Cosmic Retcon is a plot trope — the creator completely rewrites the continuity and declares that the changes were always that way..
Continuity Reboot is a plot trope. The creator starts the continuity over; the old continuity may cease to exist, or it may be remembered.
The Continuity Rebooter is a character who causes the continuity to change.
It needs cleaning up, but it's not broken and doesn't need fixing.
I've corrected the utter misstatement of the definition of Continuity Rebooter in the Continuity Reboot page.
edited 28th Nov '14 12:27:39 PM by Madrugada
I actually would say that Continuity Rebooter sounds too similar to Ret Conjuration
MAX POWER KILL JEEEEEEEEWWWWWLet's get this discussion started.
Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time — which is he, if either?
2025: the year it all ends?Is he the reason the continuity changed? Did he, In-Universe, do something that caused it to change, or is he simply there when it changed?
edited 28th Nov '14 9:05:43 PM by Madrugada
Then he's a Continuity Rebooter.
See, it's really quite simple. "Did <this character> directly cause the continuity to change, In-Universe?"
Next?
edited 28th Nov '14 9:20:43 PM by Madrugada
Ret Conjuration is the ability to cause a continuity change. A Continuity Rebooter is a character who has caused a continuity change.
Clearly any character who did so must also have had the ability to do so, so by definition every example of Continuity Rebooter is also an example of Ret Conjuration. The reverse is not true, because there may be characters with the ability who haven't used it yet. Still, clear subtrope/supertrope relation here.
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The description of Continuity Rebooter says that stories about Time Travel don't count. The Adult timeline only becomes disconnected at the end due to Adult Zelda sending Link back without his ocarina.
Time Travel is a central gameplay element in OoT, as a form of Dual-World Gameplay, and it's pretty common in the series in general - besides Ocarina of Time it also shows up in Majora's Mask, Oracle of Ages, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword (plus Hyrule Warriors IIRC). Wind Waker had the Master Sword being used to freeze things in time, while Phantom Hourglass states that Link's element of Courage is also the element of Time.
edited 29th Nov '14 4:13:38 PM by Prime32
Zelda is the continuity rebooter. Link changes the future by traveling through time, but we don't get two separate continuities until Zelda sends him back to an earlier point to prevent the future from happening in the first place. This doesn't erase the future, it just results in Link mysteriously vanishing from it and two different timelines now running.
Well, three timelines according to "Hyrule Historia" but that seems more like an Ass Pull to me (what event lead to the "defeated" timeline is never explained)
Buldogue's lawyer

Continuity Rebooter seems to be a The Same But More Specific version of Cosmic Retcon, where at least one person related to the retcon remembers it. Every example on the page is already listed on Cosmic Retcon except for a few under videogames, and some of those contradict the trope description - the Super Robot Wars example for instance is just a standard Bad Future plot.
The page for Continuity Reboot currently says
There is one aspect of this trope which doesn't fall under Cosmic Retcon and could be salvaged - an event which creates an Alternate Universe - but I'm not sure how much there is to work with.