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Continuity Snarl: Difference between revisions
consolidated the "Folk Lore" and "Mythology" sections into an "Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myth and Legend" section for consistency with the rest of the wiki
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(consolidated the "Folk Lore" and "Mythology" sections into an "Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myth and Legend" section for consistency with the rest of the wiki) Tag: Disambiguation links |
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', due to the filler episodes that are contradicted later (like Goku's pod being destroyed by Piccolo, only to be used later by Capsule Corp.) and the [[Non-Serial Movie]]s that are still referenced later, but can't possibly fit into the show's timeline. (Gohan meets the dragon he rescues in Movie 3, but how could the Goku stop the Tree of Might from destroying Earth when Goku's either dead, fighting Nappa and Vegeta, in a hospital recovering, or en route to Namek? And if this is Garlic Jr. from Movie 1 who's pouring the Black Water Mist, then why did no-one recognise Gohan near the beginning of ''Z''?) This leads to some glaring problems, like a character who was dead being seen in a bar drinking.
* Despite mostly having only one writer, the classic ''[[Astro Boy (manga)|Astro Boy]]'' series turned into a first class continuity snarl towards the end. See, what happened was that in the final episode of the original anime, Astro died performing a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to deliver a device into the center of the sun to stop it from dying. Shortly after the anime ended, [[Osamu Tezuka]] began a new Astro Boy story as a newspaper strip in the Sankei Newspaper, which featured Astro's melted carcass being recovered by time-traveling aliens and brought back to life before winding up trapped in the distant past (the readers' present). Because Astro had never died in the manga, however, when the collected edition came out Tezuka redid the first chapter that involved Astro, alive and well getting thrown back in time when the alien timeship crashes on Earth instead. Tezuka then produced three more different, contradictory stories of Astro's future in various publications: a pilot for a second Astro Boy series that never got off the ground which also takes place after the end of the anime where Astro is found by a completely different race of time traveling aliens, upgraded into a new body with time travel capabilities and sent back to Earth to find the era he came from; A one-shot nostalgia piece in a men's magazine, yet another followup to the anime where Astro is resurrected by [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] and taken to a planet millions of light years from Earth from which he may never return, so Ochanomizu and the rest of the Ministry Of Science staff create a replacement, who turns out to be a lazy sex maniac because he was designed to be more "Human"; and finally, "The End Of Astroboy", which doesn't mention his death and simply has him in a display case in a robot museum due to being supplanted by more advanced robots and then freed by some human rebels to help them fight against said robots who have taken over the world.
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* The ''[[Kinnikuman]]'' manga has a rather bad example: when Geronimo attacks [[Big Bad|Akuma Shogun]], we see a group of choujin watching Geronimo's [[Curb Stomp Battle|beat-down]], with ''Geronimo being in the group.'' In other words, Geronimo's watching himself get beaten.
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
▲== Comic Books ==
* [[Post-Crisis]], [[Hawkman]] is the poster child for this trope. Originally, the ''Hawkworld'' mini-series was supposed to retell the origins of the [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] Hawkman, but after it became a success, DC commissioned a ''Hawkworld'' regular series, taking place where the mini-series left off, resulting in a total reboot of Hawkman's continuity (a la the post-Crisis reboot of [[Wonder Woman]]), despite the fact that the Silver Age Hawkman was already established in post-Crisis continuity, and prior to the relaunch, briefly joined the [[Justice League of America|Justice League International]]. This was followed up with several attempts at fixes, each of which simply made the problem worse. Hawkman's continuity was described, according to DC editor Mike Carlin, as "radioactive". In the wake of [[Zero Hour]], the various incarnations collapsed into the "Hawkgod", who was essentially an [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of the Hawk-Continuity Snarl. After this, DC editorial declared the character [[Exiled From Continuity|off-limits]] to the writers from 1996-2001.
** The cover to ''Hawkman'' (Vol. 3) #27, published in December 1995, shown above, pretty much describes Hawkman's continuity at the time.
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* As the Batman franchise was one of the few properties not completely rebooted during DC's ''[[New 52]]'' initiative, numerous continuity problems have arisen over the bits of Bat-history that were altered. A particular source of contention is how [[Batgirl (2000 comic book)|Cassandra Cain]] and [[Batgirl 2009|Stephanie Brown]] could fit into the new, condensed five year timeline given some of the statements made in the new Batgirl title. Though it has been confirmed that Cain will appear in ''[[Grant Morrisons Batman|Batman Inc.]]'' at some point, how her history could be reconciled has not yet been mentioned.
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* Averted (so far as of July 2020) with [[The Teraverse]] (and its super-series ''[[A Brane of Extraordinary Women]]''). Despite having a dozen or more writers continually adding in new sources and elements to this [[Mega Crossover]], there is sufficient coordination to maintain a consistent history, sometimes down to the day, and implement changes and expansions across multiple story lines.
== [[Film]] ==
* In the process of creating prequels for the ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men]]'' film series, different creative teams have introduced a number of discrepancies in the franchise - in fact, the only reason they're meant to be in the same continuity is the presence of [[Wolverine]] in all five films and the character of William Stryker. Almost all of the films have continuity snarls with other installments:
** Emma Frost is introduced as a woman in her late 20's/early 30's in ''[[X-Men: First Class|First Class]]'' (which takes place in 1962), but is seen as a teenager in ''[[X Men Origins: Wolverine|Origins]]'' (which chronologically happens 17 years later, during the Three Mile Island incident in 1979).
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* Minor by comparison to most of the other examples, but Tim Burton's ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]'' featured a black Harvey Dent, whereas when he was used as a character in the Joel Schumacher-directed sequels, he was depicted as white. Or at least, [[Two-Faced|half of him is white]].
== [[Literature]] ==▼
* Who is [[King Arthur]]'s greatest knight: Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, Sir Percival, Sir Galahad, or King Pellinore? Did you even know that in many of the earliest tales, it is Sir Gawain, without question? (And before that, it was ''Mordred as a good guy''.)▼
** And what about Sir Griflet? Originally one of Arthur's most loyal knights, he was pretty much supplanted by Sir Bedivere.▼
** And Lancelot, the one knight that everyone knows, isn't even part of the "original cast". He was originally the star of his own set of adventures and [[Intercontinuity Crossover|only got mixed in with the other knights along the way]]. Along the way he went from a mentally-unstable [[The Berserker|berserker]] built like a barrel on short legs to [[Prince Charming]].▼
*** According to [[Peter David]], Lancelot was "the first Mary Sue." This certainly explains his (or rather his reincarnation's) treatment in his novel ''[[Knight Life]]''.▼
** And Morgan Le Fey went from being a benevolent sorceress who had saved Arthur's life on multiple occasions to a vindictive [[Yandere]] bent on breaking up Arthur/Guinevere to the mother of the [[Big Bad]] to the [[Big Bad]] herself. And even after Mordred was [[retcon]]ned into being her son, he originally wasn't by Arthur. And then the whole [[Brother-Sister Incest]] thing got added in.▼
*** And along came [[Nasuverse|Kinoko Nasu]]. Isn't this a [[Fate/Zero|twist of]] [[Fate/stay night|Fate]]? Excuse the [[Incredibly Lame Pun]] there.▼
** Modern writers who try to keep things relatively sane while using many, many sources for Arthurian myth use this sequence: Gawain was one of Arthur's best friends, probably one of the first Knights of the Round Table, and by far the most [[Badass]] knight in Arthur's court - but he had a ''severe'' problem with losing his temper, and would end up losing to lesser knights in duels because he would get angry and clumsy, so Arthur never chose him to be his Second in Command; Lancelot was the Champion Arthur had been looking for to sit at his left hand, because he was more level-headed than Gawain and nearly as skilled - problem is, the guy was a little too interested in Guinevere, and we all know where that led; Galahad, the son of Lancelot, became Arthur's second and final Champion, who was basically as skilled as Gawain, and as level-headed and cunning as his father, making him the greatest knight to ever live - ''his'' only downside was that he was more loyal to his faith than to his king, and once the Grail showed up he and several other knights packed up and left to find it, though he did return later. Percival is considered the most noble of knights, and lived the code of chivalry to a "t," so only both he and Galahad received the Grail, but wasn't as strong as any of the other three knights, so he was never a "Champion." Mordred was never a "Champion," either; rather, he was a genius both in leadership and in battle, making him Arthur's favorite to succeed him, and so earned the seat at Arthur's right hand at the round table - but Arthur caught wind of Mordred's evil ambitions, and through any number of events (based on the author at the time), a schism formed between them (probably from Arthur's exiling of Mordred), and Arthur chose Sir Constantine to be his successor right before/during/after the Battle of Camlann. Yes, it takes this much space just to clarify 5 peoples' places in modern Arthurian myth. Continuity Snarl indeed...▼
** In the very earliest stratum [[One-Man Army|Cai]] (Kay) was ''easily'' the foremost of Arthur's warband.▼
▲== Literature ==
* Because he was constantly revising his unpublished works, [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]] managed to create a Continuity Snarl ''all by himself'' (which is probably why they were unpublished). His son Christopher edited many of them together into ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', trying his best to come up with a version that didn't contradict itself.
* The [[Land of Oz]] suffered from continuity problems from [[L. Frank Baum]]'s hands. This included whether they used money; whether they could die; and where Ozma came from.
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* In [[Feline Wizards|The Book Of Night With Moon]] Tom and Carl are stated as Advisories, which would put it before the second book in the other series. Then Nita shows up... and says that Dairine has passed Ordeal, which is the plot of the ''third'' book!
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==▼
▲== Live-Action TV ==
* Countless ''[[Doctor Who]]'' fans learnt to shudder when the topic of what exact decade(s) the UNIT stories were set in is raised, before the new series demonstrated how much worse it could get. Precisely when the UNIT stories were set may be unclear, but at least we know which order they took place in. With the new series and [[Spin-Off]]s, we don't even know that. There are sound arguments that ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures|Revenge of the Slitheen]]'' happened after "Smith and Jones", and equally sound arguments it happened first.
** The Eighth Doctor's continuity doesn't even try to make sense simultaneously. The only definitively canon story is [[Doctor Who/Recap/TVM the TV Movie|the telemovie]], for [[Eighth Doctor Adventures|the novels]], [[Big Finish Doctor Who|audios]] and [[Doctor Who Magazine|comics]] made it clear early on that they're not concerned with outright contradicting each other for the sake of telling their own stories.
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* Frasier Crane famously told his friends at ''Cheers'' that his father was a research scientist and had died years before. This was Handwaved in his [[Spin-Off]] series ''Frasier'' as having been something he said because he was angry at his dad that day, but it was in fact not something that was said once; his characterizations of his father and his identifying himself as an orphan took place consistently over quite some time during his years in Boston.
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], [[Myth and Legend]] ==
▲* Who is [[King Arthur]]'s greatest knight: Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, Sir Percival, Sir Galahad, or King Pellinore? Did you even know that in many of the earliest tales, it is Sir Gawain, without question? (And before that, it was ''Mordred as a good guy''.)
▲** And what about Sir Griflet? Originally one of Arthur's most loyal knights, he was pretty much supplanted by Sir Bedivere.
▲** And Lancelot, the one knight that everyone knows, isn't even part of the "original cast". He was originally the star of his own set of adventures and [[Intercontinuity Crossover|only got mixed in with the other knights along the way]]. Along the way he went from a mentally-unstable [[The Berserker|berserker]] built like a barrel on short legs to [[Prince Charming]].
▲*** According to [[Peter David]], Lancelot was "the first Mary Sue." This certainly explains his (or rather his reincarnation's) treatment in his novel ''[[Knight Life]]''.
▲** And Morgan Le Fey went from being a benevolent sorceress who had saved Arthur's life on multiple occasions to a vindictive [[Yandere]] bent on breaking up Arthur/Guinevere to the mother of the [[Big Bad]] to the [[Big Bad]] herself. And even after Mordred was [[retcon]]ned into being her son, he originally wasn't by Arthur. And then the whole [[Brother-Sister Incest]] thing got added in.
▲*** And along came [[Nasuverse|Kinoko Nasu]]. Isn't this a [[Fate/Zero|twist of]] [[Fate/stay night|Fate]]? Excuse the [[Incredibly Lame Pun]] there.
▲** Modern writers who try to keep things relatively sane while using many, many sources for Arthurian myth use this sequence: Gawain was one of Arthur's best friends, probably one of the first Knights of the Round Table, and by far the most [[Badass]] knight in Arthur's court - but he had a ''severe'' problem with losing his temper, and would end up losing to lesser knights in duels because he would get angry and clumsy, so Arthur never chose him to be his Second in Command; Lancelot was the Champion Arthur had been looking for to sit at his left hand, because he was more level-headed than Gawain and nearly as skilled - problem is, the guy was a little too interested in Guinevere, and we all know where that led; Galahad, the son of Lancelot, became Arthur's second and final Champion, who was basically as skilled as Gawain, and as level-headed and cunning as his father, making him the greatest knight to ever live - ''his'' only downside was that he was more loyal to his faith than to his king, and once the Grail showed up he and several other knights packed up and left to find it, though he did return later. Percival is considered the most noble of knights, and lived the code of chivalry to a "t," so only both he and Galahad received the Grail, but wasn't as strong as any of the other three knights, so he was never a "Champion." Mordred was never a "Champion," either; rather, he was a genius both in leadership and in battle, making him Arthur's favorite to succeed him, and so earned the seat at Arthur's right hand at the round table - but Arthur caught wind of Mordred's evil ambitions, and through any number of events (based on the author at the time), a schism formed between them (probably from Arthur's exiling of Mordred), and Arthur chose Sir Constantine to be his successor right before/during/after the Battle of Camlann. Yes, it takes this much space just to clarify 5 peoples' places in modern Arthurian myth. Continuity Snarl indeed...
▲** In the very earliest stratum [[One-Man Army|Cai]] (Kay) was ''easily'' the foremost of Arthur's warband.
* If you look at the pantheon of any ancient civilization close enough you're bound to find these. Because of:
** A. Different versions of the same myth by different writers
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* Was Amaterasu conceived by Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Izanami-no-Mikoto while the latter was still alive? Or was Amaterasu the by-product of Izanagi washing himself of the filth from Yomi? The Kojiki and Nihon Shoki both say different things. And say nothing of the myth where she sends her grandson to rule over the world...
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==▼
▲== Professional Wrestling ==
* The [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]]'s "[[Kane (wrestling)|Kane]]" character, whose official life story has him having been a hopelessly-insane burn victim in an asylum at the same time he was supposed to have been hanging out in college and going to parties with his sweetheart Katie. Further complicated by the storyline of his "[[The Undertaker|brother]]", who had a whole angle where he [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|Broke the Fourth Wall]] and "went out of character". The whole thing got so complicated that they had to have somebody write a book (titled ''Journey Into Darkness'' if one should want to look it up) in an attempt to explain it.
** [[The Undertaker]] himself tends to be mildly rebooted when he gets a gimmick change. Different personas don't often directly reference older ones, but this is a double-edged sword; most glaring is when the American Badass started out with the Undertaker doing a worked shoot to sell the idea that he wasn't supernatural ''in'' character as well as out, so he could come back as a leather-clad biker, only for Kane to ''kill him'' so he could be ''resurrected as undead.''
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** The kicker? The Black Scorpion was created to give Sting an opponent ''other than Ric Flair.''
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==▼
▲== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''. The setting is ''deliberately'' designed to take into account the possibility of Continuity Snarl by making the tech [[Schizo-Tech|naturally variable]] and everything told is either [[Unreliable Narrator|from skewed viewpoints, propaganda, or possibly inaccurate documents, reports, or histories.]] Its creators' pronouncement is "Everything written about 40k is ''canon,'' but it isn't necessarily ''true.''
** Fortunately, trying to keep up with the plot isn't really the point.
** Even then, the adaptations manage to break it when someone toesn't bother to check the basic premises. Such as... [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor_Class_Battleship Emperor-class battleships] don't launch Space Marine drop pods, and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlRfPQP4uhA that was probably close to two full chapters they just flung out there]. It ''does'' carry 8 squadrons of small craft. The number of actual vehicles depends on the craft size, and if we are to believe ''Battlefleet Koronus'', this translates to 160 Fury Interceptors or 320 Lightnings - since the drop pods are even smaller, it's feasible that it ''could'' carry, say, 640. The problem? This would clearly go far beyond simple support action, while the Astartes forces are completely separated (including their own spaceships) and are neither designed nor allowed to be integrated with other forces (such as Navy) like this.
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
▲== Video Games ==
* A very jarring example is ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]] Infinity: Blood Tides of Lh'owon''. In the end of the second game, the Pfhor, an alien slaver race, rather than facing defeat, decide to destroy Lh'owon instead of letting the humans have time to evacuate. Their method is using a weapon that even the most powerful known force in the galaxy is afraid of. It basically causes the sun to go nova early. As Durandal points out in the last terminal, there's an old S'pht (Native race that the Pfhor enslaved) myth that the sun has a god in it capable of destroying the universe, but that doesn't matter much, as the Pfhor army and navy occupying the planet are destroyed. Cue ''Marathon Infinity'', where almost none of the events summed up in the final screen of ''Marathon 2'', such as the ultimate destruction of the Pfhor, disappearance of Durandal, and evacuation of Lh'owon happened. In fact, the only thing that is even referenced is the final terminal. The god turns out to be an [[Eldritch Abomination]], and the player has to find a way to stop him from being released.
** It should be noted that the continuity snarl of Infinity was deliberate. {{spoiler|The player is actually jumping between a series of alternate timelines, attempting to find one in which he can successfully contain said Eldritch Abomination.}}
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* ''[[Ōkami|Okami]]'' may only be a 2-game series, but it has one thing it can't agree with itself on. ''[[Ōkamiden|Okamiden]]'' introduces a Akuro, who is the [[Big Bad]] of the game. Now, dialogue when he's introduced heavily implies that he is the successor of the previous game's [[Big Bad]], Yami. But later, the Knowing Jewel claims that he merely used Yami as a vessel. Keep in mind that Akuro didn't exist in the first game, and that both of these versions of what Akuro is come from the ''same game!'' Jeez!
== [[Web Comics]] ==▼
▲== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Drowtales]]''' rolling [[Retcon]] (repeatedly sequentially updating older chapters with new art and story) causes chaos for many fans' understanding of the comic's backstory, and there are ongoing debates on the forums as to what formerly canon information is current canon and what isn't.
* ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' parodies this trope with an actual entity called [[Trope Namer|The Snarl]]; created when multiple Gods tried to create the universe and had disagreements about how things worked.
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
▲== Web Original ==
* ''[[Whateley Universe]]'': Does the magic department offer introductory classes for people with no previous magical ability? In one story, a magically inclined member of the school board (who, presumably, would know) explicitly says no. And yet, Ayla will be studying magic for the first time in the spring.
** A partial answer now exists: You need to be able to gather the energies of Magic in some way to take the courses in Magic (and it's explicitly noted that there are (inefficient) ways a normal human can do so).
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** Amusingly, Spoony's explanation for him is "There is no continuity, there is only Insano."
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* For all that's said about the inconsistencies between the Unicron Trilogy of the ''[[Transformers]]'' franchise (''[[Transformers Armada|Armada]], Energon,'' and ''Cybertron''), the main, original, ''Transformers'' [http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/1/1d/Continuities.png time-line] is even worse. There starts out with two distinct main branches, the original comic and animated series, but then along comes ''[[Beast Wars]]'' and ''Beast Machines'' that uses elements from both series simultaneously. Add that to the splintering off done by the ''Dreamwave'' ongoing series, and you just have to wonder how all of these things could possibly co-exist together.
** The aforementioned series? In Japan, ''Cybertron'' is ''Galaxy Force'', and it appears it's unrelated to its Japanese predecessors, ''Micron Legend'' and ''Superlink.'' The US version tries to tie the two together, but there are still some problems, so a comic was produced that chalked all of this up to a big warp in time and space... even though some minor retcons and a few lines of explanation saying where the older characters might have gone to would have sufficed. Yeah, it wouldn't have been perfect, but come on, was it really necessary... especially since they've already let the original timeline rage out of control?
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* ''[[Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation]]'' does this to previous works in the [[Care Bears]] franchise, from having the Care Bear Cousins grow up with the rest of the Care Bears, instead of separately in ''[[The Care Bears Movie]]''.
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
▲== Real Life ==
* Trying to keep track of everything that happened after the death of [[Alexander the Great|Alexander of Macedon (aka the Great)]] is almost impossible for anyone, even those with higher degrees in Classical History. The scale of the political maneuvering between his putative successors is too large to summarize. Suffice to say that one Classical Historian has described the carnage and politics between Macedon, Persia, the Ptolomaic Empire, and all the others, as a 'Macedonian Soap Opera'.
* Similarly, the Mexican Revolution. Once the United States got involved, it gets even more confusing because the [[William Howard Taft|Taft]] and [[Woodrow Wilson|Wilson]] administrations supported opposite sides of the conflict. And this is leaving out historilogical debates over the whole mess.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:}}PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Continuity Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]
[[Category:Consistency]]
▲[[Category:Continuity Tropes]]
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