Author's Saving Throw: Difference between revisions

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Vegeta shaving off his mustache in ''[[Dragon Ball GT]].'' It might have been too little, too late for some, but it marks the point in the series where it switches from early ''[[Dragon Ball]]''-style slapstick to DBZ-style save-the-world fights.

* In the [[Hentai|H-anime]], ''[[F³: Frantic, Frustrated, and Female]]'', main character Hiroe is explicitly shown [[Incest Is Relative|engaging in less-than-wholesome activities]] with her "sister", Mayaka. And the end of the episode shows ''their "mom"'' getting in on the act. Every subsequent sequel to ''F³'' has a tongue-in-cheek note that explains that Hiroe and Mayaka are just [[Not Blood Siblings|"like sisters"]] and "Mom" is actually their landlady, despite the fact that they all have the same family name.

* Many ''[[City Hunter]]'' fans were angered when they learned that Ryo Saeba's partner, Kaori Makimura, was killed off in its sequel ''[[Angel Heart (manga)|Angel Heart]]''. Because of this, Tsukasa Hojo, the author of both titles, went on to proclaim that ''Angel Heart'' was not actually a ''City Hunter'' sequel, but a spin-off set in an [[Alternate Universe]] featuring most of the same characters. However, most fans that got over Kaori's death in ''Angel Heart'' now accept it as a genuine sequel to ''City Hunter''.

* One of the many, [[Broken Base|many]] ways to interpret the results of [[Gundam Seed Destiny]]. The [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad]] made up of the old cast taking over, then occasionally losing focus could be the result of the staff trying to decide which way to throw the series.

 

== Comic Books ==

* Dan Slott's She-Hulk run did this for a controversial issue of Punisher, when he poisoned and blew up a bar filled with two dozen C-List villains, revealing that they survived and had their stomach's pumped.

** Subverted with Slott's handling of the issue of She-Hulk's one-night stand with the Juggernaut; Slott had She-Hulk deny it, while using it to slut shame She-Hulk via everyone accusing her of being a whore whenever She-Hulk denied the charge. The pay-off to the whole thing was her pulling out an alternate universe counterpart who claimed to have slept with Juggernaut, but the plotline was so widely reviled, that Peter David (who took over after Slott left the book) denounced it as lies and later writers have She-Hulk have the character herself wondering that maybe she did sleep with Juggernaut after all.

 

== Fan Works ==

* ''[[Nobody Dies]]'' had a particularly weak fourth season, with lots of weird changes to the status quo that really didn't do much to move the overall plot forward and is generally considered the point of where all the stories weak bits began showing. This eventually required the author to {{spoiler|retcon almost the entire season into being a shared dream.}}

* ''[[Past Sins]]'' underwent a major rewrite and revamp in order to deal with various characters being out of character and add a few more characterizations.

* In ''[[Lisa Is Pregnant]]'', the author points out that Lisa is older in this fic after reviewers complained that she was too young to get pregnant.

* Readers of the ''[[Poke Wars|The Subsistence]]'' were baffled by Dawn's sudden prowess with guns with most complaining that it was an [[Ass Pull]]. Then Cornova wrote ''The Incipience'' and did some minor rewriting which better explained Dawn's sudden gain of [[Improbable Aiming Skills]]

 

== Literature ==

* An early (if arguable) example of this trope is the ''Palinode'' of Stesichorus (a Greek poet, who lived in the [[Older Than Feudalism|7-6th centuries BCE]]), which recants an earlier poem. Legend says that having been struck with blindness after he wrote his original poem, in which the author bashed Helen for causing [[The Trojan War]], he came up with a new story, and was immediately cured. The new version implausibly claims that the real Helen had spent the whole duration of the war in Egypt, and the Helen who went to Troy was just [[Actually a Doombot|a duplicate made out of clouds]]. [[Euripides]] used a version of this story in his ''Helen''. The palinode became a recognized literary form, in which a poet writes a second poem to disavow an earlier one.

* [[Euripides]], for his part, also had to recant one of his works. It is known that he wrote two versions of the story of Hippolytus. Only the [[Hippolytus|second version]] survives, but it is widely believed that in the original version outraged the audience because Phaedra (wife of the great hero Theseus) lusts without shame after her step-son Hippolytus, and brazenly attempts to seduce him. The second, surviving version bends over backwards to make Phaedra blameless (she's deeply ashamed of her feelings, and only seems to come on to her step-son because her nurse betrays her). She still comes to no good end, committing suicide and attempting to frame Hippolytus for rape.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'''s sixth season, magic was portrayed as akin to a drug, which was highly dangerous and addictive, and could even lead to users becoming "junkies" willing to do anything for a "fix," as happened to Willow slowly over the course of the season. [[Joss Whedon]] himself didn't like this development, and the fans agreed; season seven's first episode featured a scene where Giles explicitly states that magic is not addictive, and it's explained that Willow's actions were actually due to her ''not'' using magic. This, of course, made hash of most of the storyline of season six.

** It does qualify as an author's saving throw, or at least close, but it's not a retcon. Giles' line is "This isn't a hobby or an addiction. It's inside you now," implying that this is a change for Willow due to her actions at the end of the last season. Willow got addicted to magic because she has an addictive personality, as much to power as to magic. What with Tara expressing her concern in Season 5, this was already on its way to becoming Willow's character arc, and 'Tabula Rasa' is very much in tune with her behavior in the rest of the series. Unfortunately, 'Smashed' and 'Wrecked', which bring her addiction to its climax, are about the most [[Anvilicious]] episodes in the whole series. In the latter, she realizes she has a problem because she hurt Dawn with magic. Or rather, wrecked the ''car'' she and Dawn were in because she was high on magic. [[Captain Obvious|Just like addicts in real life!]]

* In ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'''s fourth season, Sam was revealed to be in a sexual relationship with the demon Ruby. Even putting [[Shipping]] aside, the fanbase took a major issue with this -As Ruby was a demon with no corporeal body of her own, she had to [[Demonic Possession|possess]] another woman to use for her, uh, interactions with Sam. By having sex with her, Sam was either raping the host (who had not given consent) or engaging in necrophilia (if the host was a corpse). The writers "solved" this by revealing that Ruby's host was a comatose girl about to be taken off life support, whose body was still alive but spirit had moved on to the afterlife. Mileage varied as to whether or not this made the situation any less [[squick]]y.

 

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

 

== Video Games ==

* [[Persona 2]] ''Eternal Punishment'' (English version) pretty much serves as a retroactive Author's Saving Throw for the badly translated first game by {{spoiler|compensating for the lousy translation of most of the names like how Takahisa Kandori became Guido Sardenia by breaking even and establishing his real name was Guido Kandori (since Guido is spoken in the first game cutscenes, this was unavoidable), and that his name in the first game was an alias. They also pretend Kei/Nate never had his last name changed from Nanjo to Trinity, among a few other changes to compensate for both continuity and to apparently apologize for doing such a miserable job.}}

* ''[[Fallout 3]]'s'' ending caused some rather... negative reactions, in no small part thanks to its [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]. The DLC/Expansion pack ''Broken Steel'' changes the ending, allowing the game to remain playable after this. [[Word of God]] says the game's default endings (without the expansion) are [[Canon Discontinuity|non-canon]].

* [[Kingdom Hearts]] [[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days|358/2 Days]] pulls this to [[Retcon]] Axel and Roxas' previously ambiguous [[Ho Yay]] relationship into one of big brother/little brother—while still leaving plenty of potential [[Ship Tease]] for those who choose to see it that way. Turns out that when Roxas was formed without memories, Axel basically took it upon himself to raise him.

** Speaking of Kingdom Hearts, ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep]]'' and ''[[Kingdom Hearts Re Coded]]'' both feature [[Bonus Boss|additional bosses]] that, gameplay-wise, turn out to be [[Expy|close enough]] to the ones previously exclusive to the ''Final Mix'' version of ''[[Kingdom Hearts (video game)|Kingdom Hearts]]'' and ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', and therefore [[No Export for You|confined to Japan]]. So, the "Unknown" [[It Was His Sled|(Xemnas)]] gets an expy through the ''new'' Unknown in ''[[Birth By Sleep]]'', thus covering KHIFM territory, while Terra's Lingering Will from KHIIFM+ gets his expy thanks to ''Vanitas''' Lingering Will, still in BBS. About Roxas, upgraded from a cutscene (KHII) to a full-fledged boss (KHIIFM+), the fact he was still a storyline boss instead of a bonus boss allowed him to be used as a [[Final Boss]] instead, in ''Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded''. You can basically see [[Tetsuya Nomura]] saying "sorry, western fans".

** Also, there's one involving the storyline. See, most fans were unhappy (euphemism) about [[Creator's Pet|Ash Crimson]] taking the role of protagonist previously covered by Kyo and K', just as much as they were unhappy about him {{spoiler|[[Brought Down to Normal|stealing]] both Chizuru and Iori's Sacred Treasures powers}}. Come ''XIII'', Ash {{spoiler|enacts a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to stop the [[Big Bad]] of that [[Story Arc]]}}. Mind you, he doesn't {{spoiler|die... [[Ret-Gone|he is erased from existence.]] [[Cosmic Retcon|Retroactively!]] So he never really existed in the first place!}}

** ''XIII'' itself counts as an example. ''XII'' was labelled as a [[Dream Match Game]], but it ''[[In Name Only|really]]'' was an [[Obvious Beta]] released to earn [[SNK]] Playmore some quick cash in order to alleviate the production costs for [[Art Shift|redrawing the]] [[Loads and Loads of Characters|large cast of characters]] [[Art Shift|in high-definition]]. The end result? ''XII'' was crawling with bugs and infinites, not to mention a drastically reduced roster total from previous games. ''XIII'' addressed these complaints by ironing out most of the gameplay problems and bringing back several fighters who skipped out on the last few titles. Also, while the ''[[Fuun Series|Kizuna Encounter]]''/''[[Marvel vs. Capcom]]''/''[[Neo Geo Battle Coliseum]]''-esque Tactical Shift system in ''2003'' and ''XI'' was actually well-liked by most fans, ''XIII'' assumes the traditional 3-on-3, round-robin format from the series' inception.

* The ending of ''[[Syphon Filter]] 2'' apparently had Teresa [[Killed Off for Real|permanently killed off]], but the third game retconned this as [[Faking the Dead]].

* When ''[[Ratchet & Clank (video game)|Ratchet & Clank]]'' came out, a recurring complaint among critics was Ratchet's characterization (acting like a selfish {{Jerkass]] towards the much more sympathetic Clank). When ''[[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando]]'' was in development, Insomniac made sure to include several cutscenes where Ratchet gets angry and defends Clank when he is threatened, all with the explicitly stated purpose of "fixing" Ratchet's character.

 

== Web Comics ==

* [[Collar 6]]. After the drugging incident, Wolfe took two months real-time having the characters discuss how dysfunctional their relationship had become.

* [[CRFH]]: early on in the comic, Maritza wanted to kill off Dave, but there was such an outrage among the fans that she decided to [[Back from the Dead|bring him back]]. Thank God.

 

== Web Original ==

* In ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', Madison Conner's [[Face Heel Turn]] and subsequent [[Ax Crazy]] rampage was explained to have been because she suffers from bipolar disorder, which had been hinted at but never elaborated on. It didn't work too well.

* The creepypasta [[Happy Appy]], which was experiencing a massive drop in quality due to the [[Narm]]iness of the later posts, decided to remove all posts that weren't by Dronian. It became better as a result.

* The NChick team were getting a lot of flack over the "Nella abuse", which [[Fan Dumb]] took way too seriously and thought it was happening in real life. So Lindsay made a "Thanks For Your Feedback", detailing that [[The Nostalgia Chick]] had sinfully low self-esteem and was paying Nella to make her look better.

* ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' during The Entity storyline has the writer Lewis Luvhuag acknowledged during the commentary of "Pokemon: The Electric Tale of Pickachu" {{spoiler|that he ended pulling one with why [[Glitch Character|Missingno]] was afraid of Lord Vyce, aware that with how he built it up as an unstoppable universe devouring Lovecraftian demon, used the plot that Vyce's attacks were able to hurt it, but, according to Missingno, at least, couldn't kill it, but if found getting rid off him to be enough of an inconvenience that it hid out in our dimension so Linkara would defeat Vyce. Note that even Lewis comments that Vyce not being able to kill it was it at least from Missingo's point of view, and [[A God I Am|Missingno is full of itself even for a god]].}}

 

== Western Animation ==

* "Janine, You've Changed" from ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' is generally considered to be one of the most tragically hilarious attempts at this ever made; the show's former writer, [[J. Michael Straczynski]], is asked to come back and try to explain all the design changes made to a member of the secondary cast over the years. The end result... was actually fairly funny, had a pretty era-relevant Aesop for female viewers and had a bit of [[Ship Tease|payoff]] for long-time watchers. That it needed [[Executive Meddling|to be done at all]] is where the tragedy lies.

* In ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' Cyborg was always shown firing his sonic [[Arm Cannon]] from his right arm, until one day he used his left. Fans pointed out this apparent plot hole, and some time later, during a crucial fight, he simply converts ''both'' arms to cannons. It's hard to tell whether it was planned or this trope, since it makes perfect sense that he can convert both arms, and is simply right-dominant.

** Recently, they've given an explanation for his continual appearance; Kenny turns out to be {{spoiler|the heroic Mysterion, a "superhero" in South Park with the power to be reborn continually after death; his mother ''spontaniously gives birth to a new Kenny after the last one's death'', which then proceeds to grow to the previous one's age. And he [[Nightmare Fuel|remembers everything]], but everyone else forgets his death almost instantly.}}

* The Japanese dub of ''[[The Simpsons]] Movie'' tried to pull an inverted [[Poor Man's Substitute]] by replacing the cast used in the regular series with bigger-name actors, but fell straight into [[The Other Darrin]] instead, forcing them to try and make up for it by redubbing the movie with the original cast for DVD.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Continuity Tropes]]

[[Category:YMMV Trope]]

[[Category:Pandering to the Base]]

[[Category:Redemption Tropes]]