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Excellent post, HI. I think you're on to something with your thoughts about absolute truth. This is an intuitive thing and I'm just thinking my way through this, but I think that absolute truth can form a dividing line between an author and his work. That sounds kind of weird and no doubt will provide good fodder for satire at a certain party, but, at the risk of being skewered, let me try to explain through example:
In Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Lucas introduced the idea of "midi-chlorians", microscopic lifeforms that communicate with the Force. The degree to which any individual will be "strong in the Force" has to do with his midi-chlorian count -- the more of these microscopic symbionts he has in him, the more in touch with the Force he will be.
With me so far? Now, the introduction of this story element didn't wreck the internal consistency of the Star Wars "secondary world" -- strictly speaking there's no reason why it shouldn't work as a story element -- but many fans rebelled against it (myself included). Why? Well, speaking only for myself, some connection to truth that I sensed in the original conception of the Force seemed to be reduced to an accident of biology. Now, any person could only be in touch with the great spiritual energy of the universe to the extent that he is infected with these little parasitic germs. Lucas had undermined the Truth of his own legendarium.
So, tying this back to the question of "canonicity", this may be an example of how a story is a separate thing from its author, and how his authority even in a world of his own creation is incomplete and subject to truth.
Or it may only be an example of how I am a dork who thinks too much about stories.
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