Aborted Arc: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"It's like the writers were just looking for little subplots to fill up the script, and when they got bored of it, they just abandoned it and moved on to something else."''|'''Chris Stuckmann''' on [[The Amazing Spider-Man]]'s Uncle Ben [[revenge]] subplot, from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}9YovqTucrrA his review of the film].}}
 
When [[An Arc]] disappears off the face of the storyline without warning, never to be heard from again.
 
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Compare with: [[What Could Have Been]], [[Kudzu Plot]], [[The Chris Carter Effect]], [[Creator Breakdown]], [[Franchise Killer]], [[What Happened to the Mouse?]], and [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot]]. See also: [[Dummied Out]], [[Left Hanging]], [[Cut Short]] and [[The Resolution Will Not Be Televised]].
{{examples}}
 
{{examples}}
== Anime &and Manga ==
* The manga based on the ''[[Galaxy Angel (video game)|Galaxy Angel]]'' gameverse starts up a Mint storyline... but then drops it to focus on Ranpha and Milfie, not even ending Mint's plot.
* In the ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' anime, the GS Ball was a [[MacGuffin]] that loosely guided the overall plot for about a season and a half, spanning 60 episodes. A Poké Ball that nobody could open, [[The Messiah|Ash]] was supposed to give the GS ball to Kurt, the leading Pokéball expert, in order to discover whatever secrets the ball held. After giving the ball to Kurt, however, neither the GS Ball nor its contents were ever brought up again. The GS Ball was supposed to hold Celebi, a legendary [[Nature Spirit]] Pokémon, that would be the focus of the next arc, but the writers later decided [http://www.pokebeach.com/news/0708/second-pokemon-interview-with-masamitsu-hidaka-many-interesting-points to give Celebi a starring role in a movie], hoping that viewers would eventually forget about the GS Ball. They didn't, and haven't.
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* In 2010, the ''[[Transformers Timelines|Transformers Collector's Club]]'' dropped their "Nexus Prime" plotline which had been running for about five years across [[The Multiverse|various continuities]], after Hasbro ''themselves'' took charge of stories regarding the thirteen original Transformers.
* In ''[[The Death of Superman]]'' arc, Doomsday was originally supposed to be an escapee from an intergalactic insane asylum. You can see hints of this origin in his first few panels, where he commits random acts of violence with maniacal laughter drawn in. When mental health advocates caught wind of this and protested the treatment of the mentally ill as dangerous lunatics,<ref>Where were these people when every [[Batman]] villain ever was introduced?</ref> this explanation was dropped and Doomsday was treated as a [[Diabolus Ex Nihilo]]. He was later given an origin as a Kryptonian-created [[The Juggernaut|juggernaut]].
* As a [[Long Runner]], ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' gets this a lot, but two memorable aborted arcs include the mystery of [[Kid Appeal Character|Tails]]' destiny as the "[[Chosen One]]" (a prophecy of him being a bigger hero than [[The McCoy|Sonic]] or [[The Spock|Knuckles]] combined that faltered several times, due to arguments over exactly ''what'' that was supposed to mean), and the Eggman-backed Dingo invasion of the Echindas' homeland (which petered out when the story shifted to an equally-aborted arc regarding a civil war in the Dark Legion). Both stories were hyped up something fierce, but disappeared so quickly and completely that even the ''writers'' have no idea [[The Chris Carter Effect|how exactly they were supposed to end]]. [[Kid Appeal Character|Tails']] "[[Chosen One]]" destiny was resolved either when he stopped Mammoth Mogul from destroying [[The Multiverse]] or when he was used by [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|A.D.A.M.]] to gather all the Chaos Emeralds in the galaxy in one place and fuse them together. And the Dingo invasion/Dark Legion civil war stories were interconnected (as the latter allowed the former to gain more ground), and were both brought to an end when [[The Spock|Knuckles]] was tricked into becoming [[Physical God|Enerjak]].
* In ''[[52]]'' the original Booster Gold/Skeets arc involved the duo fixing the time-stream after it had been damaged during the [[Infinite Crisis]]. Several issues into the series, after Skeets had already noticed discrepancies between events as they happened and as they were recorded in the future, the writers decided that this plot was overused and too generic. They switched to a new malevolent threat that intended to manipulate time and reality for its own gain {{spoiler|and this leads to the return of Mr. Mind, who had appeared in the early issues}}.
* Happened entirely too often with Rob Liefeld's creator-owned work. Most quarter bins will have issues from series that never went past the first couple of issues, set-ups for crossovers that never actually happened, storylines that were abandoned mid-plot... the list goes on. Some of the most prominent examples include:
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* [[Jonathan Hickman]]'s ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'' epic, ''The War of the Four Cities''. The four blocs are the Lost City of the High Evolutionary (tied to Silver Age villain the Mole Man), the floating city of the Universal Inhumans (tied to, well, the Inhumans), the hidden lives of the Cult of the Negative Zone (tied to Annihilus), and the Last Kings of Old Atlantis (tied to Namor the Sub-Mariner)... who kind of... died suddenly. Presumably when Hickman realised that with Namor and the surviving Atlanteans living under [[X-Men|Utopia]] meant there was no way to hold the X-Men off until the [[Grand Finale]]. Never mind, we were then treated to the addition of the Kree to the storyline.
* In a guest-writer spot on ''[[Justice Society of America]]'', Jerry Ordway, author of ''Power of [[Shazam]]'', seemed to be setting up an ongoing storyline about the Shazam characters; it involved Billy and Mary being depowered (undoing the [[Dork Age]] where Billy was the wizard and Mary was evil), the wizard acting irrational, and the introduction of the Rock of Eternity's [[Evil Counterpart]], the Rock of Finality. While Ordway never got the chance to continue this, Edgar Wallace's subsequent ''Shazam'' one-shots seemed content to keep things in a holding pattern until he did, while adding other elements such as the return of Blaze. Then [[Flashpoint]] and the [[New 52]] happened, and Captain Marvel was one of the characters who got completely reset. Not only is the arc aborted; in current continuity ''none of it happened''.
 
 
== Comic Strips ==
* In as much as there is continuity, one ''[[Dilbert]]'' comic involved Dogbert raising an army of cloned vegetables. It was supposed to be longer, but Scott Adams found it wasn't as funny as he thought it would be, so he actually stated in comic he was ending the arc by "skipping ahead to the big finish." Another arc, featuring the death of Dilbert, was also resolved quicker than planned when Adams ran out of ideas.
* A two-week 1995 ''[[FoxTrot]]'' storyline had Paige getting the role of Cleopatra in the school's Antony and Cleopatra play, (with Morton playing Antony, of course). The story ended before the play started, with Roger noticing Paige's name in the play program. After that strip, the story suddenly ended, with no actual strips of the play being performed, and the story was never mentioned again.
* In the newspaper comic ''[[Luann]]'', creator Greg Evans had planned a storyline which revealed the reason [[Shallow Love Interest]] Aaron Hill was so uninterested in Luann's (or anyone else's) advances: he simply wasn't interested... [[Coming Out Story|in girls]]. Evans got cold feet, fearing he didn't have enough of a subscriber base to absorb the potential loss of paper slots, like [[For Better or For Worse|Lynn Johnston]] did when she pulled a similar storyline. So he [[Author's Saving Throw|altered the story]] so that Aaron was hiding a relationship with the much older Dianne. Both characters were soon [[Put on a Bus]] after this story was done.
* ''[[Doonesbury]]'' decided to celebrate its 20th anniversary year (1990) with a big epic storyline in which all the strips' various [[plot]]lines and characters converged together, with practically the entire cast all ending up at Mike's apartment. Creator Garry Trudeau ended up writing himself into a corner with the arc, which had everyone together but didn't give them anything to do. The arc got weirder when Mike's house was mistaken for a crack den and raided by federal agents. Trudeau decided the whole thing had gotten out of hand, and undid the entire arc by revealing that the last several months worth of strips had been [[All Just a Dream]].
* ''[[Heart of the City]]'' story arcs often end suddenly with no further explanation. An example is an arc where Heart's mom agrees to go on a date, which Heart dreads until she learns that the man is a talent agent. After that, the arc ended.
* Lampshaded in a [[Peanuts]] strip in which Snoopy is writing a novel. One part of the plot involves a king living in luxury while his people starved. In tying up the plot threads, Snoopy left him out.
 
 
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** Also, there was the whole "warp drive damages reality" problem they introduced in the sixth season of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', and then only mentioned once the following season. This had the potential to be either really cool or really stupid, but we will never know which. [[Word of God]] says that the "variable geometry pylons" on ''U.S.S. Voyager'' were [[The Federation|the Federation's]] stopgap solution to the problem, thus explaining why the ''Enterprise''-E and other ships produced thereafter has fixed pylons. Was later retconned to having to due with a ''Star Trek TOS'' episode involving the federation trying to make an omega molecule and it destroying subspace in the entire sector. And by the time of ''The Next Generation'' it's a closely guarded secret in the hands of only a few that the federation destroyed this entire sector of space's subspace field.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]''
** The malevolent unknown force in the middle of the TARDIS, mentioned by the newly regenerated fifth Doctor in the story ''Castrovalva''. This was intended as a reference to another story that would follow it in that season (where the Doctor and crew would indeed discover that there's something evil hidden at the very centre of the Doctor's ship), but the script for this other story was eventually dropped. The reference to it in ''Castrovalva'' wasn't, and it remains unanswered to this day (even in the [[Expanded Universe]]). <!-- %The Silence caused a crack to appear on and inside the TARDIS, not to mention blew it up, but there's no concluding evidence that it, or they are inside the TARDIS itself. -->
** Then there is the Cartmel Masterplan that was supposed to introduce more mysteries about the Doctor's origin and nature. The Old Series was cancelled before anything could come from it, but the [[Expanded Universe]] saved some plotlines.
** The season-long ''Trial of a Time Lord'' introduced Mel, a future companion of the Doctor who showed up to rescue him at the end despite them not having actually met from his point of view. The producers had planned to show this first meeting, but were forced to just plow ahead with Mel as the current companion when Colin Baker was fired.
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** On the subject of the {{spoiler|Asgard Outcasts}}, The heroes have {{spoiler|a [[Magical Database]] containing all of the achievements, both scientific and cultural, of the mainstream Asgard race, something that could be used to negotiate an alliance with those [[Jerkass]] Asgards who have been reduced to using vastly inferior technology to their extinct mainstream counterparts. There could have been a whole plot on the rebirth of the Asgards.}} Presumably the series just ran out of time to tell it.
* ''[[So Weird]]'', the [[Disney Channel|Disney Channel's]] version of ''[[The X-Files]]'', took this a step further—it abandoned the entire [[Myth Arc]] which had been mapped out for three seasons when the lead actress left the show after season 2. After this, she was replaced by an unrelated character and [[Executive Meddling]] ensured everything that had built up was quietly dropped with little explanation in the span of a single episode. Floating around on the internet is a [[Word of God]] summary of how season 3 was supposed to go, and it was the culmination of the [[Myth Arc]] of the first two seasons.
* ''[[The Dead Zone]]'' television series started an arc concerning the villain from the book of the same name, Greg Stillson—aStillson — a racist, sociopathic, corrupt President who ends up starting a nuclear war that causes the [[EndoftheThe End of the World Asas We Know It]]. Later, the television writers tried to downplay the arc, as they thought viewers would prefer a [[Monster of the Week]] format where they wouldn't have to watch episodes in a certain order or keep track of story arcs at all. The Stillson Arc was increasingly downplayed until he pulls a [[Heel Face Turn]] ({{spoiler|which later turns out to be a trick masking his true evil agenda}}). This was a result of [[Executive Meddling]]—they — they were finally allowed to get back to the arc right at the end of Season 6, and the series was promptly cancelled.
* ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'' is notorious for this, resulting in glaring [[Plot Hole|plot holes]]s.
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''
** It was planned for the Shanti Virus to be released in the middle of Season 2. When the WGA strike cut the season short, the show runners decided that they didn't want to leave the virus arc unresolved. The ending of episode 11 was reshot to have Peter destroy the virus, and the cliffhanger ending was changed from {{spoiler|Nathan collapsing from the virus during a speech thanking the people of Odessa for having the courage to quarantine themselves}} to {{spoiler|Nathan getting shot during a speech intended to reveal the existence of super powers just before he was going to say that he can fly}}.
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* During ''[[Frasier]]'''s 10th season, an arc was slowly built up where it was suggested that Roz had feelings for Frasier and was jealous over his relationship with Julia Wilcox. In the first episode of Season 11, the old writers from earlier seasons rejoined the show and quickly ended the arc by saying Roz's father had remarried and thus she was scared of losing Frasier as a friend. The characters made up, and nothing more was ever said.
* The entire high school element of ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' Season 1, with incomplete arcs involving a mysterious suicide, implications of teacher-student sexual exploitation, and a male student lusting after Cameron, was just dumped with no explanation at all once Season 2 started. [[Word of God]] says that the creators decided that it was unnecessary and that the show worked better if the central characters weren't even trying to pretend to have a normal life. Also there was a writers strike.
* In [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|the revisedrebooted ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'']]:
** The latter half of Season 3 was going to have a story arc about the Sagitarrons. The [[Word of God|story goes]] that {{spoiler|during the New Caprica arc, the rest of the colonials had run low on food, but the Sagitarrons, being close-to-nature, had grown enough. The Colonial government made the decision to seize their food in order to feed everyone, a kind of reverse ant-grasshopper parable.}} The only remnants of this arc are: the episode ''The Woman King'', and {{spoiler|Baltar whispering to Gaeta during Baltar's imprisonment, which was supposed to tie into this arc}}. The latter was repurposed for the minisodes ''Face of the Enemy''. It might also explain what Tyrol was protesting immediately after the [[Time Skip]]—and given a hint to the decision made by {{spoiler|Apollo in the finale}}.
** Bulldog's mysteriously one-off appearance—originally, the character was intended to recur, but scheduling issues prevented that from playing out.
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* [[David Bowie]]'s 1995 concept album ''1. Outside'' was supposed to be the first of a series leading up to the millennium. However, further albums continuing the "non-linear gothic drama hyper cycle" never appeared. Almost 15 years on it's probably safe to classify this as an aborted arc.
* [[Sufjan Stevens]] has discontinued his "50 states project", which started with ''Michigan'' and ''Illinois''. Looks like there won't be any more.
 
 
== Newspaper Comics ==
* In as much as there is continuity, one ''[[Dilbert]]'' comic involved Dogbert raising an army of cloned vegetables. It was supposed to be longer, but Scott Adams found it wasn't as funny as he thought it would be, so he actually stated in comic he was ending the arc by "skipping ahead to the big finish." Another arc, featuring the death of Dilbert, was also resolved quicker than planned when Adams ran out of ideas.
* A two-week 1995 ''[[FoxTrot]]'' storyline had Paige getting the role of Cleopatra in the school's production of ''Antony and Cleopatra play'', (with Morton playing Antony, of course). The story ended before the play started, with Roger noticing Paige's name in the play program. After that strip, the story suddenly ended, with no actual strips of the play being performed, and the story was never mentioned again.
* In the newspaper comic ''[[Luann]]'', creator Greg Evans had planned a storyline which revealed the reason [[Shallow Love Interest]] Aaron Hill was so uninterested in Luann's (or anyone else's) advances: he simply wasn't interested... [[Coming Out Story|in girls]]. Evans got cold feet, fearing he didn't have enough of a subscriber base to absorb the potential loss of paper slots, like [[For Better or For Worse|Lynn Johnston]] did when she pulled a similar storyline. So he [[Author's Saving Throw|altered the story]] so that Aaron was hiding a relationship with the much older Dianne. Both characters were soon [[Put on a Bus]] after this story was done.
* ''[[Doonesbury]]'' decided to celebrate its 20th anniversary year (1990) with a big epic storyline in which all the strips' various [[plot]]lines and characters converged together, with practically the entire cast all ending up at Mike's apartment. Creator Garry Trudeau ended up writing himself into a corner with the arc, which had everyone together but didn't give them anything to do. The arc got weirder when Mike's house was mistaken for a crack den and raided by federal agents. Trudeau decided the whole thing had gotten out of hand, and undid the entire arc by revealing that the last several months worth of strips had been [[All Just a Dream]].
* ''[[Heart of the City]]'' story arcs often end suddenly with no further explanation. An example is an arc where Heart's mom agrees to go on a date, which Heart dreads until she learns that the man is a talent agent. After that, the arc ended.
* Lampshaded in a [[Peanuts]] strip in which Snoopy is writing a novel. One part of the plot involves a king living in luxury while his people starved. In tying up the plot threads, Snoopy left him out.
 
 
== Pro Wrestling ==
Years ago, before the advent of live cable television on Monday nights and the internet, feuds were planned out months in advance rather than week-by-week, meaning that even if an angle were not living up to expectations (e.g., apathetic fan response), it would continue until the earliest opportunity to quietly end the feud. But even in the pre-Attitude/pre-''Monday Night Raw'' era, unplanned events – a wrestler's unexpected death or departure, or a major legit injury, for instance – would often force major changes to a carefully planned storyline, and often force promoters to hastily edit explanations into the already-completed films that were to be distributed to local TV stations.
* In the [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]], 2007's "Who Killed [[Vince McMahon]]?" was abruptly halted when 2–3 weeks after the storyline began, [[Chris Benoit]] [[Too Soon|killed his family, and then himself]]. It was later explained that "Vince" had faked his death.
** It would've eventually been revealed that Mr. Kennedy was involved.
** A year later, the Raw set was sabotaged, with equipment falling on [[Vince McMahon]]. The perpetrator was never revealed, and it wasn't mentioned again after a week or so.
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** The arc actually did get something of a send-off on Sunday Night Heat, when Glen Ruth (formerly Headbanger Thrasher) displayed GTV footage to acquit Chaz (formerly Headbanger Mosh) in his own domestic violence angle.
* Anyone remember the Fake Kane? Started out as [[Kane (wrestling)|Kane]] being confronted by someone dressed as his old masked persona, but the whole thing was dropped after about a month of build-up and never mentioned again.
** This one actually ended. WWE.com had a [[Kayfabe]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20131029064302/http://www.wwe.com/inside/news/unsolvedmysteries/ page] on this and similar arcs. [[Smart Mark|Smarks]] know the man was Drew Hankinson.
* Not a big aborted arc, but when John Heidenreich debuted on RAW in 2003, he always told people his actions were all done for someone named "Little Johnny". Heidenreich was taken off TV before the identity of Little Johnny could be revealed, but said later in an interview that it would've turned out to be a doll that represented his younger self when he was overweight. He also claimed he could've made the angle work (as people know what it's like to be picked on) but the writers messed it up by making every discussion about "Little Johnny" seem like a [[Double Entendre]].
* In February 2001, The Kat entered an angle where [[Jerry Lawler]] lost a match on her behalf and she was forced to join the Right to Censor group. The next episode of Raw had them forcing her to wear a burlap sack to the ring and it was implied the storyline would continue. However The Kat was released the very next day and the excuse was apparently that Val Venis had slept with her and she escaped out the window. Apparently she ran out into the night and got lost, never to be seen again.
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* In the second ''[[The Black Mirror|Black Mirror]]'' game, there is talk early in the game of a woman named Kerry who committed suicide in the small Maine town. You never hear of her again once you leave the town.
* In ''[[Gears of War]] 2'', Delta Squad visits New Hope, an abandoned COG research facility filled with horrible humanoid mutants called "Sires." They are never explained in the game canon, the only evidence about them came from an Epic developer's post on the official forums where he claimed their story had been cut from ''3''. Essentially, they were performing horrible research on humans and Myrrah was one of the subjects. With her Human/Locust hybrid DNA, she was able escape and become leader of the Locust horde.
* In ''[[Super Princess Peach]]'', there are a series of cutscenes that talk about Perry (Peach's talking umbrella), and how he {{spoiler|was once human.}} However, this never expanded upon and we never learn who was responsible.
* Freya in ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' appears this way as she and her relationship with Fratley was never explored. We'll never know what's his deal.
* In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', much is made of a star that is aging too quickly, and one of the few mandatory missions involves recovering data on it. This data is considered important enough that the Quarians are willing to sacrifice whole teams of elite commandos in order to obtain it. Come the third game, this is never mentioned again. {{spoiler|This was originally going to be the motive behind the Reaper cycle. Use of the Mass Relays causes dark energy (which is what was prematurely aging the star) to spiral dangerously out of control, threatening the whole galaxy. The Reapers cull advanced civilizations to stop this from happening. However, the departure of several key dev members caused Bioware to change it to the, uh, controversial [http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/yo-dawg-i-heard-you-liked-the-mass-effect-3-ending-spoilers.250101291/ motivation] that we actually got.}}
* Ike and Elincia had a far amount of [[Ship Tease]] in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance]]'', which pretty much dissappeared without a trace in the sequal, Radiant Dawn.
* In ''[[The Devil on G-String]]'', if you take Tsubaki or Mizuha's paths, the entire story around international mafia overlord Maou is straight up abandoned. Unlike many examples of this trope, the abortion, at the very least in the Tsubaki route, is fully acknowledged by Haru saying to leave the Maou issue to her during the final scene in the school, followed by a few lines in the final scene reminiscing about how she was only there for 3 months and left.
 
** It persists for a little bit if you take Kanon's route, given the nature of the story.
 
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]''
** The comic was going to have [[Opposite SexGender Clone|Ellen]] become an alcoholic, but Dan felt that would be too dark. Considering the [[Cerebus Syndrome]] of recent arcs, this seems kind of hypocritical. The way Dan gets out of this is beautiful in its [[Lampshade Hanging]]. A [[Foreshadowing]] sequence has [[Opposite SexGender Clone|Ellen]] out all night, Fairy-Doll-Nanase crying, and a six-pack of beer missing from the Dunkels' fridge. One [[How We Got Here]] sequence later, all this has been resolved without the beer even being opened, and Eliot puts it back behind the [[Red Herring]] in the fridge.
** Sensei Greg, [[Evil Counterpart|Lord Tedd]], and several other characters have disappeared or show up almost never. Sensei Greg has now returned, but whether or not [[Evil Counterpart|Lord Tedd's]] arc will actually be concluded is still up for grabs. [[Word of God|Dan]] has admitted that he introduced the [[Evil Counterpart|Lord Tedd]] thing a LOT sooner than he really should have, but he still intends to get back to it and wrap it up eventually. Just don't hold your breath on it.
** The [[Defrosting Ice Queen|Susan]] school uniform storyline was recently given a very abrupt, almost [[Ass Pull]]-level resolution, thanks to the [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad|Ellen and Nanase]] storyline running [[Arc Fatigue|way, way]] too long ([[Lampshade Hanging|though the characters don't think it was any less abrupt than the readers did]]).
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* The Bandit Ringtail guest comic from ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'' ended with one of these. Bandit meets Sierra and she calls him out on getting into a fight that he couldn't hope to win, and then she kisses him on the cheek. The guy that Bandit fought mocks him for losing, then gets challenged to a fight by a very large, very muscular female boxer. And then it cuts out. There's no scene of the guy getting his butt kicked, no scene of Bandit leaving Malarky County, nothing.
* ''[[Good Luck Eyepatch-tan]]!'' has the ''Pokémon''/''[[Kamen Rider]] Divurtle'' arc, which ended abruptly on strip 48 due to technical difficulties. While Nocchifire, the author, initially promised that it would return, he eventually abandoned that idea and decided to [[Canon Discontinuity|scrap that arc altogether]].
* What's referred to as the Black and White Era of ''[[Voodoo Walrus]]'' aborted what looked to be a [https://web.archive.org/web/20190822151414/http://www6.voodoowalrus.com/?ps_token=1566486853.0011989173&kw=Comics&term=86Read story arc involving the duo being forced into a making a movie].
** [[Word of God]] suggests that this occurred to artistic burnout which quickly led to a year long hiatus for the comic.
 
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** And many, many more.
* An early scene in ''[[Awkward]]'' has Lester remarking that Ernie's name rings a bell, which Kevin brushes off. This was originally supposed to lead to a confrontation between Lester and Ernie, complete with backstory, but had to be scrapped when Ernie's actor bailed on the project; Jermaine was brought in as a substitute jerkass for Lester to butt heads with and overcome.
* An early plot inon the now-defunct adoptables site ''[[Valenth]]'' involved mysterious interdimensional entities known only as "the Presences" appearing and causing havoc, bringing hordes of imps with them. [[It Got Worse]] very quickly, with the near-extinction of several major species and a prominent NPC [[Hulking Out|turning into a giant nightmare monster]] and [[Rent-A-Zilla|going on a rampage]]. After one of the Presences was captured by [[Mad Scientist]]s the others summoned their "master", Xilas the Cold—and the entire plotline was abruptly dropped. Almost a whole year later, after much [[Wild Mass Guessing]] by the userbase that ''every'' subsequent plot event had something to do with the Presences, the creator announced that the entire arc had been [[retcon]]ned away. It was never intended to be more that a small silly story for Halloween, but it had gotten completely out of hand and didn't work in canon.
** ''Valenth'' itself abruptly shut down in early 2014 leaving every plotline still open at the time incomplete.
* [[MSF High Forum]]: Any time a GM quits, or a character with significant plot lines leaves.
* The plotline about [[Lovable Traitor|Willie's]] other allegiances was dropped midway through in the [[Anti Cliche and Mary Sue Elimination Society]]. Now subverted, as it's being reposted, albeit very slowly.
* [[The Irate Gamer]] started an arc involving robots and said the next episode will be a finale. However, the next episode was about He-Man, with no mention of the robots.
** Even earlier than that, the end of the [[Aladdin (Capcom)|Aladdin]] episode had the Genie take refuge in IG's Game Genie. Three years later and this plot thread still remains hanging.
* [[Behind the Veil]] has several, mostly due to players leaving and never returning. Key mention would be the long-running feud between [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|Kathleen Allan]] and [[Mage: The Ascension|May Lawrence]] which ended when the latter's player disappeared and never returned.
* ''[[Bionicle]]'' web-serial examples:
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* Due to being [[Screwed by the Network]], ''[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'' had to abort the Shards of Equinox arc, an arc that would have focused on finding the various personality shards of Equinox that were scattered through the universe.
* Due to being [[Screwed by the Network]], ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' left a few plot threads hanging, such as Meltdown making a return, {{spoiler|Waspinator coming up with a plan while putting himself together}}, where {{spoiler|Sari's protoform came from}}, and both Lockdown and Swindle {{spoiler|escaping}}.
* Inverted in Season Three of ''Star Wars: The Clone Wars''. Governor Roshti from the Kidnapped arc was originally going to be a friend of Ahsoka Tano's parents, but the writers didn't intend to do anything with this, so it was cut so that the fans wouldn't think it was this trope.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Script Speak]]
[[Category:Seasons]]
[[Category:Aborted Arc{{PAGENAME}}]]
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[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]