Retcon Puns

this article from Time sums it up

"

It’s impossible to assess Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in a vacuum. Each movie in the latest Star Wars trilogy has been a response to the one that came before it. If J.J. Abrams’ first entry, The Force Awakens, tried to avoid the fate of the ill-reviewed prequel movies by hewing a little too closely to the plot of the original Star Wars film, A New Hope, then Rian Johnson’s inventive Last Jedi questioned why fans and directors worship at the altar of old I.P. instead of forging ahead with something new.

If Rey’s parents were nobodies, as Johnson tried to establish in that film, that meant that not just Skywalkers and Palpatines could be the heroes and villains of these stories: Anyone could be a Jedi (including the enslaved kid with the broom featured in the last shot of Johnson’s film.) Shaking off the dust of past movies allowed for new kinds of character arcs and stories, and a path for Rey that didn’t fall in step exactly with Luke’s before her. Hero Luke Skywalker and villain Kylo Ren don’t agree on much, but in that movie they kept repeating the same sentiment over and over again. To quote Kylo: “Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.” Only then could the new cast step outside the original trio’s shadows and create something fresh.

Johnson’s thesis offered a way forward for films too often bogged down by their predecessors. And yet it proved rather unpopular with a small but loud contingent of fans who have put quite a bit of time and energy into their worship of what came before, namely Luke Skywalker. The harassment targeted at Johnson and several of the cast members — most notably Kelly Marie Tran, who was driven from social media by racist and sexist trolls unhappy with the film — manifested in a campaign to “remake” The Last Jedi. (There are, of course, legitimate critiques of the movie not rooted in sexism or racism, but as with all things on the Iinternet the bigots tend to find a way to be the loudest.)"

"What is somewhat surprising, however, is that Abrams seems to have capitulated to that contingent of fans with The Rise of Skywalker. If Johnson begged the franchise to let the past go, Abrams counters with a movie

This video, on a Firearms expert discussing Halo weapons, was uploaded today. In it, the expert makes a comment about how baffling it is that 500 years in the future the UNSC is still using the same 7.62 M1-18 rounds for half their weapons that the modern day military developed in the 60s

If I were to choose one thing to wipe out of Halo canon forever, it'd be that. The weapons of the UNSC could be described as believably advanced, yet because of some baffling creative and lore decisions are locked to weapons technology that is already old and partially outdated today

So, Star Wars.

The Sith in the Disney canon gain red lightsaber crystals by “bleeding” them with the dark side, as crystals are colorless by default until tuning to their user.

In the original canon, red saber crystals were artificial and not naturally occurring in any form, made by a sith creating them via the force and their dark will.

Prefer the original by a country mile, firstly because the original fit the sith ideology of extreme self centeredness and individuality. Creating these crystals with their dark power, because they are powerful and they have the will to forge their own weapons. Second, and yes I know this sounds hilarious, is because the new Disney canon explanation is too edgy for me. Like, bleeding a rock. Come on.

Is this arbitrary? Yeah dipshit, first time here?

So, this campaign had been going on for a while, and was getting close to it's end. Here's the relevant players.

Fighter: an older guy, doesn't like people's crap. For some reason invited our antagonist to this story.

Jim: the problem player, who's alias comes from the fact that I find it funny. Played a paladin, embodied the stereotype lawful stupid.

There are more, but they did very little to contribute to the horror of this story. So, we shall begin.

This campaign had been going for a fairly decent while, and they were around level 18. Before going to the final dungeon and winning the campaign, they wanted to mop up some things around the world they'd been stalling on. On Jim's personal shit list was a dragon.

This specific dragon was a white dragon I'd described as "beyond ancient." This thing was a massive behemoth of a dragon who helped the party since the BBEG had wiped out some of his followers. Why did Jim want this thing dead, you may ask? Well, it's because…

Jim: chromatic dragons are inherently evil, this thing's better off dead!

Fighter: sure, but we should focus on other stuff. This thing really hasn't been described as doing anything evil. What's the harm?

Jim: ah, come on, you're just scared. The thing's like CR 20, we can probably take it.

Me: easy, there. Getting kinda close to metagaming, Jim.

Jim: whatever, come on. Let's just do it.

Eventually, through being a whiner and stubborn as a mule, Jim managed to convince the rest of the party that this dragon needed to go. While he was right about an ancient white dragon being CR 20, this was not ancient.

I'd often described this dragon as "beyond ancient" and "towering over even other dragons they'd seen" since this thing was a white great wyrm. I think subconsciously fighter knew this, but didn't tell the party about it, for… reasons. Idk, fighter was kind of a piece of work in his own right.

The fight begins, and the party somehow miraculously wins initiative against this thing, and take a few swings. They try to take some swings at him, but deal very miniscule amounts of damage. I decide to be a bit merciful, and give them a chance. This thing doesn't see them as much of a threat, so he'd mostly just do a basic job of defending himself. Even with that, his claws and bites tore into the party's hp, and he used his insane mobility to climb or fly out of flanking positions.

Eventually, he reached half HP, and started trying.

He flew into the air, and sent his cold b

After returning from the moon and dealing with Fandaniel and Zodiark, the Final Days begins, first in Thavnair. A guy turns into our equivalent of the First Beast, Svarbhanu. The skies are aflame. People turning into Blasphemies left and right, causing this cascading transformation where one person sees a transformation, loses their cool and transforms themselves, causing two more people to transform, and so on.

In all this chaos, it's easy to forget that the Echo is awakened upon seeing a starshower that reminds the primordial shard of your soul of the fear and terror it experienced during the Final Days of the Ancients. Clearly, there were starshowers in all of the places touched by the Final Days. It's still unconnected from dynamis or anything that would distinguish our Final Days from the Ancients', because it's just your soul remembering and channeling a small fragment of the power the Ancients had. It's not connected to Hydaelyn, she just is constantly sending out a call that only people who can access the power can hear, so it's not like she just chooses not to give it to people in that situation.

This should mean that people in Thavnair, Garlemald (presumably, they share the same souls, just a biological difference of being unable to manipulate aether), and even the Scions should have been awakening to the Echo all over these places. I kept expecting it to come up at some point in the story, but it never did.

It could be as simple as Hydaelyn seeing that the Final Days had begun and stopping her radio signal she was constantly sending out in order to conserve energy for your inevitable encounter, so people were awakening the Echo, it's just that they haven't realized it yet, and maybe that will be a thing we deal with in a story patch. Or it could be a retcon in some direction that it doesn't quite work the way we were shown and told by Elidibus. Perhaps in the direction that not all souls are fragments of Ancients within the Source, but they are within the other shards, though that wouldn't really make much sense.

Thoughts?

I believe it's pretty clear by now that Isayama gave up or changed the ending for one reason or another.

While I feel that other character retcons were more subtle, such as Reiner's Helos imagery being abandoned:Pre-Retcon Reiner: https://external-preview.redd.it/3FgPxZ7MGwRx5oLVxhk2U08dJgEeVPdoq9O6UjWzKbE.jpg?auto=webp&s=5a96e8645ee9143dde9fcfc1d3a4952d441ac6a9Post-Retcon Reiner:https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/002/073/599/46a.jpg

I feel that these these are more just plot-lines being abandoned and characters being dumbed down.

For example, Historia's child famously was stripped of any sort of plot relevancy despite her birth forming the pinnacle of the Rumbling and being metaphorically linked to the birth of a new world using the symbolism of the dawn.

But with Eren, the retcon is a lot easier to pinpoint and evidence:

In 131, Eren told Ramzi why he had to do the Rumbling. To paraphrase:"It's because of Eldia... no, it's because... because I was disappointed that I could not have the outside world."

It is a law in writing that when someone talks to themselves out loud or to someone that cannot understand them, they are telling the truth. That is, if the only person who can hear or understand the speaker is the speaker themselves, then whatever they say cannot be a lie.

So when Eren finally broke down and revealed why he enacted the Rumbling, we got the following:

1. He did it because he wanted to protect Eldians.
2. To a greater extent, and to his own shame and disgust, he did it for purely personal reasons... He did it because when he found out that the world he had spent his entire life trying to attain was already occupied and taken, he couldn't live with it.

Eren cries in this scene with Ramzi because he is finally, FINALLY, telling the truth. All the emotions he hid from everyone couldn't be contained any longer.

Then we get to 139, and not only is the information Eren gave us during the crying scene with Ramzi ignored, it is completely replaced. We get a SECOND crying Eren scene, where he divulges his reasoning for enacting the Rumbling. But the reasoning is completely different

1. I am not really sure why I did it, and had you not stopped me, I would have finished it.

Nowhere does he mention Eldia in the retcon cry

No, this isn't a "Dragon Ball Super Bad" post, but just one that makes me reflect on what used to be my (and still is in a way) favorite method of fusion, Potara.

When I heard that Vegito returned in Super initially, several years ago? I was HYPED!! Yes, the coolest fusion of all is going to return!! I'm so stoked for this! Then you get to it and it turns out, something has changed...

What was that change? Oh, now it has a time limit just like the metamoran fusion dance...greeeaaaaat...

Oh for higher beings it still remains permanent as long as you have the earrings on, but for mortals? Nope! Its just...redundancy now! The whole point of the Potara fusion was that you were exchanging the freedom of the fusing parties for great power. Goku and Vegeta were signing away their individual lives to gain the power necessary to stop Majin Buu, and once he would have been dealt with, in theory, they'd return to their normal lives but...with serious changes that had real consequences.

Oh sure, they'd always remain the strongest being in their universe (besides you-know-who of couse), but this had real serious consequences for their actual home lives, and the only reason this didn't go through was because Majin Buu's body was...kinda weird honestly. Something about a gas that dematerialized and broke down their fusion? Meh, thats fair I suppose, a little bit of luck works wonders from time to time, yeah?

But now its just...redundant. Like, what makes Potara so special nowadays huh? Heck, you might as well have USED POTARA instead of the fusion dance during the Broly Movie ya know? It would have given the same result if not greater anyway! But I am glad, side note, that Gogeta got to return.

I feel like this is something I MIGHT be in the minority for, but is this something that bothered anyone else? Its not a show-killing horrible change, but it did kinda sour my feelings on the fusion type.

If nothing else, there's ALWAYS going to be MasakoX's "What if Vegito Stayed Fused" series, so thats fun!

i’m racking my brain thinking about this.

Rey having powers isn’t a retcon because the force has always been about believing in yourself.

the First Order isn’t a retcon.

Luke isn’t a retcon.

Palpatine isn’t a retcon because he still died, he just came back to life.

what does it retcon?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/9/8/AATRiWAABEEO.jpg

So, this is an image from Batman 3 Jokers. In this story, one of the three Jokers tries to make the man who killed Batman's parents into another Joker, one who would be the "best of them all." In this story, when Batman visits Joe's cell, he finds a massive pile of letters that Joe tried to send to Bruce, apologizing for what he did. He never sent them, because every time he tried to finish them, he couldn't convey just how sorry he was, and he didn't think he could ever really apologize for what he did.

When Joker asks Joe about the night he shot the Waynes, he says he did it out of anger, and that his whole life, he's had nothing. He had learning disabilities, he was poor, he dropped out of school, etc. So when he saw people that had something he didn't, he went nuts and killed them. He didn't know they had a kid, and when he read up on the Waynes, he found out that they were going to fix Gotham, implying that he blames himself for Gotham being the way it was. He says that killing Bruce's parents was the worst mistake of his life, and that he never meant to do this to a child. Joe decides to not become a Joker and get cured of his terminal cancer, and he's not going to do this to Gotham and Bruce again. At the end of the story, Bruce comes to terms with this, and learns to forgive him and move on. Which was the final Joker's plan-he wanted to be the one source of trauma and grief in Bruce's life.

It's also implied that he always knew that Bruce was Batman.

Based

The MCU is truly wonderful, but let’s be honest, it’s not always consistent and sometimes there’s things that happened that may have made the fans upset and rubbed them the wrong way.

In general "retcon" is kinda word with negative perceptions to many, but considering just how much larger the scope of 40k has gotten over the years, surely there have been some changes that the people like.

Are there any that stand out to you? Big or small

Without thinking too much into it I would change the reaper's shooting molten metal. For all intents and purposes they shoot a damn laser! 😂

I'm watching season 4 of Cobra Kai and apparently the reason that Terry Silver was such a cartoon character in Karate Kid 3 is that he was super hopped up on cocaine the entire time.

I love how that's the explanation for having such an over the top performance, it was drugs.

If you haven't watched Karate Kid 3, just watch videos of Terry Silver in Karate Kid 3, he was like Kreese times twenty.

he was the stupidest villain and im so glad that the reason for it became "I was super high".

Gimme the dumbest, wildest anime interpretations of IRL history - obligatory "the Red Sea was split by a beyblade" and one piece's "brachiosaurus was actually a massive snake with detachable legs"

I'll start: Primus. It invalidates War of the Worlds.

I've been playing through all the Halo campaigns again and I've noticed a few retcons to Halo CE and recontextualisations. I haven't read the books.

I'm aware Fall of Reach came out before Halo CE but that also Bungie didn't really co-ordinate with it so there's lore discrepancies or at least intentional discrepancies (ie I've read in FoR its the first time humans see Elites which is clearly not the intention of Halo CE and reading the Game Manual lore etc).

I'm also aware there's issues with Halo Reach and Fall of Reach and Bungie deliberately ignoring book lore for their own and the attempts to revise and merge the two through book revisions etc.

I always find this fascinating with long running franchises. Going back to the original and seeing how things have changed and expanded beyond what was originally intended.

So here's what seems like it retconned or recontexualised!

1) Halo CE is the first time Cortana pairs up with the Chief. She's just a shipboard AI

In Combat Evolved the dialogue in the beginning suggests that Cortana is a run of the mill Shipboard AI and the Pillar of Autumn is her ship. Through dialogue you get the impression disengaging from the Pillar isn't standard procedure and pairing with Master Chief is a very special case scenario due to the Cole Protocol.

The way Cortana seems to take one last look and braces herself before she tells Chief to "Yank me". This is like a DEFCON 1 situation.

When Cortana enters Chief she mentions how his architecture is similar to the Autumn's. Chief says "don't get any ideas".

However in Halo Reach we see that Cortana is apparently with Halsey underground researching a Forerunner structure. She's a more "special" AI than previously assumed.

I think I read that Cortana is split into two. But if you've only played the games Halo Reach has you believe you've delivered Cortana to the Pillar. But in Halo CE one infers that She's just the shipboard AI.

You could also argue that Halo 3 recontexualises her relationship with Master Chief with her "luck" speech. Halo CE establishes that her and Chief clearly have a rapport.

>Cortana:"Sleep well?

>Chief: "No thanks to your driving".

> Cortana: "So you did miss me"

But the dialogue and directive of Keyes to keep Cortana safe all gives the impression, again, that this is a unique situation and Cortana hasn't been inside Chiefs head before.

I also think this doesn't track with Fall of Reach b

Mine is how Moon Knight can control Thor’s hammer thanks to the fact it was made from a moons material. Which raises questions of what counts as a moon. Any natural satellite orbiting a planet? If a alien race lives on a moon and they manufactured space ships moon their moon. Could Moon Knight just control them. Could he control a species if they evolved on a moon?

Also from League of Legends the Darkin Retcon where somehow what was once a race of vaguely defined alien invaders are now Shumiran Ascended. Despite none of their characters ever mentioning Shumira in any way and the really wordy Aatrox having no lines for Azir who is now supposed to be his boss?.

Wonder Women now being a spawn of Zeus completely ignoring her 70 plus origins feminist themes and subversion of the patriarchal narratives. And if they wanted her related to the Greek gods Hipplotya was the daughter of Ares making Diana his granddaughter and thus related to the rest of them.

One of the big criticisms of the Sequels is not explaining things well enough, or leaving plot holes unfilled, which is completely fair. Whenever there's any talk of filling in those plot holes later, like the Vader comics with Exegol, people lose their shit over it, and call it lazy writing. If people do feel that way, that's cool, they're welcome to their own opinions.

However, when the Prequels do it, it's fully accepted, even when it's just fans theorizing about things and then claiming them as canon. The idea that Palpatine sucked out Padme's life force to keep Anakin alive? Never happened. She died of the big sad is canon. But go on literally any Star Wars sub, and you'll have people explaining why it almost makes too much sense. Or, when Filoni made his comments about the real meaning behind Duel of the Fates (which, granted, were pretty good). People fell over themselves talking about how poetic it was, and how it showed Lucas had a plan, when in reality, it was just a cool name that got chosen without any secret meaning. Finally, the biggest example: Lucas and Filoni made the Clone Wars, a movie and seven seasons of TV that added a ton of character growth for Anakin, making his fall to the Dark Side way clearer. It also fully retconned several years of past material, and also did a complete 180 on the clones. Lucas had previously said that they just followed Order 66 out of loyalty, Filoni introduced the idea of control chips.

None of that is by definition bad, TCW is one of my favorite shows. But it seems hypocritical to tear down the Sequels for doing the exact same thing that the Prequels were praised for. I've seen tons of people complaining that making Palpatine's cloning part of the Mandalorian shows how lazy Disney is, but would never say the same about Palpatine's plan for the clones.

It's genuinely astounding the more you think about it. He'd rather stick to being a delusional asshole and shut himself off in an echo chamber where he just spews whatever and shuts out any form of feedback, than just say "I was wrong, my bad." Do you know how fragile and enormous your ego has to be self sabotage to such a degree that you think it's ok to always have to be right no matter the instance? His ego is more important than anything in his life. His finances, his "marriage", his literal appearance with his half grown in goatee, friends, etc. His ego and his gambling addiction overtakes literally everything in his life, even his own history. His pokimane rant was beyond delusional, it's like he wants people to go to jail for making minor mistakes or making fun of him but when he does something retarded (like usual) it's never his fault, ever. This asshole is almost 40 by the way.

A fun little list of infamous/unforgettable moments in comic history.

• Jean isn't dead, she's sleeping in a cocoon in the Ocean

• Madelyne Pryor is actually a clone of Jean Grey made by Mister Sinister

• The Giant-Size X-Men team wasn't the first team sent to rescue the OG X-Men: Xavier originally sent Vulcan, Petra, Sway and Darwin

• Cyclops and Havok have not one, but two secret brothers (Adam X and Vulcan)

• Azazel is Nightcrawler's father

• Bishop actually travelled back in time to murder Hope

• Lorna killed her "parents" in a plane accident when she was a child

• Wanda and Pietro aren't Erik's children anymore

• Moira isn't dead and never was

• Moira isn't a human, she's a mutant

|*INFERNO #3 SPOILER*|

>!• Omega Sentinel is from the future!<

Back when the Hobgoblin's identity was a big mystery, the goal was for him to be Roderick Kingsley. Thing is, Kingsley was a super minor character who's claim to fame was, like, hiring Mary Jane as a model one time. The reveal would have been worthless because this character means nothing to us.

Ned Leeds being the Hobgoblin might have worked considering the way his character was going, and in the issues after the reveal they did a decent job of explaining why he could have turned evil, even if it was really hard to swallow. The issue there was honestly just that Spider-Man vs. Wolverine worked them into a corner with Ned being killed by random assasins, so him not being able to take down assasins of the Foreigner makes him look really bad.

Stuck with all this, making Kingsley this guy who has multiple fall guys and extreme plans to make sure he never gets caught works pretty well, actually. Him letting other people be the Hobgoblin while he rakes in the credit is a cool character move, and it works better than if he was always the Hobgoblin from the beginning.

The other good option would have been to just make Hobgoblin Richard Fisk from the beginning, but that's just hindsight talking.

*Sorry for the aggression! I posted this originally in the main Star Wars Reddit and copied it here, and we all know what that sub is like.

What people can't fathom is how Rey's dad can be the son of Palpatine AND be a nobody at the same time, so equate it to being a retcon. Well guess what? He was BOTH at the same time.

Palpatine's son was not a dark heir like people thing is the only thing that could have came of Palpatine having a son. He didn't even have the force, and to Palpatine, that made him nothing. Palpatine killed own son like he was nothing. He didn't have the force so was a complete runt to Palpatine, like he never had a son, like he was nothing. Rey's dad still had Palpatine's blood in him, and what did that mean? Nothing. Rey's dad however, didn't do evil like his daddy. What did he do? Nothing. He said fuck this shit I'm out and left. He didn't get involved in much so the trilogy didn't have much to say about him. He was a Palpatine, but was still nothing.

Palpatine couldn't even be bothered to have a last word with his son, just sent an Assassin. The son got killed with no fight, no lightsaber, just a regular dagger, like he was nothing. The Rise of Skywalker continued on from TLJ by treating the parents not as their own characters but as a driver for Rey vs Palpatine, and didn't even give them names! TFA already stated the parents were dead (maz kanata) giving the lightsaber to Rey), TLJ just stated they didn't do much that was important (not some big reveal like everyone was saying), and TROS followed suit on both. TLJ NEVER said her whole lineage was nobody, that was a manipulation tactic by Kylo. The words that came out of Rey's mouth herself were "they were nobody" referring only to the parents. I feel like people interpreted things which were possible but not concretely stated as facts and then got angry when the story continued in a way which it never said it wouldn't have beforehand.

There was no retcon.

And that leads to the message that Luke freaking Skywalker said as a Force Ghost: Some things are stronger than blood.

Palpatine was the most evil man in the galaxy and therefore, had the most evil bloodline, but that wasn't enough to make his Son evil, and certainly wasn't enough to make his Grandaughter evil even if she had some real anger management problems.

TROS bucked the trend of pitting direct descendants against each other and created an interesting dynamic and conflict with a Grandfather and Granddaughter

The existence of the secret ending and the text when entering it, feels so forced and dumb. It feels like SteelWool just threw it together because of fan service when the entire Afton Saga is over by now. Side note, the whole game feels so weird and cheaply made. The entire thing was thrown together and a lot of sections don't play well.

For me, it is the Children of the Forest theme. There's a huge speech from Mr Braus about how it's important that we get children out of the cycle of hatred. So when we have Historia running an orphanage and having a child, and the dawn symbolism that came with it, I thought we would have the first child born that did not have to become a soldier, but could choose to do something different.

I thought we might get a mindwiped world of peace where kids like Gabi and Falco could be kids, and not child soldiers.

So to find out that none of that was to be resolved was truly heartbreaking.

I believe it's pretty clear by now that Isayama gave up or changed the ending for one reason or another.

While I feel that other character retcons were more subtle, such as Reiner's Helos imagery being abandoned:Pre-Retcon Reiner: https://external-preview.redd.it/3FgPxZ7MGwRx5oLVxhk2U08dJgEeVPdoq9O6UjWzKbE.jpg?auto=webp&s=5a96e8645ee9143dde9fcfc1d3a4952d441ac6a9Post-Retcon Reiner:https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/002/073/599/46a.jpg

I feel that these these are more just plot-lines being abandoned and characters being dumbed down.

For example, Historia's child famously was stripped of any sort of plot relevancy despite her birth forming the pinnacle of the Rumbling and being metaphorically linked to the birth of a new world using the symbolism of the dawn.

But with Eren, the retcon is a lot easier to pinpoint and evidence:

In 131, Eren told Ramzi why he had to do the Rumbling. To paraphrase:"It's because of Eldia... no, it's because... because I was disappointed that I could not have the outside world."

It is a law in writing that when someone talks to themselves out loud or to someone that cannot understand them, they are telling the truth. That is, if the only person who can hear or understand the speaker is the speaker themselves, then whatever they say cannot be a lie.

So when Eren finally broke down and revealed why he enacted the Rumbling, we got the following:

1. He did it because he wanted to protect Eldians.
2. To a greater extent, and to his own shame and disgust, he did it for purely personal reasons... He did it because when he found out that the world he had spent his entire life trying to attain was already occupied and taken, he couldn't live with it.

Eren cries in this scene with Ramzi because he is finally, FINALLY, telling the truth. All the emotions he hid from everyone couldn't be contained any longer.

Then we get to 139, and not only is the information Eren gave us during the crying scene with Ramzi ignored, it is completely replaced. We get a SECOND crying Eren scene, where he divulges his reasoning for enacting the Rumbling. But the reasoning is completely different

1. I am not really sure why I did it, and had you not stopped me, I would have finished it.

Nowhere does he mention Eldia in the retcon