Needs Help: Cerebus Ret Con

I believe that this page would benefit from some help.

• List of stuff needed:
  • A picture
  • A quote
  • Maybe a better name.

• Also, I feel the subject matter could be expanded and that the Retcon side of it limits it slightly. It could be seen as a type of Foreshadowing.

It looks like Cerebus Ret Con is being misused. I see some examples of Story Arc (is this what you were talking about as a kind of foreshadowing?) and some of a kind of Retcon Story Arc. But it appears this trope is supposed to be specifically when, as part of a genre or mood shift, a series points to a bunch of unrelated, insignificant things that happened before and makes these all signs of something or someone dark/evil/bad as a way to connect the pre-shift and post-shift stories.

edited 2nd Sep '12 1:35:57 PM by StarValkyrie

There also seems to be a fair amount of usage for "something that was Played for Laughs pre-shift is given a 'real' explanation post-shift".

Isn't that a fairly straight play of this trope?

Clearly this trope needs a better definition.

The "serious" explanation doesn't necessarily have to be "dark/evil/bad", though.

The trope as currently defined requires that it be a true retcon, a change decided by the creators in later instalments. So several examples do not qualify as they are within a single work where the reveal must have been intended from the start.

Maybe we should make a separate trope for this, "Subverted Comic Relief"?

It does look like there needs to be a new trope. I was thinking of something like "Pre-Crerebus foreshadowing" as a mirror to Cerebus Call-Back that already exists.

^ Sounds like something like Knight of Cerebus.

How? Knight of Cerebus is a character who initiates some form of Cerebus Syndrome, whereas Cerebus Foreshadowing would be intentional cases of Cerebus Retcon. There's not much overlap that I can see.

By the way, have I mentioned how much I hate the Cerebus snowclones lately?

Agreed; I'm a huge fan of the actual comic and even I think it's seriously abused.

here's the ykttw, kind of interesting

Well, if that was the YKTTW, should we just cut it outright?

About the snowclone mi-debate : I personnaly wouldn't call a trope name a bad Cerebus snowclone if it decribes a side-effect of Cerebus Syndrome. To me, a bad snowclone is one used for Rule of Cool when another name would work much better. Some snowclones do work, so I think peole should refrain from hating a title only because it's one.

edited 15th Sep '12 1:31:14 AM by Nazetrime

No trope should use "Cerebus Syndrome" as a basis for a name because "Cerebus Syndrome" is itself an indefensible name.

^With 4522 inbounds?

Oh yeah. We could have called it Taco Supreme and it would have got that many inbounds. Probably more. It would still have been a bad name.

Can we concentrate on the actual problems here? The OP's issue had nothing to do with the name, and I don't see any other obejctive problems here.

Agreed. At this point, I'm pretty sure the term has transcended the wiki, and I'd fight any attempt to rename it for that reason. But it's still an awful name in terms of accessibility, and its snowclones don't even have the common-usage defense.

That said, I'm not proposing a rename, although I think the problems here are not particularly solved - the YKTTW seems to miss the point.

Worth noting that TV Tropes originally appropriated the term from someone else.

Hey, I was reading the page for Arc Welding, and it could have a simple solution to the current problem. Arc Welding consists of revealing that elements from an apparently episodic story are actually linked together, like every Monster of the Week being created by the same evil scientist for example. The trope's page mentions it as a form of Retcon, but a line adds that it can also be part of The Reveal if it was something planned by the author. Cerebus Retcon seems to be in the same situation, by having both a Retcon form and a planned in advance form that ends to have the same end result on the narrative (the latter is the current frequent misuse), with the difference between the two that can be hard to tell. Either that or Arc Welding needs to be split between Retcon and planned in advance too.

Isn't this trope when a retcon that specificatly makes the work Darker and Edgier happens?

Please read the trope page more carefully. Cerebus Retcon is when a work already fell victim to Cerebus Syndrome, but comical elements from the earlier part of the work are given a more serious explantation via a Retcon. A common case is a (presumably normal) character who survived quite a few things that should have killed him or her during the early comedic part of the series turning out to be immortal (via Retcon). This discussion is here because many (if not most) examples are akin to a situation were the survival to all the lethal blows was used as Foreshadowing of the character being immortal.

I think it needs to be made clear that this requires Word of God or similar confirmation that a retcon indeed took place, otherwise it's just fanwank.

Word of God is rarely available that freely or honestly.

Let's just start with fixing the description and maybe culling some examples that don't fit.

For an example, we have one from a pony darkfic where Twilight's Amusing Injuries in Pinkie Keen are retconned by the fic into the element of magic making her immortal.

edited 24th Oct '12 1:28:44 PM by shoboni