History Main / CerebusRetCon

** When the LovePotion Amortentia is first introduced, it result in what you'd expect from teenagers- wacky hijinks that are PlayedForLaughs. In the final book we learn that [[spoiler: Voldemort's mother continuously administered Amortentia to his father, essentially enslaving him and forcing him to run away with her, marry her, and have her child. When she finally stops controlling him, he immediately leaves her, leaving her in a depression that eventually leads to her death.]] Suddenly all the warnings about Amortentia from Slughorn and Dumbledore don't seem so funny, and [[FridgeHorror the marketing of a magical date rape drug to CHILDREN, by a JOKE SHOP, raises a lot more questions.]]

* Along the same lines, it's hard to not laugh when a young Disney/{{Hercules}} accidentally sets off a DisasterDominoes that destroys an entire agora. But when the understandably upset townspeople proceed to yell at and insult [[BreakTheCutie the poor guy...]]

** When the LovePotion Amortentia is first introduced, it result in what you'd expect from teenagers- wacky hijinks that are PlayedForLaughs. In the final book we learn that [[spoiler: Voldemort's mother continuously administered Amortentia to his father, essentially enslaving him and forcing him to run away with her, marry her, and have her child. When she finally stops controlling him, he immediately leaves her, leaving her in a depression that eventually leads to her death.]] Suddenly all the warnings about Amortentia from Slughorn and Dumbledore don't seem so funny.

* ''LightNovel/HaiyoreNyarkoSan'' has the character Ato-ko Shirogane, first introduced in the GagSeries ''Remember my Love(craft-sensei)'' as a CovertPervert who browses porn sites by the hundreds ''simultaneously'' and drops a ClusterBleepBomb when describing what she would do to [[EmotionlessGirl Cuuko]]. When Ato-ko pops up in the novels, however, it turns out that she [[NetorareGenre steals other womens' boyfriends/lovers]] [[ForTheLulz because she gets off the emotional pain it causes]]. This effect also extends to all the friendly, polite interaction she has with the show's stars Nyarko and Mahiro, since she's trying to steal the latter away from the former.

* This happens sometimes in ''Series/TheMightyBoosh'' fanfics

* In ''FanFic/{{Horseshoes and Hand Grenades}}'', we have [[BitchInSheepsClothing Misa Torizaki]] whose most defining trait in [[Series/KamenRiderFourze in Kamen Rider Fourze]] was her [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom forcing Norio Eguchi to become Cygnus Zodiarts.]] She got away with it too. What happens here? Word spread about her actions and she's called "Swan Bitch" by people under their breath. Her backstory is her part of a rental company who ran away from home to escape her abusive and alcoholic step-father and the day she met Cygnus, she was going to be raped. Cygnus inspired her to make the Ugly Ducklings be a club that does good deeds and she severed her ties with the rental company...until they found out and put her through some degrading jobs. That, and probably holding onto the Zodiarts Switch, eroded her sanity that ultimately made her activate Norio's switch to become Cygnus.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': A joke in "Where The Buggalo Roam" where Kif thought that kissing Amy (while [[DidTheEarthMoveForYouToo buggalo stampeded]]) was making love to her was eventually fleshed out in a later episode -- Kif has BizarreAlienBiology which means that when he feels a great sense of love for someone else, his skin becomes receptive to genetic material, which is how his species reproduces. In other words, kissing Amy really was making love to her.

** The first episode makes Fry's life in the year 2000 seem utterly miserable, so that it's understandable how he celebrates after being unfrozen a millennium later. Since then episodes have gone back and explored his previous life more closely, creating drama as Fry remembers his brother, beloved dog, his girlfriend, and his father.

** In "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles", when the cast is de-aged to teenagers, teenage Amy is shown as fat and her father makes fun of her weight. On the Comedy Central episode, "Prisoner of Benda," it's revealed that Amy was a compulsive over-eater, which is why she was fat as a kid.

*** There's also Hagrid's unconditional love of animals, and his tendency to treat (clearly dangerous) magical creatures as pets. In ''The Sorcerer's Stone'', this aspect of his character was completely PlayedForLaughs. But it seems a lot less funny by ''The Chamber of Secrets'', when it's revealed that [[spoiler: it was what led to his expulsion from Hogwarts as a teenager: the first time that Tom Riddle's basilisk escaped from the Chamber and started killing Muggle-born students, one of Hagrid's "pets" (a giant spider called Aragog) was wrongfully accused for their deaths, and Hagrid was blamed for letting it out--essentially making him an accessory to murder]].

->''"[[TheyKilledKennyAgain I've experienced death, countless times]]. Sometimes, I see a bright light. Sometimes, I see Heaven, or Hell. But eventually, [[StatusQuoIsGod no matter what]], [[SnapBack I wake up in my bed]], [[LimitedWardrobe wearing my same old clothes]]. And the worst part? Nobody even remembers me dying! I go to school the next day, and everyone is just like, "Oh, hey, Kenny". Even if they had seen me get decapitated with their own eyes. You wanna whine about curses, Hindsight? [[BlessedWithSuck You're talking to the wrong fucking cowboy]]."''

** In ''Sorcerer's Stone'', Hagrid is presented as a goofy, over-sized character who is clumsy with his magic and hides his wand in an umbrella. This is presented as simple comic relief. It is later revealed [[spoiler: that Hagrid is a half-giant and has been suffering from FantasticRacism his whole life. He is clumsy with magic because he was framed for Tom Riddle murdering Moaning Myrtle, and was expelled from Hogwarts early in his education. Accordingly, he has to keep his wand in an umbrella not to maintain TheMasquerade, but because he's not allowed to have a wand in the first place (and said wand was actually snapped into several pieces, which the umbrella somwhat unifies).]]

** In ''Sorcerer's Stone'', Hagrid is presented as a goofy, over-sized character who is clumsy with his magic and hides his wand in an umbrella. This is presented as simple comic relief. It is later revealed [[spoiler: that Hagrid is a half-giant and has been suffering from FantasticRacism his whole life. He is clumsy with magic because he was framed for Tom Riddle murdering Moaning Myrtle, and was expelled from Hogwarts early in his education. Accordingly, he has to keep his wand in an umbrella not to maintain TheMasquerade, but because he's not allowed to have a wand in the first place.]]

** And ''before'' that, we learn that the whippings Bompie received [[spoiler: actually led to Bompie holding a permanent grudge against his father. It is implied Bompie broke off all contact and never reconciled with his father until the latter was gravely ill]]

* Though not a comedy, ''Series/{{Bones}}'' managed this. Booth's increasing tendency to receive advice from famous people during dreams turns out to be caused by [[spoiler:brain cancer that's slowly killing him]].

* In ''FanFic/{{Horseshoes and Hand Grenades}}'', we have [[BitchInSheepsClothing Misa Torizaki]] whose most defining trait in [[Series/KamenRiderFourze in Kamen Rider Fourze]] was her [[UnwittingInstigatofDoom forcing Norio Eguchi to become Cygnus Zodiarts.]] She got away with it too. What happens here? Word spread about her actions and she's called "Swan Bitch" by people under their breath. Her backstory is her part of a rental company who ran away from home to escape her abusive and alcoholic step-father and the day she met Cygnus, she was going to be raped. Cygnus inspired her to make the Ugly Ducklings be a club that does good deeds and she severed her ties with the rental company...until they found out and put her through some degrading jobs. That, and probably holding onto the Zodiarts Switch, eroded her sanity that ultimately made her activate Norio's switch to become Cygnus.

* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''

* Sometimes, a CerebusRetcon happens naturally as the result of CharacterDevelopment over a series. For example, Wesley was a one-note bumbling UpperClassTwit when he first appeared on ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', completely played for laughs. Once he became one of the regular cast of ''Angel'' his character was fleshed out enough to reveal that his early awkwardness was largely the result of a painful childhood with an abusive father; throughout the series any mention of his father causes Wesley to momentarily revert back to his old bumbling. His father's visit in "Lineage" is an especially dark example. This being Season 5, Wes has become extremely badass (seriously, he'd have a chance against a top of his game Ripper at this point). [[spoiler:Finally tired of his father, he shoots him in cold blood. Luckily, it was a robot.]]