Its like, no you moron, a retcon later that doesn't count. People treat fiction like whatever anybody does is canon, when I've always said the viewer determines canon and the viewers head canon is the only canon when it comes to fiction, not some top down dictation.

Couldn't agree more. So many fans have a 'quantity is quality' approach to lore and story, where the more irrelevant details you can cram in and tangentially link after the original telling, the better. The amount of times in game or cinema I see discussions along the lines of 'wow, this scene really takes on a different significance when you consider [random remember-berry from offshoot work made years later by different people]'... it drives me nuts.

I decide what's canon. If I choose to ignore an entire season of a show or the entire climax of a story, because it's trash and doesn't live up to the quality of what went before, that's up to me. The characters and world don't exist. What's most interesting in evaluating fiction is considering all the elements in light of their greatest potential for inspiration, not treating characters and stories as literally real by trying to remember all the tortured bullshit that franchise-milkers tack onto them.