| 1 | A PlotHole is something [[WildMassGuessing fans spend hours]] [[FanWank coming up with justifications for]]. Continuity Drift is something fans don't mind, but would probably spend hours whining about if it was [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks introduced in an adaptation]]. |
| 2 | |
| 3 | Fictional worlds get very complicated. You have all kinds of {{Backstory}}, the political and social situation of the world, what kind of physics or {{technobabble}} there is, how {{magic|AIsMagicA}} works, and the overall atmosphere of the place. If you're writing about these, you probably didn't come up with the whole setting before you start writing. And if your work has more than one installment, you almost certainly didn't come up with it all before you started publishing. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | So things change as you fill in details. [[UniquenessDecay What was unique becomes common]], [[SoLastSeason what was incredibly powerful becomes insignificant]], and what was implied to have a wealth of unexplored detail... doesn't. After the story is fleshed out, exposition given way back in the beginning is off, somehow. Maybe the author thought that was how the world worked, but it didn't really turn out that way. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | May be caused by the fact that CharacterizationMarchesOn. Sometimes the only way to keep sane is by treating the events you want to overlook as BroadStrokes. One specific type of this is EarthDrift. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Contrast with {{Retcon}}, where stuff gets outright rewritten instead of just explained badly. Usually leads to EarlyInstallmentWeirdness. |
| 10 | ---- |
| 11 | !!Examples: |
| 12 | |
| 13 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 14 | |
| 15 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 16 | * ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': |
| 17 | ** Certain details introduced early in the series have drifted into something else by the time the manga ends. Rukia originally states that Shinigami kill Hollows from behind to avoid seeing their human faces, but when Shinigami finally enter the story, most Shinigami never kill Hollows that way. Shinigami were designed before the military structure was decided upon, so Ukitake's first appearance doesn't include a captain's haori. When Byakuya and Renji first appear, there's still no captain's haori, Renji implies he's some kind of retainer to the Kuchiki household, and he refers to Byakuya by a different term of respect than "captain"; additionally, Rukia seems to only recognize him as a powerful fighter among the Shinigami rather than a close childhood friend, and he in turn does not treat her even remotely in the same manner until several chapters after his introduction. When Soul Society is first shown in the manga, to follow Rukia's imprisonment, the military structure has been created. Also, Uryuu originally thought he was the Last Quincy and wearing an old-fashioned uniform until his father chastised him for misusing the "Last Quincy" title, but the final arc strongly implies that Uryuu has known about the Vandenreich from a young age because Souken told him about them, and makes it clear that the Vandenreich uniform is the original - not new - uniform. Kubo came up with the final arc in the latter half of the Soul Society arc. |
| 18 | ** This is also occasionally to be seen in the Arrancar arc. Aizen's knowledge of his Arrancar subordinates seems unusually shaky; he initially describes Grimmjow's posse as "Gillians" when they're mostly Adjuchas, with only one Gillian in the group. Urahara also seems to be initially shaky on who the Visoreds are and where they come from, but it's later revealed his history is intimately connected to them as they were all exiled from Soul Society together. |
| 19 | ** There are other plot elements that were introduced early in the series that ended up never being expanded on. A method of tracking people using things called Spirit Ribbons is also never seen again after the initial arc, with all of the characters tracking each other using only their spiritual power. In fact, the afterlife aspect of the series is often inconsequential, with various aspects of it (the reincarnation cycle, who hollows were before they changed into hollows, the possibility of Shinigami having once been humans themselves, and Hell) remaining unexplored in favor of battles between the various spiritual factions. |
| 20 | * In the beginning of ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'', it is implied that Kenshiro and Shin are the only successors of the ''Hokuto Shinken'' and ''Nanto Seiken'' martial art schools respectively. This is especially notable when Kenshiro reminds Shin that they must cooperate and help each other pass on their martial arts to future generations. After Shin's death, it is eventually revealed that ''Nanto Seiken'' is not a specific style, but an umbrella name for 108 to be exact) as other practictioners are introduced and that Shin was just one of the six grand masters. |
| 21 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': |
| 22 | ** The naming conventions and other things of stronger ninjutsu are a bit different in the beginning. In the Wave Country arc, stronger attacks took a ''ridiculous'' amount of hand seals, with the water dragon one (B-rank) taking '''42'''. After that, even the strongest techniques never used more than ten. Also, in the first arc most [[CallingYourAttacks attack names]] were proceeded with "Ninpou (ninja art/technique): (name of technique)", which was dropped later. |
| 23 | ** When Sasuke is with Suigetsu on his way to recruit Karin into their group, he speaks of her [[TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne long-range chakra-sensing abilities]] as if it's something completely unique to her. Later, Killer Bee sees her sensing his location he refers to her as a "sensor-''type''", implying long-distance chakra-sensing is an ability other ninja can have, although probably a rare one (which is later confirmed when no less than ''three'' more of them show up two {{Story Arc}}s later, and an even later one has an entire division of an army made of them). In light of this, Sasuke's words come off as either uninformed or meaning her "unique power" was simply an individual and somewhat unusual version of it. |
| 24 | *** It was later retconned that her unique abilities are in reality a tremendous life force and HealingFactor since [[spoiler:she is a member of the Uzumaki clan]]. |
| 25 | ** Naruto's own signature ''Kage Bunshin no Jutsu'' (Shadow Clone Technique) is an example--in the first story it gets treated as a dangerous technique and rare due to how much chakra it consumes. Later on, this is said to apply to only the ''Mass'' Shadow Clone Technique (i.e. creating lots of clones at once)--the smaller-scale version is fairly common among Leaf ninja, and its high chakra cost merely makes it [[AwesomeButImpractical inefficient in most situations,]] rather than directly endangering the user. |
| 26 | ** If you go back and reread the Chuunin Exam arc again, it's exceedingly obvious that Gaara was never meant to be a jinchuuriki -- the concept of jinchuuriki didn't ''exist'' before the timeskip. He was simply an EvilCounterpart to Naruto, a boy with a monster inside him who succumbed to the darkness and became a killing machine. The most obvious evidence is the fact that Shukaku's powers and the form in which it manifests bear NO resemblance to any of the other jinchuuriki seen later in the series. Additionally, Shukaku was given its own backstory -- far from being a "tailed beast", it WasOnceAMan. (However, this has since been retconned as the citizens of Suna being unaware of Shukaku's true nature as a Tailed Beast and only assuming the WasOnceAMan backstory to be the truth.) |
| 27 | ** The Byakugan is introduced as if it would be much more powerful and important than it ends up being. During the Chunin exam 3rd stage preliminaries, Kakashi mentions a rumor stating that the Sharingan was originally a mutation of the Byakugan, and the latter's ability of insight surpasses the former's; he then adds that if Sasuke and Neji were to fight, Sasuke would have zero chance of winning. This status quo falls apart as the plot progresses. We are gradually introduced to the game-breaking Mangekyo Sharingan, an evolution of the sharingan with a wide range of abilities that ''each'' far surpass anything the Byakugan could possibly do. Later, we also find out about the Rinnegan, which has ominous ties to the origin of ninjutsu and has its own range of game-breaking abilities; we then come full circle as we find out that it was, all along, an evolution of the Sharingan. By the end, the Sharingan and its evolutions are a top tier force to be reckoned with, tied intricately into the series' convoluted MythArc, while the Byakugan is the exact same kind-of-cool power with unrealized plot potential that it was during its introduction. To add insult to injury, [[spoiler:ultimate villain Kaguya apparently has the Byakugan, but she goes down in short order without showcasing a single Byakugan ability we haven't seen before]]. The canon movie ''Anime/TheLastNarutoTheMovie'' does introduce a new power evolved from the Byakugan called the Teseigan, and the SequelSeries ''Manga/{{Boruto}}'' explores the Otsutsuki clan's (who where the original Byakugan users) legacy as part of its MythArc, including the introduction of a variant of the Byakugan called the Jougan. |
| 28 | * In ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'' an earlier chapter has Red capturing a Gyarados that already belonged to another trainer (Misty). However, at a later point, [[DubNameChange Blue]]/Green says that, as is explicitly shown in most other parts of the franchise, catching a Pokémon some else has already caught is impossible. In another case, in the Red/Blue/Green arc, the Gym Badges had actual mystic powers and were the {{MacGuffin}}s the villains' plans centered around. In all later arcs, Gym Badges, including the original 8, are just ordinary badges. |
| 29 | * ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'' has an early trainer who carries many Poké Balls at the same time; shortly afterwards we're told trainers only allowed to carry six. What happens to any extra Pokémon has also changed; Ash's Krabby is automatically sent to Professor Oak after he catches it, but in Unova Sewaddle's Poké Ball simply shrinks down and becomes unusable until Ash sends one of his other Pokémon away. |
| 30 | * ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'': |
| 31 | ** Hiei initially points out that he and Yukina are '''half'''-siblings with different mothers. In the Three Kings Saga, it's revealed that the two have the same mother, were born at the same time, and Hiei was conceived by a man, while Yukina was conceived asexually. Then again, it wouldn't have been out of character of Hiei to just lie. |
| 32 | ** At one point, in his introduction, Kurama says he's 300 years old. Later he claims to be a thousand. |
| 33 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'': |
| 34 | ** A purely aesthetic one, but still noteworthy mistake. Robin, who is 28 at her introduction, got her first bounty when she was 8, and when some Marines recognize her, we see the bounty poster with a picture of her 8-year-old self in an ImagineSpot. On the picture, she has almost the exact same face as her adult self (though her nose is smaller and her hair shorter). The only thing that really gives her off as a kid is that she has the head-to-body-proportions of a young child. 200 chapters later, we get to see a long flashback with 8-year-old Robin. Now she is suddenly drawn with a more childlike and cuter face (bigger, rounder eyes and a different nose) which doesn't really look like her bounty poster picture. Later in the flashback, her bounty poster is issued and it does have her more mature-looking face on the photography, though outside of the poster she still has her cute child face. One would almost think the Marines traveled to the future, took a picture of her 28-year-old face and photoshopped it on her 8-year-old body... |
| 35 | ** The Grand Line is first described as being hell-on-earth. While it is dangerous, it also seems to contain the majority of the world's population, and doesn't come off as the pirate's graveyard characters usually described it as. When the second half of the Grand Line, the New World, is introduced, it's described pretty similarly to how the whole Grand Line was portrayed before the characters actually got there. |
| 36 | ** Several characters treat Devil Fruits as nothing more than myths, but the vast majority of the most famous people in the world have eaten a Devil Fruit, which makes it hard to believe that their existence would be in dispute. |
| 37 | * In the ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' franchise, monsters were originally physical manifestations/mutations of human souls and emotions. These monsters could through magic be imprisoned in, and summoned from, magical stone slabs containing their images. The Duel Monsters cards were supposed to be the modern-day allegory of these Egyptian tablets, creating confusion when the ''Anime/YuGiOh'' anime, in its fourth season, presented the monsters as being from another dimension as early as the times of Atlantis. ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' also had the monsters as from another dimension and trapped in cards. While ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' went back to the idea of them being earthly spirits, ''Anime/YuGiOhZEXAL'' went back to the "[[AnotherDimension parallel universe]]" thing, ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' makes the multiple dimensions thing a central plot point, and ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'' does away with both in favor of a VR dueling world. |
| 38 | ** Also, the [[Manga/YuGiOh original manga]] was clearly not thought through all the way until later on, as earlier chapters have the implied backstory and nature of the Shadow Games as much different from what they would later be presented as, including later retcons on how Yugi's grandpa got the Puzzle. |
| 39 | ** Similarly, the card game was originally supposed to be a one-off game like most other games in the manga, was titled "Magic & Wizards" rather than "Duel Monsters", and was said to be an American game that only had a small following in Japan. A few arcs later, Duel Monsters is huge everywhere to the point that an entire Japanese city is used as the grounds for a tournament, and the anime spinoffs make it the center of the franchise. |
| 40 | [[/folder]] |
| 41 | |
| 42 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 43 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': |
| 44 | ** One of Superman's traditional titles is the Last Son of Krypton, meaning he's the SoleSurvivor of his birth planet. This was fine for a while... until ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}, Krypto the Superdog, and more started showing up as still alive in the present. Supergirl was thus called the Last [[ExactWords Daughter]] of Krypton, but then this didn't account for Kryptonian criminals like General Zod and Faora who were banished to the Phantom Zone before Krypton blew up. Post-1986, after DC rebooted their universe, they became more strict about it, so that when the likes of Supergirl, Zod and co. were reintroduced, they were either not Kryptonian, or not from the same universe's Krypton. But eventually DC rolled back these changes as well. |
| 45 | ** At least half of Superman's powers are the result of this and PowerCreepPowerSeep. Originally he could lift a car over his head, outrun an express train, leap 1/8 of a mile, had telescopic vision and super-hearing, and "nothing but a bursting shell could pierce his skin". Later comics and cartoons gave him a long list of other/greater powers. The ones that stuck include the power to fly, the strength to lift ocean liners and move colossal space cruisers with his bare hands, enough speed to compete with the Flash in a foot race and (sometimes) make inter-stellar flights, super-breath/freeze-breath, invulnerability, and expanded his vision powers to include x-ray vision, heat vision, microscopic vision, and the ability to see across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. |
| 46 | ** Even the ''origin'' of his superpowers changed within the years -- as [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2011/12/27/the-abandoned-an-forsaked-how-does-superman-get-his-powers/ this page]] illustrates, Krypton was originally populated by HumanAliens that are more athletically evolved than the Earth humans, but eventually "The Complete Story of Superman's Life" was published, establishing that a Kryptonian can only gain super abilities on Earth, due to being born on a planet with heavy gravity and a red sun. |
| 47 | * In ''ComicBook/StrontiumDog'', the term 'strontium dog' was originally an insult, and in an early strip, Johnny forced his client to pay him a higher fee after they refer to him as such. After a year or two, nobody seemed to care -- Johnny referred to ''himself'' as a strontium dog, as well as his fellow bounty hunters. |
| 48 | * [[ComicBook/SubMariner Namor]] has the following powers: Hulk-level super strength, flight, amphibious physiology, and a bad temper. When he was introduced, and well into the sixties, he could also talk to fish and mimic the abilities of any undersea creature, including ''puffer fish.'' |
| 49 | * ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': |
| 50 | ** Judges seem to have originally been portrayed as an elite unit within the regular police force, and some early strips feature non-Judge cops as {{redshirt}}s. Nowadays, the entire police force is composed of Judges. |
| 51 | ** The first published comic describes Dredd as operating in New York City and as having been ''elected'' to his post. Later, New York was revised to just part of Mega City One, and Judges were presented as having passed through an intense years-long training program before being graduated to duty with no election necessary. |
| 52 | * If you're a ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'' fan you'll notice this happen often. Legends in Exile has a lot of differences to the later books. The community is suggested to be much larger, Beauty and Beast requiring a carriage to attend the annual Remembrance Day ball, yet by March of the Wooden Soldiers we can see that Fabletown is just a single, small street with a few hundred residents, most of whom live in the woodland building. |
| 53 | * ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' ran into this with the comic's first issue, which depicted Hal Jordan's predecessor Abin Sur [[DeathByOriginStory dying after crashing his spaceship on Earth]]. It made perfect sense to readers at the time (everyone knows that aliens get around in spaceships, after all), but later issues would establish that Green Lantern rings give their bearers the ability to [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace breathe in space]] and fly at near-lightspeed, making spaceships unnecessary in the Green Lantern Corps. Various retcons and re-imaginings would later attempt to explain away the discrepancy by crafting reasons for Abin Sur to use a spaceship in his final mission, thus keeping the origin story intact. |
| 54 | ** In the pre-Crisis story "Earth's First Green Lantern," Abin Sur used a spaceship in a ploy to trap a parasitic alien by convincing it that his ring had run out of power (since, of course, a Green Lantern would only resort to using a spaceship if he couldn't use his ring). |
| 55 | ** In Creator/AlanMoore's post-Crisis story "Tygers," he used a spaceship out of fear of a prophecy foretelling that his ring would fail him at a crucial moment, leading to his death. The prophecy [[SelfFulfillingProphecy ended up causing his death]] because it led him to lose faith in his own power ring (which, of course, requires willpower to work). |
| 56 | ** In Creator/GeoffJohns' post-''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' retelling of his origin story, "Secret Origin," Abin Sur lost faith in his ring because of a prophecy foretelling that Parallax's influence on the Corps' central power battery would corrupt him, leading him to rely on a spaceship for his interplanetary voyages. He also needed the spaceship's holding cell to transport Atrocitus, an enemy of the Corps, back to his crucifix at the prison planet of Ysmault. |
| 57 | ** In the ''Film/GreenLantern2011'' film adaptation, the "spaceship" is changed to an escape pod, which a mortally wounded Abin Sur uses to escape Oa following a tumultuous battle that cripples his ability to use his ring. |
| 58 | * ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': ''ComicBook/TheCloneSaga'' was filled with this: |
| 59 | ** A few issues after the original clone story was published, there was a story that revealed that the Spider-Man clone (later named Ben Reily) was a partner of the Jackal (the initial villain mastermind behind the Clone Saga) who had been turned into an exact clone. This revelation was brought on by the High Evolutionary, a man who was on the level of [[ComicBook/FantasticFour Reed Richards]] or Doctor Doom. When Creator/MarvelComics brought the clone back, they had a quick throwaway line that the High Evolutionary was jealous and lied. This means that the Jackal, a B-list villain and lowly university professor, had somehow managed to one-up a man who had made himself as powerful as Galactus. |
| 60 | *** Miles Warren the Jackal was eventually revealed to have been the High Evolutionary's assistant at some point. |
| 61 | ** Many new clones were introduced as being made before Ben Reilly, making him much less special. |
| 62 | ** Readers were subjected to this within the saga itself. The story also introduced a mysterious villain named Judas Traveler who was a mystic that had a wide variety of powers including TimeTravel. The writers had no idea who this villain was, nor did they know what to do with him. It was eventually [[HandWave hand-waved]] that he was a mutant with the ability to cast illusions which set up many plot holes since the man was nearly omniscient. |
| 63 | ** Thanks to ExecutiveMeddling, the story was also responsible for bringing back ComicBook/NormanOsborn from the dead. Not only did this slap a huge {{Retcon}} on a story that was written 20 years earlier but it negated the actions of the Jackal throughout the Saga. Just about all of the writers involved in the saga were notably against the retcon. |
| 64 | * '''''Very''''' early in ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'', [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Cassidy]] survives being shot by the Saint of Killers. A vampire surviving being shot is no big deal, but we later learned that the Saint's guns were forged by {{Satan}} himself from the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Angel of Death's sword]] and made so that they will [[ImprobableAimingSkills never miss]], [[BottomlessMagazines never run out of ammo]], and [[InstantDeathBullet always kill whatever they hit]]. The first thing the Saint does with them is shoot the Devil in the face, and at the very end of the series [[spoiler:he kills every Angel in Heaven and God himself with those guns]]. Creator/GarthEnnis later admitted that he didn't realize where he would eventually go with the Saint, and we should just try not to think too hard about that early encounter or why Cassidy survived. |
| 65 | * ''ComicBook/DisneyMouseAndDuckComics'': When Scrooge [=McDuck=] first appeared it was not explained where he got his money, but he was implied to have been born rich -- e.g., in "The Old Castle's Secret", his second appearance, where he refers to his own wealth as "the [=McDuck=] fortune" (suggesting that it is in fact the ''family'' fortune), and owns a huge ancestral castle. A few years later, in "The Magic Hourglass", it's stated that he was ''not'' born wealthy, but became so through the power of the titular amulet. Finally, when Scrooge was given his own spinoff title (and was no longer just a supporting character in the ''WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck'' series) it became necessary to turn him into a more sympathetic, and even heroic, character; it was at this time that his current backstory was established: that he was born into poverty but rose to riches purely through his own grit and ingenuity (by being "smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies") -- the quintessential SelfMadeMan. This is the foundation on which all of his later characterization is built. |
| 66 | * ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'' was originally set in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, much like various other licensed comics Marvel had at the time. Some Marvel characters cameoed in early issues and the Savage Land played a major role in the backstory. Soon, however, Marvel and Hasbro decided to split ''Transformers'' off into its own reality to prevent legal and continuity headaches. The setting shifted, semi-quietly, from established superhero universe to 'Earth never had contact with extranormal beings or objects until the Transformers showed up'. This led to an amusing situation where ComicBook/SpiderMan was [[http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Peter_Parker_(Earth-91274) turned into a living paradox]]. To elaborate; Spider-Man made a guest appearance in the third issue of ''Transformers'' and naturally makes references to other Marvel characters and events. Once the comic underwent Continuity Drift it caused Spidey to look utterly delusional, as he keeps referring to people that don't exist and events that never happened. |
| 67 | * The very first issue of ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' had the Four's base of operations located in a fictional CityOfAdventure called "Central City". It took a few issues before it became established that their adventures (as well as most of Marvel's other superhero comics) take place in New York City. Today, of course, stories set in New York are arguably Marvel's trademark, so it's hard to think of the series taking place anywhere else. |
| 68 | * ComicBook/WonderWoman's powers grew and got added to over the years often with little more than a handwave in the way of explanation, with her most notable and enduring new power being flight. As her powers grew the rest of the Amazons, who had initially played "[[BulletCatch bullets and bracelets]]'' casually were slowly depowered making Diana's achievement of defeating other Amazons in a competition of strength and martial arts far less impressive. The loose continuity in the Wonder Woman books has also contributed to the mess that is [[ComicBook/WonderGirl Donna Troy's]] [[ContinuitySnarl/DonnaTroy backstory]]. |
| 69 | * ComicBook/MartianManhunter: In his first story, "The Strange Experiment of Doctor Erdel!", J'onn, masquerading as a human named John Jones, goes sightseeing around the world, comparing his observations to life on Mars. At one point, he mentions in passing a "Great Evolution", which eradicated crime on Mars for centuries. Later stories featured Martian criminals, though they were still treated as significant aberrations. |
| 70 | [[/folder]] |
| 71 | |
| 72 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 73 | * ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'': |
| 74 | ** For his early appearances, Nermal was owned by Jon's mother. Now he just wanders in whenever needed. |
| 75 | ** Similarly, Odie used to belong to Jon's friend Lyman. After Lyman vanished, Odie became Jon's pet. Some fans believe digging up Jon's back yard could be... enlightening. WordOfGod on the issue is "you don't want to look in Jon's basement". |
| 76 | ** One of the stories in ''ComicBook/GarfieldHis9Lives'' is an alternate history of Odie being bought by Jon as a companion for Garfield. |
| 77 | [[/folder]] |
| 78 | |
| 79 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 80 | * The Disney version of ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'' doesn't always line up completely with its prequel film series ''Franchise/DisneyFairies'': |
| 81 | ** At the end of the first movie, a young Wendy can be glimpsed, in a scene taking place shortly after the birth of Tinker Bell herself. This makes little chronological sense, as everything about the way Peter Pan and Tinker Bell are treated in the first film implies they've long been outstanding inhabitants of Neverland, enough that they've both passed into Earth's folklore by the time Wendy is 12 years old. (CanonDiscontinuity seems to have been declared on this particular scene, with later films apparently moving the timeline back to somewhere in the 19th century.) |
| 82 | ** In ''The Pirate Fairy'': |
| 83 | *** Captain Hook's arrival in Neverland as shown in that film does not really fit in with what is known of his background in the 1953 film: it is implied there that he was a pirate captain all along and came as one to Neverland, complete with crew and ship (hence why said crew is so anxious for their captain to give upon his grudge with Peter already and finally go ''back'' to his old ways), whereas ''Pirate Fairy'' shows him arriving as a young cabin boy in Neverland and finding the ''Jolly Rogers'' (with Smee as captain) already in Neverland, to somehow become its captain after the events of the movie. |
| 84 | *** Hook's original sum-up of his crocodile problem in the 1953 movie made it clear that the Crocodile only started chasing him because he liked the taste of his hand when Peter fed it to the croc, and has been wanting more ever since. Even then, ''Pirate Fairy'' shows the Crocodile being first trained to hunt Hook by the fairies soon after it was born, and long before Hook's first confrontation with Peter Pan. |
| 85 | ** If we speak of in-series, in the fourth film, ''Secret of the Wings'', it is stated that both warm fairies are forbidden to go to the Winter Woods and winter fairies to go to warm-weather realms as they could lose their wings due to the weather divergences, despite the fact that in the first film, winter fairies are shown together with warm fairies during Tinker Bell's arrival at the Pixie Dust Tree, and in the scene where Clank and Bobble show Tink around Pixie Hollow, they fly through the Winter Woods ''without any inconvenience''. |
| 86 | [[/folder]] |
| 87 | |
| 88 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 89 | * ''Franchise/IndianaJones'': In the prologue to ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade Last Crusade]]'', teenage Indy falls into a vat of snakes on a circus train, and is so traumatized he is scarred for life. Given that just a few minutes before this he picked up a snake with his bare hands and said "It's only a snake!" (implying that his friend was overreacting), this was clearly meant to establish that Jones's signature phobia of snakes originated with this encounter. Yet in ''Series/TheYoungIndianaJonesChronicles'', Indy already hates snakes as a child. The book ''Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide'' reconciles this by saying "Jones' childhood hatred of snakes was taken to a new level in 1912". |
| 90 | * ''Franchise/StarWars'': |
| 91 | ** To give you an idea of how deep this issue runs in ''Franchise/StarWars'': it can be found within ''the first few seconds'' of the franchise's existence. The second line of [[Film/ANewHope the original film]]'s opening crawl states that the story begins shortly after the Rebels' "first victory" against the Empire, during which Rebel spies managed to steal [[{{Macguffin}} the plans to the Death Star]]. But basically no ExpandedUniverse stories (either in the old ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' continuity or the new post-Creator/{{Disney}} continuity) hold to this, instead depicting ''numerous'' Rebel victories prior to the Death Star plans being stolen. The film ''Film/RogueOne'' diverges even further, revealing that the Rebels' "victory" wasn't much of a victory at all: apart from the successful theft of the plans, the battle was a ''[[CurbStompBattle disaster]]'' for the Rebels, and they lost most of a fleet to the Empire. And while the famous opening crawl implies that the theft of the plans was a happy accident, ''Rogue One'' also reveals that it was actually the entire point of the battle: it began when a Rebel strike force set out to infiltrate the Imperial weapons research facility where the plans were being held; the Rebel fleet was just on hand to distract the Imperials while the strike force made off with the plans. Amusingly, it also shows that Princess Leia and the crew of the ''Tantive IV'' were personally present at the battle, and just narrowly escaped Darth Vader--making Leia's cover story of being on a "diplomatic mission to Alderaan" a [[BlatantLies hilariously blatant lie]]. |
| 92 | ** When watching the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy, one gets the impression that the Empire has existed for a long time. The prequel trilogy, however, shows that it's only nineteen years old. For example: |
| 93 | *** Admiral Motti dismisses the Jedi Order as an "ancient religion" and Han Solo sees the Force as superstition, suggesting that they never even saw a Jedi firsthand in their lives. However, 19 years ago they were a major force in the center of the Republic. |
| 94 | *** Tarkin announces the dissolution of the Senate as having swept away the "last remnants of the Old Republic", implying that the Senate had long been a powerless organ of a long-defunct government. Perhaps justified by the fact that the Empire had been declared nineteen years earlier, with the Senate remaining but all power really resting with Palpatine as the Emperor. Nearly twenty years is a fairly long period, after all, enough so that an entire generation of citizens could be born or grow up with it. |
| 95 | *** Also related is Obi-Wan's line in the original movie about the Jedi serving the Republic for over a thousand generations before the dark times of the Empire. However, in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'', it's stated that the Republic was formed a thousand ''years'' ago. The continuity wizards at Lucasfilm fixed this by stating that the Republic was [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ruusan_Reformation merely restructured]] around that time. It also coincided with the Republic returning to a position of true Galactic power after being reduced to a rump state by a long series of wars with a Sith empire. The new EU has changed this slightly, claiming the Old Republic ''preceded'' the Galactic Republic, with the latter being formed after the fall of the former. Yet this contradicts references in the films where the late government is clearly called "the Old Republic". However, that could be generic "old" or just lumping them together, since for instance the French Fifth Republic followed the Fourth Republic, though both are called "the French Republic" as well (being two succeeding versions of the same thing). |
| 96 | ** When Vader tells Tarkin that Obi-Wan is aboard the Death Star, Tarkin says "Obi-Wan Kenobi? Surely he must be dead by now." Vader replies "Don't underestimate The Force." This implies that if Kenobi weren't a Jedi, he likely would have died of old age by then. The prequels set Kenobi as no older than his 60s during ''A New Hope'', hardly an improbable age. |
| 97 | ** Obi-Wan says, in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', "When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot, but I was amazed at how strongly the Force was with him." It's ''technically'' accurate, but surely he would mention Anakin was already a great pilot ''at the age of nine?'' But that detail didn't exist at the time. Also, in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', Anakin had more interaction between Obi-Wan's master Qui-Gon, who became almost a father figure and was the true impetus behind Anakin learning about the Force. Lucas originally had Obi-Wan take Qui-Gon's role in the final film but decided to age him down and introduce Qui-Gon to show a proper Master-Padawan duo. |
| 98 | ** Obi-Wan says in the same instance in ''Return of the Jedi'' that his chief failing was thinking he could train Anakin as well as Yoda. This is nowhere apparent in the prequels and the one pushing for Anakin being trained is Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan merely trains Anakin as a final favor to him, and Yoda seems to focus entirely on foundational training for the youngest students. More significantly, Obi-Wan seems to be implying in ''Jedi'' that it was his [[{{Pride}} hubris]] in believing that he could train Anakin as a Jedi despite lacking Yoda's greater experience and wisdom that caused Anakin to fall to the Dark Side; the prequel trilogy established the idea of the MasterApprenticeChain where a Jedi Knight adopts and trains a Padawan as the normal way of things (and Obi-Wan isn't portrayed as a particularly bad teacher in any meaningful way), making Obi-Wan not really responsible for Anakin's fall at all. |
| 99 | ** Obi-Wan addresses Vader as "Darth", having earlier referred to him as "A young Jedi named Darth Vader", implying that "Darth" is his first name. The prequels and [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] show that it's actually a title, akin to Vader calling Obi-Wan "General" or "Master". In retrospect, the scene works very well if we declare that Obi-Wan is making a point out of ''refusing'' to call Vader by his name. ''Series/ObiWanKenobi'' doubles down on this interpretation, with Obi-Wan's last line to Vader very pointedly calling him ''Darth''. But when the first movie was written, "Darth" was really just Vader's first name (and he really ''did'' murder Luke's father, who only became Vader himself for ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''). |
| 100 | ** Ben also says in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' that Yoda was the Jedi Master who instructed him. Yet in Episode I, he's the Padawan of Qui-Gon, not Yoda. In Episode II, Yoda is shown teaching a large class of younglings, implying that Yoda gives some training to many or all Jedi, but it's still not appropriate to say that Yoda was ''the'' Jedi Master who trained Kenobi -- maybe he meant "the Jedi Master ''([[PunctuationChangesTheMeaning comma]])'' who instructed me"? A centuries-old Jedi Master will surely have had multiple padawans, but Obi-Wan's words implied they had a special relationship, unlike what is suggested in the prequels (WebVideo/RedLetterMedia said that the scene in Episode II "ruins the uniqueness of being trained by Yoda".). In Episode II it's also revealed that Dooku was Yoda's Padawan, and that Qui-Gon was Dooku's Padawan, meaning that Obi-Wan was trained by Yoda in a very roundabout way, but either way his statement was misleading. Although, it was already established in the original trilogy that Obi-Wan was quite liberal with the truth when talking to Luke. |
| 101 | ** In ''Film/ANewHope'', Obi-Wan makes it sound like Anakin Skywalker and Owen Lars had a long history together, saying things like "[Owen] didn't hold with your father's ideals" and "He thought [Anakin] should have stayed here and not gotten involved." Then in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'', we learn that the two aren't even blood relatives, and they only met each other once. Briefly, at that. They were originally intended to have been brothers, but this was changed (obviously). |
| 102 | ** In ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' Obi-Wan's ghost thinks Luke is the Jedi's last hope, but Yoda notes "there is another"... who was of course revealed in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' to be Leia who was Luke's sister all along. But Obi-Wan does not seem to be aware that Luke even has a sister in ''Empire''. This is because Leia was ''not'' Luke's sister when ''Empire'' was filmed, and only became so when ''Return'' was being written. ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' complicates things further by having Obi-Wan being present at Luke and Leia's births, even delivering them himself to their respective foster families. |
| 103 | ** There's also the fact that Leia explicitly says she remembers what her biological mother was like in ''Return'', only for it to be revealed in ''Revenge'' that Padmé died giving birth to the twins. |
| 104 | ** In ''A New Hope'', "Ben Kenobi" wears brown robes and a white tunic, which seem like pretty fitting garb for a mysterious old hermit living in the middle of nowhere. But in the prequels, the brown robes and white tunic were made into the official uniform of the Jedi Order. If Obi-Wan was really trying to pass himself off as an unassuming old hermit while hiding from the Empire in the deserts of Tatooine, [[PaperThinDisguise he apparently wasn't trying very hard]] (he also doesn't even bother to change anything beyond his ''first'' name). |
| 105 | ** Overlapping with CharacterizationMarchesOn: when C-3PO first meets Luke's family in ''Film/ANewHope'', Uncle Owen (who's looking for an interpreter) asks him if he can speak Bocce, and Threepio replies "Of course I can, sir! It's like a second language to me!" His word choice can seem a bit odd after you've seen the later movies, which clearly establish that Threepio is an {{omniglot}} "[[RunningGag fluent in over six million forms of communication]]", and that he speaks far more than just ''two'' languages. Of course, it's technically accurate (presumably they're ''all'' "like a second language" to him) and at the time he's very desperate to be bought by Owen. Threepio often makes word flubs when agitated later too, which could explain his phrasing here. |
| 106 | ** ''A New Hope'' establishes that the Jedi were hunted to near-extinction by Darth Vader and the Empire, but it never says anything about a full-on [[ThePurge purge]] from within the ranks of the Old Republic's military, and it never makes it clear that Imperial Stormtroopers are all under standing orders to kill Jedi on sight. As Michael from Belated Media points out, this can make it seem odd that Obi-Wan has seemingly no problem with igniting his lightsaber in the middle of a crowded bar in Mos Eisley, knowing full well that there's a squad of Stormtroopers right outside the bar looking for a pair of wanted fugitives. |
| 107 | ** It is stated by many background materials that Artoo has never had his memory erased, unlike Threepio. George Lucas has gone so far as to claim that the entire film saga has an unseen FramingDevice wherein Artoo is recounting the events to an alien race after the fact. However, especially given Artoo's extensive involvement in the prequels, this creates the problem of him never demonstrating any knowledge of important background that he ''really'' ought to be telling Luke about. Like the fact that he knew Anakin, Padmé and Obi-Wan for ''years'' and could have given a detailed account of everything that led to Luke's life working out the way that it had! |
| 108 | * The ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'' is rather infamous for this, although the introduction of an AlternateTimeline created via MentalTimeTravel in ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' excuses ''some'' of the discrepancies. |
| 109 | ** Dr. Hank [=McCoy=] makes his first appearance in a background cameo in ''Film/X2XMenUnited'', where he's a human-looking scientist being interviewed on a news program. When he appears in ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'', though, he's a politician with a spot in the United States Presidential Cabinet, and he appears in his classic blue-furred simian mutant form. But then the {{prequel}} ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', which reveals that he was one of Professor Xavier's original X-Men, shows that he's had blue fur since his early 20's, when one of his experiments went awry and accelerated his mutation. |
| 110 | *** In an AuthorsSavingThrow, ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' reveals that Hank developed a serum that let him pass for human for short periods. It also clarifies the true nature of his close relationship with Charles Xavier, establishing that he was the only one of Xavier's original students that stayed behind when Xavier shut the school down during the Vietnam War. |
| 111 | ** A flashback at the beginning of ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'' (which likely takes place in the late 1970's or early 1980's) shows Professor Xavier walking upright, and clearly still allies with Erik Lehnsherr. ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' later reveals that Lehnsherr was responsible for paralyzing Xavier in 1962, and that their friendship ended immediately after. |
| 112 | ** Dr. Moira [=MacTaggert=] is first introduced in a brief cameo in ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'', where she's a British scientist who has apparently been friendly with Charles Xavier for years. But in ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', which takes place about 40 years before the rest of the series, she's an American CIA agent who [[spoiler: has her memories of Xavier erased at the end of the movie]]. |
| 113 | ** When ComicBook/{{Sabretooth}} first meets Wolverine in ''Film/XMen1'', he never gives any indication that he knows who Wolverine is, even though he spends more time with him than with any of the X-Men. ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'' later reveals that, not only do the two have an extensive history together (going back to the mid-1800's), they're actually ''half-brothers''. The first film also depicts Sabretooth as a barely-intelligible, beast-like creature who rarely speaks, while the prequel has him as a much more intelligent and articulate villain. |
| 114 | ** The first movie also subtly implies that Wolverine's claws are mechanical in nature, and screws can even clearly be seen in them during the scene where Magneto attacks him in the train. This is further enforced in ''X2'', where Stryker tells Logan "You were an animal ''then'', you're an animal ''now''. I just gave you claws." ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'' would later incorporate the comics' retcon that Logan possessed natural bone claws that were later coated in adamantium. |
| 115 | ** ''Film/XMen1'' states that ComicBook/{{Magneto}} built his psychic-proof helmet around the time that Senator Kelly's Mutant Registration Act led him to ramp up the Brotherhood's terrorist campaign, since he knew that Xavier was tracking him. ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' establishes that he's had his helmet since the 1960's, and that he originally stole it from Sebastian Shaw. |
| 116 | ** ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'' features a brief appearance by Kayla Silver Fox's sister: a blonde-haired woman who's clearly intended to be Emma Frost (she has Emma's ability to turn her body into organic diamond, and [[AllThereInTheScript is listed as "Emma" in the final credits]]). ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' later explicitly introduces Emma Frost as a major character--who's older than the character in ''Origins'' (two films take place 15 years apart), has psychic powers that were never mentioned in ''Origins'', and never gives any indication that she's related to Kayla Silver Fox. |
| 117 | ** In a possible case of AbortedArc, ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'' introduces Bolivar Trask in a small supporting role as the United States Secretary of Defense, but never gives him a major role in the story. He later reappears in ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' as a major antagonist... where he's gone from a tall, middle-aged African-American military officer to a Caucasian [[Creator/PeterDinklage dwarf]] scientist who was assassinated by Mystique in the 1970's. |
| 118 | ** Despite both being major characters with top billing, Professor Xavier and Mystique never seem to directly interact with each other in the original trilogy, and they never give any indication that they have a history... which is odd, since ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' reveals that Mystique is Xavier's adopted sister, and that Xavier has known her even longer than he's known Erik Lehnsherr. |
| 119 | ** Watch Senator Kelly's "mutants are real" speech in the first film, and try to imagine that this is taking place in a universe where the government was building Sentinels thirty years earlier. |
| 120 | * Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse: |
| 121 | ** Some of Agent Coulson's dialogue in ''Film/IronMan1'' seems to imply that ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} is a recently created organization; most glaringly, he only replies "We're working on it" when he's told that his organization should think of a less cumbersome name than "'''S'''tragic '''H'''omeland '''I'''ntervention, '''E'''spionage and '''L'''ogistics '''D'''ivision". Later, ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' and ''Film/AgentCarter'' both firmly establish that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been around (under that name) since right after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. |
| 122 | ** A FreezeFrameBonus in ''Film/{{The Incredible Hulk|2008}}'' shows that the [[SuperSerum Super Soldier Serum]] was developed by a man named Josef Reinstein. The later movie ''Captain America: The First Avenger'' shows that it was actually created by Abraham Erskine. While Reinstein was an alias Erskine used in the comics to evade Baron Zemo and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, no mention of it was made in ''Captain America'' whatsoever. |
| 123 | ** The final scene for the movie also suggests that ComicBook/TheAvengers are being formed with plans to take down the Hulk, and that General Ross will be involved somehow. ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'' states that Nick Fury has known about the Hulk's whereabouts for quite some time, and was simply content to leave him alone rather than attempt to capture or kill him. ''Film/TheConsultant'' later {{Retcon}}ned the events of the Stinger to better fit with the later movies. |
| 124 | ** Watching ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'' and ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', there's little indication that the Tesseract is one of the Infinity Stones (a plot point that is only later established in ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld''), or that it's part of a set of artifacts at all. Even the voice-over from the start of ''Avengers'' seems to suggest that all ComicBook/{{Thanos}} needs to conquer the universe is the Tesseract. |
| 125 | --->'''The Other:''' The Tesseract has awakened. It is on a little world. A human world. They would wield its power, but our ally knows its workings as they never will. He is ready to lead. And our force, our Chitauri will follow. The world will be his, the universe yours, and the humans, what can they do but burn? |
| 126 | ** In general there didn't seem to be much indication that the Infinity Stones were even a thing. (The Infinity Gauntlet was seen in an Asgardian Vault in the first Thor film, but this was largely a MythologyGag, and ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' would reveal it to be a worthless replica.) For instance, ''The Avengers'' states that Loki's scepter, which is revealed to contain the Mind Stone in ''[[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron Age of Ultron]]'', is simply a weapon given to him by The Other. The Tesseract meanwhile is implied to be a piece of Asgardian technology. |
| 127 | ** [[Characters/MCUThanos The MCU's version of Thanos]] was implied for years to be a regular GalacticConqueror, possibly with the same crush on Death as his comics counterpart. The dialogue listed above implies he wants to conquor Earth and the universe, TheStinger at the end of the film shows him amused at the thought of "courting death", and no one, not even his daughters make any mention of his WellIntentionedExtremist goals until ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar.'' |
| 128 | ** In ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'' and ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'', Michelle's last name is "Jones", and her nickname "MJ" is little more than a MythologyGag (the filmmakers always maintained at the time that she was meant to be an [[CanonForeigner original character]]). ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'' establishes that "Jones" is her ''middle name'', and her last name is "Watson"--confirming that she's the MCU's version of ComicBook/MaryJaneWatson after all. |
| 129 | * It's a major plot point in ''[[Film/PuppetMaster Puppet Master II]]'' that Andre Toulon believes that one of the main characters is a reincarnation of his deceased wife Elsa. The follow-up film ''Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge'' (a {{prequel}} set during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII) would [[{{Retcon}} retroactively]] reveal that Toulon built his puppet "Leech Woman" as a vessel for Elsa's soul after she was murdered by Nazis -- meaning that he should have ''known'' that this wasn't the case. |
| 130 | [[/folder]] |
| 131 | |
| 132 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 133 | * The first ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'' book kind of implies that there are humans around somewhere. It suggests the standard rules for {{talking animal}}s (they just don't do it in front of people except for maybe one kid who has magical adventures with them, and let's ignore the implications as far as livestock are concerned), but this all goes away from the second book on. It is also implied that the humans are [[MouseWorld much larger]] and may not understand them. |
| 134 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': |
| 135 | ** The kitchens moved. Rowling intentionally wrote a bit in the first book saying how the layout of Hogwarts is constantly changing ''specifically'' to cover for this sort of thing. |
| 136 | ** The points are worth a lot more in the first ''Harry Potter'' book -- Harry and company are mortified at the prospect of losing 50, let alone 150 points, but in a later book, Snape docks 50 points with only a passing mention. Creator/SteveKloves (or Creator/ChrisColumbus) tried to mitigate the point thing in [[Film/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone the first movie]]. At the end of the first Potions lesson (the part left on the cutting room floor), Snape takes five points from Gryffindor whereas he only took one point in the corresponding scene from the book. (By the later books, taking five points had become the standard response to a minor infraction.) |
| 137 | ** In the first book, Hagrid describes the deaths of Lily and James as if they hadn't been actively against Voldemort already, and it was a mystery why he would even be bothered to kill them if the opportunity came up. In the third book, Fudge, telling the story of how Voldemort found them, mentions that it was "well-known" Voldemort had been seeking the Potters at the time, with Hagrid right there, and by the fifth, we learn that they served alongside Hagrid in the eponymous Order of the Phoenix the first time around. The effect is that in that first scene with Harry, Hagrid lied... a lot. The movie corrected this also, taking out the questioning of why Voldemort went after Harry's parents and having Hagrid simply say "your parents fought against him, but nobody lived once he decided to kill 'em." |
| 138 | ** In the second book, the memory of Tom Riddle makes a passing mention to “werewolf cubs”. When werewolves are actually introduced in the next book, their condition is analogous to a blood borne disease such as HIV and there are no cubs. The only major werewolf character has a child who didn’t inherit it. Although he later uses the term again in the seventh book in way a that’s clearly meant to be offensive and not factual so, in context, he might have meant in the same way in the second. |
| 139 | ** The same book has him say he'd much rather stay at Hogwarts than "go back to ''that''." Nothing about where he lived when not at Hogwarts was known at that point, but [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince the sixth book]] reveals that he was originally found by Dumbledore in a muggle orphanage, one to which he returned every summer. Then again, his dislike for the orphanage he grew up in probably didn't change much with age, plus this was during ''World War II'' as established by ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'' (and both of these assume he even ''did'' return to the orphanage during the summer holidays as was the original plan, which hasn't been officially stated to be the case). The film provides extra confusion by having Riddle claim he "has no home to go to", though it could be {{handwave}}d as him speaking metaphorically and/or trying to garner sympathy from Dumbledore, the one person who's ever suspected him. |
| 140 | ** In ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Goblet of Fire]]'', the Death Eaters who tortured Neville Longbottom's parents into insanity are charged with having assaulted "an Auror and his wife," which certainly implies that Neville's mother was not herself an Auror. By the next book, however, Rowling had apparently decided that both of Neville's parents should have been Aurors, making the phrasing of the charges in the previous volume extremely difficult to justify without positing a degree of sexism not otherwise evidenced in Rowling's wizarding world. (The most common explanation is that Alice was either still on maternity leave, or had quit/taken a sabbatical to raise Neville, but still.) |
| 141 | ** In later books, you need only to say "Riddikulus" to beat a boggart. The whole "make it funny" part is abandoned after the third book. |
| 142 | ** Characters in the books have a tendency to refer to things in vague terms early in the series, after which they are only ever referred to by name. For instance, "the Azkaban guards" are mentioned several times in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets Chamber of Secrets]]'', but never actually called "Dementors" until ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]]''. Similarly, the Wizard police are briefly called "hit-Wizards" in ''Prisoner of Azkaban'' before the term "Auror" is introduced in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Goblet of Fire]]'', and Voldemort's followers are never referred to as "Death Eaters" until ''Goblet of Fire'' introduces the term. It's later {{retcon}}ned: the Aurors are detectives, more or less, with Hit-Wizards apparently more equivalent to an armed response team (but this does not always match their actual portrayal). |
| 143 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': In the words of Pratchett, there is no Continuity Drift. There may, however, be "alternate pasts". In other words, AWizardDidIt, probably by accident while trying to do something else. |
| 144 | ** And then the history monks, also known as the [[Franchise/MenInBlack Men in Saffron]], had to come by and try to sort it out as best they could. The classic "bug" is that the two major playhouses in Ankh-Morpork are the grand Victorian-era Ankh-Morpork Opera House from ''Literature/{{Maskerade}}'' and the shabby Elizabethan-era theater The Dysk from ''Literature/WyrdSisters'', an obvious case of AnachronismStew, especially since the Dysk was built in WS to be "a new ''type'' of building", and the Opera House has a history stretching back decades. |
| 145 | ** ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'' has references to the "other lords of the Circle Sea", and implies that Ankh-Morpork is simply the biggest and most crime ridden of many [[WretchedHive dangerous city states]] in the region. Later books show that the other 'cities' are peaceful, rural backwaters. The same book implies Ankh and Morpork were separate cities, a point that is never restated. (Though when [[spoiler:Vimes]] is created a Lord, he is made the Duke of ''Ankh'' specifically, not the Duke of Ankh-Morpork, which implies that either the Duke of Ankh title is an old one that has been reinvigorated for him, or that there is a separate Duke/Baron/Count/Whatever of Morpork, or both.) |
| 146 | ** In the early ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books, Lord Vetinari comes off as an overweight SmugSnake, but in later books, he morphs into the thin, perpetually-gaunt [[ManipulativeBastard master-manipulator]] we know and love. Fans have attempted to explain this away by stating that it was a different Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, but WordOfGod has stated that this is not the case. (Specifically, Pterry has said that they were both intended to be the same man, but one of them was written by a younger and less experienced author.) |
| 147 | *** Same goes for Granny Weatherwax. In ''Literature/EqualRites,'' her constant accomplice [[CoolOldLady Nanny]] [[DirtyOldWoman Ogg]] is nowhere to be found, she only wears her pointy hat when necessary, and she ''actually lets someone interrupt her without reprisal.'' It took a couple of books before she metamorphosed into the walking SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome she's known to be. |
| 148 | ** ''Literature/EqualRites'' mentions the existence of Magicians (essentially failed students who are reduced to being lab assistants to proper Wizards) and Thaumaturgists (untrained dogs bodies who go and fetch dangerous spell components such as "the semen of a live tiger"). Neither are ever heard of again despite several books focusing pretty heavily on the Wizards. |
| 149 | *** The title magician is amusingly enough brought up one more time after its introduction, a character that doesn't know any better refers to Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully as one. For his part Ridcully can barely contain his disgust at being referred to as such. |
| 150 | ** A minor example: ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'' (1999) has a bit in the courtship section about sending coded messages by the positioning of stamps on a love letter. Nanny views this as a bit old-fashioned, from the days when "a girl wasn't expected to have any private correspondence until she was thirty-five." In ''Literature/GoingPostal'' (2004), Moist von Lipwig invents the postage stamp....[[note]]This could be handwaved ''if'' you subscribe to the idea that the 'Nanny Ogg'-era stamps are the ink-pad type mentioned early in ''Literature/GoingPostal'', and the sender somehow convinces the local postal worker to place the ink a certain way.[[/note]] |
| 151 | ** A lot of the Ankh-Morpork related inconsistencies are because the city was originally a [[Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser Lankhmaresque]] [[SwordAndSorcery generic fantasy]] pastiche. As it became more unique, a lot of the original characterization was dropped. In ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'', it's much more of a WretchedHive than the borderline SteamPunk CityOfAdventure in the later books. |
| 152 | ** In a few early books it was a plot point that dwarfs age much slower than humans, to the point that by dwarf standards [[DirtyOldWoman Nanny Ogg]] was barely the equivalent to a teenager and they don't even hit puberty until 50. In recent books they age at the same rate as humans and interspecies couples are said to have grown up together. |
| 153 | * ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'': |
| 154 | ** In the original version of [[Literature/TheGunslinger the first book]], Roland discovers that the Man in Black he's been chasing isn't Marten Broadcloak but Walter O'Dim. Later books in the series indicate that Marten and Walter are the same adversary Roland's been chasing all this time, not just symbolically as "the Man in Black" but ''literally the same person''. This is made explicit in the revised version. |
| 155 | ** In [[Literature/TheDrawingOfTheThree the second book]], Eddie Dean is from Co-Op City, the Bronx, in 1983. From [[Literature/TheWastelands book III]] onward, he's from Co-Op City, Brooklyn, in 1987. This would be a simple gaffe, if not for the fact that it becomes a plot point that Co-Op City really ''is'' in the Bronx, and Eddie's Co-Op City in Brooklyn is a sign that his world isn't the "real world". |
| 156 | ** There are tons of minor changes as well. For example, it seems like Roland's motivation for going to the Dark Tower changes every book as does the function of the Tower itself. Hell, Roland attributes the multiverse's imminent collapse on the Tower itself at the end of the fourth book. It's not until the last three that everything finally solidifies, probably due to King finally deciding what the Tower is and does. |
| 157 | ** King can't seem to make up his mind exactly how old Eddie and Susannah are. In one book, Eddie is twenty-three; in the next, he's "nearly ten years older" than Jake, who is consistently said to be eleven. This might be related to the aforementioned confusion over what year Eddie left his world. And in the third book, it's mentioned that Susannah is three years older than Eddie, while the second book implies that the age gap is much greater. |
| 158 | ** In the original version of the first book, the FinalBoss is referred to (in a very sinister manner) as ''The Beast''. Turns out they meant the Crimson King all along, [[spoiler:and he's not very tough]]. |
| 159 | ** In general, the books tend to vacillate on whether Roland's companions ''actually'' hail from the real world, or just from [[SharedUniverse the same fictional universe]] where most of Creator/StephenKing's other books take place. Case in point: ''Literature/TheDrawingOfTheThree'' has a scene where Eddie Dean remembers seeing the movie ''Film/TheShining'' (which was originally a Stephen King novel), while ''Literature/WizardAndGlass'' claims that his brother Henry was friends with Skipper Brannigan (the bully who torments Dinky Earnshaw in "Literature/EverythingsEventual"), and ''Literature/WolvesOfTheCalla'' has Father Callahan (first introduced in ''Literature/SalemsLot'') saved from Neo-Nazis by the same kindly booksellers whom Jake Chambers meets in ''Literature/TheWasteLands''. This becomes particularly glaring in ''Literature/SongOfSusannah'', where Roland and Eddie [[MediumAwareness outright meet Stephen King and discover that they're both characters from his novels]]. [[note]] Among other things, Eddie discovers that he was born in Co-Op City in Brooklyn because King forgot that Co-Op City is actually in the Bronx.[[/note]] But then the last book in the series features Roland traveling to New York to meet Susannah's godfather Moses Carver immediately after encountering Stephen King in Maine, with Carver even giving him a copy of King's novel ''Literature/{{Insomnia}}''. It's...a little inconsistent, to say the least. |
| 160 | * The most obvious bit of Continuity Drift in ''Literature/TheGeneralSeries'' is the way Lady Suzette's eye color and the number of generations her family have been patricians vary from book to book. |
| 161 | * Pick any two ''[[Literature/LandOfOz Oz]]'' books by Creator/LFrankBaum and then work out a coherent history of that country and its populace. |
| 162 | ** This is lampshaded in ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'', where Elphaba and Boq are searching through documents in their school's library trying to piece together the origins of Oz, and everything they find is confusing and contradicting. |
| 163 | ** It's not even just the history, it happens within the books. The Shaggy Man meets Polychrome for the first time twice, merely because Baum forgot he had introduced them in the same book. |
| 164 | * ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' has several: |
| 165 | ** Quite an infamous one among fans is that one of its shape-shifting heroes uses the telepathic communication they speak with while in animal form when he's in his normal human form. Every book afterwards features "thought speak" as only being functional when they're in bodies other than their own. Creator/KAApplegate (the author) herself has flat-out admitted that it was a mistake. The fan nickname for the incident and others is KASU, an acronym for "Katherine Applegate Screws Up[=/=]Screw-Ups". An extensive list can be found [[http://web.archive.org/web/20091027005821/http://geocities.com/sbsa01/kasu.htm here]]. |
| 166 | ** There are also minor ones, such as the Yeerk naming system. At first, not just Visser but ''all'' names are treated as ranks, with at least three "Iniss [some number here]" people, with the YouHaveFailedMe victim among them serving as a reminder to TheDragon [=Iniss 226/Chapman=] that even "an Iniss of the third century" is expendable. A later Yeerk had had his number lowered as part of an advance in rank. After these early examples, no two non-[=Visser/Sub-Visser=] Yeerks will ever have the same name, or have attention called to their designation. Vissers' names before they were Vissers are considered their "real names" and are never "[Word here] 1." |
| 167 | ** We get bits and pieces of the Ellimist's backstory throughout the series... then the Ellimist Chronicles comes along, ''ignoring all of those bits''. However, Marco mentions more and more leading up to it that "we don't know if he's one guy or part of a group." (When we first met him, he ''explicitly'' calls the Ellimists a group more than once. Some time after the last time, Marco decides it's a question for some reason. Then it turns out he's one guy -- whose story has little in common with the hints given in the series proper.) |
| 168 | ** Related to the first KASU (a term KA actually uses sometimes!) is Ax's use of thoughtspeak in human form. At first, he mentions that as a human he must now use human speech. Eventually, though, he begins using thought speak in human form to talk privately with the other Animorphs. As human form is a morph for him, he still has it there. Apparently, he just... never thought to try it for over 30 books? Ax does obsess annoyingly over making mouth-sounds for fun, but telepathy would still have been useful in many situations. |
| 169 | ** Also, early on, thought-speak could send imagery and feelings as well as just words. This goes away fairly soon, though, and another alien race with its own version of thoughtspeak that worked ''exclusively'' on images and feelings eventually cropped up. |
| 170 | ** Whether "War Prince" is the rank after "Prince" or simply the full title and used with it interchangeably changes back and forth. |
| 171 | ** Crayak is a "he" until his very last appearance, then becoming an "it." |
| 172 | ** If you want to get ''really'' picky, when Visser isn't used as part of someone's name, is it capitalized or not? Visser Three is "the Visser" for a very long time, then becomes "the visser." |
| 173 | ** Early books seem to imply that the Yeerk homeworld is part of the Yeerk Empire--Visser One was apparently stationed there before visiting Earth in book 5, and the future Visser Three tries to use the Time Matrix to escape there in ''The Andalite Chronicles.'' However, ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'' states that the Andalites blockaded the planet soon after the war started, and the Yeerks still on that planet have no contact with the Empire; neither visser would even be old enough to have been born there. But why would Visser Three try to flee to a planet where his enemies are in control? Even with an Andalite body that seems like a pretty big risk to yourself and your new, incredibly-valuable super-weapon. |
| 174 | ** Early books seem to imply that the Yeerks had conquered numerous species; the Yeerk controlling Jake, for example, lists a couple random ones to imply how mighty the Empire is. Later books, however, never bring up any (totally) conquered species other than the Hork-Bajir, Taxxons and Gedds. |
| 175 | ** The earlier books give the impression the Andalite-Yeerk war has gone on for a very long time, [[ForeverWar likely centuries or more]]. Then ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'' revealed that the Andalites didn't even meet the Yeerks until 1966 Earth time, and the Visser book reveals the Yeerk infiltration of Earth didn't start until the early [[TheNineties 90s]]. |
| 176 | * Creator/KirBulychev's ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'' series is notorious for this. Most notably, Krys (Rat), a recurring villain, goes from being a spider-like alien who uses LatexPerfection to a humanoid alien who changes shapes without explanation to a rat-like alien who changes shapes thanks to special pills. As Bulychev himself admitted in an interview late in life, this was due to the fact that he didn't like to re-read his books. |
| 177 | * Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheHobbit'' is a prime example -- it was rewritten at least twice to [[CanonWelding fit in]] with the wider Middle-earth mythology (e.g., in the original printed version, Bilbo mentions the possibility of going to [[EarthDrift China]], the "Revised Edition" is the current text which most notably rewrote [[http://www.ringgame.net/riddles.html Bilbo's encounter with Gollum]] to account for his benign magic ring now being the One Ring as revealed in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', and the third version was an even more extreme rewrite/re-edit to make it closer to the tone of LOTR, which was never completed as a friend told Tolkien it was wonderful but wasn't "The Hobbit"). Even then, some incongruous details remain, like a talking purse, mountain giants playing catch with boulders, and magical boots that fasten themselves (invented by Gandalf). Tolkien said the earlier account of Bilbo getting the One Ring was a lie. The later and truer account was later written down after Gandalf questioned Bilbo about the ring. |
| 178 | ** His son, Christopher Tolkien, wrote in the preface to ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' that he had a devil of a time editing his father's as-yet unfinished material into something internally consistent, because this was so bad. But then again, it was unfinished, largely because J.R.R. kept going back to the beginning to revise it. (And considering that at least one version had a framing-device of a sailor writing down previously oral-only tales at the equivalent of a wayside inn, some internal inconsistency would be expected.) |
| 179 | * Some of the ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' short stories contradict the events of the published novels (most prominently the capture of the ''Castilla'' and the consequent powder burns on Hornblower's hand). C.S. Forester discouraged their reprinting because of this. He also did a couple of {{retcon}}s on Hornblower's birthday (1771 to July 4, 1776, as a nod to American readers and so that Hornblower would begin his career at the outset of the French Revolution) and the length of his friendship with Bush, along with ''shortening'' his acquaintance with his first wife, Maria--statements in earlier written novels imply that the marriage was due to a ChildhoodFriendRomance[[note]]with all the romance being on Maria's end[[/note]] but ''Lieutenant Hornblower'' indicates that they first met as adults, when Hornblower was staying in the Masons' boarding house. |
| 180 | * The ''Literature/JamesBond'' novels suffered from this. It's pretty much impossible to reconcile Bond's history as given in ''Literature/CasinoRoyale'' with his obituary in ''Literature/YouOnlyLiveTwice'', unless the British secret service was in the habit of sending teenaged schoolboys out to conduct elaborate coups against the Bulgarians at the gaming tables of Europe. The ''Literature/YoungBond'' series of juvenile novels have done an excellent job at explaining away some of the inconsistencies (such as making his first car a gift from a dying uncle he received while still a teenager). |
| 181 | * In the Literature/VorkosiganSaga, in ''Warrior's Apprentice'', it says that Vorhalas' sons were on the wrong side of Vordarian's Pretendership, whereas in ''Barrayar'' one is angry because the other was executed for dueling. |
| 182 | ** The angry surviving brother ''is'' strongly implied (maybe outright stated?) to have had Vordarian's backing [[spoiler:in his assassination attempts, which Miles elsewhere refers to as part of the war]]. The duellist's fate might be pure drift, or might not: a lot of ''Apprentice'' is driven by Miles' parents' generation obfuscating some of the ugly details of that time period. It's quite possible Aral told Miles "he was killed in the civil war" in lieu of "he was executed for getting drunk and murdering his friend". (And also, much of the first part of ''Barrayar'' was apparently written before ''Apprentice''.) |
| 183 | ** Reading the books in series-chronological order rather than publication order can cause confusion as changes that developed slowly through publication (most notably, Ivan's personality and the society of the Cetagandans) suddenly swing wildly back and forth. |
| 184 | * Creator/AlanDeanFoster's ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'' series started off the character of Flinx as a partially telepathic young thief, with the implication that his powers, though unusual, are not particularly terrifying and bizarre. The two mentor figures, Bran Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex, even comment among themselves that the boy is "a partial telepath", but apparently don't care enough to research the matter further. In later novels that expand Flinx's origin story, it's revealed that he's an empath, not a telepath, and was created as such by a [[HatedByAll universally reviled]] group of {{Evilutionary Biologist}}s, so they ''really'' ought to have been more curious. Also, Flinx's age given in ''Bloodhype'' conflicts with the universal timeline Foster later established, the description of his ship is vastly different (to the point where Foster {{retcon}}ned it to be able to camouflage and reconfigure itself at will), and his pet minidrag is male, rather than the female it was established canonically to be in the chronologically earlier ''The End of the Matter''. |
| 185 | * OlderThanTelevision: For continuity drift within a single book try Kenneth Grahame's ''Literature/TheWindInTheWillows''. The relation between the anthropomorphic animals and humans changes between chapters. Initially the two groups are entirely separate, with the animals mostly ignorant of humans and their culture. Then Toad turns up, with his house, his ability to buy and drive cars, and his subjection to the criminal justice system -- nobody notes his [[AnthropomorphicShift amphibian nature]]. |
| 186 | * ''Literature/WarriorCats'' has this as well. |
| 187 | ** At first, battles were a lot more common and weren't treated nearly as seriously as they are in later books. In later stories, an border skirmish is a big deal and cause for concern about Clan wars, where in the early books it was the standard response to finding a trespasser: fight first, ask questions later. [=ShadowClan=] driving [=WindClan=] out in the first book ''was'' taken seriously, but if that happened in later books it would have been an instant MoralEventHorizon rather than the other Clans just raising a slight protest over the aggressiveness of the action. |
| 188 | ** A more minor example: The first book states that each apprentice must visit the Moonstone before becoming a warrior: they travel there with the leader when he or she decides to [[DeadPersonConversation speak with StarClan]]. While we don't actually see it happen for the rest of the first series, it still gets mentioned occasionally. It's totally forgotten in the second series, and after it was pointed out by fans, the authors later {{lampshade|Hanging}}d it by having Leafpool say "We seem to have left that tradition behind in our old home." In the prequel Super Editions that take place before the first series, they do have the "each apprentice must visit the Moonstone" requirement again, but oddly enough it's the apprentices themselves, rather than the leader, that receives the visions from their ancestors at the Moonstone. |
| 189 | * ''Literature/EmpireOfTheAnts'' by Bernard Werber started out as a story among ants communicating with each other, where HumansAreCthulhu. 327, a male ant, witnesses dozens of ants being killed at the same time by an unknown enemy, and asks other ants about it. A yellow ant tells him that he once saw several ants being killed like this, while crashed by a pinecone, and is described as "laughing" as this is "yellow ant humor". In the sequel books (''Day of the Ants'' and ''Revolution of the Ants''), though, the ants are described as not knowing what humor is and the humans have to describe it and teach them. |
| 190 | * In Creator/TomHolt's first ''Literature/JWWellsAndCo'' novel, using the eponymous Portable Door for more than an hour is incredibly draining, with potential risk to the user's life. By ''May Contain Traces of Magic'', a character has pretty much relocated to his past (our present) using said Door, and isn't even remotely drained. |
| 191 | * Constance's eye color in ''The Book of the Dead'' changes from violet to blue to "dark" over the course of the novel. |
| 192 | * In the Literature/TortallUniverse by Tamora Pierce, the rules of magic change over time. |
| 193 | ** In the first quartet of books in the setting, ''The Song of the Lioness'', there are two kinds of magic. The Gift allows for things like starting fires, healing, and all the other active spells you can think of. The Sight is a passive magic ability allowing the practitioner magical insight into things they see. One character says that the Gift acts as a shield against those with the Sight. Three miniseries later, another character has the Sight so strongly she can see a great many things about people with the Gift. |
| 194 | ** Wild magic, introduced in the second quartet, allows for a different kind of magic than the normal Gift -- the ability to talk to animals and eventually shapeshift. [[HandWave Hand waved]] by being subtle enough in most practitioners to be commonly disregarded as folk tale fodder. Most people with wild magic simply have an affinity with a specific species of animal - Stefan the hostler, who has enough magic that he benefited from training, can call individual horses to him, understand their feelings, and get them to behave a little bit, things that aren't far from the realm of possibility. |
| 195 | ** Specific to the ''Literature/BekaCooper'' trilogy, Beka's {{Psychopomp}} Gift. In ''Terrier'', it's something extraordinary when she communicates directly with a pigeon-riding ghost; most other times all she can do is listen to their UnfinishedBusiness. In ''Bloodhound'', she speaks to the pigeon ghosts as a matter of course. The reason for this change is never directly stated; most fans decide that she developed her ability between books to explain it. |
| 196 | ** In the ''Literature/{{Circleverse}}'' series, the sources of ambient magic have become more anthropomorphized as the books go on. They always have been, to some degree (Sandry "frightens" some wool during the first book), but it's usually been a case of mages being able to relate to their own source of magic. By ''Melting Stones'', the ocean speaks directly to Evvy the stone mage and is openly malevolent towards her. Natural events are also more tractable. In the first book, Tris nearly kills herself by trying to stop the tides along a short stretch of beach; in ''Melting Stones'' (again), Evvy is able to speak and reason with a Vesuvius-{{Expy}} volcano. |
| 197 | * The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' seems to contradict the films occasionally. |
| 198 | ** In the introduction to the novelization of ''Film/ANewHope'' (whose title is just ''Franchise/StarWars'', of course), it is explicitly stated that the Emperor is a powerless weakling who is controlled by his Evil Advisors. According to Wookieepedia, the Whills got the whole story from R2-D2 about 100 years later, so that means every one of the main characters is now an established liar. The novelization, published under Lucas's name but ghostwritten by Creator/AlanDeanFoster, actually came out months before the movie. |
| 199 | ** The opening crawl of ''A New Hope'' states that "Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." Take a wild guess if the Expanded Universe portrays more than zero Rebel victories taking place before this. So it all starts with the ''second line'' of the first-released film. And that's probably only because "It is a period of civil war." is pretty hard to screw up. |
| 200 | ** The lightsaber itself started as a [[ElegantWeaponForAMoreCivilizedAge ceremonial weapon]], mostly used for battles between Jedis and a last resort weapon when diplomacy failed. Twenty years of expanded universe, parodies and video games later, Jedis are facing off entire armies with nothing but a lightsaber. |
| 201 | ** In the novelization to ''Return of the Jedi'', it was stated that Darth Vader got his injuries from falling into a lava pit after a duel with Obi-Wan. This was taken for granted for decades until ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' revealed that Obi-Wan cut off his limbs (the remaining ones, anyway) and Vader was burned by his close proximity to the lava, but not actually falling into it Terminator-style. Lucas himself mentioned Vader's fall into a volcanic pit to ''Rolling Stone'' as early as 1977 but in the same interview Vader and Luke's dad are separate characters. |
| 202 | ** The ''Return of the Jedi'' novelization follows a draft of the movie in stating Obi-Wan and Uncle Owen were actually brothers. Nothing really contradicted it until ''Attack of the Clones'' where Owen is Anakin's stepbrother. Thus, after ''The Phantom Menace'', a ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'' novel with young Obi-Wan came out which mentioned his brother Owen. |
| 203 | ** The Force Ghost technique was implied in the original trilogy to be the standard Jedi afterlife. Even Anakin achieves it when he dies after his HeelFaceTurn. By the time new Expanded Universe material and the prequels came out, it was established that this technique was extremely difficult to perform and that Qui-Gon Jinn was the first to use it, and that Yoda and Obi-Wan learned it from him. |
| 204 | ** Taking down an AT-AT walker with the tow cable in ''Empire Strikes Back'' comes across as a crazy last-ditch gamble. In Expanded Universe, especially video games, this is used as a common tactic (probably because players would feel ripped off if they didn't get a chance to duplicate the famous maneuver). This was justified at least once by saying that as much of a crazy gamble as ''trying'' it the first time was, it worked so unexpectedly well as to become standard thereafter. |
| 205 | ** The original EU heavily implied that the Clone Wars were fought by the Republic and the Jedi ''against'' clones. Which is arguably true, [[MetaphoricallyTrue from a certain point of view]], but clearly not one shared with Timothy Zahn, who [[Literature/DarkForceRising wrote of the cloning cylinders of the Spaarti clone masters finally falling into imperial hands and being used, in a groundbreaking tactic, to make cloned stormtroopers]]. |
| 206 | * In the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series there are assorted examples. |
| 207 | ** One of the notable ones involve prolong, the life extension treatment common to advanced societies. It isn't mentioned in the first book ''On Basilisk Station'', and makes it appearance in the second, ''The Honor of the Queen'' when the Manticorans visit the less technologically advanced planet of Grayson, which doesn't have that medical technology. Third-generation prolong treatment is stated to extend ''all'' stages of human physical maturity, and people from Grayson are explicitly stated to be disturbed by the sight of a warship that looks like it's crewed by teenagers and even pre-teens. Although that particular comparison isn't mentioned again, there are some references later in the series that imply the same thing, such as when Queen Elizabeth III states she didn't start developing a bust until she was in her late 20s. Much later in the series, when the subject of prolong comes up, it's mentioned that recipients get treatment during childhood that cancels the effect so that they age at a normal human rate until they've reached physical maturity. |
| 208 | ** In the first novel, Harrington herself is a competent but not necessarily noteworthy officer who superiors higher up the chain of command don't really know, and in subsequent novels gains a number of people trying to destroy her reputation and career. In the short story "Let's Dance", written many real-life years later but taking place chronologically about a year or so before ''On Basilisk Station'', Harrington gains a measure of notoriety by assisting a known terrorist group in freeing some genetic slaves, creating a minor diplomatic kerfuffle and forcing the Navy to quietly send her off to command school to keep her away from the press and political opposition until things die down. At no point in the novels which take place later was this incident ever mentioned, even by her internal enemies who otherwise used every excuse, rumor, spin, and dirty trick to bring her down. |
| 209 | ** In the first few novels, Harrington is described as winning in hand-to-hand combat due to her practice in martial arts and coming from a heavy-gravity world, while her deadly accuracy in a duel is due to single-minded relentless practice at a range. Later books and short stories in the series reveal that she's come from a family that's had some pretty extensive genetic engineering, giving her enhanced physical abilities that would have played a role. |
| 210 | * ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'', the first book published in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', implies that there are no humans in the land of Narnia, and Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy were the first humans ever to travel there; thus, they're greeted as heroes when they arrive, since they're (apparently) the first people capable of fulfilling the prophecy that four humans would free Narnia from the rule of the White Witch. However, the {{prequel}} ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' later establishes that there have been humans living in Narnia since its creation. The sequels ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'' and ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'' take it further, revealing that there are multiple thriving human civilizations in Narnia, such as Archenland and Calormen; it's never explained why humans from either of those countries couldn't have fulfilled the prophecy instead. [[note]] Some sources claim that the humans of Narnia had interbred with magical creatures, and the prophecy only applied to full-blooded humans. It's also possible that the humans of Narnia were (somehow) descended from humans other than [[Literature/TheBible Adam and Eve]], explaining why the Narnians call humans from our world "Sons of Adam" and "Daughters of Eve".[[/note]] |
| 211 | [[/folder]] |
| 212 | |
| 213 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 214 | * ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'', after the WizardingSchool was introduced. In later seasons, the main characters get all obsessive about protecting the WizardingSchool because "where else will the children learn about magic?", even though neither they nor any of the other magical characters shown in the show up to that point went there. |
| 215 | ** The show is bad about this in general. Just about everything that gets an introduction forgets it. When Leo was revealed as a whitelighter, he explained that they're not supposed to get directly involved in their chages' lives, but later episodes have witches calling for their whitelighters as standard procedure. Leo originally refers to his bosses as "a group of elder whitelighters, called The Founders," but every subsequent episode has them called "The Elders." When Sam, a former whitelighter, uses memory dust on the sisters, Leo says he must have kept it from a former witch charge, but later, memory dust is explicitly a whitelighter's tool that witches need to get from them (possibly justified if you assume Leo's lying because he doesn't want them knowing how to get it). Paige, who was present when they originally defeated the Source, asks "How did ''you'' defeat him last time?" when he's resurrected. The first warlock to demonstrate blinking (teleportation) explicitly stole it from a witch, but later, Piper and Phoebe blinking is proof that they've become warlocks. Prue's death is one of the domino effects of magic being revealed to the world, and another episode states that demons handle breaches to TheMasquerade by quietly killing humans who find out about them; neither of which makes much sense with the reveal of The Cleaners, a group empowered by both Good and Evil to hide the magical world from {{muggles}}. |
| 216 | ** Heck, an important part of the first few seasons is that Prue, Piper, and Phoebe didn't even ''know'' they were witches. Their grandmother had bound their powers and hidden the truth to protect them from ''one specific'' warlock who wanted to steal them. That same grandmother is later characterized as a demon-killing super-witch, who should have had no problem against that particular warlock. When Paige is defending the Magic School, she even outright states that she learned magic from Piper and Phoebe, and they'd learned it from their family, but not everyone is that lucky. |
| 217 | * ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': |
| 218 | ** While it was only AllThereInTheManual in the first place, The Master was originally supposed to be 600 years old, and to have outgrown human features as a result of his age. However, a flashback showed him siring Darla approximately 400 years ago and looking the same, even though if he'd already stopped looking human at 200 Angel and Darla should have had the same look by the time of the series. The comics presented an alternate explanation for his appearance -- while at the same time establishing him as at least 800 years old. And this explanation clashes with the similar LooksLikeOrlok appearance of a vampire called the Prince of Lies over on ''Series/{{Angel}}''. |
| 219 | ** There is also the issue of the Master being so old that his bones have solidified and don't turn to dust when he is staked by Buffy. This issue is made problematic by the appearance of Kakistos, a vampire so old that his hands are now cloven hooves. This implies that he's much older yet than even the Master. Do ''you'' think his bones remain once he gets staked? |
| 220 | ** Though maybe that's just different vampires showing signs of aging at different ages, like humans going gray or bald at different ages, or only some older humans getting Alzheimer's. |
| 221 | ** The different and unexplained look of werewolf Oz in Season 2 and Season 3. |
| 222 | * In the first few episodes of ''Series/{{Roswell}}'', it's clear that all the aliens have all the powers, but Michael just isn't as good at using them. We even specifically see Michael heal someone's broken ankle. As the series went on, this drifted into them each having unique special powers to the point where Max being the only one able to heal people became a huge thing. This was presented as the way things had always been. This is most likely because the series started out sticking to the book series it was based on (where all of the aliens had the same broad range of powers), but soon developed into a completely different story line with [[InNameOnly the six main characters being the only thing consistent with the books]]. |
| 223 | * ''{{Series/CSI}}'' has this, mainly with the character of Grissom. In the early episodes, he is shown to be a quirky eccentric with lots of connections. However, by the next season he is a reclusive intellectual with traits of Asperger's. |
| 224 | ** In one season 3 episode Sara recollects how at one time she found a bag of something (which turned out to be her brother's weed) which she showed to her parents and unintentionally got him in big trouble. Said brother is never mentioned again, and indeed some later episodes strongly imply she is an only child. |
| 225 | * ''{{Series/Lost}}'': |
| 226 | ** In the first season episode "Raised By Another," a flashback shows Claire fretting that her mother will disown her if she tells her she's pregnant. The third season episode "Par Avion" reveals that Claire's mother was in a coma at the time. |
| 227 | ** The Adam and Eve skeletons introduced in season 1 are implied to be 50 or so years old and we're left with the impression that they were some loving couple who died on the island. In season 6 we discover that the skeletons are hundreds of years old and belong to the smoke monster's original form and the crazy lady who pretended to be his and Jacob's mother. |
| 228 | ** It's generally accepted by fans that the flashbacks in "Across the Sea" (where we discover the origins of the skeletons) take place around 1 AD. If this is true then the skeletons are around ''2000'' years old. That's a far cry from 20-50. |
| 229 | ** Aaron and Walt's importance. Season 1 and season 2 make a point foreshadowing Walt's powers. It's a non-issue in his few appearances in the later seasons. Aaron's destiny was hinted to be fairly important when the psychic warned Claire he must not be "raised by another". He gets raised by another (Kate) and there seems to be none of the dire implications the psychic hinted at.[[note]]Though said psychic later admitted to Mr. Eko that he was a fraud, instead gathering info on people and then exploiting it.[[/note]] |
| 230 | ** There are some differences between how the Others act in early seasons compared to later on, which can be chalked up to the fact that the writers hadn't really decided what the Others ''were'' yet. In early appearances it seems like they were intended to have supernatural powers, most notable in Ethan's super strength and ability to pop up from out of nowhere. And while we're on the subject of Ethan, in season three Ben says that Ethan was their surgeon. Now, why would Ben send the Others' only surgeon on a dangerous mission to infiltrate the crash survivors (as he did Goodwin, who it seems he sent with the intention of getting him killed) a short time after he has found out that he has a lethal tumor on his spine? Also, in the first few seasons it was well established that the Others kidnap children, and we assume that this was the reason they took Rousseau's daughter, Alex. |
| 231 | ** There's also the fact that Ethan is apparently one of the few who grew up on the island, which makes you wonder where he got his surgeon skills. Of course, considering that the whole surgeon thing is from a throwaway line in [[CanonDiscontinuity "Stranger in a Strange Land"]], perhaps we should just forget about it. And you have to wonder about the Others not kidnapping Jack and co when they went after Michael. |
| 232 | * An early ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode has Delenn and Lennier mentioning that Minbari society is made up of two castes: warrior and religious. Later episodes show that there is also a worker caste. WordOfGod says "She just forgot to mention the worker caste. That's my story and I'm sticking to it." Just how often the other two castes forget the worker caste eventually became an important plot point after the religious and warrior castes start a civil war. The in-canon novel ''To Dream in the City of Sorrows'' goes into more detail about the marginalization of the worker caste: there was an objection to them joining the Rangers, members of the other two castes would lose face if they spoke in worker dialect, and before Valen came there wasn't even a pretense of them being an equal caste. |
| 233 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'' has several, with the fans being far more forgiving of some than others. One essay calls these "[[http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/BrainBugs.html Brain Bugs]]" and posits that it's because of a long succession of writers either being unfamiliar with or flat-out misunderstanding what came before and as such, end up simplifying concepts and reading unintended meaning into minor details. Examples include: |
| 234 | ** Deanna Troi went from outright experiencing beings' emotions in the pilot to merely being aware of them. |
| 235 | ** Q being several different beings with the same face (never actually stated, but it was the idea the writers had and the actor's performance in the TNG pilot bears it out). |
| 236 | ** In the [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries original]] pilot episode, it's Majel Barrett's first officer character "Number One" who represses emotion and acts on logic, and Spock (who's "just" alien) seems to be a very different character because of it. It also implied that faster-than-light travel was a new invention, when it was later established to have been invented much earlier. In TOS, the most common time-reference was that it was set about 200 years after the 1960s. Furthermore, there had been nuclear warfare on Earth after the 1960s. So it actually made some sense that warp drive, as of the time of Pike's first visit to Talos IV, would be a fairly new thing. (It also implied that some form of FTL travel existed other than warp drive, maybe natural gates or something, because of the Valient in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and the Romulan War.) But all this kind of ''worked'', because it gave the ''feel'' of a frontier, worlds not settled all that long, technology advancing but with the backwaters behind. TOS just simply does not fit, continuity-wise, with the other series. |
| 237 | ** The hand-held communicators got larger between Enterprise and TOS, before shrinking to com-badges in TNG. |
| 238 | ** The original series was very vague and contradictory about what century it was supposedly taking place in -- offhand references implied the 22nd, 23rd and even the 28th centuries. ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan The Wrath of Khan]]'' finally cemented the setting as being in the 23rd century, though the [[ExactlyExtyYearsAgo exactly 300 years in the future]] detail was established later. |
| 239 | ** Most of the well-known races in ''Trek'' are wildly different from how they were originally conceived, beginning as a complex race and devolving, from one writer to the next, into a PlanetOfHats. The Ferengi, in their first appearance, were being set up as a fairly major military power; a few seasons later they were a much smaller power and quite cowardly, and by the time of ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'', they were, for all intents and purposes, not a military power at all, and their personality had withered down to [[PlanetOfHats all profit all the time]]. Their first appearance was the first reported visual (and possibly audio) contact with a Federation citizen, whereas by [=DS=]9 (less than half a decade later in the timeline) they had been an established economic presence in the quadrant for decades and had deep-seated ties with Klingons and Cardassians. Also, while [=DS=]9's Ferengi were often amoral scumbags, their outright evil TNG forebearers dressed in Klingon-esque primitive, fur-sashed mail uniforms, acted half-feral, executed second officers as a diplomatic act, and were stated to eat sapient beings. Not long after, they started wearing wide-collared suits, dressing more like modern humans than the Feds. Also, in several early Ferengi episodes, Troi claims to sense their feelings. Later on, Ferengi are immune to telepathy/empathy. |
| 240 | ** Similarly, the Borg were, initially, all the same organic race. In the first episode they are introduced, incubators with Borg young are shown, and ''assimilation'' is used only in the sense of acquiring alien technology. In "[[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome The Best of Both Worlds]]", they kidnap and assimilate Picard to act as a liaison to humans -- but this is done surgically and with one particular purpose in mind. By the time of ''[[Film/StarTrekFirstContact First Contact]]'' (and their subsequent appearances on ''Voyager''), they don't reproduce or even conduct scientific research of their own at all, [[PlanetOfHats relying on assimilation alone]] for both. However, one ''Voyager'' episode showed some Borg children who had come out of their development chambers early and so were only partially assimilated; it's possible that what the ''Enterprise'' crew actually saw were children who had been assimilated and were being kept in the incubation chambers until they reached maturity (because they're more useful to the Borg as mature adults), and that they misunderstood what they saw because they didn't recognize that the Borg don't reproduce in typical ways. |
| 241 | ** In "Space Seed", Spock refers to the Eugenics War, which occurred in the 1990s, as WorldWarIII, whereas later episodes and spin-offs establish WWIII as taking place in the mid or late 21st Century. This was a blatant AuthorsSavingThrow when by the '90s, [[FailedFutureForecast the USSR had decided to fold without, thankfully, engaging in a nuclear exchange with the US.]] Greg Cox's Khan novels tried to retcon the Eugenics wars into a behind-the-scenes war when genetically-engineered supermen were not carving up the earth in the '90s. |
| 242 | ** Klingons started off as a stand-in for the [=1960s=] Soviet Union and were generally very pragmatic and duplicitous in their interactions with the Federation. Beginning with ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' and a visual redesign of the species (which is a contentious topic all on its own), they started drifting more and more towards a "space viking" culture. By the time of ''Deep Space Nine'' and the TNG movies, they were always seen in battle armor no matter their role, were eating like wild animals (complete with the addition of prominent canine teeth), obsessed over honor and a glorious death in battle, and were basically a total reversal of the civilized but duplicitous Original Series incarnation. |
| 243 | ** It should be noted that the Klingons virtually swapped characterization with the Romulans, who were depicted as honorable and noble warrior-officers. TNG and [=DS=]9 retooled them as a duplicitous, racist empire of fairly unsympathetic villains -- hell, in the Decipher CCG adaptation, their main skill was literally ''Treachery''. |
| 244 | ** The makeup issues of various RubberForeheadAliens can be seen as this. In addition to the ridges-or-no-ridges Klingon and Romulan cases, several races underwent several adjustments on the way to their current depictions. The Trill are ''completely'' different to the point that a fan theory is that the name similarity may be coincidence, and even the Bajorans originally had little Y protrusions above their noses that they lost in the first third of ''Deep Space Nine'''s first season. |
| 245 | ** One of the weirdest examples involved the rank of a single character. Miles O'Brien was formally made a character (he had been seen as an extra before) in the second season, and wears the rank pips of a lieutenant, and is even addressed as such once. Later, characters started referring to him as "Chief" because his job was "transporter chief". Then came the episode "Family" in which a character refers to him as an enlisted man, despite his lieutenant pips still very clearly shown. Finally, in the sixth season, they changed his pips to a single "darkened" pip, indicating his enlisted status, and from then on the producers and writers have declared that he was, is, and always has been an enlisted man. |
| 246 | ** In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', Zefram Cochrane is shown as the man who not only created warp drive, but also conducted the first warp flight ''and'' made first contact with an extraterrestrial species shortly afterward. In the TOS episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E9Metamorphosis Metamorphosis]]", where the character originated, he was said to simply be the inventor of warp drive. No more, no less. |
| 247 | ** Also, the [[AlienNonInterferenceClause Prime Directive]] started off as something like a principle of anthropological objectivity: how do you study a culture in its natural state? By not letting them know that you're there, obviously. It also allowed [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Federation scientists]] to avoid morally-dubious scenarios. But as the series progressed, it became treated more and more as a moral philosophy, until, on ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'', it finally assumed a near-mystical quality with Starfleet not wanting to interfere with the "[[BecauseDestinySaysSo destinies]]" of primitive cultures. |
| 248 | ** In "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the second ''Trek'' pilot, Spock says that one of his ancestors married a human female, implying some distant relative. Somewhere along the line they decided that Spock's mother was human, and the MalignedMixedMarriage of Spock's parents is now an essential part of his character. Why Spock avoided mentioning that his mother was human is left to the imagination, though it is possible that at that point he was just trying to cover up a part of his heritage he was ashamed of. Plus, it's not like he actually lied. One of his ancestors did marry a human female. It's just that the ancestor was his father. |
| 249 | ** Another Spock example is that somehow in all his discussions of cultural differences it never came up that he grew up with a [[Series/StarTrekDiscovery fully human (adopted) sister]] who is incidentally one of the most famous Starfleet officers in recent history. The [[Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier Vulcan half-brother]] that he never mentioned is at least acknowledged as a deliberate omission on his part in-universe. |
| 250 | ** Comparing the instances where distance, time and warp factor are all mentioned, you get [[WritersCannotDoMath wildly varying values]] for how fast warp speed actually is. One velocity mentioned in the original ''Star Trek'' would have gotten the ''Voyager'' home within months. To mention another instance, in ''Enterprise'' warp 3 is more than ten times faster than warp 3 in ''The Next Generation''. There is an official mathematical formula for calculating the warp speeds, but it seems like the show's own writers do not bother to use it. One get-out clause the writers have proposed is that warp speed definitions changed between TOS and TNG. ENT, being a prequel, presumably uses the original scale. |
| 251 | ** When Bajorans were first introduced with Ensign Ro Laren on TNG, she wore her earring on her left ear. When the Bajorans were further fleshed out in [=DS9=], they all wore the earring on the right, apparently due to the Bajoran belief that the "pagh" (essentially the soul) resides in the left ear. The novels state this was due to Ro Laren not following the main Bajoran religion, but still honoring their heritage, and this discourages vedeks from grabbing at her ear to read her "pagh". |
| 252 | ** When ''pon farr'' was first mentioned in the Original Series episode, "Amok Time," it was explicitly referred to being a biological process particular to Vulcan males. This was further supported by Saavik's dialogue with David in ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'', reinforcing that Vulcan males experience ''pon farr'' every seven years upon reaching maturity. And then ''Enterprise'' has [=T'Pol=] undergo ''pon farr''. So either the definition was changed by the writers, or [[DudeLooksLikeALady there's something T'Pol isn't telling us]]... |
| 253 | ** In addition to the Trill make-up being very different between "The Host" and [=DS9=], as mentioned above, the way symbiosis works is changed as well; in TNG, Odan is presented as the same person in a different body, rather than the melding of minds of the Dax hosts. Also, the very fact of symbiosis is a revelation, since until the events of the episode force them to, the Trill don't discuss this with outsiders. This is implied to be the caution of a species new to the Federation, but [=DS9=] reveals they've been part of the UFP for ''centuries'', meaning they not only felt it necessary to keep the secret all that time, but succeeded in doing so until Odan (presumably) became the first joined Trill to die offworld. And Jadzia and other Trill in [=DS9=] don't act as though they've just been freed of a secret, they act as if this is just a fact about them they've no reason to hide. Finally, the episode ends with Odan trying to rekindle his relationship with Dr Crusher, something [=DS9=] would later present as a huge taboo in Trill society. |
| 254 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 255 | ** When the Daleks first appeared they threatened a small tribe of people and, themselves, constituted just one group in an isolated city, and all died at the end. In their next appearance (supposedly set earlier in history), they had successfully conquered Earth itself. In their third appearance they had TimeTravel. In their fourth appearance, they had TimeTravel and threatened Earth's entire galaxy (and probably other galaxies besides.) More significantly, the ''origin'' of the Daleks changed; they were originally the mutated survivors of a war, and were later shown to have been deliberately created by Davros.[[labelnote:*]] This is somewhat justified - Davros' creation of the Daleks was explained as originally designing a travel machine for the eventual mutated form of the Kaleds as a result of the war. He then just decided to mess around with the mutants to make them think as the Daleks now do.[[/labelnote]] ''Destiny of the Daleks'' straight-out describes them as ''robots'' rather than cyborgs. ([[CanonDiscontinuity Later episodes would promptly ignore this development]].) The kicker? Almost all these stories were written or co-written by Creator/TerryNation, who created the Daleks. |
| 256 | ** The Time Lords, the Doctor's people, established as beings who never ever ever interfered with other planets, had the Doctor doing errands for them within two years of real time. This later got {{Retcon}}ned away as Time Lord covert ops missions. Additionally, after the Time Lords were introduced (previously the Doctor only belonged to a nameless and mysterious {{Human Alien|s}} species) he often ran into people and civilizations who knew of them. |
| 257 | ** ''Doctor Who'' continuity now runs on pure TimeyWimeyBall, with the [[CosmicRetcon Time War]] thrown in for good measure. |
| 258 | ** In the earliest seasons, the Doctor is stated to be from another planet but repeatedly refers to himself and his granddaughter as human beings. His first regeneration is said to be made possible by the power of the TARDIS; and even though the Second Doctor appears to have some strange attributes like being 450 years old, he still claims to be human -- or at most, ambiguously "more than human" because of his extensive time traveling experience. It's only in the Third Doctor era that he's explicitly established as an alien with clearly nonhuman physiology (two hearts, etc), and even then he waffles when Sarah Jane asks him if he's human in ''The Time Warrior''. |
| 259 | ** When the mythic Time Lord Rassilon is first mentioned in ''The Deadly Assassin'', the Doctor has apparently never heard of him. As the backstory of Rassilon evolved over the years, this became less and less believable, until it currently appears that Rassilon is not only as famous as, say, Jesus, but that the Doctor knew him ''personally'' (although [[LaserGuidedAmnesia they may not completely remember that]]). |
| 260 | ** It is now generally accepted that Time Lords automatically regenerate when mortally injured, but it wasn't until the Doctor's FIFTH regeneration that this happened. Hartnell was renewed by 'part of the Tardis'. Troughton suffered a 'change of appearance' (often supposed now to be a ''forced'' regeneration triggered by what was effectively an execution). Pertwee only regenerated after being given a nudge by K’anpo (although it's finally termed 'regeneration'). Tom Baker merged with a mystical future version of himself. Only with Davison's regeneration onwards has the process been regular and automatic (and even Davison's Doctor questioned whether his death would trigger regeneration -- "I might regenerate -- I don't know"). In "The War Games" we even see a Time Lord get shot and he just dies, no regeneration (though as noted earlier, regeneration as it's currently known wasn't a thing yet). "Last of the Time Lords" has the Master choose not to regenerate, "Turn Left" is set in an AlternateTimeline where the Doctor dies without regenerating (although that death was caused by drowning, implying the grim possibility of him dying, regenerating and being unable to find air in time, twice), and Time Lords get shot in "Day of the Doctor" without regenerating (the implication is that Dalek weaponry is anti-regenerative, although there have also been episodes indicating that a severe enough injury can kill a Time Lord outright; plus given that the context is war those Time Lords being seen killed may have already exhausted their 13-life limit). |
| 261 | ** Time Lord sexuality has swung back and forth over the years. The First Doctor was a wholesome but sexual being -- he had a romantic subplot with a woman in a first season episode and a granddaughter, with no implication she came from any route other than the standard way one creates granddaughters (and she had her own [[GirlOfTheWeek Boys of the Week]] and was shown to like kissing people). The Second Doctor flirted with Astrid in "Enemy of the World" for no reason other than pleasure. The Third Doctor flirted with Liz a ''lot'' and had Jo and Sarah as {{Implied Love Interest}}s, while the Master often used his sexuality as a weapon (like in "The Mind of Evil" and "The Time Monster") with a bit of HoYay with the Doctor tossed into the mix. The Fourth Doctor was less sexual than his predecessor due to his alien nature ("you're a beautiful woman, probably") but still had {{U|nresolvedSexualTension}}ST and even ShipTease with Sarah, Leela and both Romanas (especially the second). None of this was treated as any big deal -- it was simply there as part of the character, and never in focus due to its unimportance (plus network restrictions given that the BBC considered ''Doctor Who'' a children's programme). But by the 80s, production team members who felt the Doctor should be above such human concerns began to take charge. It's also not a coincidence that these concerns also surfaced after hiring Creator/PeterDavison, an actor much closer in age with his co-stars (the previous four Doctors' actors were 15-30 years older than their companions), giving rise to fears that [[MoralGuardians Mary Whitehouse]] would add "sexual innuendo" to the charges on her rap sheet against the show. Phrases like "no hanky-panky in the TARDIS" were coined and the producer enforced a policy of the Doctor not even being allowed to touch or look at his companions in case people got the wrong idea. By this point the Doctor was considered UsefulNotes/{{Asexual}} by the show, the fandom and the mainstream media, and people were beginning to suspect that Time Lords as a species were just above that sort of thing -- and so when the TV Movie had the Eighth Doctor giving TheBigDamnKiss to a human woman purely for the pleasure of it, fans tore out their hair and cried. The Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures novels, meanwhile, had semi-canonised the idea of 'looms', a system of asexual reproduction for Time Lords that generates full adults, with one novel casting doubt on the Doctor actually having a biological granddaughter. The new series pinged right back to the idea of Time Lords being sexual, showing children, talking about the Doctor's parents and wives, and makes the Doctor's sexuality and sexualisation a major theme of their character. |
| 262 | ** Whether "Time Lord" is the name of the race from Gallifrey or a subset of them has drifted in and out over time. The classic series originally implied that they were all Time Lords, and then later episodes introduced Gallifreyans who were pure HumanAliens (including primitive cultures living on the same planet). The revived series reverted to using it as the name of the race - with the Eleventh Doctor episode "A Good Man Goes to War" even establishing the existence of a specific form of Time Lord DNA - until the Twelth Doctor's run started making the distinction again, and even then the term is used to refer to both the few individuals with the rank and also the culture in general. |
| 263 | ** Susan is a character who especially stands out as someone from a completely different show. She makes a lot of sense as the granddaughter of a mysterious time-travelling old man who is likely a human (albeit from another planet), and less sense as the granddaughter of an asexual two-hearted Time Lord DefectorFromDecadence from an ancient world that influences the workings of the universe. There is no real in-story reason to explain why the Doctor never went back to see her, either -- at least not until her implied death in the GreatOffscreenWar, anyway. |
| 264 | ** Following from the above, the Doctor's backstory has been subject to drift over the show's existence; in the First and Second Doctors' eras, the little that came up about him suggested he was a refugee or exile from his homeworld who was unable to go home again, then when the Time Lords were introduced, he became a DefectorFromDecadence, and had an increasing amount revealed about his background as an ordinary Time Lord on Gallifrey. The Seventh Doctor's era hinted he had connections of some kind to the origins of the Time Lords, particularly technology from that time, the Eighth Doctor's TV Movie had him say he's half-human ([[CanonDiscontinuity though it didn't stick]]), and the Thirteenth Doctor's era revealed [[spoiler:that in fact they're ''older'' than the Time Lords, a creature of unknown origin whose regenerative capabilities the early Gallifreyans appropriated for themselves, and most of this history has been [[LaserGuidedAmnesia erased from their memory]]]]. |
| 265 | ** Clara has also been accused of continuity drift, given how over the course of 2 1/2 seasons she changed from being a computer illiterate nanny to being someone nearly as powerful as the Doctor himself and his DistaffCounterpart. Defenders simply reply that this is character development, and that while it may have only been 2 1/2 seasons on screen, the passage of time for Clara is somewhat greater (with an implied 2-3 year time jump between Series 7 and the 50th anniversary special). |
| 266 | * ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'': The war with the Cylons has been going on for millennia, except when it's been going on for only many years. One episode specifically says Starbuck was orphaned about 20 years ago, in one of the first Cylon raids. |
| 267 | * The new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': |
| 268 | ** The miniseries says that after the first Cylon war, the Cylons left and made their home on a distant planet. This is brought up again in Season 2 when it is explained that the Resurrection Ships allow Cylons to download into new bodies when far from the Cylon homeworld. After that, the idea seems to have been quietly dropped. Season 4 introduces a spaceborne "Resurrection Hub," which is said to be essential to all Cylon resurrection everywhere, and the homeworld is never mentioned. In the last few episodes, this is brought up again, although it is changed a bit more: the Cylons had been living on the 'Colony', which was more like a large space station than a planet. |
| 269 | ** This trope can sort of be applied to the show's visual effects, too. At the beginning of the series -- the miniseries through to Season 2 -- there was a lot of emphasis on the spacecraft behaving like spacecraft actually would, with noticeably unique -- and awesome because of it -- space battles in amongst the politics and drama. From Season 3 onwards, the battles got gradually more and more glitzy and dominated by the RuleOfCool. The battle of the Colony, the final battle of the series, had much more in common with the destruction of the second Death Star than the more understated and nuanced battles in the first two series. |
| 270 | ** Six's glowing spine that lights up during sex in the mini. |
| 271 | ** The population of the 12 Colonies was stated as 20 Billion in the ''Resistance'' webisodes. Season 4 mentioned that the population was 50 Billion. It's an easy one to miss, as not many people have seen ''The Resistance''. |
| 272 | %%* Season 3 of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' has done ''a lot'' of this, most notably in the backstory/flashback episodes "Villains" and "1961". |
| 273 | * When the Genii first appeared on ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', they appeared to be a SpaceAmish society until it was discovered they were actually far more advanced and kept it a secret by living in {{Elaborate Underground Base}}s. Teyla, who had been friends with the Genii for years, complained that they never told her and they replied "that is our way". Several episodes later, the Genii were making no effort to hide their advancements and by the fifth season it seemed to be common knowledge that they were a major power. |
| 274 | ** This is plausibly explained as them simply abandoning their secrecy since it had already gotten out. With the Atlantis expedition knowing the truth about them and considering them enemies (and therefore quite likely to blow their cover anyway), what would be the point of keeping up the ruse? |
| 275 | * In ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', Hester comes off very differently in her appearance in ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' than in her flashbacks and stories in ''Frasier''. She threatens to kill Diane, for one thing, while on ''Frasier'' she was always touted as a bastion of class and common sense (although this could be a case of NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead). Also, she seems to be a rather soft-spoken, frail, grandmotherly woman who Frasier treats with great gentleness and care on ''Cheers'', whereas she was described as a bold, intimidating matriarch on ''Frasier'' (though she could have changed with age). Frasier's claims on ''Cheers'' that he's an only child and his father is a dead psychiatrist were eventually explained as him being in a bad mood with his family and just lying. |
| 276 | * ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'': As Cory and Topanga's RomanceArc progresses, their history seems to drift also. In the early years of the show, Topanga was a CloudCuckooLander whose crush on a very unamused Cory was PlayedForLaughs. Later, there are many references to them having been totally in love since they were in Pull-Ups. She ''is'' shown in an early episode giving him his first kiss though. This is {{handwave}}d later by saying that Cory and Topanga were best friends when they were really little until Cory was teased by other little boys for the friendship. As a result, he abandoned the friendship and didn't rediscover his feelings for Topanga until puberty. At one point, his big brother even takes credit (laughing about it) for convincing little Cory that girls were gross, contributing to the temporary split with Topanga. |
| 277 | * ''Series/MakoMermaidsAnH2OAdventure'' takes place in the same location as ''Series/H2OJustAddWater'', almost a decade later. The presence of the Mako Pod in Mako Island becomes glaring when they establish that they've been there for centuries, yet not a single one of them was ever alluded to during ''H₂O''. The mermaid trio in ''Mako Mermaids'' are stumped when they meet Rikki and realize she was transformed by the same Moon Pool they frequently inhabit, implying that the Mako Pod was elsewhere during the entire plot of ''H₂O''. |
| 278 | * ''Series/RedDwarf'' starts off saying that Lister never dated Kochanski, but later says that he did but that it wasn't very successful. The reason for this is that the episode where he says he did date her is based on part of the spin-off book "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" which takes place in a somewhat alternate continuity. |
| 279 | * ''Series/{{Friends}}'': |
| 280 | ** In the episode "The One With The Prom Video", Chandler appears to be seeing Fat Monica and college age Ross's perm for the first time, just like Joey, and mocks College!Ross's music. Later flashbacks would establish that Chandler was Ross's roommate at the time, spent Thanksgiving with the Gellers, was in Ross's band and after some hairy incidents also became friends with Monica. He only lives across the hall because Monica tipped him off that the apartment was free. |
| 281 | ** The age of the friends also changes. Season 1 has Monica and Rachel say they're 26, making Ross, Chandler and Joey 27. (Phoebe is murkier). However by Season 7 Monica and Rachel are 30, and the guys are 31, making them 24 and 25 in Season 1, which is supported by flashbacks of the dates they attended high school/college. It looks like in early seasons the writers planned for the characters to be older, realized it didn't work and lopped a few years off everyone's ages. |
| 282 | * In the earliest episodes of ''Series/{{Bones}}'', Brennen's ex-husband was introduced for a scene and it was implied their divorce was recent; this was in keeping with the books, where her ex-husband was mentioned frequently and occasionally appeared. After Brennen's [[CharacterizationMarchesOn characterisation marched on]] and she became a walking example of Asperger's clichés, mentions of her previous marriage were quietly dropped. |
| 283 | * In ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'', vampires have the ability to use MindControl to erase memories. Their blood also has HealingFactor when consumed. It wasn't until later in the series that the writers put two and two together and realized that vampires could simply mind control a human into letting them drink their blood, feed them some blood in return, erase their memories and send them on their way without having to worry about getting caught. Once this strategy was established, some characters who should know better (and do, in flashbacks) suddenly look like amateurs in the early seasons, such as Damon making Caroline wear a scarf to hide her bite marks. |
| 284 | %%We have natter here. Can anyone confirm which is correct, then fix it?* In ''Series/TheWestWing'', a throwaway line in the episode "Noël" apparently establishes that Toby Ziegler is a veteran of the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar, and possibly even a recipient of the Purple Heart. [[note]] Toby's actor, Richard Schiff, was born two years after the Korean War ended, so Toby would have to be [[UnderageCasting significantly older than his actor]] in order for this to be possible[[/note]] Not only did this aspect of his character never come up again, it was later explicitly contradicted in "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail", where Toby recalls protesting the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar when he was still too young to drive. |
| 285 | %%** This is actually a misunderstanding (albeit a common one). In referring to how how little help the veteran he was talking about received, it ''sounds'' like Toby says "I got better treatment at Panmunjom." However, the line is ''supposed'' to be "Guy got better treatment at Panmunjom." Coming out quickly and without a lot of enunciation, many people misinterpret it. |
| 286 | * ''Series/TheWire'': |
| 287 | ** Some early episodes are a bit inconsistent about what Wallace's full name is, and the writers seem to have waffled on whether "Wallace" is [[OnlyOneName his first name or his last name]]. The [[OneSceneWonder one time]] we meet his mother in Season 1, Freamon addresses her as "Mrs. Wallace", suggesting that it's the latter. But if you pay close attention in Season 3, there's also a photo of him in the police station captioned "[[AlliterativeName Wallace Wikes]]", suggesting the former. [[note]] A somewhat common HandWave among fans is that [[TakeAThirdOption it's his middle name]], taken from his mother's maiden name.[[/note]] |
| 288 | ** During the basketball game in Season 1, Avon makes a crack suggesting that "Proposition Joe" is illiterate. While it's certainly possible that Avon was just insulting his [[TheRival rival]], Joe doesn't bother to tell him off, and his response seems to imply that he actually ''is'' illiterate. This is pretty hard to reconcile with later episodes, which establish that [[HiddenDepths Joe is quite well-educated]], and he was a star student in his youth. |
| 289 | ** In Omar Little's very first appearance, he briefly gets angry at his boyfriend Brandon for accidentally revealing his name during a robbery, implying that none of the Barksdales had ever heard of him before that point. By the end of Season 1, however, it's well-established that he's an in-universe {{living legend}} [[TheDreaded universally feared]] by the gangsters of Baltimore--and in most subsequent episodes, he's treated as if he's been that way for ''years''. By Season 4, most drug dealers instinctively flee from him in terror, even when he's [[ItMakesSenseInContext unarmed and in his bathrobe]]. |
| 290 | * ''[[Series/WonderWoman1975 Wonder Woman]]'': During Season 1, Wonder Woman was the main character with [[SecretIdentity Diana Prince]] serving as a secretary only to get information on where she was needed. She frequently visited [[HiddenElfVillage Paradise Island]] and traveled in her [[CoolPlane invisible jet]]. Seasons 2 and 3 feature Agent Diana Prince who is the IADC's top agent largely because she can become Wonder Woman when the occasion requires. The invisible jet last appears in "The Man Who Could Move the World", the second episode of season 2. In "The Man Who Could Not Die", one of the last episodes of the series, she even says: "In a lot of ways, Wonder Woman is more alone than you are." That's a very long way from the pilot, "The New Original Wonder Woman", with regular invisible jet travel anywhere in the world and an entire island of amazon sisters where she is a member of the royal family. |
| 291 | * ''Series/{{Community}}'': |
| 292 | ** The details of Troy's backstory change slightly between Season 1 and Season 4. At the beginning of the show, we're told that he wound up at Greendale after he dislocated both shoulders while attempting to do a keg-stand ("Keg-''flip''!") at a graduation party, which cost him his football scholarship to a prestigious college--although he later admits in "Football, Feminism, and You" that [[spoiler:he intentionally injured himself because he couldn't handle the pressure of being a big-time college athlete]]. But in the flashback to the graduation party in "Heroic Origins", we see that he actually just ''pretended'' to hurt himself, and was never really injured at all; his "injury" was also apparently a twisted ankle, not two dislocated shoulders. |
| 293 | ** In the first two seasons, it's made clear several times that Pierce's father is dead: Pierce's mother claims to have seen his ghost in "Introduction to Statistics", her post-death farewell message in "The Psychology of Letting Go" never mentions being survived by a husband, and Pierce himself refers to his father in the past tense in "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking". This is later contradicted by "Advanced Gay", where his father Cornelius Hawthorne appears and plays a major role in the story. The inconsistency is lampshaded in his introduction: |
| 294 | --->'''Annie:''' Oh! I always assumed your father was dead! Just...mathematically. |
| 295 | ** In Abed's short film in "Introduction to Statistics", a photo of his mother is briefly visible; she appears to be Middle Eastern, likely meaning that both of his parents are of Arab descent. Later on, multiple episodes establish that Abed's mother is Polish, and Abed is biracial ([[ActorSharedBackground like]] Creator/DannyPudi). |
| 296 | ** In his first appearance in "The Politics of Human Sexuality", Officer Cackowski is a Greendale security guard, and dresses in the customary khaki uniform. In all subsequent episodes, he's a ''police officer''--and he's treated as if he's always been one. While it's possible that his job as a security guard was just a side gig, off-duty police officers typically wear their uniforms while working as private security in RealLife. |
| 297 | * ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'': Red Green alternates between making off-handed comments about time he spent in the Canadian Army and explicitly stating he was never in the Army. |
| 298 | * ''Series/CobraKai'' generally goes the {{Revision}} route when making changes to what was implied in the ''[[Film/TheKarateKid Karate Kid]]'' films, avoiding directly contradicting what is stated onscreen, but occasionally makes minor alterations to continuity. |
| 299 | ** Though the [[Film/TheKarateKid1984 first film]] establishes that Johnny is a two-time All Valley champion, the announcer who declares Daniel the winner of the tournament at the end of ''Film/TheKarateKidPartIII'' clearly states that Daniel is the first person to win two years in a row. Although both of these things could be true, it would imply Johnny won the tournament as a high school freshman, lost the following year, then won again the year before he faced Daniel. Apparently considering this chain of events too unlikely or convoluted, ''Cobra Kai'''s writers simplified things by ignoring the line from ''Part III'' and stating that Johnny did, in fact, win the tournament both of the two years before he faced Daniel. |
| 300 | ** A barely-audible line in the first film refers to Bobby Brown as the runner-up of the previous year's tournament. ''Cobra Kai'' instead establishes that Tommy was the runner-up, and Bobby placed third. |
| 301 | ** Some Japanese writing in ''Film/TheKarateKidPartII'' indicates that Mr. Miyagi's first name is Nariyoshi, though this is contradicted in ''Film/TheNextKarateKid'', where it is stated that his name is Kesuke. ''Cobra Kai'' reverts to what was stated in ''Part II'', as Miyagi's gravestone shows that his name is Nariyoshi, though series creator Jon Hurwitz has implied that Kesuke may be his middle name (despite the fact that Japanese don't typically ''have'' middle names). |
| 302 | [[/folder]] |
| 303 | |
| 304 | [[folder:Multiple Media]] |
| 305 | * Much of Franchise/{{LEGO}} ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'''s early media got contradicted, at times very early on, due to its inconsistent nature. This is because originally, LEGO didn't know that the line would be one of their long runners, and the line was one of their first full-blown multimedia franchises, so its continuity had a rough start. |
| 306 | ** Some inconsistencies were actually planned for -- for example the original backstory of Mata Nui and Makuta being revealed as a legend forged by the village priests. Makuta was said to be Mata Nui's "spirit brother" and equal, later story revealed Makuta to be a member of a whole species created by and subservient to Mata Nui. Early card games and online synopses also described characters and history completely differently than what was seen in the comics and later online content. Some media focused on a mythological tone, describing the Toa as ancient, vengeful nature deities, while others depicted them as laid-back and casual superheroes, even talking in slang. Most of the discrepancies have simply been declared non-canon AdvertisingOnlyContinuity, or examples of how the islanders ''perceived'' the Toa in their legends before they met them. |
| 307 | ** When LEGO was forced to change the name of the villagers from Tohunga to Matoran for legal reasons, they gave it a story justification, but after a while stated that Matoran has always been their name. |
| 308 | ** Early on, Toa had to summon their ElementalPowers from their environment. For instance, Gali could only control water as long as there was moisture in the air. Later canon introduced Toa energy as a kind of superpower all Toa have. They were able not only to control but create elements from nothing, or absorb their own elements to indirectly control other elements, such as a Fire Toa absorbing heat to freeze his surroundings, which originally only Ice Toa could do. |
| 309 | ** The canisters that the Toa arrived to the island in were originally stated to have fallen into the sea when Takua gathered the Toa Stones, and supposedly Kapura was there to witness it. Later, it was explained that the canisters had been floating in the ocean for a 1,000 years, and the Stones have only ''beckoned'' them to the island. Kapura, at the time when the cans were originally launched, had been lying comatose in a storage sphere, along with the rest of the islanders. |
| 310 | ** The three virtues, Unity, Duty and Destiny, were introduced in the third year, even though later material explained that they have been the most fundamental parts of the universe all along. They've been retroactively written into the "Legend of Mata Nui" backstory after that. |
| 311 | ** One of the 2003 comics claimed that Makuta has been gone for years following his defeat. Later, they established that the entire umbrella arc of 2001-2003 happened in less than a single year in-story. |
| 312 | ** According to the first novel (which contains numerous continuity issues), Gali was the only Toa not to see her village before she met up with her brothers. Later, the ''Encyclopedia'' claimed that going there was her first action upon arriving to the island. The ''Encyclopedia'' actually overwrote much of the first novel and some other story sources as well in an effort to tie the story presented in the fragmented multimedia together, and also to implement the personal ideas of its writer over those of some previous writers. |
| 313 | ** The Mata Nui island's population was fourteen characters per each of the six villages, and media from 2001 and '02 mostly stayed true to this. Then the '03 movie showed hundreds, while the '04 movie thousands, if not tens of thousands of citizens across the entire island, forcing the writers to pretend the actual number has always been exactly one thousand, plus their leaders and protectors. [[FanWank Fans then began theorizing]] there were more than six villages per region and we just never saw the rest. |
| 314 | ** Originally, timeframes spanning thousands of years were considered vast, things from three millennia ago were outright ancient. Then the writers began throwing around a hundred thousand years nonchalantly, claiming almost every character has lived that long, if not longer. |
| 315 | ** Protodermis was first presented as a unique material living things are made out of, one which had to be mined. Post-2003 lore retconned protodermis as the stuff that makes up nearly everything, including metal, flesh and artificial water. |
| 316 | ** Characters early on were meant to be robotic. The official UniverseBible outright called them droids and robots repeatedly, and the above mentioned protodermis was intended to be the "living metal" they were made out of. When the Bohrok appeared, the fact that they were bio-mechanical (robots with organic elements) was commented on as an oddity. Merely one year later, it was explained that ''all'' living characters were partially organic themselves, made of metallic and organic protodermis, which was depicted by giving them exposed muscles in the movies, and the 2006 Piraka sets even featured bendable rubber heads and spines to give them an organic feel. The Bohrok (and later character types like Rahkshi or Vahki) were stated tobe fully robotic apart from the organic creatures controlling them. |
| 317 | * [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario and Luigi]] were said to be two plumbers from Brooklyn transported from Earth to the Mushroom World (containing the Mushroom Kingdom), in the [[WesternAnimation/SuperMarioBrosDic cartoons]], [[Film/SuperMarioBros1993 movie]], and other supplementary material. Ever since ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld2YoshisIsland'' though, the games have done away with the earlier origin story and made it that they were born in the Mushroom World as natives of the Mushroom Kingdom instead as the new origin story for the brothers. However, ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'' returns to the idea that they originate from Brooklyn for that continuity's plot. |
| 318 | [[/folder]] |
| 319 | |
| 320 | [[folder:Professional Wrestling]] |
| 321 | * Wrestling/TheUndertaker's famously convoluted {{kayfabe}} backstory has been subject to a lot of changes and inconsistencies over the years. Perhaps most glaringly: in his earliest appearances, it was strongly implied that he had [[Really700YearsOld supernaturally long life]], and had been alive since at least the 1800s (hence his antiquated clothing and general "[[PreacherMan old-fashioned preacher]]" vibe). The Wrestling/{{WWE}} kept the general premise of the character being an immortal with ties to the supernatural, but the specific ''nature'' of that immortality gradually went from ''"[[TheAgeless Ageless]] [[WalkingTheEarth wandering]] warlock"'' to ''"[[NighInvulnerable Supernaturally tough bruiser]] who can [[ResurrectiveImmortality rise from the dead]]"'', and [[SignificantWardrobeShift his clothing slowly got more modern over time]]. The concept of his long lifespan was officially thrown out the window when the writers introduced the iconic revelation that Wrestling/{{Kane}} (who was never implied to be particularly old) was his [[CainAndAbel half-brother]], with later storylines establishing that the two of them grew up together in their family funeral home. |
| 322 | |
| 323 | [[/folder]] |
| 324 | |
| 325 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 326 | * ''Franchise/AceAttorney'', in the first game: |
| 327 | ** Phoenix, after [[spoiler:being arrested]], says that he'd never imagined the possibility of him [[spoiler:being a defendant]]. The third game has a [[WholeEpisodeFlashback flashback case taking place before the first game]] where, surprise surprise, [[spoiler:Phoenix is the defendant]]. This line is fixed in the 3DS re-release -- Phoenix instead says he never imagined the possibility of "becoming the defendant for this case". Specially in the original, his line was him stating he never thought he'd "end up in the defendant's chair" himself. So it's likely he WAS referring to that specific case only, but it was just worded badly. |
| 328 | ** For that matter, he expresses empathy for Maya over being accused of murder because he too was wrongly accused of a crime he didn't commit once before. While not exactly contradictory, it is rather odd in hindsight that the example he has in mind is the childhood incident where his class thought he stole someone's lunch money, rather than the time in college when [[spoiler:his girlfriend framed him for murder]]. |
| 329 | ** When Phoenix and Grossberg first meet, it's implied they never met, even though he appears in the first case of the third game, which is a flashback. Though it could be argued Grossberg never got a good look at Phoenix (who was wearing a surgical mask due to a cold), and Phoenix could have been hopped up on cold medicine and forgot the less-important parts of the trial. They also didn't interact meaningfully in that flashback case. |
| 330 | * In the ''Franchise/BaldursGate'' series, a great many things don't quite fit together. First comes Imoen, of whom we cannot be quite sure when we met her or why she can be revived after dying [[spoiler:even though her heritage should make death irreversible]]. In the Throne of Bhaal we meet a fully grown dragon of about your age (20 years) and even with mature offspring by his side. At least what your stepfather's letter told you about your mother may be explained away as an attempt to not further upset you. |
| 331 | ** Except there's nothing saying that all the Bhaalspawn are the same age. After all, Bhaal's death had been foretold centuries earlier, presumably he could've started making heirs early enough for a dragon to grow up. |
| 332 | * ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'': Barbatos is stated to be the weakest of the [[PhysicalGod Archons]] in the Prologue, which is unlikely to have been a lie as [[spoiler: he had the artifact that gave him divinity taken away by La Signora at the end of the chapter. Note that La Signora is a mortal, albeit a very powerful one. [[TheWorfEffect Barbatos didn't even put up a fight.]]]] However, Chapter 3, which was released about two years later, introduced Lesser Lord Kusanali. Kusanali is technically an Archon, but is noted to lack the power of one. In fact, [[spoiler: she was imprisoned by her followers for not living up to their expectations.]] This suggests that the idea that Barbatos is the weakest of the Archons is no longer true, as Barbatos is more OvershadowedByAwesome. |
| 333 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' originally began as a direct sequel to the [=MSX2=] ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' games (''VideoGame/MetalGear1'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'') and many of the plot points were carried over unchanged. However as the prequels were released (namely ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'') many details of the series' backstory (such as Big Boss' age and military career prior to joining FOXHOUND, Frank Jaeger's country of origin, Master Miller's heritage and the fact that there were Metal Gears before the TX-55 in the first [=MSX2=] game) were changed to the point that they no longer sync with the MSX games. ''Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain'' does an admirable job in linking the frayed story threads, though ''Portable Ops'' had to be struck from the 'verse's canon. |
| 334 | ** Curiously, if Naked Snake dies at any point during ''Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater'', the words "SNAKE IS DEAD" slowly change to "[[TemporalParadox TIME PARADOX]]". |
| 335 | * Although ''VideoGame/KantaiCollection'' never had much of a lore or continuity, in its early days it was hinted that the Abyssal Fleet were meant to represent the Allied Forces that fought Japan during World War II. Since the idea was rife with UnfortunateImplications, it was quietly dropped as the game grew more popular than expected. The game would later introduce actual Allied ships as playable characters, and TheMovie confirmed that the Abyssals are in fact Fleet Girls who were sunk. |
| 336 | * ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'': |
| 337 | ** While the existence of past Keyblade wielders was always a plot point in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' (King Triton confirms this in [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI the very first game]]), Keyblades themselves were treated as though they were rare and special. By ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'', this is no longer the case, with one character even lampshading that "it seems like everyone has one of those things these days". Similarly, the original game claims that the Keyblade chooses its master, but ''Birth by Sleep'' shows that people become Keyblade wielders because other Keyblade wielders choose them as successors and make them undertake a rite of passage, though the Keyblade still needs to choose them based on their strength of heart.[[note]]This makes Sora the only character we know of thus far ''literally'' chosen by the Keyblade. When Riku uses the power of darkness to leave the islands at the beginning of ''I'', the Keyblade bequeathed to him by Terra in ''BBS'' basically [[RefusedByTheCall panics]] and [[MissedTheCall jumps from Riku's heart to the next closest vessel]]-- which so happens to be [[TheUnchosenOne Sora]].[[/note]] |
| 338 | ** The original game outright states that its central gimmick of traveling between various {{alternate universe}}s should normally be impossible (even with the aid of a [[CoolSpaceship Gummi Ship]]), and that Sora and co. are only able to do it because of {{the Heartless}}' invasion causing the barriers between worlds to break down. But then ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' complicates this by revealing that [[WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse King Mickey]] and Ansem the Wise are long-time friends, despite being from two different worlds. The {{prequel}} ''Birth By Sleep'' complicates it further, establishing that Keyblade wielders were casually traveling between worlds with "Keyblade Gliders" long before the Heartless came along. |
| 339 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Crysis}}'' series has gone through this in regards to the main alien enemies, the Ceph. In the first game, they were jellyfish-like blue critters that thrived happily in very, very low temperatures and environments with little gravity. In fact, they considered Earth inhospitable enough that you never fought them in person outside a controlled environment. Also, most of their weapons were cold-based. Come the second game and they're orange, walking around outside with the help of powered armor, no longer seem to mind the temperature, and use fusion-type weaponry and [[SyntheticPlague biological warfare]] as opposed to their original cryo-weaponry. As the aliens in the second game are very effective villains, opinion is divided as to whether or not these changes were for the better. |
| 340 | * ''VideoGame/EscapeFromMonkeyIsland'' has Herman Toothrot (from ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'') be revealed as Elaine's grandfather, H.T. Marley. This would be a genius retcon were it not for the facts surrounding Marley's arrival on the island contradicting Herman's. This is the main reason the game has such a BrokenBase. |
| 341 | * ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': Most of the games made before ''VideoGame/TouhouKaeidzukaPhantasmagoriaOfFlowerView'' don't fit well with later canon. [[SoftReboot The first five have just been ignored.]] The sixth through eighth are still fully acknowledged, but present the setting of Gensoukyou as a large place, filled with mystery and danger, while later worldbuilding would establish it as fairly small, generally understood, and most of the danger being posed only to non-natives. |
| 342 | ** Also noticeable is that things got much more Japanese. In the earlier games {{youkai}} had Western names unless they had a good reason not to, and then all of a sudden the reverse is true. The largest group of offenders got {{retcon}}ned into having come from outside, but there's still a decent number of characters with names that look out of place now. |
| 343 | * In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', Cerberus was presented as a dastardly lot carrying out unethical experimentation for little good reason and a rogue Alliance military Black Ops unit. When ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' came about and players were forced to work with them, Cerberus was now an independent well-funded but fairly small group, with Shepard's resurrection and the construction of the SR-2 ''Normandy'' taking up a huge portion of their resources, and the members with which you now encountered being more moral sorts. Attempts were made to paper over the difference by claiming those that appeared in the first game were rogue elements. Not everyone bought the explanation. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' revealed that the Illusive Man collected the most sympathetic members he could find to manipulate Shepard, and Cerberus was a full-on NGOSuperpower that could outfit a respectable battlefleet. There were multiple clues to this in the second game as well (mostly buried in the Codex), and it was always clear in the novels; whether Shepard fell for it or not is up to the player. |
| 344 | * In ''VideoGame/RuneScape'', the earliest content contained several references to the setting's ultimate power being a [[TheGhost cabal of unseen beings]] referred to only as "The Council," who were implied to be the collective {{Author Avatar}}s of the game's creators. They were suggested to be above all the governments seen in the game and respected by even the gods. They aren't mentioned anymore and it's since been well-established that Gielinor's most powerful beings are a group of alien deities known as the Elder Gods. |
| 345 | * ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' created some with regards to the nature of the resonance cascade. From playing just the first game and its expansion packs, one would think the cascade was just a local event, only affecting the Black Mesa complex and possibly parts of the surrounding New Mexico desert. Half Life 2 reveals that it opened portals across the world and allowed the Combine to enter our universe, leading to the [[CurbstompBattle Seven Hour War]] and the Combine conquering the planet. This raises several questions, the biggest being: why bother trying to cover up what happened in Black Mesa if the whole world was conquered by aliens shortly after, which would obviously be pretty hard for people to miss. It's possible the cover up was more about hiding the fact that humans were behind the whole thing, however. |
| 346 | * ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' |
| 347 | ** [[VideoGame/Diablo1997 The first]] [[VideoGame/DiabloII two games]] strongly implied (and sometimes stated outright), that bad folks go to {{Hell}} while good people go to {{Heaven}}, with the second game having some bound soul-looking things in Hell that acted as treasure chests. Then, near the end of ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', you go to Heaven to [[spoiler: stop a DemonicInvasion after Diablo himself is resurrected,]] and find that [[spoiler: there are no humans there, other than some "ghosts" that turn out to just be illusions.]] [[AllThereInTheManual Supplementary material]] would eventually reveal that ''neither'' Heaven or Hell are afterlife locations, and that [[OnlyOneAfterlife all mortals goes to a place called Mbwiru Eikura]] when they died. This was eventually [[HandWave hand waved]] by saying that the whole "good people go to Heaven, bad people go to Hell" idea was started by the Zakarum religion, but is probably not true, particularly since the entire religion was eventually [[CorruptChurch corrupted by Mephisto.]] |
| 348 | ** In ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' It's explicitly stated that the three [[BigBadDuumvirate Prime Evils]] are different ages, with Mephisto being the oldest, Diablo being youngest, and Baal in the middle (although this [[GameplayAndStorySegregation doesn't have any effect on their general power level in game)]]. Lore released when the ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' expansion pack came out revealed that all seven Great Evils started out as heads of a seven headed dragon Tathamet, who was destroyed in a fight with her GoodCounterpart Anu, with her heads each turning into one of the Great Evils, meaning they'd all have to be the same age. |
| 349 | [[/folder]] |
| 350 | |
| 351 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 352 | * Narrowly averted in ''Webcomic/DomainTnemrot''. In a blog post, Herbert says the original 4th chapter gave a history that conflicted with the one mentioned in the About page, so he changed everything around at the last second. |
| 353 | * ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': In one early conversation between Karkat and Sollux, the two trolls insult each other by saying that the other is repulsive to the opposite sex, and on another occasion, Feferi immediately assumes that Eridan's crush is female, before considering that it might be male. Both of these conversations seem to imply that troll society is heteronormative; however, it is later established that the [[EveryoneIsBi trolls are all bisexual]], and don't even have a word for monosexuality. It's not too hard to come up with an in-universe justification -- it would be consistent with canon if some characters had mild preferences for one gender, and all of those characters had opposite-sex love interests -- but it's clear that Hussie hadn't come up with the idea of all trolls being bi until later on. |
| 354 | ** Similarly, it's later established that gender is basically [[PurelyAestheticGender purely aesthetic]] to trolls with no different reproductive capabilities and no real social or cultural attachments. However, early pages in Hivebent seem to disagree with this, such as in one moment where Tavros was hurt and Karkat yelled at him to 'STOP PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS'. Theories have been imagined, including one rather popular one that women actually tend to be more aggressive and that Karkat wasn't insulting his choice of game so much as his ability to play something so dangerous, but it's still almost certainly drift going on here. |
| 355 | ** And there's the matter of the trolls' blood-based FantasticCasteSystem. Later it turned out to be an integral part of their society with castes strictly enforced. Very early on, though, the hierarchy was portrayed much more casually, with Sollux even being unaware of the order the colours go in. |
| 356 | * ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0015.html This]] very early [=OoTS=] comic implies that Roy's father and mother share realms in the afterlife, which they are later shown not to. |
| 357 | * In [[http://ozyandmillie.org/1998/05/25/ozy-and-millie-27/ early]] ''Webcomic/OzyAndMillie'' comics, Millie lived with both her parents. Much, much later, we discover that [[spoiler: her father is a pirate who ages backwards.]] |
| 358 | * The "Fantasy", "Space", and "Cliffhangers" themes in ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' started out as TabletopRPG campaigns, as Troper/DavidMorganMar originally intended for the more adventure-based themes to be this way. As their storylines progressed, though, this premise gradually faded out over time, to the point where the GameMaster character stopped appearing altogether. In the case of "Cliffhangers", it fell on the wayside the quickest, as the GM only made [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/25.html two]] [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/89.html appearances]] in that theme. |
| 359 | [[/folder]] |
| 360 | |
| 361 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 362 | * Throughout ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'', the role and scope of Project Freelancer, how common AIs are, and what happened before the first episode have drifted quite a bit. There have been few explicit retcons, if any, but implications from earlier seasons--such as every Freelancer having an AI--have been proven incorrect--there were less than ten AIs implanted in agents. More notable are several statements from the miniseries Out of Mind inconsistent with later series, which has largely been dismissed as messed-up or misinterpreted memories of Tex. |
| 363 | ** Sarge finally learns Spanish in the ''Relocated'' miniseries. He has apparently forgotten it by Season 11. |
| 364 | [[/folder]] |
| 365 | |
| 366 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 367 | * ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': |
| 368 | ** Fire Lord Sozin's age and reigning period changes between seasons. In the first two seasons he was said to have ruled during the first 70 years or so of the war, but come season 3 it is established that he only ruled for the first 20 years. Also a brief backstory released on the nick.com website implies that he was a young man who only recently became Fire Lord at around the time Avatar Roku died, but it is later established that Roku and Sozin were the same age and that Sozin had already been Fire Lord for a reasonable period by the time of Roku's death. |
| 369 | ** Katara mentions that an abandoned Fire Navy ship had been around since her grandmother was a little girl. By the end of the season, we learn that she didn't even live in the Southern Water Tribe until she was around 16-21. |
| 370 | ** Koh the Face Stealer mentioned that a previous Avatar attempted to kill him around 800-900 years ago, however we later learn that the Avatar he was talking about was Avatar Kuruk, who lived only about 450 years ago. |
| 371 | * ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor:'' |
| 372 | ** Originally, the [=KND=] seemingly consisted of merely the five main characters we see on the show, but by halfway through the first season, it became established that the whole organization was a global entity with thousands of agents. No one minded this change at all, especially since it happened so relatively early on in the series that it went on mostly unnoticed. |
| 373 | ** A lot of character-defining traits involving [[TheAce Chad/Numbuh 274]] were seemingly not set in stone in the first season, such as him being the leader of the KND and an old friend of Numbuh One (all of which would stick and remain highly important plot elements), whereas his debut episode highly implied he was just a random operative that was very good at his job and had met Sector V for the first time. |
| 374 | * ''WesternAnimation/DeltaState'': In the earliest episodes, the titular location has some established rules that were phased out over time. This included needing to know someone's location in the Delta State to find them, needing to save [[BigBad rifter]] victims within 48 hours (which is mentioned a few times afterward, but is now the time it takes for a rifter to take over someone), and the leads becoming disoriented and hyper-focused if they spend too much time in the Delta State. |
| 375 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' has continuity that got looser as it went on, but it did pop up sometimes. |
| 376 | ** In his first appearance in the ''WesternAnimation/OhYeahCartoons'' shorts, it's implied that Cosmo and Wanda are meeting Jorgen for the first time. The series proper establishes that they've known each other long beforehand, and Jorgen's a prominent figure, making this first interaction strange. |
| 377 | ** In early episodes, losing your fairies did not equate losing your memory of them. This only started in season 3. |
| 378 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': |
| 379 | ** The pilot episode stated that all jobs were selected for everyone by the government, everyone had "job chips" implanted in their hands, and leaving your job was [[DisproportionateRetribution punishable by death]]. In later episodes, the job chips seem to function mostly as a form of ID, with everyone taking the job they want. A later episode lampshades this when they are fired from Planet Express and take up their old jobs again by having Leela explain the concept of career chips to a dumbfounded Fry. |
| 380 | ** At the end of the pilot, the main characters are escaping the police and President Nixon in an explosion of fireworks. This issue is never brought back up in the following episodes. |
| 381 | ** An early episode had Bender joining a robot religion led by Preacher Bot and swearing off alcohol for the religiously acceptable synthetic oil. And yet the very first episode established that alcohol is ''necessary'' for a robot to function (there's even a legal limit that robots have to be above), and Preacher Bot is even seen handing out alcohol to homeless robots in the first ChristmasEpisode, making Bender's insistence that alcohol is unacceptable to Robotologists questionable. It's possible that Bender misunderstood a restriction ("Do not indulge in alcohol to excess") as an outright prohibition ("Do not indulge in alcohol period"), or that as a new convert he is taking an extreme position in an excess of zeal. It may be worth noting that in ''Mother's Day'' Cardbot's description of the glorious robot worker's paradise ''does'' include an outright prohibition on alcohol, which is what motivates Bender to defect. [[note]] Let's just say that ''many'' religious sects could be seen as having [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] restrictions into prohibitions in that manner. [[/note]] |
| 382 | ** In the pilot, Bender us shown to be a good and moral robot, who only "went bad" after his programming got scrambled by electricity from a burst lightbulb. Later it's rather clear that he's always been his normal violent and kleptomaniacal self from the remainder of the show, and that Mom seemingly programs all bending units in that manner -- as seen in the episode "Mother's Day" when the "see through the eyes of a bending unit" highlight potential theft and exploitation targets. |
| 383 | * ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'': Early episodes pretty strongly imply that [[GreaterScopeVillain Shendu]] is the only demon sorcerer of his kind, and they generally portray him as a {{Satan}}-like figure with command of a wide range of magical powers; hence, his [[ArtifactOfPower twelve talismans]] can grant everything from {{invisibility}} to {{super speed}} and {{heat vision}}. Later, as the show's mythology becomes fleshed out, it's well-established that he's one of ''eight'' demon sorcerers with their own {{elemental powers}}, and that he's strictly [[PlayingWithFire the demon of fire]]. To get around this, later episodes rarely refer to the talismans as "The Talismans of Shendu", generally just calling them "the talismans". |
| 384 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The first season was almost entirely under control of Lauren Faust, and as such, the worldbuilding reflected her ideas that she had while playing with her pony toys when she was little. As the show grew in popularity, she lost influence (and left by season 3), so the worldbuilding gradually changed as the show went on. Most notably, the princesses Celestia and Luna, alicorns who raise the sun and the moon every day, were depicted as the god-like rulers and possibly creators of Equestria (which was the name of the world), and the world was depicted as needing constant care of ponies to function outside of certain areas like the Everfree Forest. As early as season 2, Celestia and Luna fall prey to TheWorfEffect, and it's shown that they're not eternal or unique (regular ponies can become alicorns, and in Season 6 it is implied that they were born as non-alicorns in the same manner); Equestria is later established to be merely the name of one nation ruled by ponies, and it's not even their home nation as they lived somewhere else before being displaced by windigos; the idea of the environment needing constant pony supervision remains more or less stable, as a handful of later-season episodes revolve around this concept, but many other nations are introduced where there are no ponies and no particular mention of environmental magement is brought up. |
| 385 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'': In the devil's first two appearances, he is only referred to as "''him''" because he's so evil the other characters can't bring themselves to say his true name. After that, his name is apparently actually HIM. |
| 386 | * ''WesternAnimation/Rugrats1991'': A few early episodes explicitly state that [[MissingMom Chuckie's mother]] is still alive, but they occasionally imply that she and Chas are divorced. [[note]]In "Real or Robots?", Stu mentions waiting for Chuckie's mom to pick him up after a sleepover with Tommy, and in "My Friend Barney", Chas rather nonchalantly mentions that his wife never liked a fish trophy that he used to hang on his wall, and doesn't much sound like a grieving widower.[[/note]] Later on, the Mother's Day episode established that she died of [[SoapOperaDisease an unspecified illness]] when Chuckie was an infant. |
| 387 | * ''WesternAnimation/StaticShock'': Early on, Virgil/Static make several references to other superheroes as fictional characters, such as by remarking that "Even [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Clark Kent]] had a day job." Later on, however, the show is very firmly established in the Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse. According to WordOfGod, "[[MST3KMantra Don't worry about it]]." |
| 388 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'': |
| 389 | ** The Autobots and Decepticons were created by the Quintessons, as revealed in [[WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie the movie]]. Then it turns out the Autobots and Decepticons were created by Primus, who was built by Primacon, and the Quintessons just want to punish or destroy the Autobots and Decepticons. Or the Quintessons and Primacon have nothing to do with their origin, and their origin story is "Primus created the Autobots and Decepticons." |
| 390 | ** ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' introduced the idea that the Maximals and Predacons were the same as the Autobots and Decepticons from ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1'', only in new bodies that can transform into animal forms instead of vehicles. Later, it was established that these were not the original Autobots and Decepticons. |
| 391 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'': [[spoiler:Quilby's]] past whereabouts before being imprisoned changes between episodes 20 and 24 of season 2. When Adamaï and Grougaloragran destroy the preserved alien creatures within the Zinit, [[spoiler: Quilby]] explicitly states that they were his research. However, during a flashback in episode 23, a large army of Mechasms are seen in the sky during [[spoiler: Quilby's imprisonment]] And since it's true that Orgonax was the only mechasm on the World of Twelve during that period, [[spoiler: Quilby]] couldn't have been on the Zinit to research alien creatures if he was imprisoned back on his homeworld. |
| 392 | * ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'': Warren Worthington (Angel) first appears in the Season 1 two-parter "The Cure" and "Come the Apocalypse", where he's portrayed as a wealthy businessman bankrolling the development of a "cure" for mutation, and it's made clear that none of the X-Men have ever met him before; this is a notable departure from the comics, where Angel was one of the five original X-Men. Later, however, the Season 3 episodes "Xavier Remembers" and "Cold Comfort" feature brief flashbacks to the team's younger days (before the events of the show), where it's established that Angel was one of the original X-Men in the show too. |
| 393 | [[/folder]] |
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