FanonDiscontinuity vs.: Contested Sequel

Contested Sequel and Fanon Discontinuity are problematic in their relation to each other. Essentially: Contested Sequel says that some people liked a sequel, while others hate it; it says Fanon Discontinuity is only supposed to be for when everyone ignores it.

But there's no easy way to get an entire fandom's opinion on something — there's always going to be someone who likes it. As an example, King's Quest 8: Mask of Fate is listed on both pages. But that's just a random example — they actually overlap hugely, because all it takes is one person saying "but I liked it!" to get something on Contested Sequel.

I dislike Fandom-reaction tropes as a matter of course, when they're about "the fandom likes this" or "the fandom dislikes this", because they frequently invite tropers to represent their personal opinion (or the opinion of whatever small circle of people they travel in) as the universal reaction to something. But in this case the problem is very obvious — the line between Contested Sequel and Fanon Discontinuity is plainly not working.

From the looks of it, in this case, the majority of the fandom doesn't try to deny that the sequel was made (so, it's not Fanon Discontinuity), but the general opinion of the fanbase is Love It or Hate It. I think an important part of the description is that the creators tried to address fan complaints about the original in the sequel, but changed too much, resulting in a polarisation of the fans with some hating the extra changes and others saying "come on, they're not that bad".

edited 2nd Dec '10 9:20:26 PM by Roxor

Occasionally, people put in examples that are clearly not contested, but instead are overwhelmingly agreed to suck. I had to delete just such an entry today. While I created this trope, I don't curate it, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's overgrown. Ack, maybe I should look through it sometime.

In general Fanon Discontinuity can apply to a lot more than sequels. Individual seasons and episodes of TV shows get this treatment, sometimes all the way down to individual scenes or lines.

All of them are up to subjectivity, but there is a difference between common opinions and individual opinions. Even the most popular episode of a show will have someone oppose it for some reason. That doesn't mean it's discontinuity.