Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Main / StoryReset

Go To

1So you have a comic or a novel that you just published and you reached the third sequel but now you hate everything about the second book. What do you do? Well a Story-Reset of course! This trope is used often to do a SoftReboot of current events in order to do them over or change the outcome of the 'current' time line.
2
3This trope allows you to go back a few pages or even a novel or two and rewrite the story after it has already been seen or published and either replace it with a brand new story or to change the original outcome while not being forced into doing a full ContinuityReboot. Basically keeping the previous stories and merely changing/rewriting the most current.
4
5Some Tabletop gamers also have soft-resets like this which erase only one or two stories of play and go back to a previous point allowing different actions to be taken or different paths to be accepted in story telling. Similar to using a video game's SoftReset or SaveScumming but in book or story format. Sometimes it's even present in such media.
6
7Sometimes can overlap with ContinuityReboot in some ways, although a Continuity Reboot will often wipe out ''all'' of the current story and goes back to square 1; a Story Reset only wipes it back so far to a particular point saying previous stories are still canon and can sometimes cause RetGone when characters introduced after a certain point are no longer present.
8----
9!!Examples:
10
11[[foldercontrol]]
12
13[[folder:Comics]]
14* DC Comics has done it once in the Parallax storyline, basically null and voiding 15 issues of the ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'' by performing some StableTimeLoop plot line.
15** Creator/MilestoneComics did this as well when joining the DC Universe by erasing most of the ''final'' story.
16[[/folder]]
17
18[[folder:Literature]]
19* When ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' was first killed off, hundreds of early FanFiction stories appeared in newspapers and book stores as freebees re-writing the last book.
20* In ''Literature/{{Misery}}'', Paul Sheldon tries to kill off the main character of a novel series that he's come to hate. When [[LoonyFan his number-one fan]] Annie Wilkes finds out, she loses it and forces him to write a sequel bringing Misery Chastain back to life in a way that she finds satisfactory. She is adamant that he not completely {{retcon}} the ending, but make it fit with the existing material.
21* ''Literature/BriansSaga'': After Brian is rescued at the end of the first book, the third goes into AlternateContinuity territory in order to have him survive not two months but an entire winter.
22[[/folder]]
23
24[[folder:Film]]
25* ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' trilogy has a form of this when the time lines are constantly altered, two of which [[RetGone erases]] a few characters from existence and does a story reset of sorts to the original 1985 time line.
26* The ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' series has done this no less than five times. The first time was in ''Film/TheReturnOfGodzilla'' which was set after [[Film/Godzilla1954 the original film]] but disregarded all the others to establish a new continuity. Starting with ''Film/Godzilla2000'', they released [[Film/GodzillaVsMegaguirus four]] [[Film/GodzillaMothraKingGhidorahGiantMonstersAllOutAttack movies]] [[Film/GodzillaAgainstMechagodzilla in a row]] as direct sequels to the originals before making [[Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS a direct sequel to the last one.]] ''Film/GodzillaFinalWars'' would finally move away from the original film and ''Film/ShinGodzilla'' is an updated origin story for the character
27* ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate'' ignores everything but the first [[Film/TheTerminator two]] [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay movies.]]
28* ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'': Happened twice, not counting Rob Zombie's full-on reboot.
29** ''Film/HalloweenH20TwentyYearsLater'' (1998) and its direct sequel ''Film/HalloweenResurrection'' (2002) ignored everything after movie 2.
30** ''Film/{{Halloween|2018}}'' (2018) ignored everything after movie 1.
31[[/folder]]
32
33[[folder:Video Games]]
34* In ''VideoGame/Persona2'' we have ''Innocent Sin'' & ''Eternal Punishment'' with [[spoiler: ''Innocent Sin'' taking place first with a BadEnding then following the story with ''Eternal Punishment'' allowing you to restart the story with a different protagonist and get the GoodEnding.]]
35* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' [[spoiler:kills Crono partway through]]. To resurrect him the party has to go through a journey, which in a sense, resets the story and undoes the death.
36[[/folder]]
37
38[[folder:Web Original]]
39* ''Literature/TrintonChronicles'' has done this more then once in it's long running history; whole story arcs have been eradicated and replaced or the current story has been erased to a point and picked back up.
40[[/folder]]

Top