Getting kind of whiny: Lying Creator

This is supposed to be a trope about "Word of God is contradicted by later events," but a lot of the examples are along the lines of "writer promised to do or not do something, writer didn't do or did do something, writer is BAD BAD BAD." Is it worth salvaging?

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Yes, because it's a real phenomenon. I think making bad examples more neutral would be enough.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Yes!

I think so, yes. This really ought to be a neutral concept (though it should be Trivia if it isn't already).

I'd like to raise the possibility of a rename, but I'm not sure if anything could work. Lying Creator sounds hostile enough that it might be worth considering, though.

Creator Changed Their Mind?

Hmm... am I right that this is different from Flip-Flop of God in that the Word of God is contradicted by later events in an episode/film/comic issue/book, instead of by further Word of God?

What about:

Jossed Creator
Jossed Word of God

edited 17th Nov '11 9:12:08 AM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

Joss Jossed Himself?

It seems that way. This seems to be much more definite than the flip flop

This doesn't need a new name. As it stands, it's about creators lying - if people are whining, then the page needs curation. Giving it an obtuse name will help exactly nothing.

Yeah, unwritten rule number one: follow all the unwritten procedures. - Camacan

That's partially how I feel - it is a very clear name - but on the other hand, I think a name that comes across as so seemingly hostile might be contributing to the misuse..

Bump. Looks like a nonissue, so let's close this.

I wouldn't say that this is a nonissue. How do we know that a creator is lying? Why would they lie? If the whole trope is dependent on this one word, I feel that the whole trope is iffy

If they say "X will never happen in this story", and then X happens, and the author never offers any explanation for this discrepancy, then it's a reasonable conclusion that the author lied.

To avoid giving out any spoilers without drawing attention to the fact that the information could be a spoiler (simply refusing to answer runs the risk of the fandom catching on that the information is important). Or because they're a Teasing Creator who likes to mess with the fans' heads.

Or they just changed their mind and made a promise they didn't feel was worth keeping.

"a promise they didn't feel was worth keeping"

That is a form of a lie.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

It could also be that they forgot answering the question and changed their mind, or the regular slip of the tongue. Lying is a bit presumtuous

Taking a look at the examples, most of the works are a joint effort, and many of the examples could be attributed to the "creator" being overruled bu othe other creators

There's also "changed their mind," "got fired," and "forgot about that promise." There's even "that promise was a joke, how could you think I was serious!?"

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

Self Jossed?

I truly hope you're joking.

How about Unreliable Creator? Still a bit whiny, but at least it covers all the variations

To be honest, not really sure what the problem is here. Having gone through the examples myself, most of them seem pretty valid. Unless of course someone's already gone through and cleaned them up, in which case fair do's. Still, I don't really think the name's a particular problem; yeah, it's a little negative, but I wouldn't call it horrendously hostile, and it covers the definition just fine.

Unreliable Creator isn't a bad name, though, so if we are going to rename I'd support that.

Well apart from inviting complaint, I just don't think it matches the examples

Again, though, as the examples stand, I disagree. I haven't done any sort of scientific check, but as I was going through them I don't recall coming across many that didn't involve the creator(s) going back on his/her/their word in some way. Still, I guess lying does imply that it was intentionally misleading, whereas we seem to have agreed that the underlying trope covers cases where they simply wound up changing their mind, so maybe a change wouldn't be such a bad idea.

The description seems to fit with "deliberately misleading" more than somehow slipping up, though...and it looks like there are enough examples of that to deserve a trope. Maybe split this into one for intentional deception and another for mere mistakes?

For your plans to go wrong, you must first have plans.

That will be very hard to judge, not to mention Edit Wars where the arguments amount to "Well I think this person was actually lying".

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.