History Main / ExternalRetcon

* The common External Retcon for Holmes is given a nod in the Season Two finale of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'', where Moriarty convinces everyone that he's an innocent actor and Holmes only cooked up the "Moriarty" arch-nemesis so that he could commit crimes himself, "solve" them, and look good. Given what an InsufferableGenius the Holmes of that series is, many people believe it.

* The common External Retcon for Holmes is given a nod in the Season Two finale of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'', where Moriarty convinces everyone that he's an innocent actor and Holmes only cooked up the "Moriarty" arch-nemesis so that he had someone to catch to show off and look good. Given how Holmes of that series is an InsufferableGenius, most everyone ''does'' believe it.

When very well done, this can result in interesting and thought-provoking works. When not done well (more often), it can turn into simple attacks on previous works, or attempts to impose today's passing standards onto a story set in a time before those passing standards became the flavor of the month, and often the result is merely irritating.

* The TV show ''Series/{{Alias}}'' fanfic halo is notorious for this, with almost endless external retcons trying to recast the character of Irina Derevko, played by Lena Olin, as a misunderstood heroine who just loved her husband and daughter, and meant well. The canonical evidence for loving her husband and daughter(s) is ambiguous, the canonical evidence for 'meant well' is essentially non-existent.

* The Snowflame fan comic gives a backstory to the eponymous character, originally a one-shot joke villain from ''TheNewGuardians'' [[MemeticMutation who became ridiculously popular on the internet]]. Here he's a Columbian gangster named Fabian Orosco who was possessed by an evil spirit.

** Saberehagen's ''The Frankenstein Papers'' likewise deals with what "really" happened between {{Frankenstein}} and his creation: [[spoiler: the creature wasn't created by Frankenstein, it was an alien who got EasyAmnesia and was told it was his creation, so he believed it. Frankenstein's attempt to create life was a failure, and was even more morally dubious than in the original: his research had been funded by slave traders who wanted to ''market'' his creations, hence his aborted attempt to create a breeding female.]]

* ''TheDraculaTape'' by FredSaberhagen, in which {{Dracula}} explains how the events described in Bram Stoker's novel resulted from a series of terrible misunderstandings.

* From comics: The version of the events of ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' found in ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' reveals that what killed the Martians was not just Earth microbes, but a virus deliberately engineered by none other than [[Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau Dr. Moreau]], at the behest of a {{steampunk}}ish TheMenInBlack organisation. Much of the premise of this comic is also an ExternalRetcon: Most of the members of the league, who are all characters lifted from existing works of fiction, are revealed to have faked their own deaths before the beginning of the narrative. The prose at the end of each volume also fits this trope, since it contains many, many retcons of other works; for example, an explanation of ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' as a trip to a horrible world where the rules of logic did not exist, and after ''Through the Looking Glass'', Alice starves to death [[MirrorChemistry because the chirality of her body's molecules has been reversed and thus proteins from Earth food can no longer bond with her]].
** It's worth noting that Alice actually considered that possibility in the original story.

* In the ''{{Robotech}}'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4210098/1/Valkyrie_Nights Valkyrie Nights]]'', detectives from the Macross City Police Department chase a serial killer into the under-construction SDF-1 ''Macross''. The serial killer detonates a grenade, [[spoiler: which damages the hyperspace fold drive, thus causing the fold drive to disappear when it is first used to escape the Zentraedi]].

* ''Confessions of a Teen Sleuth'' is an external retcon of the ''NancyDrew'' series, narrated by Nancy herself.

* The ''WesternAnimation/TotalDramaIsland'' reimagining, ''Fanfic/TheLegendOfTotalDramaIsland'' has elements of this, as is perhaps the nature of reimaginings. TheStoryteller tends to depict the contestants more realistically and multidimensionally than the canon does, justified in-universe by her insider perspective. She also makes references to {{manipulative editing}} by the producers, who wanted the finished episodes to suggest that the teams don't get along as well as they do.

* ''Literature/TheLookingGlassWars'' starts out by revealing that [[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice]] (actually spelled "Alyss") is a lost princess of the real Wonderland. When she ended up in our world, she told Charles Dodgeson her plight in the hopes that he'd write a tell-all book, and he proceeded to get everything she'd told him wrong.

* ''StarslipCrisis'': the Cirbozoids [[http://starslip.com/2008/01/28/starslip-number-705/ take responsibility]] for ''{{Cloverfield}}''.

* Creator/CSLewis's ''TillWeHaveFaces'' is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, told by Istra (Psyche)'s older sister Orual. Orual is inspired to write the story after hearing the myth and being angered by what she sees as the gods' self-serving version of the events. [[spoiler:Turns out her version is somewhat self-serving as well, and the second part is itself a retcon of the first part, revealing that some events were closer to the original version than Orual]]'s.

* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'': In explaining the difference between "denouement" and "end", Snicket "reveals" the distant endings of several Fairy Tales, involving the rather non-fantastical deaths of the heroes.

** The writer of ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'', Gregory Maguire, has made a cottage industry out of this practice, also creating revisionist versions of "Literature/{{Cinderella}}" (''Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister''), "Literature/SnowWhite" (''Mirror Mirror'') and ''Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow'' (''Lost'').

* In ''DragonBallAbridged'', the reason King Kai told Goku the planet Vegeta was [[RocksFallEveryoneDies destroyed by a meteor]] instead of the real reason was because Freeza [[WikiVandal vandalized the wiki page]] and [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny Goku lost interest]] before King Kai could check the edit history.
** Goku questions Freeza's ability to tell time some time after he says Namek will blow up in 5 minutes.

* ''Room 237'' is a movie about all of the theories regarding the symbolism and meaning behind [[Film/TheShining]].

* ''Room 237'' is a movie about all of the theories regarding the symbolism and meaning behind [[TheShining]]

* ''Room 237'' is a movie about all of the theories regarding the symbolism and meaning behind [[TheShinning]]

* From comics: The version of the events of ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' found in ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' reveals that what killed the Martians was not just Earth microbes, but a virus deliberately engineered by none other than [[Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau Dr. Moreau]], at the behest of a {{steampunk}}ish TheMenInBlack organisation. Much of the premise of this comic is also an ExternalRetcon: Most of the members of the league, who are all characters lifted from existing works of fiction, are revealed to have faked their own deaths before the beginning of the narrative. The prose at the end of each volume also fits this trope, since it contains many, many retcons of other works; for example, an explanation of ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' as a trip to a horrible world where the rules of logic did not exist, and after ''Through the Looking Glass'', Alice starves to death because the chirality of her body's molecules has been reversed and thus proteins from Earth food can no longer bond with her.

* From comics: The version of the events of ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' found in ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' reveals that what killed the Martians was not just Earth microbes, but a virus deliberately engineered by none other than [[Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau Dr. Moreau]], at the behest of a {{steampunk}}ish TheMenInBlack organisation. Much of the premise of this comic is also an ExternalRetcon: Most of the members of the league, who are all characters lifted from existing works of fiction, are revealed to have faked their own deaths before the beginning of the narrative. The prose at the end of each volume also fits this trope, since it contains many, many retcons of other works; for example, an explanation of ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' as a trip to a horrible world where the rules of logic did not exist, and after ''Through the Looking Glass'', Alice dies because of organ reversal.