Retcon
In doing some research for a project today, I came across a great term I’d never seen: retcon. According to Wikipedia:
Retroactive continuity or retcon is the adding of new information to “historical” material, or deliberately changing previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change itself is referred to as a “retcon”, and the act of writing and publishing a retcon is called “retconning”. Retconning can be done either on-purpose, or accidentally, wherein a break in continuity is not noticed until later and is then blessed by later events.
The full article has many examples.
Many of my favorite TV shows and comic books have gone through significant retconning. The first thing that comes to mind is “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which not only gave Buffy a kid sister in the fifth season, but made the reconfiguration of the backstories a key plot point. It was almost a meta-retcon. Which is too much responsibility to pile on a word I’ve only known for about for 15 minutes.
Quick, someone wiki it: [[retcon]]
Articles
November 29th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Never heard “retcon”, really? Not much of a comics fan then?
I was never sure whether Dawn was retcon or not, as the plot explicitly stated that the Buffyverse’s history had been changed internally (by monks). Ooh, the Wikipedia article says some people thought the same regarding DC Comic’s Crisis On Infinite Earths. Cool.
I’m down with meta-retcon as a term for this.
November 29th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Done. Gotta run, though… so I’ll leave it up to someone else to throw in the links.
November 29th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
The first example of retconning that came to my mind was also Buffy, oddly enough. Season Six, when we learn that not only did Buffy’s mother have previous knowledge that Buffy was a Slayer, Buffy actually spent time in a mental institution prior to moving to Sunnydale. That’s a pretty major retcon. The first two years of the show dealt partially with Joyce, her mom, having no idea whatsoever that supernatural goings on were going on right under her nose.
November 29th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Actually that bit about Joyce in S6 isn’t retconned, as in Becoming (S2) Buffy clearly brings up that Joyce had to have known something was up, but was simply in denial about it.
November 29th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Not to get into the intricacies of a show long since dead, but if the whole instutution situation had happened, it would have probably been discussed in that moment.
Buffy would’ve maybe mentioned she told her mom all this three years ago.
Joyce probably wouldn’t have said “You’re going to explain yourself!” as if she didn’t know. She would’ve just discreetly made a call to the looney bin she rang before. Unless Joyce had a complete mental breakdown and forgot she institutionalized her daughter.
That was the scene the writers used in their defense to say it wasn’t a retcon when the devoted Buffy fans (Were there casual Buffy fans?) went up in arms.
I didn’t mind the revelation, but it wasn’t canon for sure. Which is sort of a definition of a retcon.
And mind you, this happened in Season Six, when the Mutant Enemy folks were playing fast and loose with not only the continuity, but the very core and characters of the Buffyverse.
I’m a shameful, shameful geek.
November 30th, 2006 at 1:50 am
Not a hug fan of retcon. Buffy was a bad offender, which isn’t suprising when a lot of your cast are 100s of years old. The worst example was when they changed Spike’s origin from street-thug-murderer to really bad poet for the sake of a cheap laugh. It devalued the character.
If people liked your series up till this point, why would changing their perceptions of your set up make it any better? Unless you’re writing for Doctor Who and have a semi-plausible explanation as to how past events could have changed, I think you should leave history the hell alone.
November 30th, 2006 at 6:39 am
They didn’t change Spike’s origin. We hadn’t been told Spike’s origin. Viewers had assumed it, which isn’t quite the same thing. I think that’s an example of where a retcon can work best, when it re-contextualises events rather than contradict them.
November 30th, 2006 at 11:29 am
Actually, they did change Spike’s origin. When Spike first showed up and Angel confronted him, Spike asked Angel how he could now protect the humans - “You were my Sire.” “My Yoda!”
Later seasons showed that Drusilla actually sired Spike, although I’m sure the writers would argue that Spike called Angel his Sire because he mentored Spike, while not technically being his Sire.
November 30th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Retconning has been around way before Buffy.
Anyone remember the mysterious disappearance of Chuck from Happy Days?
November 30th, 2006 at 11:40 am
An even more disgusting example of Retconning has to be from the “Special Edition” of Star Wars were Creedo inexplicably shoots first at Han Solo…
November 30th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Chuck barely existed to begin with.
I love Star Wars and never got as upset as other fans over the Han/Greedo thing. I was more bothered that the effect looked awful.
I would have just inserted a shot of Greedo’s hand trying to come up to shoot Han but hitting the edge of the table instead, allowing Han to shoot first.
November 30th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Season Six, when we learn that not only did Buffy’s mother have previous knowledge that Buffy was a Slayer, Buffy actually spent time in a mental institution prior to moving to Sunnydale.
When in season six do they establish that Joyce had prior knowledge that Buffy was a Slayer? We learn that Joyce had her committed for talking about vampires and demons, but I don’t remember anything about Joyce specifically knowing about the whole Slayer angle.
(On a side note, the Buffy comics — although not taken as canon by some fans — present the idea that Dawn was responsible for getting Buffy committed. That would mean that up until fifth season the memory of being committed wouldn’t have existed.*) *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SlayerInterrupted(Buffy_comic)
November 30th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
The excellent new Brit sci-fi show Torchwood uses retcon as a plot device. In the first episode, the lead guy gives the heroine an amnesia pill “with just a dash of retcon”. In a later episode, the “retcon” ingredient of the pills is the motor for a series of murders…
November 30th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Asylum-verse Joyce did know the term “The SLayer” by the time 2002 had rolled around but it didn’t say how long she’d known it. Picking it up from Buffy’s insane ramblings. And in B”ecoming,” considering that joyce had justs een a vampire poof in front of her, she’d be unlikely to call the psychiatrist. And we don’t know how much was said between front door and couch during the commercial break. Dawn’s introduction isn’t a retcon if you define the word strictly, since the change is explained rather than explained away. The asylum bit is clsoer tot he stricter definition.
But let’s face it, given the types of fictional universes we’re discussing here, a word like “retcon” is probably more useful if it has a broad, portmanteau meaning rather than a highly specific meaning allowing for many exceptions. Then again, I’m a viewer, aspiring fiction writer, and amateur theologian, but I’m not a trained literary, film, or TV critic. So I could be wrong on that last suggestion.
November 30th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
@Dean Sure, I was responding to Oli’s comment about the move from street-thug to poet.
Away from ‘Buffy’, and towards even more extreme geekiness, it’s worth looking up Superboy-Prime’s “retcon punch”.
November 30th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
My favorite example is from the “La Femme Nikita” series on USA.
And I just learned the word “retcon” from you. Before now, I would have just called it “revisionist history,” which happens all the time where I used to work.
November 30th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
1) Spike was never a street thug.
2) The line was “You were my grandsire.”
3) Joyce didn’t know Buffy was a slayer, and had her committed because Buffy was having the Slayer dreams and talking about vampires and demons. Her parents freaked out and had her instutionalised because they didn’t know about her being the Slayer, or the Slayer being real.
4) I’m not sure the term ‘meta-retcon’ is necessary. It seems like regular old ‘retcon’ can be used to cover historical changes made deliberately but explained within the canon itself.
November 30th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
This is horribly geeky and tragic, but the most horrifying retcon I can recall is from “Saved By the Bell”. Zach often commented on his long time (since elementary school) friendship with Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley’s character). However when episodes of their junior high school years began airing, there was no Jessie to be seen. Also, to compound this issue, the final year of high school Jessie was completely missing from every episode except for the very last one, where she was competing for valedictorian! Apparently their longstanding friendship was not enough to keep Jessie in Zach’s life during school. Maybe she was too busy studying? This is why Screech was the ultimate friend, smart and present!
November 30th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Just wanted to summarize for my own clarity. Probably have to agree w/ both pauldwaite and Carey Malloy, and conclude that, ironically, Buffy has neither a real nor a “cleaned up” retcon. (But metaretcon sounds cool. I vote 4 that.) Dawn retcon: no. Asylum retcon: jury still out? Summarizing what’s been said: Dawn was not introduced into the past retroactively. It just so happened that in S5 the monks made our characters believe that she’d always existed. But this is entirely different from a retcon. Meaning, again, the writers are not telling us “Dawn existed in Buffy’s life prior to this.” (That would have been a retcon.) As for Buffy’s parents’ having put her in an institution (temporarily) when they lived in L.A., as Carey says that was/would be a retcon, but it was never reconciled with the scenes involving Joyce, and Carey says the authors themselves said it wasn’t a retcon - although it certainly looked like one to me, minus the glitch below. Analyzing only the text (the episodes itself), the door isn’t shut 100% because even though Joyce and Buffy never give any indication (in any seasons except that one episode in S6) of anything like Buffy talking about vampires or going to an asylum when she was younger, one could still make the argument that it’s just something that did happen (retconactively) but outside our view (as DaddyCatALSO points out, for instance). After all, even though Joyce never acted like the L.A. asylum thing had even existed, she doesn’t say it never has (obviously), so we can twist a little room in there. Hell, moms in BtVS have “selective memory” about burning their daughters at the stake! Maybe they can fail to mention a little trip to the asylum in front of the viewers… True, it’s not a “satisfyingly cleaned up” retcon. But in IMO, it’s only a very tiny glitch in an otherwise masterful episode.
November 30th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
My cat’s breath smells like cat food!
December 1st, 2006 at 12:52 am
Graham, In the episode “School Hard”, Spike says to Angel, “You were my sire man, you were my Yoda!” It wasn’t until “Just Rewards” in the 5th season of ‘Angel’ where Spike finally said to Angel, “You’re my grandsire,” officially putting the long-implied retcon into canon.
December 1st, 2006 at 1:16 am
Ok I’m getting all dorky and technical but…
As far as the sire thing goes - we eventually learned that Drusilla was Spike’s sire but Angel sired Drusilla.
In “School Hard” (his first appearance) Spike did call Angel his sire. I’m sure at the time the writers meant that Angel was the one who turned Spike, but the line still kind of works in continuity since Spike is still a “descendant” of Angel.
Eventually Spike had a line (sometime in the last season of Angel I believe) where he referred to Angel with the more technically correct term “grandsire�.
We are also given an incorrect age for Spike in “School Hard” but that can easily be explained away as a mistake in one of Giles’ books.
December 1st, 2006 at 2:17 am
Um… isn’t the asylum sequence in Buffy a hallucination brought on by an injury from a demon, and therefore nor retcon at all?
December 1st, 2006 at 7:02 am
“Graham says: November 30th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
1) Spike was never a street thug.
2) The line was “You were my grandsire.”
1) Although never stated it was implied. But his actual nature as a gentleman wasn’t a retcon.
2) The line was “You were my Sire man, my Yoda.” Not “grandsire”. Trust me.
December 1st, 2006 at 7:23 am
Can of worms here, huh? I’m pretty sure that there’s an episode where Giles describes pre vamp Spike as a “vicious young murderer” - I think it’s one of the early Season Twoers.
On a related note, isn’t it nice that many John August fans also seem to be Buffy fans?
December 1st, 2006 at 8:50 am
I think another retconning of a TV show is Family Matters. Remember the third sibling..Jamie? She left I believe..in season 1 or 2? And they never explained. It’s like she never existed! But the actress did say she couldn’t be on the show anymore.
December 1st, 2006 at 11:52 am
“Um… isn’t the asylum sequence in Buffy a hallucination brought on by an injury from a demon, and therefore not retcon at all?”
Anonymous is correct. Anyone who thinks that actually happened should go watch the epsiode again. In fact, all episodes in any Whedon show should be watched a second time. I’m always amazed at the outright false interpretations of Whedon’s work. Like the person who thinks they changed Spike’s back story not understanding that we saw the old VAMPIRE Spike’s backstory first and then discovered his human backstory later.
December 1st, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Rasselas… Anonymous is correct, and so are the other posters. In the 6th season episode “Normal Again”, a demon’s venom did make her believe she was in an insane asylum, and that her Slayer life was a delusion.
HOWEVER…
In Buffy’s extended history, the events of the the comedy movie are sort of canon (sort of). After those events (I can’t remember which episode this was recounted) she admitted to her parents what had happened and her Slayer life. She WAS committed by her parents at that point, and she remained in the institution for a couple of weeks until she saw that convincing anyone that she was telling the truth was hopeless. So she kept her mouth shut.
Wikipedia touches on this — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_Summers
But anyway, sorry this became the Buffy forum, John.
Retcon has been part of my comic book reading for a long time, especially with DC’s history-rewriting events, and Marvel’s sliding timescale (Iron Man Tony Stark meeting friend Jim Rhodes in the 1st Gulf War instead of in Vietnam as was originally written).
December 2nd, 2006 at 6:50 pm
If the Buffy convention would not mind… to the question Can one be a comic book fan and still not know much about ‘retcon’? I guess Mamet’s dictum still applies, about language being a tool for the confusion of the layman. For me, also in the dark about ‘retcon’ until recently, and always thinking I had exceeded the recommended usage of one’s lifetime for comics appreciation, it is such a pleasure to stumble upon admissions that give one’s self esteem a comparatively ephemeral and yet much-needed boost. On the other hand, now I have no excuse but to hurry up with that idea involving retcon…
December 3rd, 2006 at 1:37 am
W/ apologies to those of you tired of the Buffy focus here: this whole thing was inititated by pointing to Buffy specifically in the matter of retcon/metaretcon. and to clarify: 1) the issue of the asylum has been debated for years. No one can claim for certain that the entire (6 yrs) asylum thing was just a delusion caused by the venom. The very DVD commentary itself in that episode, says explicitly that Joss Whedon himself changed the original ending to the one we see, specifically because he did not want us to conlcude that it was due to the venom, and he did want to leave it quite possible that the entire show might indeed be the hallucination of a woman who is in a mental institution. To at least leave that possibility open. the issue i was refering to as retcon (and referencing Carey’s and DaddyCatALSO’s comments) was about Buffy spending a brief and limited period in an institution before she came to Sunnydale. This is something she surprisingly admits to Willow in the S6 asylum episode, and she says this in a scene at home, not just in the scenes in the asylum. Again, this is the admission that might qualify as a retcon. forgive me for being boring. i just want to get the facts straight asylum for 6 yrs and entire Buffy/Sunnydale life a delusion? we’ll never know for sure, and this is precisely how Joss Whedon wanted it. short and limited asylum stint pre-Sunnydale? Possible retcon, but poorly cleared up.
December 4th, 2006 at 3:29 am
Boy… did you ever open a can of worms. That’ll teach you to mention Buffy on your site again.
Interesting look at the demographic of your readers though!
December 28th, 2007 at 7:47 am
OH… MY… GOD…
This explains soooo much.
In the last year I’ve been given 5 scripts, each containing the words, “Vampire Slayer” in the title. 2 revolving around a “Hell Mouth”. All of which were “original material”.
Sorry for saying it, but… Woa you guys.