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With the retconning issue, I think it's more that fans have a more narrow focus on what the work should be, and that's why you'll see people disowning the last two seasons of Buffy, or in some cases the last four. Some viewers are fixed to a specific idea of what Buffy should be, and if the show leaves the high school setting, it no longer gives them what they want from Buffy. So, to them, the last four seasons would be the deviation from the universe, as you said, but I don't think disowning seasons reflects a more flexible view of the text, the reason they're disowned is because they don't fit into the narrow lens of what people expect from the show.
This is most notable with season six, which drew a lot of critcism for not having a 'big bad,' and for having Buffy so depressed throughout. The intrusion of real world problems into the diegesis was outside the realm of what some people expected from the show, hence the claim that 'that's not really Buffy.' Now, I'm not saying that that's not the only reason to criticize season six, but it's my favorite season of the show precisely for the reason that it messes with the mythos so thoroughly.
This actually gets to the core conundrum of catering to a fan base when you've got pre-existing material that's uniformly considered great. When creating the Star Wars prequels, Lucas had such high expectations from people that even if he was to deliver a film on the level of Empire, I doubt people would enjoy it as much, just because it would be difficult to fit it into their idea of what the mythos is. Too similar and you get criticized for retreading but go too different and people claim that it "isn't really Star Wars."
This is a bigger problem in comics, where there's an elaborate dance between providing the illusion of change and at the same time maintaining the status quo that made people read the book in the first place. |
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