http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retcon

Spoony on on Highlander III: The Sorcerer "Comic book fans will be familiar with the term 'retcon', which in layman's terms means that the writer waves his hand and tells you 'Remember when we said this? We screwed up, forget about that.'"

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Retroactive Continuity.

Reframing past events to serve a current plot need. The ideal retcon clarifies a question alluded to without adding excessive new questions. In its most basic form, this is any plot point that was not intended from the beginning. The most preferred use is where it contradicts nothing, even though it was changed later on.

While the term comes from comic books, dating to All-Star Squadron #18 in 1983 and shortened to "retcon" by the end of the decade, the technique is much older. Often, it's used to serve a new plot by changing its context; however, it's also done when the creators are caught writing a story that violates continuity and isn't very plausible.

In Marvel Comics, the person who pointed out the problem and at the same time provided a plausible explanation was awarded a Genuine Marvel Comics No-Prize by editor Stan Lee, a tradition that was kept alive by other editors after he became publisher.

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See also Ass Pull, which is something that was not properly set up before it is sprung on the audience, and Cliffhanger Copout, in which a perilous situation is retroactively changed to allow the characters to escape. It is related to Deus ex Machina. Some, but not all retcons are Ass Pulls, and a good retcon can actually improve the current narrative. A good way to get away with a retcon is to reveal new implications or motivations for events that have already been established.

Smoother retcons won't be distinguishable as such, and can even make what was initially an Ass Pull later look like everything was Just as Planned. (In other words, No Prize it into plausibility and away from the dizzying realm of the Ass Pull.)

The retcon is considered by many to occur when current events contradict the past continuity of the series and is evidence of a Writer on Board. Perhaps more often, the retcon does not actually violate canon, but rather violates fanon, the set of unstated interpretations usually made by the audience (an interpretation violated this way is said to be Jossed). Most competent writers achieve a retcon by relying on a less-obvious but still perfectly valid interpretation of what was previously seen.

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As the number of twists and misdirections in a story becomes higher, it becomes more difficult to tell whether an event actually is a retcon (which implies that the writers changed their minds), or a misdirection (which implies that the writers intended the "retconned" version all along, and had been deliberately misleading the audience before). In some cases, it is impossible to tell, short of reading the author's mind (even then, it might not helped, as it's entirely possible for an author to be on the fence about what they're planning to do).

A retcon may be used as part of an Armed with Canon campaign launched by one author against the work of another author in the same Shared Universe. Over-use of retcons can result in Continuity Snarl. It can also result in your readers and fans approaching the work with a certain degree of skepticism, cynicism or even complete uninterest, especially if you tend to obviously and quickly retcon away that which turns out to be unpopular or drastically challenges or changes the status quo — after all, why get involved in your latest Crisis Crossover Event which promises to Change Everything Forever and that Nothing Will Be The Same Again if there's a good chance it'll all just be retconned away after a short period of time?

This happens very easily with prequels when the writers aren't being very careful. On the other hand, Tropes Are Not Bad. It's entirely possible that an author will retcon his own work to fix a Continuity Snarl or even apply an Author's Saving Throw if things get really hairy. Sometimes, if the pre-retconned works are no longer considered canon by the author, those works are discontinued in canon.

Compare Flip-Flop of God. Tends to come in The Reveal format. May involve Opening a Can of Clones. Can at times also qualify as a Throw It In!.

Specific variants:

Related concepts for explaining away retcons can include the Hand Wave or Lampshading. See also an Internal Retcon, for retcons within a fictional universe, or External Retcon, for retcons in real life.

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Other Examples:

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Fan Works

Films — Animation

Films — Live-Action

Music

Remember when Rolling Stone declared Pink Floyd's album Wish You Were Here to be "actually nothing more than the skillful manipulation of elements so simple — the basic three chords everyone else uses — that any collection of bar hacks could grind out a note-for-note reproduction without difficulty"? Well, neither do they, considering they now declare it one of the greatest albums of all time.

Myths & Religion

Before the establishment of canon texts, most religions were retconned continuously throughout their existence. Ancient Egypt had three creator gods: Amun, Ra (later combined as Amun-Ra) and Ptah. Dionysus started out as a god of death, resurrection and primal chaos, but after disappearing from the pantheon for a while, came back as the happy drunkard we know today.

The practice of religious syncretism — the merging of two or more religious traditions — generally results in this, with older myths, texts and stories getting their context changed to make them compatible.

Pinballs

Mad Daedalus retcons the Lost Technology of its predecessor, Loony Labyrinth, as the inventions of the ancient Greek Daedalus working with the Imported Alien Phlebotinum he found from a crashed spaceship.

Pro Wrestling

Roleplay

Not altogether uncommon in Survival of the Fittest. From the V3 Pregame to the start of the game itself, Sean O'Cann went from a narcissistic, arrogant Jerk Jock with hints of homosexuality to a friendly, compassionate, fairly sensitive guy. This change seems to rely on the assumption that a couple of pregame topics (which featured Sean acting like a Jerkass) never happened. Bobby Jacks' full name. It transpires on the 7th day of the game that his name is actually Robert, with Bobby being a nickname. No reference of this being the case had been made before this point, although some people assumed that his name was Robert prior to that, but it's never mentioned, and his profile doesn't even note it. Finally, the setting itself was retconned, changed from being set in the Battle Royale universe to its own original continuity and setting.

While not happening all the time, it is not uncommon for certain characters to be retconned in Marvels RPG. This will mainly happen if a new member wish to use a scrapped character that haven't done much before (s)he was scrapped.

Tabletop Games

Theatre

In a strange retcon of the events of The Trojan War, some poets contend that Helen never actually went to Troy and that Paris instead was tricked into abducting an illusion of her (don't ask). In another retcon, Helen is carried off by Paris but ends up being stranded in Egypt. Euripides reconciles these two variations in his play Helen. He also rewrote Trojan War history with his Iphigenia plays, crafting a scenario in which she survives the efforts to sacrifice her to the gods and has various misadventures while her father is off to war.

Toys

Visual Novels

Fate/stay night and its associated franchise have had a number of retcons, thanks in part due to the series' nebulous and infamously complicated magical system. Retcons can easily be explained away by saying the character who delivered exposition earlier just wasn't knowledgeable enough about how magic really works. In the original visual novel, it was claimed that the only Assassin-class Servants that could be summoned were members of the Hashashin, and that Sasaki Kojiro was a unique exception due to Caster mucking with the Grail War's spells. Later entries in the series have completely ignored this rule, with Assassins being as diverse as any other class. Staying with Sasaki Kojiro for a moment, it was claimed that he was a "fake Servant" because he never truly existed, and was only the incarnation of a legend. Later stories have introduced huge swathes of Servants who "never existed" and are only legends embodied, with no implication that they are "lesser" than other Servants. Originally it was claimed that Magic Crests could only be transferred between family members, due to compatible genetics. This rule has been relaxed later on, with the setting now saying that that is normally true, but two people unrelated by blood may still be "compatible" and able to transfer a Crest between them, with several cases of this happening throughout the franchise.



Web Animation

Lampshaded in Unforgotten Realms where in one episode, Garry got his original body back (in a way that doesn't make sense), and jumps off a cliff. Two episodes later, Roamin talks about how the show does not make sense, and Garry reappears in his new body.

In the Homestar Runner toon "email thunder", it turns out that Homestar has had his own email-answering program for a while now. Much of the time when Homestar appeared incompetent or insane was merely part of his show. Not only that, but his show is actually more popular than Strong Bad's . This is expanded upon in "Hremail 7", where it's suggested that Strong Bad first got the idea for his show from Homestar and then forgot about it. Also, he got his first computer from Homestar's trash, and his first email was actually sent by a friend of The Cheat's . In "kind of cool", Strong Sad says that Senor Cardgage lived near the Brothers Strong when they were little. Later toons suggest that Cardgage still does live near the Strongs.

. This is expanded upon in "Hremail 7", where it's suggested that . Benthelooney is a prominent abuser of this since his rants were Un-Canceled. From the original dubs to the first half of the "Revival Era", he was fairly consistent for the most part with his opinions and stuck with them. But in the middle of 2012 to this day, he started retconning his original opinions on subjects that were mostly well-established later on (Pixar, and even Adventure Time and Regular Show).

Webcomics

Web Original

Orion's Arm has made a number of retcons since it's creation. Femto-tech was removed due to physics problems. The number of people killed by GAIA was retconned a number of times in order to adjust the population numbers.

Whateley Universe: Word of God says that the author of the Phase novels only started years after the series started, and reinterpreted everything she didn't like about Phase's behavior in such a way that there were no outward changes (everything in prior stories was 'right' or 'slightly misheard') but all of Phase's actions were explained.

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