Needs Help: Reality Retcon

Discovered this via a Trope Launch Pad proposal, Plausibly Deniable History.

Reality Retcon's description seems to be describing a general supertrope where the creator of a work deliberately altered history from what we know for narrative reasons (could be described as a form of Alternate History). However, it also has a redirect called Secret History, which is a preexisting term. The Other Wiki defines the term in a way similar to the draft Plausibly Deniable History:

The draft, similarly, can be summed up as:

Reality Retcon and its redirect have about 70 wicks and ~500 inbounds between them. Use stats, picking every other wick. Any time I link to Secret History, I'm talking about The Other Wiki's definition.

• Alphas: "The CIA's MK Ultra program in the 1960s was actually based on Alphas." This is Beethoven Was an Alien Spy or Secret History.
• Atlantis: Pothole of "secret history" in the Alternity/d20 Modern/Dark Matter example, which fits Secret History.
• Beyond the Border: Zero Context Example.
• Children Of Time S 1 E 4 The Manhattan Conspiracy: Vague bordering on zero context. I think it's Secret History, it says the Daleks were involved in the Manhattan Project, but there's too little information to be clear.
• Continuity Tropes: Index, and seemingly a misplaced one: it's listed as a subheading of retcon.
• Doctor Faustus: Seems like an Alternate History version of Composite Character.
• E.T. Gave Us Wi-Fi: Pothole of "historical revisionism" in the trope description. Probably Secret History.
• Gratuitous Nazis: Pothole of "a bunch of Allied time travelers dragged them back to the 20th century before they could change anything". 0_o That should probably be potholed to Time Travel.
• ConspiracyTheories.H To N (subpage of a Useful Notes): Inline wick, definition seems to be Secret History.
• Legends of Tomorrow S2E14 "Moonshot": Seems like "time-traveler alters history" (not sure what the trope for that is).
• TabletopGame.Paranoia:Pothole, using Secret History definition.
• Awesome.Romance Of The Three Kingdoms: Looks like Artistic License – History.
• Secret History: The redirect.
• WMG.The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Misuse for Reality Warper.
• The Secret History: Disambig page that claims Reality Retcon to mean Secret History.
• The Shades of Fact: Index, with Reality Retcon listed under "completely made-up story featuring true things".
• Transformers: Age of Extinction: Misuse for Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs.
• Friends.Tropes A To E: Pothole, seems like misuse but I have no idea what for. In any case it's not any definition I've seen.
• MassEffect.Tropes Q To T: Double-titled example (i.e. "That's No Moon/Reality Retcon"), talking about Pluto's moon Charon turning out to have been the Sol system's mass relay. I think this is managing to misuse two tropes at the same time.
• Tropos De Continuidad: Index, unfinished Spanish version of Continuity Tropes above.
• Umberto Eco: Secret History use.
• Warehouse 13: Multiple examples:
  • Misuse for Beethoven Was an Alien Spy.
  • Probably Secret History use.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy again.
  • Probably also Beethoven Was an Alien Spy, but might cross over with Secret History.
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Looks like misuse for Alternate History.

Secret History the redirect has the following further wicks:

• Age of Empires III: Pothole, misuse for Alternate History (it's referring to an ahistorical DLC campaign).
• Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders: Misuse for The Unsolved Mystery (in another double example with Historical Domain Character), in that it refers to the show's characters identifying an unidentified-in-real-life Serial Killer.
• Fictionalized Death Account: Correct by The Other Wiki's definition.
• National Treasure: In-line wick, correct by The Other Wiki's definition.
• The Anubis Gates: Correct by The Other Wiki's definition.
• Toros y Flamenco: Sinkhole. I'm not even certain what that subheading of the example is doing there.
• Wings of Dawn: Correct by The Other Wiki's definition.

So, it looks to me like Reality Retcon is most commonly, but very inconsistently, used to mean Secret History. My proposal:

1. Retitle Plausibly Deniable History to Secret History and launch it.
2. Redirect Reality Retcon to Secret History.

edited 17th Mar '18 11:14:28 AM by StarSword

TRS Bump?

This currently seems to be serving as an index for various related tropes, which cover a slightly broader range than merely Secret History (as The Other Wiki defines it).

I think it's more-or-less fine as is, and think we should make Secret History into a separate trope, listed as a subtrope of this one, and based on the TLP thread which started all this.

Path of least resistance, and less opportunity for confusion and disruption.

edited 11th Mar '18 7:01:16 PM by Xtifr

Problem is, what is its definition? E.g. To use the gist of the current description, defining Reality Retcon as "work's history is different from Real Life" duplicates Alternate History and Artistic License – History (depending on the case).

edited 11th Mar '18 7:43:36 PM by StarSword

It doesn't help that this is a remnant of the bad old days of the wiki before we really nailed down our policies and procedures.Here's the YKTTW discussion, which predates the formal YKTTW system, and which is on a version of what became the Archived Discussion page that got deleted at some point down the line. Despite the discussion seemingly referring to it as a full-fledged trope, the oldest Internet Archive copy of the page itself only includes links to other tropes. Those pages are from 2007, while the Archive doesn't record the Secret History redirect as existing prior to 2009.

edited 17th Mar '18 1:32:26 AM by MorganWick

Interesting, that. It looks like the page hasn't changed a whole lot, the description was still as unclear back then:

From the discussion, it looks like the page was envisioned as a catchall "In-Universe history ≠ Real Life history" trope, inasmuch as it's talking about the writer making individual major alterations. Which, again, is basically redundant to Alternate History and enforced Artistic License – History. The OP also for some reason wanted the page to include "real events behind mythology", which is a different concept entirely. And all the archived versions of that discussion page are identical, and the earliest posted version of the page looks like this.

So yeah, basically it looks like the page never really had a clear, consistent definition or purpose to begin with.

edited 23rd Mar '18 3:55:50 PM by StarSword

Any other thoughts on this? Or should I go ahead and make a single prop crowner?

What kind of options would go on such a crowner? I am seeing more than one.

Ok, maybe there's two with what Xtifr said, but my OP only has a single proposal in it: steal the Secret History redirect for what is currently called Plausibly Deniable History, and redirect the current page Reality Retcon to it.

Another option might be to redirect Reality Retcon to Alternate History or possibly to Artistic License – History, but I'm leaning against doing either of those personally since it doesn't seem to be the primary thing Reality Retcon is currently used for (even though it's closer to what I believe to be the intended definition).

So maybe it's four proposals instead of just one.

I believe that in-universe history being different from real history is too broad to be a trope itself.

Once we add the "for narrative reasons" criteria, we have our trope. The problem here is that the TLP proposal has since evolved into an entirely different trope, so we might not have that as an option anymore.

I fail to see how deliberately changing history in a work relative to Real Life cannot be for narrative reasons. Although maybe what we really need to do is create that trope, perhaps as a smaller-scale version of full-on Alternate History, i.e. a trope where there's some intentional changes relative to real life but the rest of the work is Like Reality, Unless Noted. (Or possibly put those examples on LRUN. Could go several ways.)

Point is, though, the TLP draft does have a clear definition and a lot of wicks currently linked to Reality Retcon should go to it instead.

Exactly. Accidentally changing history relative to real life is not this trope.

Criteria for this trope would be something like:

1. The history of the work's Earth diverges from the history of our Earth.
2. The divergence occurs before the time period in which the work is set. ^Reasoning If we allowed the divergence to occur at the start of the work, then every work set on Earth would be a possible example through an extremely broad reading of the word "history", so this would be a People Sit on Chairs trope.
3. The divergence is intentional on the part of the creator for narrative purposes. ^Reasoning Accidental changes to history, either through lack of research or through known history changing in real life, are not this trope.

Then the question becomes, can we use Alternate History for that or do we need to make a second trope? If so, where does that trope stop and Alternate History begin?

Alternate History generally refers specifically to speculative fiction. It's a genre, and our page for it is a bit too broad, including several entries that are just "the characters time-travel to the past and make things happen differently than they did in the original timeline."

I'd also add:

4. The divergence must have a meaningful impact on the world in which the work is set.^Reasoning The mere fact that the work takes place in a vaguely located fictional city does not make it a major timeline divergence, despite how implausible it would be for a major city to materialize out of thin air when the point of divergence from the real world is supposed to be at the start of the work (usually the present day.)

So, um, is this still a thing? Or is this doomed to be another dead TRS thread?

Spin off Secret History into its own thing as per op, turn Reality Retcon into an example less supertrope/index for all the “fictional take on history” tropes, including Beethoven Was an Alien Spy, Alternate History, Secret History, maybe Dan Browned, etc.

We already have Alternate History Tropes for that.

I think we should consider another alternative: cut Reality Retcon altogether, since "a single change from our known past" is pretty much Like Reality, Unless Noted.

Edited by StarSword on Aug 25th 2018 at 7:38:58 AM

Ok, how's this for crowner options, NOT mutually exclusive unless otherwise stated.

1. Use the Secret History title for Plausibly Deniable History and redirect wicks from Reality Retcon as appropriate.
2. Disambiguate Reality Retcon between: Artistic License – History, Secret History, Alternate History, Like Reality, Unless Noted, other existing tropes as appropriate (similar to post #17).

Those options seem reasonable.

Okay, page action crowner ready.

Crowner hooked.

It seems we don't have many voters on this one though both options still technically have a positive response.

Crowners are still broken.

Click the link in my preceding post.