History Main / Retcon

* Wiki/{{Taerel Setting}}: Happened many times in the setting's history, such as the lore of the very first version using B.P.D (Before present-day) dates, later redone to XE XXX dates. The names of the clans being retconned from Elder Scrolls stolen names to original names. And as of June 2022, the era numbers being retconned in a timeline revamp.

* ContinuitySnarl: In shared universes that undergo changes in management (new generations of creative teams), contemporary writers are less inclined to slavishly adhere to internal consistency with plots,events, or visual style that were written twenty, thirty, forty or more years ago, especially when those older stories are [[Sandbox/FloatingTimeline now outdated as they were originally presented.]]

->''Everything you knew about Wiki/TVTropes is '''wrong'''!''[[note]]Well, not really.[[/note]]

* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl'' features Jack's compass that doesn't point north. This is used to locate Isla de Muerta. The original intent was that the compass leads to the island, but the line of dialogue establishing this was cut from the finished movie. When the sequel ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest'' came along, the writers were able to take advantage of this and instead established that the compass didn't point to Isla de Muerta, but to what the compass' user wanted most. This reframes the compass' use in the first film, as when Jack was using the compass to travel to Isla de Muerta, it wasn't point to the island itself, but to the ''Black Pearl'' en route, which was what Jack wanted most.

* Bob and Otto from the ''WesternAnimation/Minions'' franchise are nowhere to be seen in the ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' franchise. They're not even spoken of! Whatever happened to 'em? Find theories [[Headscratchers/Minions:TheRiseOfGru here]].

* Bob and Otto from the ''WesternAnimation/Minions'' franchise are nowhere to be seen in the ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' franchise. They're not even spoken of! Whatever happened to 'em? Find theories [[Headscratchers/Minions:TheRiseofGru here]].

* ContinuitySnarl: In shared universes that undergo changes in management (new generations of creative teams), contemporary writers are less inclined to slavishly adhere to internal consistency with plots and events that were written twenty, thirty, forty or more years ago, especially when those older stories are [[Sandbox/FloatingTimeline now outdated as they were presented.]]

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: A character disappeared from the narrative without explanation.

* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': WordOfGod says that the author of the Phase novels only started years after the series started, and reinterpreted everything she didn't like about Phase's behavior in such a way that there were no outward changes (everything in prior stories was 'right' or 'slightly misheard') but all of Phase's actions were explained.

* While not happening all the time, it is not uncommon for certain characters to be retconned in ''Roleplay/MarvelsRPG''. This will mainly happen if a new member wish to use a scrapped character that haven't done much before (s)he was scrapped.

* In ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'', at the end of the episode "Bardock: Father of Goku", Cooler lets Goku's escape pod get away even though he's close enough to eliminate it. When asked why, he simply says "because I'm a prick". In the movie "Revenge of Cooler", they replayed this scene, except instead Cooler says he won't destroy it because Frieza only owns this section of the universe because he whined to his dad, and its his problem if this comes back to bite him.
* ''WebVideo/LG15TheResistance'' applied a couple of these to ''WebVideo/{{lonelygirl15}}'', such as the revelation that Sarah [[spoiler:was evil all along]] or that Jonas [[spoiler:is a trait positive male]].

** An actual plot point in ''WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee'' in which all continuity errors in the Website/ChannelAwesome universe [[spoiler: was an effect of the PlotHole, a physical embodiment of, well, that trope]]. Specifically called out was [[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment The Spoony One]] and [[MadScientist Doctor Insano]] being the same person in WebVideo/{{Kickassia}}, when in all other respects they are separate people.

** Hasbro had earlier stated that the Franchise/TransformersAlignedUniverse isn't part of the larger Transformers [[TheMultiverse multiverse]]. Between ''VideoGame/TransformersRiseOfTheDarkSpark'' (which involves the titular artifact going from the Aligned universe to the universe of [[Film/TransformersFilmSeries the movies]] [[spoiler: and a [[Franchise/TransformersGenerationOne Generation One universe]]]]), the ''Ask [[Anime/TransformersCybertron Vector Prime]]'' column (which confirmed the events of ''Dark Spark'' revealed the existence of the Aligned universe to the larger Multiverse), and ''[[AllThereInTheManual The Complete]] [[WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated AllSpark Almanac]]'' (which also mentioned the Aligned universe), ''[[ComicBook/TheTransformers Regeneration One]]'' (which has a subplot of Hot Rod seeing all his counterparts, including his Aligned incarnation from the DS version of ''War for Cybertron''), and [[Franchise/TransformersTimelines Andromeda - Axiom Nex]][[ComicBook/TransformersTransTech us News Reporter]], this has since been changed.\\\

* {{Retgone}}: A character {{In-Universe}} is told to not exist.

* Happens twice in the ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' franchise, specifically ''Film/GodzillaVsMegaguirus'' and ''Film/GodzillaFinalWars''.

* In ''Film/JurassicPark'', the T-Rex didn't eat Dr. Grant because it couldn't see nonmoving objects (in [[Literature/JurassicPark the book]], this was in fact a result of splicing dinosaur DNA with frog DNA). In [[Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark the sequel]], this was retconned to rather be that [[RightForTheWrongReasons Grant's theories on the T-Rex were wrong, and in fact it ignored him because it wasn't hungry]].

* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl'' features Jack's compass that doesn't point north. This is used to locate Isla de Muerta. The original intent was that the compass leads to the island, but the line of ddialogue establishing this was cut from the finished movie. When the sequel ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest'' came along, the writers were able to take advantage of this and instead established that the compass didn't point to Isla de Muerta, but to what the compass' user wanted most. This reframes the compass' use in the first film, as when Jack was using the compass to travel to Isla de Muerta, it wasn't point to the island itself, but to the ''Black Pearl'' en route, which was what Jack wanted most.

** When the game first came out in 1984, the majority of the HumongousMecha used artwork licensed from Japanese anime, mostly Anime/{{Macross}}. Flash forward to 1994, and the American distributor of Macross [[ExecutiveMeddling sues the bejesus]] out of FASA. The mechs listed in the suit (most notably, the de-facto SeriesMascot Warhammer and Marauder) could no longer be depicted in artwork, and [[UnPerson republications of older sourcebooks had to edit them out]]. However, the mechs still existed InUniverse, unchanged, and newer lawyer-friendly art with altered designs were explicitly different variants. The mechs original designs were retconned in 2015; the original designs are now non-canonical.
** In the ''Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse'', the first novels depicting the high-tech Clan Invasion were written ''before'' the new sourcebooks were released (packed full of recovered/rediscovered Inner Sphere LostTechnology), leading to the protagonists seemingly flabbergasted by Clan technology that the Inner Sphere was already producing.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' has undergone quite a few of these through its four editions, including entire races being retconned out. Anyone younger than 20 remember the Squats? Didn't think so. The official policy on the Squats now appears to be that the entire race was murderlised by one of the Tyranid Hive Fleets. The Tyranids are God's gift to retconners. "Hey, what happened to those guys?" "Eaten by Tyranids." And then Ret Conception kicked in with the game's 6th edition, which brought the Squats back as a race of abhumans tolerated by the Imperium.

Related concepts for explaining away retcons can include the HandWave or {{Lampshad|eHanging}}ing. See also an InternalRetcon, for retcons within a fictional universe, or ExternalRetcon, for retcons in real life.

* In a rare in-universe example, the LemonyNarrator of the essay-fic, ''FanFic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'', crosses out sentences from sources she cites as soon as they disagree with something else she's been saying. It only points out her alterations of history even more.
* The rewrite of ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'' not only retconned huge parts of the original, but it also retconned nearly all of the author's prequel story ''Fall of the Seedrians'' as well - to the point where the author discontinued the prequel entirely.

* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' FanFic "Pattycakes" was first written so that a badly derailed Fluttershy [[MindRape broke Rainbow Dash's will]] and caused her to regress to a childlike mental state. Given that a) the psychological torture involved consisted of bondage mitts, oatmeal, a bottle and a nappy and b) the whole thing took less than a day, a second part still referred to Dash as "mentally broken" but hung part of the plot on Dash's condition being the result of a mental regression drug Fluttershy had invented.
* In the ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' series, Nat, Snappy, and Slouchy were never adult Smurfs that became Smurflings to begin with, as they were rewritten to be Smurflings coming straight from Smurfling Island. As a result, a few stories that were adapted from the cartoon show that originally featured the adult Nat Smurf were rewritten to feature [[TheBartender Tapper]] as [[FriendToAllLivingThings a nature-friendly Christian]] who uses the power of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} to influence animal beings such as Azrael and a pack of sharks.
* ''FanFic/FantasyOfUtterRidiculousness'': The Alternate Ending was initially supposed to be a non-canon "What If?" scenario, as the author had intended for the previous chapter to be the story's true conclusion and had no intention of writing more. Eventually it was incorporated into the story's timeline via the Extra Stage, if only as one of a series of bad dreams Patchouli was having.
* ''Fanfic/DoYouBelieveInFairies'': The name of Cadance's silkworm was retroactively changed from a Coco Chanel reference to a Vera Wang reference because the writer thought Coco was too problematic.
* ''Fanfic/RWBYScars'': During volume 4, the writer rewrote a volume 1 scene where Yang hits Weiss. It counted as EarlyInstallmentWeirdness but was still too OOC for the story.
* In ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'', at the end of the episode "Bardock: Father of Goku", Cooler lets Goku's escape pod get away even though he's close enough to eliminate it. When asked why, he simply says "because I'm a prick". In the movie "Revenge of Cooler", they replayed this scene, except instead Cooler says he won't destroy it because Frieza only owns this section of the universe because he whined to his dad, and its his problem if this comes back to bite him.
* To better match the lore and backstory later revealed in ''VideoGame/DOOMEternal'', the author of ''Fanfic/RemnantInferisDOOM'' had certain chapters given minor revamps and rewrites regarding Argent D'Nur and the Doom Slayer. For example, Aelia and Doomguy originally had a pleasant first meeting in a field. In the revamped version, [[spoiler:it was after he was severely wounded and driven mad from his final battle with the Icon of Sin, in which she tried to tend to his wounds]]. Another is that the Marauder speaks in the rewritten versions when he was silent originally.
* ''Fanfic/BoldoresandBoomsticks'': Professor Cypress' name used to be spelled UsefulNotes/{{Cyprus}} until a reader pointed out that it is "a country you go to either on vacation or to launder blood money" instead of a tree like most Pokémon professors.