATSV myself. Let's start with the following image:
MILES: And these nodes, where the lines converge?
MIGUEL: They are The Canon. Chapters that are a part of every spider’s story, every time.
– ATSV Script. MULTIVERSAL MAP SCENE.
Canon events are pivotal moments – milestones in their storyline– that change the course of the rest of narrative in a Spider-Man's life. The events end up shaping a series of fundamental elements including personality traits, insecurities, career prospects and more. It includes constants origin stories, significant victories, losses, and character-defining moments that contribute to the hero's identity.
Or, A moment or action that must happen to certain Spider-Men – otherwise their universe risks being destroyed.
The Canon Events connect every Spider-Person's lives together, in what Miguel name Web of Life and Destiny. It's a constant through the Multiverse.
Canon Events are real, Event ASM90 makes it clear: a police captain close to Spider-Man dies saving a kid from falling rubble during a battle with an arch-nemesis...
But Canon Event seems to be fairly flexible. Uncle Ben dies in Peter’s arms; Peter dies in Gwen’s arms; Miles loses Uncle Aaron. Every Spider-Person loses somebody they love, and this somebody can be adapted to the Spider-Person's own story – in other words, The Canon might not exactly be a prewritten rule but a guideline.
Something that need to be cleared: Miguel did study the Multiverse. It's not clear if it was after Gabriella's universe collapse or not, but he studied it to the point of being able to categorize and cross-reference the events. So far he is not wrong, much less lying. It is clear that Canon Events are a thing that exist.
Does Canon Events equal Fixed Points?
( Disclaimer: It's been years since I watch anything from the MCU. So what I'm about to say is from what I gathered from multiple wiki pages and an overview of comics. Funnily enough, the last thing I watched from the MCU was Spider-Man: No Way Home. Edit: it's been so long that I forgot the movie's name. It was actually Spider Man: Far Away From Home).
Fixed points are events in the timeline that are deemed unchangeable. Attempting to alter these points would have severe consequences, potentially destabilizing the multiverse. Fixed points are like anchors, ensuring a degree of stability in the multiversal continuum.
Miguel claims that if a Canon Event are disrupted it'll destabilize the universe up to the point of self-destruction.
Does it mean that ATSV is following the MCU take on the multiverse? Not necessarily.
In the MCU there's this thing called Incursions. Here's a short description:
An Incursion occurs when the boundary between two universes erodes and they collide, destroying one or both entirely.
Several people in the fandom dove into the conclusion that this is what happened to Gabriella's universe; Miguel interacted with it, his different molecule's resonance might have interfered with the syntonic nature of Gabriella's reality, the boundary between the two universes collided and her universe collapsed.
It even could be true, even if it was the rare case where the Incursion killed only Gabriella's universe and somehow Earth-918b – Miguel's universe, where the HQ is located – survived.
But it's not. Incursions are exactly what divert the Sony Animated Universe of the MCU, ironically. Why?
Because if the Incursion was a thing in the ATSV then the Spider-Society wouldn't be able to exist, and they couldn't constantly interact with each other, or interfere in another multiverse (even if it's to hunt down an anomaly).
One could argue that they can interfere because of their Dimensional Device – that stabilizes then enough so they can walk around multiple universes without falling dead from molecular decay.
But if that was what prevented Incursions then Gabriella's universe wouldn't be destroyed at all.
"Maybe it only works because they don't stay a lot of time in another dimensions plus they only go to other universes to deal with anomalies!"
Y'all forgot that Gwen was crashing in Hobie's dimensions? She said that it's been months since she was recruited (months since she reveled her identity to her father and, since then, apparently didn't go back to her dimension). Months, and it wasn't to deal with an anomaly, yet neither her or Hobie's dimension collapsed.
Even if she wasn't in his dimensions constantly and was somewhere else, or did go back to her dimension, don't forget the whole HQ in Earth-918 full of people from other universes – has a gym and a cafeteria, therapy offices, wouldn't be surprised if it had dorms, encouraging the Spider-Heroes to stay there for longer and interact with each other.
Mayday wasn't supposed to exist if Incursions were a thing. She was born because of Miles' influence in Peter B.'s life.
Which means ATSV doesn't have Incursions, at least not the way MCU has it even if the writers want us to see it as the same Multiverse. Ergo, Fixed Points are not necessarily Canon Events.
We know Canon Events exist and are constants through the Multiverse, but we don't know if breaking a Canon Event can cause the death of an universe because the only instance where this happened before our eyes Spot was involved and thus disqualified the data. All we have is Miguel's word for it.
Maybe Canon Events are just a pattern.
But if Canon Events are just a pattern, then why did Gabriella's universe collapse?
Here's two not-mutally-exclusive theories:
When Miguel assumed the place of his variant, the universe saw him as a parasite, someone that should have died but didn't. It self-destructed itself as a form of self-preservation that went wrong – just like we have fever when we where sick. This theory anthropomorphizes the universes, and through I like it, it's not the most probable cause. If that's what happened, then Miguel confused correlation with causation and, possibly, The Canon has nothing to do with Gabriella's universe dying.
Gabriella was supposed to be Spider-Woman. Maybe her father was who she was supposed to lose. He broke The Canon by assuming the place of his variant and this destroyed the natural order of things, resulting on the collapsing of the universe.
Let's go back to the script:
MIGUEL: That’s how the story is supposed to go. Canon events are the connections that bind our lives together. But those connections can be broken. That’s why anomalies are so dangerous...[...]
MIGUEL: You break enough canon, save enough captains, we could lose everything.
Did you notice it? Miguel worries about anomalies not only because they're ordinarily dangerous to innocent people, but they can break the connections – break the canon.
Think with me: The canon is the thing that binds Spider-People together, so wouldn't it make sense that anomalies only show up when a canon event is about to happen, if they're snatched by holes in the multiverse's fabric? Wouldn't it be easier for them to show up at the points where the universes naturally junction? Or somehow it triggers a canon event?
Take Vulture as an example. If Miguel hadn't showed up, were Gwen going to die before her time? Get permanently wounded? Something else? We know that the Canon event was supposed to happen that day because of what Layla says, "The Canon remains intact", indicating it was something that were already being monitored, the model already had a prediction for it.
Coming back to Miguel. He is determined that he broke the Canon, trillions of lives died because of it if you consider the whole universe collapsed, which goes further into other planets, other galaxies. And, if so far he was right about the Canon, wouldn't he be right about this too? Or do you think he – a man that lost his (foster) daughter – wouldn't look into why the whole universe collapsed, why she died in his hands?
There's no way to soften this. Her death is his fault and her blood is in his hands.
He's the founder of Spider-Society, assumed the role as leader. He settled a supporting system through it for mourning Spiders. If he wasn't competent and fundamentally good then a legion of Peter Parkers wouldn't follow his orders, the Spider-Society wasn't going to exist.
Miguel doesn't want anybody else to make the same mistake– this doesn't mean he doesn't make other mistakes. That's why he lashes out at Gwen and why he explains to Miles what will happen to his dad. This was a mistake that he undoubtedly committed. He shouldn't have told Miles what would happen if he wanted utmost trust that the Canon wasn't going to be broke.
He wanted Miles to believe in him.
MIGUEL: You have a choice between saving one person and saving an entire world. Every world.
He wanted Miles to do the right thing. The Trolley Problem with extra lives at risk.
That's why he antagonizes Miles afterwards. Yes, only afterwards.
Miguel knows that he could spare Miles the pain if he listened. He only gets angry and haunts Miles down when he notices Miles won't listen and that the same story will repeat just in front of his eyes.
Miguel knows what will happen if Miles save his dad. Miguel is trying to save people.
But then what will happen to Miles' dad?
Gwen already proved that it's possible to circumvent the Canon.
Actually, her dad did. Captain Stacy stopped being a Captain. He resigned from the Police Force. He isn't going to die anymore. You can see her relief when he says this.
The Canon wasn't broken, but it doesn't mean event ASM-90 needs to happen.
The Exception Proves The Rule.
Under [the scientific version] of the phrase, the word 'proof' is to be understood in its archaic form to mean the word 'test' (this use can be seen in the phrase the proof of the pudding is in the eating).
The example is of a hypothetical critic, Jones, who never writes a favourable review.
So it is surprising when we receive an exception: a favourable review by Jones of a novel by an unknown author. Then it is discovered that the novel is his own, written under a pseudonym. The exception tested ('proved') the rule and found that it needed to be understood a little more precisely - namely, that Jones will never write a favourable review, except of his own work.The previous evaluation of Jones's ill-nature toward others is re-affirmed by discovering the manner in which the exception falls outside the rule.
– The Exception that Proves the Rule
Let's go back Canon's definition: a moment or action that must happen to certain Spider-Men – otherwise their universe risks being destroyed.
So: a Spider-Man's Canon Events are never meant to be broken or the universe will be destroyed.
Miles Morales is an anomaly. "The spider that gave you your powers wasn’t from your dimension! It was never supposed to bite you!"
If we apply that the exception proves the rule: a Spider-Man's Canon Events are never meant to be broken or the universe will be destroyed, except if the Spider-Man himself is an anomaly.
This also proves Miguel's theory of Canon Events further.
Anyway I'm going back to sleep.