Plot Tumor: Difference between revisions

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A single plot element that was once a minor part of [[The Verse]] swells in importance as the series progresses, growing more in focus and elaboration to the point that it becomes the focus of major arcs and plot development. As a result, the [[Plot Tumor]]'s tentacles get wrapped around other elements of the work, either via retcons that connect the [[Plot Tumor]] to things it wasn't originally conceived for or just by crowding out other elements in the story.

A single plot element that was once a minor part of [[The Verse]] swells in importance as the series progresses, growing more in focus and elaboration to the point that it becomes the focus of major arcs and plot development. As a result, the '''Plot Tumor''''s tentacles get wrapped around other elements of the work, either via retcons that connect the '''Plot Tumor''' to things it wasn't originally conceived for or just by crowding out other elements in the story.

Typically this occurs when the creative reins pass on from one writer to the next, as writers forget the original quirks of the element or their creative juices enable them to actualize the untapped story potential of taking a small but notable aspect and expanding on it. However, it's most visible in [[Derivative Works]], where a single element that was important in the source material's success becomes the major focus of the adaptation, especially if late-to-the-party fans or non-fans of the original don't realize the [[Plot Tumor]] was once a small part of the original storyline when the work was first being published and it can seem almost unnatural for it not to be part of the status quo of a derivative work.

Typically this occurs when the creative reins pass on from one writer to the next, as writers forget the original quirks of the element or their creative juices enable them to actualize the untapped story potential of taking a small but notable aspect and expanding on it. However, it's most visible in [[Derivative Works]], where a single element that was important in the source material's success becomes the major focus of the adaptation, especially if late-to-the-party fans or non-fans of the original don't realize the '''Plot Tumor''' was once a small part of the original storyline when the work was first being published and it can seem almost unnatural for it not to be part of the status quo of a derivative work.

Keep in mind, however, that [[Tropes Are Not Bad]] and [[Fan Wank|fandoms expound on minor details]] just as much as canonical writers; sometimes with the latter [[Ascended Fanon|ending up into the former]].

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== Anime and Manga ==

* Duel Monsters in the original ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' manga was just supposed to be a one-shot deal, but eventually became [[Merchandise-Driven|more and more important to the plot]]. The same thing happened to Kaiba, who went from [[Monster of the Week]] to [[Big Bad]] to [[Anti-Hero]] and finally to [[The Rival]].

** The mystical aspects of the game has also become this; originally just a bunch of dark magic from Ancient Egypt that the game's creator was tricked into bringing back through the game, it eventually evolved into an entire ''series'' of [[Alternate Dimension~~|Alternate Dimensions~~]] full of monsters, and eventually into a power that's [[Older Than They Think]] and is part of ''the Earth itself''.

** The mystical aspects of the game has also become this; originally just a bunch of dark magic from Ancient Egypt that the game's creator was tricked into bringing back through the game, it eventually evolved into an entire ''series'' of [[Alternate Dimension]]s full of monsters, and eventually into a power that's [[Older Than They Think]] and is part of ''the Earth itself''.

* [[Ki Attacks]] and powering up in ''[[Dragonball Z]]''. At the beginning of the original Dragonball, there were no [[Ki Attacks]], and the first of them, the [[Kamehame Hadoken|Kamehameha]], didn't appear until the middle of the first arc. Even then it sort of the trump card, and wasn't played terribly often. As the series progressed though, the KameHameHa became a more standard attack, and Ki Attacks became more and more prominent. Then DBZ came along and it became the main premise behind practically everything the fighters did. They could fly, teleport, power up, etc., all based on Ki manipulation. [[Ki Attacks]] eventually led to [[Beam Spam]], and the ability to power up that was introduced early in DBZ became the method by which nearly every [[Big Bad]] but the last one was defeated, by digging just a little deeper and becoming just a bit more powerful.

** It's also interesting to note that ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' started as a homage to [[Journey to the West]], then it got a little martial-arts focused and drifted so far you almost forgot the original ''purpose'' of the story was to find the Dragon Balls. By two-thirds of the series gone past, the balls were so easy to recollect again by the good guys, and the bad guys were no longer focused on getting wishes from them and settled for the destruction of the world and the rest of the cosmos.

* The Uchiha clan in ''[[Naruto]]'', and Sasuke in particular, have done nothing but become more prominent in the story as time passes. It's gotten to the point where the Uchiha clan is responsible for the entire plot of the manga. Sasuke started out as merely [[The Rival]] to Naruto (though he clearly had greater story importance than other such rivals due to also being Naruto's teammate) who wanted to avenge his clan, but as the Uchiha presence expanded, so has his. He's arguably had more face time in the manga than the actual protagonist (he hasn't, though he's had more than every other character despite being largely absent for the first three arcs of Part 2). [[Broken Base|It's a sore spot between fans whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or something in between.]]

* Yukito Kishiro derailed ''[[Battle Angel Alita]]: Last Order'' for a two-volume gothic vampire story which acted as last-minute background for "Fata Morgana" (a nanotech super-program). It would appear the Fata Morgana became such a [[Plot Tumor]] due to Kishiro's understandable reluctance to pull a [[Deus Ex Machina]] on his readers, but it's still not the most elegant arc of the series).

* Yukito Kishiro derailed ''[[Battle Angel Alita]]: Last Order'' for a two-volume gothic vampire story which acted as last-minute background for "Fata Morgana" (a nanotech super-program). It would appear the Fata Morgana became such a Plot Tumor due to Kishiro's understandable reluctance to pull a [[Deus Ex Machina]] on his readers, but it's still not the most elegant arc of the series).

* More or less the same thing has happened to ''[[Bleach]]'', with the early substitute shinigami stories fading into endless tournament-like fight arcs.

** Given the amount of panels and empty surrounding space they receive, the speech bubbles themselves have been ballooning into strangling whatever plot they were supposed to be driving, extending any event by months or even years. Plot carcinogen?

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* ''[[X-Men]]'' has dined out for years on the idea of [[Fantastic Racism|prejudice against mutants]] - to the point where its the major thread of nearly every adaptation and any attempts to even ''tone down'' "Mutant Hysteria" (much less eliminate it) have been swiftly written out. When it was first conceived, anti-mutant prejudice was based on fears of mutant supremacy: that mutants like Magneto would eradicate/replace normal humans as the next stage in evolution, especially since anyone's child could be a mutant. As currently written, the [[Fantastic Racism]] is apparently so ingrained that it's become even stronger in the face of the mutant population being [[Brought Down to Normal]] in the Decimation arc.

** One might also look at [[Wolverine Publicity|the entire character of Wolverine as a Plot Tumor]]. Moving from a loner and a minor member of the team till gradually we find that he is the main character of the movie series (with the team leader gone for nearly two entire films), and his name in the title of a new series.

** Another [[Plot Tumor]] could be the whole idea of the mutant hunting robots, the Sentinels. The anti-mutant groups have no problem with gigantic robots, filled to the brim with all weapons of mass destruction, roaming the world in search of mutants and not stopping till they found even a mutant or mutants with the power of, oh say, glow in the dark, and destroying everything and everyone in the way until said mission is done?

** Another Plot Tumor could be the whole idea of the mutant hunting robots, the Sentinels. The anti-mutant groups have no problem with gigantic robots, filled to the brim with all weapons of mass destruction, roaming the world in search of mutants and not stopping till they found even a mutant or mutants with the power of, oh say, glow in the dark, and destroying everything and everyone in the way until said mission is done?

* [[The Flash]] and the Speed Force. The Speed Force started as a way of [[Arc Welding]] all of the unrelated super-speedsters while providing them with a universal [[Hand Wave]] for the ways that they make physicists cry. It eventually gained enough properties, applications, and relevance that it now dominates the Flash mythos.

** This happens to a lot of heroes with power sources that can be even remotely anthropomorphized, with the power source becoming used in more and more story elements instead of just being left in the background. For example, a lot of recent [[Shazam|Marvel Family]] stories are more about the Wizard and/or the gods who empower Captain Marvel and less about the Captain himself, [[Green Lantern]] comics are frequently dominated by the Guardians and Lantern politics rather than heroics, and [[Animal Man]] eventually started drowning in "the Red" (which eventually led to Animal Man ditching superheroics completely in favor of animal activism).

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** Klingons as [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Space Vikings]]. The movies and ''TNG'' portrayed them as possessing a much more nuanced culture that happened to have a warrior past. By the time Worf started as a regular on ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'', every Klingon went everywhere with his sword, and no woman ever held a position of power.

** The entire Dominion War arc that practically ''was'' ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' has several examples. It can be argued that [[Energy Weapon|lightsaber]] combat qualifies, as it was never paid that much attention in the original trilogy compared to the prequels (and in the [[Expanded Universe]], there are seven ''forms'' of lightsaber combat, each explored in detail). However, a more glaring example is the evolution of Boba ~~Fett -- starting~~ with a [[Ensemble Darkhorse|non-notable background character]] with almost no dialogue, whom the audience liked for his "cool" armor, and ending up with the Mandalorians, an entire society of [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|proud warrior race guys]] like him, who have played a major role in at least two galaxy-spanning conflicts to date and basically became the ''[[Star Wars]]'' answer to the Klingons (not to mention {{spoiler|the source of all stormtroopers!}}).

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' has several examples. It can be argued that [[Energy Weapon|lightsaber]] combat qualifies, as it was never paid that much attention in the original trilogy compared to the prequels (and in the [[Expanded Universe]], there are seven ''forms'' of lightsaber combat, each explored in detail). However, a more glaring example is the evolution of Boba Fett—starting with a [[Ensemble Darkhorse|non-notable background character]] with almost no dialogue, whom the audience liked for his "cool" armor, and ending up with the Mandalorians, an entire society of [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|proud warrior race guys]] like him, who have played a major role in at least two galaxy-spanning conflicts to date and basically became the ''[[Star Wars]]'' answer to the Klingons (not to mention {{spoiler|the source of all stormtroopers!}}).

** The [[Star Wars]] video games, having a relatively limited amount of iconic canonical material to draw on, have become almost comical in the way various memorable elements of the movies show up over and over again in different, unrelated games. For instance, there are now, in the non-canonical parts of the EU at least, at least five different sets of Death Star plans that have been stolen five different and mutually exclusive ways by five different heroes or sets of heroes.

*** In turn, writers who try to make sense of EU have come up with the explanation that the Empire did not keep a full set of the plans in any single location, but that several stolen pieces were necessary to put together a complete picture of the Death Star and learn about the vulnerabilities.

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* The ''[[Metal Gear]]'' games were once about bipedal nuclear tanks but ever since ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' introduced the Patriots, everything, even retroactively, has something to do with them.

** In the earlier games, [[Unusable Enemy Equipment]] was handwaved by the fact that the weapons were keyed to their users via [[Nanomachines]] and won't function for anyone else. In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'', the entire plot revolves around the weapon-identifying nanomachines (hence the subtitle) and the computer system that regulates them.

* In the first ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (video game)|Sonic the Hedgehog]] game'', the Chaos Emeralds were merely bonus items to collect. They gained the ability to transform Sonic into his [[Super Mode]] in the [[Sega Genesis|Genesis sequels]]. The 3D games saw them turn into [[MacGuffin~~|MacGuffins~~]] around which plots of entire games were based, and the emeralds gained [[Green Rocks|the power to energize weapons of mass destruction, bring the dead back to life, and seal away monstrosities that live inside the planet]].

* In the first ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (video game)|Sonic the Hedgehog]] game'', the Chaos Emeralds were merely bonus items to collect. They gained the ability to transform Sonic into his [[Super Mode]] in the [[Sega Genesis|Genesis sequels]]. The 3D games saw them turn into [[MacGuffin]]s around which plots of entire games were based, and the emeralds gained [[Green Rocks|the power to energize weapons of mass destruction, bring the dead back to life, and seal away monstrosities that live inside the planet]].

* Dragons were mostly background lore in the ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' series. Come ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' and pretty much anything can be explained (retroactively) via dragons. Liches, zombies, the Blades, an important part of the Empire's history...etc. Even door keys in several dungeons have the shape of dragon claws.

* The Cerberus group in the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series. Initially it was just a shady group with a couple of hidden bases. Come ''Mass Effect 2'' they're an almost all powerful organization that are central to the plot. While it may have been planned that they would have such a large role it still felt like a [[Plot Tumor]] for those that didn't take part in the optional quest of the first game.

* The Cerberus group in the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series. Initially it was just a shady group with a couple of hidden bases. Come ''Mass Effect 2'' they're an almost all powerful organization that are central to the plot. While it may have been planned that they would have such a large role it still felt like a Plot Tumor for those that didn't take part in the optional quest of the first game.

* Legendary Pokémon. Gen I: 4 rare Mons only available at the ends of several dungeons ([[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|Seafoam Islands]], [[No OSHA Compliance|Power Plant]], [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|Victory Road]] and [[Bonus Dungeon|Cerulean Cave]]). Gen II: 3 randomly appearing Mons out of nowhere and two special Mons that require special items to catch. Gen III: [[Olympus Mons|Creators of the planet]] added. Gen IV: We have [[Eldritch Abomination|Dialga, Palkia, Giratina]] and [[Physical God|Arceus]].

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** Both of these Plot Tumors, however, seem to have been successfully removed. The Dimension of Pain has not been seen for years, ever since "That Which Redeems" concluded. And, while Bun-Bun still makes the occasional attack on Santa Claus, holiday figures and black ops elves have long since ceased to play a prominent role in the story.

*** Although with the 4U city mutants and the mutagen causing squid on a stick, the Dimension of Pain looks to be moving back towards being important. Timeless space also managed to be fit in.

* ''[[Concession]]'' started off as a comic strip about a bunch of anthropomorphic characters who worked at a concession stand at a movie theater (The author actually based it around the stupidity he experienced, working in customer service is a good way to get material for comic strips). But if you look at the most recent comics...you'll not really see that much about an actual concession stand. For awhile, the actual concession stand was more or less put to the side, and until it got wrapped up in the massive [[Plot Tumor]], it didn't even play a role beyond the occasional appearance of a main character who was still employed there. Immelmann has actually ''admitted'' that it's only really about concession stands [[In Name Only]] and centers around the character Joel and his plot, it even says so right in the "About" section.

* ''[[Concession]]'' started off as a comic strip about a bunch of anthropomorphic characters who worked at a concession stand at a movie theater (The author actually based it around the stupidity he experienced, working in customer service is a good way to get material for comic strips). But if you look at the most recent comics...you'll not really see that much about an actual concession stand. For awhile, the actual concession stand was more or less put to the side, and until it got wrapped up in the massive Plot Tumor, it didn't even play a role beyond the occasional appearance of a main character who was still employed there. Immelmann has actually ''admitted'' that it's only really about concession stands [[In Name Only]] and centers around the character Joel and his plot, it even says so right in the "About" section.

* In ''[[Sam and Fuzzy]]'' the original comic was mainly a slice of life style that was mainly a gag a day style. Then ninjas were added. And a demonic refrigerator. After that, things got weird. Now the whole story revolves around the weirdness and the weirdos and pretty much every arc has ninjas in it due to Sam becoming the Ninja Emperor.

* The "Patriarchy" in [[Sinfest]] during fall of 2011 quickly grew to overtake the strip, turning the focus to the actions of Trike Girl and the ramifications of said actions on the world. As of early 2012, things seem to have calmed down a bit. [[Sinfest]] runs into this trope a lot, due to the author [[Writing By The Seat Of His Pants]]. "Patriarchy" is notable for taking over so much in such a short time period, but there are plenty of other examples: