Crossover
- In Life Is Strange, Mark Jefferson is the Big Bad, having manipulated Sean and Nathan Prescott to his own ends. In AWE Arcadia Bay (Rogue_Demon), he's Sean's loyal follower who's "art" was all done in their attempt at creating an Object of Power, being captured by the Federal Bureau of Control after he scrubs all trace of Sean from their bunker.
- Paradoxus:
- Barring Sylvanas, all of the main characters of World of Warcraft either appear just once in very minor roles (Tyrande, Anduin, Genn, Nathanos, Lorthemar), are merely mentioned in one of Sylvanas or Galadwen's musings, or are outright ignored. Valeera might be a middle point, what with being Stacy's mentor in the ways of the Rogues, but has yet to make a significant contribution to the plot.
- Also, the Winx women themselves have suffered this fate. Bloom is a Decoy Protagonist for a little while, Stella and Musa's antics are shown now and then (though the latter's role has been growing over time), Tecna has only entered the stage to fix a mess with Alfea's Simulator, Aisha shows her face to speculate about the time travelers' identities, and Roxy's entrance is long overdue. The trope is averted with Flora since she's revealed as one of the Chessmasters of the story.
- It's Always Spooky Month: The protagonists of Friday Night Funkin', Boyfriend and Girlfriend, only appear in a few sparse cameos, though it's likely that the events of the game are still happening, Monster and the Spookies just aren't part of it. The two play a major role in chapter 11.
- Unlike RWBY, Sun takes no part in the battle at the docks in BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant and both him and Neptune play no role in the White Fang investigation, with them only being background characters here.
- In between FMTDI and FMTDA, quite a few characters in Fuzzy Memories get cut from the main roster, including the likes of Alfred, Alia, Brooke, Kaden, and Quincy.
- Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger:
- Team RWBY goes from being the main protagonists to supporting characters. Most of their canonical adventures happen offscreen and are given the Hero of Another Story treatment.
- Roman Torchwick gets hit with this especially hard. In RWBY, Roman was the show's Starter Villain and was later upgraded to The Heavy for the first two volumes. Here, he's reduced to a background character who's only mentioned but never makes a proper appearance. Even his death happens entirely offscreen and everyone (except Neo) treats him dying as an afterthought.
- A Song of Metal and Marvels: In the first 2 books, the entire Night's Watch gets hit with this, since its two most prominent characters, Jon Snow and Sam Tarly, never join, with Jon being adopted by Tony as his heir and Sam becoming Tyrion's squire. Then Book 3 rolled around, and Jorah Mormont becomes the POV for the watch returning to prominence as Steve Rodgers works to unite Wildlings and the Watch against The Commander of the Others.
- Daenerys, one of the main characters of canon, barely appears in A Man of Iron, getting merely three chapters out of the fic's 33. This according to Word of God is because her story was mostly the same as in canon. Starting in A Crack of Thunder, she gets more focus and divergence.
- The Misfits (Walker): Nina lampshades this in Part 8, noting that, because they're female, they might end at a disadvantage compared to the other characters over time, or at least be perceived to be at such a disadvantage. They're of course trying their hardest to not allow this to happen, though.
- People Like Us: Any Taxi Driver character not named Travis Bickle never appears in the story proper, and only get mentions at best. Justified, as not only does Joker (2019) take place in a different time and city, but Travis has good reason not to communicate with these people anymore.
- Pokémon Crossing: Isabelle and Timmy/Timmy Nook are important NPCs in the Animal Crossing series. In this fanfiction, Isabelle takes on Nurse Joy's role, only cameoing in a few chapters, while Timmy and Tommy are delegated to Professor Nook's assistants.
- On a Pokémon end, Slaking appears at the very end of the Petalburg Gym battle. Instead, Zangoose takes over as the ace Pokémon.
- Princess Azula has become this in The Saga Of Tanya The Firebender; where thanks to Tanyas' meteoric rise to power, Azulas' attempts at maintaining her authority as the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation are being overshadowed, all of Azulas' attempts to make Tanya bend-the-knee like she had done with Mai and Ty Lee don't on for Tanya as she goes from an aspiringly-talented Fire Nation Soldier, to becoming a part of the Fire Nations' Admiralty following her conquest of the North Pole. By the time Azula meets Aang in Omashu; the Avatar had constantly been on the backfoot whenever Tanya had entered the battle that the first thing that came to the Avatars' mind was if Azula was another one of Tanyas' subordinates.
- Perfect Chaos is the boss of the Dreamcast era in the original game. In Sonic Generations: Friendship Is Timeless , Chaos does shows up, but in his Chaos 0 form, to help the heroes in the Changeling battle in chapter 10.
- Soul Chess:
- Rukia is pretty much Ichigo’s sidekick in the main series. Here we certainly don’t see her as often.
- Subverted with Renji. You would be forgiven for thinking that he had died at some point early in the plot. He is in the group of reinforcements sent to Karakura, but doesn't reach the same level of significance until later, when he is able to successfully defend himself during the Battle of Karakura Town and is one of the three Lieutenants (Kaien and Yuna are the other two) going into the Final Battle of Karakura.
- Lex Luthor only makes one appearance in SmallvilleX: Evolution, and that's just to explain why Chloe and Pete are in New York right before Christmas. He's out of the country for most of the series. He has made more appearances since then, and has had a bigger part in things so far, though he still isn't appearing nearly as much as he does in Smallville
- Dæmorphing:
- In canon, Tom's second Yeerk was one of the main players in the final battle. Here, he's unceremoniously killed off halfway through, and as a result, the war ends in a completely different way.
- All of Alloran's uninfested scenes are skipped over, and he dies long before he has a chance to be freed.
- While Erek makes regular appearances, he doesn't deliver the Animorphs exposition as often, and he's completely absent from the final battle.
- The Hurricane: The end of Laurel's Year Four features a member of QC being arrested for creating the virus that was recently used in a series of bank robberies in Gotham, with the context making it clear that this employee is Felicity Smoak.
- Never Be Silent:
- Felicity. Since Laurel never gets stabbed by Darhk, Felicity has no reason to reconcile with Oliver or rejoin Team Arrow. Other than two short scenes and a cameo as one of Star's illusions, she has no presence in the story, and the ending doesn't touch on what happened to her after Darhk's defeatnote .
- Gordon Godfrey. He's still a public figure broadcasting against superhumans, but there's nothing to indicate he has any affiliation with the likes of Darkseid and is apparently just a normal reporter.
- Jiazin, The Hero in the first story of The Fall of the Fire Empire, will be reduced to supporting character in the sequel, according to Word of God. Given that he wants the other major characters to shine this time, the decision is not necessarily a bad one.
- Hope for the Heartless is set almost immediately after the events of The Black Cauldron. It focuses on the resurrected Horned King (the movie's Big Bad) trying to complete a seemingly impossible Redemption Quest - earning a human's love despite his sins - in order to remain free from the Black Cauldron and his growing affection towards a girl named Avalina. The protagonists - Taran, Princess Eilonwy, Dallben, Gurgi and Hen Wen among others - get mentions here and there, but only some of them have appeared in several chapters.
- Vow of the King: Even more so than canon where he was a supporting character, Kon only gets a couple brief mentions as a third child working for Urahara.
- Famously done in the Daria fanfic series by Canadibrit known as The Look-Alike Series, where the OC of Lynn Cullen (an Author Avatar who is blatantly Wish-Fulfillment) effectively takes over the entire series, relegating the show's main characters Daria and Jane to sidekick status.
- Of a sort in The New Adventures of Darkwing Duck - the members of the Fearsome Five are a lot less prominent in the series, being more or less henchmen to Negaduck's growing empire rather than a team of mostly equally prominent supervillains with a particularly Bad Boss - they explicitly work for him, rather than with him. With the exception of the rare focus episodes that don't feature them doing Negaduck's bidding, most of them get much less prominence than they had in the show. Quackerjack barely features at all.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- What If I Know Too Many Reasons I Can Be Strong?: Sabito is one of Tanjiro's mentors in the original manga. The pixiv version of the webcomic, however, demotes him to a cameo since Tanjiro is much stronger than his manga counterpart.
- TITANOMACH: An interesting example with Jacob Hardy and Qiao; while the two of them (alongside Mihaylova) were never of great relevance to the immediate story, they still played an important role in canon, as the first people to set foot on Mars to meet the Traveler. In Triumvirate, an AU retelling of the origins of the Golden Age, they only make short appearances for two chapters early on as heads of their respective countries' space programs, and are never mentioned again... unlike Mihaylova, who is among the Ares crew, and is also one of the Traveler's first Chosen.
- Legend of the Monkey God:
- Oolong doesn't travel with Goku and Bulma, instead stealing most of their dyno-caps and fleeing.
- Yamcha and Puar likewise don't travel with them and stay in the desert where they're first encountered.
- Zack is very prominent in Shinra High, but gets very little screentime in Shinra SOLDIER.
- Most of Cloud's comrades in the original game (except ironically the optional characters Yuffie and Vincent) get at most cameos in The Fifth Act. Justified in that it's years before FFVII; most of the characters are too young or have (so far) no beef with ShinRa.
- The Lion of Ivalice:
- On the villains' side, aside from Larg and Goltanna appearing less than in canon and both being killed in Part One, Cardinal Draclau & Dycedarg Beoulve are even less important here. Both face Ramza's group in a Dual Boss fight — as Lucavi — and die without much fanfare (heck, Dycedarg/Adramelk is singlehandedly defeated by Ramza).
- Somewhat averted with Mustadio, however - he was intended to be this, but makes a few key appearances starting Chapter 19 which give him a significant role. So although he's... well, still Demoted to Extra compared to the original game, for the author he's... an Ascended Extra.
- In the main series, Cotterpin Doozer is the most prominent Doozer character. In Cave Dancers Pretty Cure, she only makes small, one-line cameos, while Daisywheel Doozer takes her place as the primary Doozer of the series.
Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire
- Purple Days: Many major characters experience this due to the protagonist, a Groundhog Peggy Sue Joffrey, not having any reason to interact with them much or even meet them across his Groundhog Day Loops. Notable examples include Ser Jorah, who Joff only knows as a servant to Daenerys, and pretty much anyone from the Wall except for Jon Snow.
Godzilla / King Kong / MonsterVerse
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon):
- With San and Vivienne Graham as the story's main protagonists, Godzilla is a secondary character (though still the Big Good).
- Madison and Mark Russell, both of whom were major characters in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), are relegated to more minor roles with fewer appearances between scenes.
- Lieutenant Ford Brody and his family, the protagonist and major plot-driving force respectively of Godzilla (2014), have appeared in no more than several chapters in minor roles.
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi / The Untamed
- By Any Other Name does this to Wen Ning, who only appears in the last chapter. Even then, he does more as a mindless corpse than after regaining his wits.
- Arguably applies to Harry Potter himself in the Adam Winters series, where Peter Pettigrew faked Harry's death after Voldemort's defeat and hid him under various disguise charms. As a result, where Harry started at Hogwarts as an instant celebrity, Adam Winters starts a year late and is seen by the general student population as just a random orphaned muggle-born nobody has any real reason to pay attention to.
- Daphne Greengrass and the Boy Who Lived: Cho Chang was Harry’s first crush in canon, but when he’s watching the Ravenclaw-VS-Slytherin match in his third year, which sees Cho playing against Draco Malfoy, Harry shows no sign that he notices Cho in terms of anything more than her abilities as a Seeker (likely due to his implied attraction to Daphne).
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Hagrid is featured but has little to no plot-relevance. Ron Weasley makes a few appearances but is largely Out of Focus.
- Francis, who seems like a really important character early on in Stitching Hearts, suddenly drops out of the story and makes only sporadic appearances after that.
- Queen of All Oni: Shendu, who was one of the Big Bads of the show, has only appeared or been mentioned in a few chapters.
- The Stronger Evil:
- The Enforcers only appear in the first two chapters that chronicle Shendu's resurrection at the end of the Noble Animals arc, and they're presumably still in prison after being arrested due to Daolon Wong's death.
- Tarakudo, the Arc Villain of the fourth season, ends up suffering his canon fate rather quickly due to the Oni Mask arc being condensed to only four chapters.
- In The Lion King Adventures, former Big Bad Tama and her boyfriend Tojo only made fleeting appearances after Series Two.
- In The Story of Apollo, Daphne and Luca: An Italian Tragedy, Massimo has a less prominent role than in the original film.
- While Peter was raised by Ben and May Parker in canon, in Lies of omission they never make an appearance except for a passing mention of an uncle from a family gathering.
- Since Leave for Mendeleiev explores the idea of "What If? Marinette was transferred to Ms. Mendeleiev's class at the start of the school year?", most of her original classmates naturally have less focus than they do in the show. Ms. Bustier's class also cultivates a poor reputation due to how many akumas come out of it, courtesy of Chloe's bullying going unchecked — all the more reason for Marinette to try and avoid them.
- Crimson and Emerald: Downplayed. Izuku is still important to the story but he is demoted to Deuteragonist while Hawks, a minor character in canon, is promoted to primary protagonist.
- In Thieves Can Be Heroes!, most of the My Hero Academia cast gets shunted to the background. Some characters, like Izuku's mom, get parts of chapters devoted to them, but none of them get more than that.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- The Differentverse: Five of the original show's Mane Six get this due to not being the Bearers this time around, and Rainbow Dash and Rarity don't even get any on-screen lines in the first story. Pinkie still gets a little focus due to being one of the author's favorite characters, and because Marble moved in with her after deciding to stay in Ponyville.
- Most of the main cast only appear intermittently in Sophistication and Betrayal, save for Rarity and Fluttershy.
- Countless characters in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic. Cookie Dough, who was a core member of the team in the initial series, was removed for several stories and when reintroduced in My Brave Pony: Star Fleet Magic III, was a minor character. The DeviantArt remake brings him back, not as a member, but as a recurring background character.
- More Than Enemies: Due to the fanfic's premise (Sakura gets inadvertently trained by Itachi), several characters get this treatment: Sasuke, Naruto, the rest of the Konoha 12, the Jonin instructors, and Jiraiya. Most of them get their Day in the Limelight, though. The Sandaime also gets this treatment in his fight against Orochimaru at the peak of the Konoha Crush.
- Son of the Sannin:
- Konohamaru never meets Naruto and is reduced to being mentioned in the passing a few times, not even being referred to by name until the penultimate chapter during his grandfather's funeral. He fares a lot better in Hanabi's spin-off though, where he's the Deuteragonist and her Friendly Rival.
- Kakashi, due to not being Naruto's jonin sensei this time around, gets a lot less focus. To an extent also Sasuke and Sakura for the same reason.
- Iruka, while he was never a major character to begin with, his role as Naruto's Parental Substitute was very important. Here, he doesn't interact with Naruto beyond the standard student/teacher relationship.
- While True Potential is well known for its use of the opposite trope to this one, that comes at the expense of this trope happening to other characters. The biggest examples are the original Team 7 (Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi). Since they are not Naruto's teammates anymore, they get much less attention for the sake of his new team. In a sense, Orochimaru as well, who gets killed before the Time Skip, and his role is taken by Kabuto, like in canon, only much earlier.
- Always Visible: Delia's mother is a minor character here, and the author writes very superficially about her death, as if he did not care about this character.
- Hours 'Verse: The Velvet Room attendants are this during the Arena games, being forced to watch from the sidelines thanks to Igor grounding them all and saying that Theodore saving Hamuko and Shinjiro in Catch Perfect is more than enough intervention for now.
- Rather than showing up Once an Episode, Jessie and James in Challenger
first appear at the Viridian City Pokémon Center like canon, then fall off the map for several months. When Ash next sees them, they've gone legit and confessed that their attack on the Pokémon Center was their first assignment as members of Team Rocket and the pair left the organization after serving their jail sentences. - In The Chosen One's Journey, the Rocket Trio, who appeared in almost every episode of the anime, rarely make an appearance - and even when they do, it doesn't last long.
- While Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has its fair share of Ascended Extras, several major characters have their roles greatly disminished:
- Brock doesn't travel with Ash, partly because he needs to stay for his siblings due to his parents being dead, and partly because he's engaged.
- The Team Rocket trio doesn't appear as often as they do in canon, because they're not after him to steal Pikachu, just to keep an eye on him per Giovanni's orders.
- Crimson Rising: For most of the series, Lightspeed Rescue, Wild Force and Mystic Force are basically rendered powerless as the Lightspeed morphers were damaged (and most of the team were killed) and the other two teams were cut off from the Animarium and Rootcore respectively in Ooze's initial attack. However, the remaining Lightspeed Rangers provide medical assitance for the active Rangers, while Mystic Force helped to train the Ninja Storm team in their abilities by adapting their other magical talents and Wild Force serve as general support staff.
- The canon characters are pretty much on the sidelines (or name-dropped) in Star Wars Paranormalities Trilogy, although Luke Skywalker gets the most screentime out of all the canon characters thanks to his Mission Control status. Justified in that this story is mostly OC driven.
- Mois in Sgt. Frog Abridged, due to her voice actor often being busy, and the writers getting anything they could have really gotten out of the character in her first episode. She still has the occasional line, and the season finale features her more prominently, but overall the writers just never have a use for her.
- A BFG's World Tour
- Heather, the "official" winner of World Tour in canon, is eliminated in "I See London," which was halfway through the season, but due to where this story begins, is the second chapter here.
- Owen and Sierra, both of whom made the merge in canon, are eliminated pre-merge here.
- A Codette World Tour: In order to make way for Team Victory's much more successful run than in canon, some of the major contestants of the canon season become this.
- Owen and Heather go from reaching the merge (with the latter becoming a finalist and receiving huge character development in the process) to being among the first eliminated in the season. However, they do get to become Alejandro's helpers in the finale.
- Duncan's return is much shorter than in canon and he never reaches the merge this time, as he is eliminated immediately after his affair with Gwen is exposed. Slightly Downplayed though because Duncan's hookup with Gwen results in the end of Cody's feelings for her and opens the way for his new feelings for Bridgette.
- For Want of a Mohawk
- As part of the fic's premise, Duncan, who made the merge every season in canon and is generally considered part of the Spotlight-Stealing Squad, is now the third contestant eliminated here.
- In terms of contestants who made the merge in canon, Duncan, Trent, Leshawna, and DJ are all eliminated pre-merge here. While Trent does return at the merge, he's eliminated in the next chapter, which was the same episode he was eliminated in canon, meaning he still has less appearances here than in canon.
- Not only is Izzy eliminated two episodes earlier than in canon, she also doesn't return at the merge here.
- Bridgette ends up being eliminated two episodes earlier than in canon.
- Canon finalist Owen is eliminated in "Hide and Be Sneaky" here.
- Some characters who get a lot of focus in canon receive very little in Total Drama Comeback Series:
- While Owen gets a lot of screentime in every season he's been in and always ranked among the first seven, in both TDC and TDBG gets eliminated very early. In fact, other characters comment how odd is for somebody who did so well the first season to be eliminated so soon. It's worth mention that the author does like Owen, but eliminates him early because he doesn't like the Toilet Humor that comes with him (that and probably to make room for other characters)
- Duncan, another character accused of being a spotlight stealer, gets a much reduced role in TDC than in canon (he's basically Courtney's Dark Mistress), and is eliminated right after Courtney's revenge plot ends. In TDBG, he's eliminated even earlier.
- Heather is a notable aversion: despite the author believing that the screentime she has in the show is excessive, in TDC she gets lots of Character Focus, Character Development, ranks quite high despite this time everybody knowing about her true nature from the very beginning (granted, eliminating her this time around was harder due to having multiple teams instead of just two, plus the follow-up mini challenges where she gained immunity many times), and even becomes Ezekiel's love interest.
- Total Drama Equestria:
- This happened in the case of Anne Maria throughout the show. Which is a shame, as one of the authors originally wanted to show off more of her character.
- Once DJ's redemption arc with his animal issues got resolved, he was just mainly there. The only times episodes focused on him was his date with Heather, and the episode where he got eliminated.
- In the Total Zeksmit series of Total Drama fanworks:
- Any male competitor from canon who isn't Ezekiel, Justin, or Geoff has been completely absent for the entire first half of the first season. Alejandro at least has some mysterious role in the story built up as Justin's rival. As for everyone else, their whereabouts are unknown.
- Chris and Chef are also demoted. Chef hasn't debuted yet, but he's confirmed to be in a spinoff by Word of God. Chris has gotten a quick appearance at the beginning but never showed up since, although he's the host of the same spinoff.
- Out of the contestants, all of the girls who made it to the final five of the original first season are eliminated fairly early. As for the guys, they're part of the "any male competitor from canon who isn't Ezekiel, Justin, or Geoff" group.
- Total Drama Generations: Despite being one of the most prominent characters from the Revenge of the Island cast in canon, Scott ends up being eliminated quite early in this fic.
- Total Drama World Tour Deluxe
- Here, Blaineley and Josh are hosts of the Aftermaths due to Bridgette and Geoff competing in season 3 from day one, so Bridgette and Geoff aren't as prominent in them as canon.
- Owen and Tyler are also booted earlier than canon.
- Total Reordered Series
- Canonically, Cameron was a finalist in his first season and lasted past the merge in his second. Here, he only competes in seven episodes before falling Out of Focus.
- Scott only lasts for three episodes in his second season compared to All-Stars where he reached the Final Three.
- Kitty and Trent (who were the finalists in Island) are eliminated early in Action. Meanwhile Sammy (the winner of Action) doesn't qualify for World Tour, nor do the former two.
- Touhou Doujin: Dawitsu's Folly: Alice Margatroid was a crucial part of the plot in Recompense, and then was barely seen outside of a fluffy beta plot in Jean's Magical Education, and is barely seen at all in Yutaka's Big Fat Youkai Wedding.
- In The Not So Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, Bella and Edward's roles have been reduced to welcoming Bree into the family and Edward talking to Bree about the wedding. Justified as there are small hints that the events of Breaking Dawn are still taking place while Bree is off doing her own thing.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Thousand Year Door: The Unfriendly Amazon in Redux. In the original version, she was a part of a Terrible Trio alongside Peten the Dark Clown and End of Anubis and was the Duel Spirit who had a personal vendetta with Francesca (due to her using Amazoness monsters). In Redux however, she only appears during her initial duel and is never seen again afterwards with her role later on being taken by Ruklamba the Spirit King.
- Mistle, who was a fairly prominent recurring character in the original fic only appears in a single chapter of Shadowchasers: Power Primordial with a relatively minor role.
- Tarakudo and the Oni Generals in Shadows Awakening. While they were an integral part of the plot of Season 4, here they only have very small appearances, with only Tarakudo and the Ninja General having significant (but still small) parts in the story.
- Young Justice: Darkness Falls: Aside from a few mentions from Artemis on how she's settled down with Liam, Cheshire gets a lot less to do after she found out Artemis was alive.
Misc/Unsorted
- Poor Necrons, right after their awakening in ToyHammer, they're greeted with equivalent of 1.7 kiloton raw C4 explosion inside a giant mining cave the size of starship hangar. Nothing out of the ordinary considering how resilient they are compared to the rest, but still...
- Out of the formerly prominent Original Characters, only Dawitsu and Jean seem to play a prominent part in Twenty Years Later: Reimu's Successor, Yutaka only appears briefly as an obstacle to Patricia, while Tokage and Hebiko get what Hebiko calls 'a contrived cameo' in chapter nine. Dawitsu is actually an inversion, and is extremely influential in this story.
- Two Worlds: Chris plays big role, but after Josh become werewolf his role becoms more minor.
- Several characters who once were protagonists of their own series are now, naturally, reduced to cameos or secondary roles in Unequally Rational and Emotional.
- Elsa, a major character in Frozen (2013), and Sven, a pretty significant supporting character in it, barely appear in the fanfiction What About Witch Queen?. In-story, the court of the Isles disappears for eleven chapters before becoming Third Line, Some Waiting, and Kai and Kristoff are moved to the background following their trip to Weselton. Subverted, though, with Anna, who's Demoted to Extra for the first dozen or so chapters before becoming one of the main characters.
- Russia, who was one of the world powers to survive the events of the original series has only made a few appearances in Worldwar: War of Equals.
- Heinkell is hardly even talked about after chapter seventeen of the first story of Worse Than Death Series, just being something of placeholder in the crew.
- To Hell and Back (Arrowverse):
- John Diggle and Felicity Smoak, largely because their roles on Arrow have been subsumed by a number of characters (particularly Barry and Kara). Diggle isn't even mentioned, while the only reference to Felicity is from Thawne about how, in the previous timeline, she was a Green Arrow stalker who revealed Oliver's secret identity to the world after he rejected her. According to Word of God, Diggle and Lyla never divorced and are currently living in another city with their son and daughter, while Felicity is in jail for creating her hacktivist supervirus.
- Thea's role is also reduced significantly, mainly since she isn't a Bratty Teenage Daughter and doesn't need a lot of Character Development.
- Caitlin and Cisco are demoted to supporting characters, as Barry has mastered his powers by the time he meets them and is not as nearly dependent on them as he is in canon.
- In Darwin, Suzaku Kururugi is a minor antagonist for the first arc, rather than the Deuteragonist.
- Enlightenments: The Colossi are one of the most important sources of the original game's moral ambiguity, with the question of whether or not Wander was right to slay them driving most of the Alternative Character Interpretation in the fandom. For various reasons, Enlightenments is mostly uninterested in this debate and so mostly uninterested in the Colossi: it takes place long after the events of the game, it's from the perspective of the god Dormin, who never considered them anything more than former vessels of their power, and while Wander does have mixed feelings about having killed them, he's more concerned with present-day issues such as his abusive wife than mourning the long-dead Colossi. Wander does visit the tenth Colossus briefly, and the seventh Colossus shows up in one of his nightmares.
