Examples of Aborted Arc in Literature. Beware of potential unmarked spoilers.
- Animorphs:
- The main characters once encountered a new type of Controller called the Garatron, which was incredibly hard to defeat given that it could run ridiculously fast. After finally managing to defeat one after a book they comment there's a good chance they'll be fighting more of them soon. They never do.
- Book 41, "The Familiar" centers on a Bad Future where the Yeerks have conquered Earth, but even In-Universe nothing makes sense, with numerous cases of A Glitch in the Matrix. The plot railroads Jake into a choice between saving Cassie or the human race. We don't find out what he picks, but at that point it's revealed (unsurprisingly) to be All Just a Dream while a mysterious voice says that humans require "more study." Nothing ever reveals what put Jake through this random test, though Word of God rules out the Ellimist or Crayak, the two most likely suspects.
- A few off-hand references are made to the Yeerks having some presence on the Andalite homeworld, but this never developed into anything and by her own admission Applegate just forgot about it.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- The novel Queen of Slayers, capped off with Buffy becoming psychically pregnant with an embryo that was the composite daughter of both Spike and Angel — Buffy's most popular love interests over the course of the series. It's ignored by later authors for obvious reasons, though Spike and Angel being told about it would probably be hilarious. It's also one of the many spin-offs and fanfics that were retconned out of existence by the S8 comic's revelations about what was really going on in Italy.
- A couple of tie-in novels seem to have gotten aborted. Books like The Journal of Rupert Giles, The Cordelia Collection and Angel's The Longest Night clearly had Vol.1 on their covers, but no more were ever made.
- Cat Chaser: A major plot in the first half of the book is Moran searching for Luci Palma, a revolutionary sniper who had captured him and subsequently saved his life. The plot is discussed after he leaves the Dominican Republic, although it plays a role in Rafi's attempt to scam him.
- The Discworld novel Thud! ends with the Patrician taking control of a network of dwarf tunnels under the city, many of which have rails laid down, and also a dwarfish power source with infinite torque. Making Money and Unseen Academicals go into further detail about "The Grand Undertaking", which the Patrician has planned for these tunnels. Oddly, this goes unmentioned in Raising Steam, which introduces actual steam trains, and Died During Production means that we will never see the completed underground system, unless it appears in The Watch TV series.
- Earth's Children:
- Ayla's son Durc is set up to play an important role as one of the half-Clan/half-Other children and potential future leader of his clan in The Clan of the Cave Bear, but he's never seen again after Ayla leaves the Clan besides in dreams and visions. To be fair, the series is focused on Ayla and her journey rather than Durc's, and it's made repeatedly clear that Ayla will never see her son again in this lifetime, so both Ayla and the reader are left to wonder what kind of life Durc leads now.
- In The Plains of Passage, Ayla and Jondalar befriend a Clan couple who live within trading distance of the Zelandonii and the Lanzadonii. In The Shelters of Stone, Ayla starts changing some people's minds about the Clan merely being animals and Willomar, the Trade Master of the Zelandonii, says he'd be open to trading with them. This sets up a plotline in which the Zelandonii and Clan attempt to develop a better relationship, with Ayla acting as an intermediary given her knowledge of the Clan's ways and language, but it never comes up in the final book.
- Flashman and the Dragon ends with Flashman attempting to blackmail the woman who tricked him into gun-running past Chinese authorities. It rapidly becomes clear that she has outwitted him, and the book ends with her husband, thought missing, and a shadowy figure asking what seems to be a drugged Flashman if he is enjoying his drink and clearly intending him mischief. If Fraser intended to delve into this any deeper, he passed before he had the chance; the next chronological story takes place seven years later in Abyssinia, and the incident is never mentioned again.
- Harry Potter:
- Florean Fortescue, an ice-cream maker who was noted a few books. In Prisoner of Azkaban, he's mentioned helping Harry with his History of Magic homework, Order of the Phoenix namedropped a former Hogwarts Headmaster named Dexter Fortescue, and Half-Blood Prince mentioned him vanishing, likely dragged off by Death Eaters. J. K. Rowling was planning to foreshadow him being the one who explained the various historical magical artifacts to turn up in Deathly Hallows, but she eventually decided that the subplot wasn't going anywhere, and handed the explanations to other characters, with Fortescue's disappearance never being revisited.
- There's also Harry's mind-blocking Occlumency training in Order of the Phoenix. The goal was for Harry to learn Occlumency from Snape in order for him to block out the visions that he's been receiving from Voldemort. However, the Occlumency classes end up being dropped before Harry completes the training, so the visions continue anyway. Harry being partially taught in Occlumency also never comes into play afterwards.
- The manga version of I Stopped Working Because I Was Expelled From The Hero’sParty After They Denounced Me as a Coward ends with a lot of dangling plot threads unresolved. Such as former party members who were sent to recruit Nicola under threat just giving up on that with seemingly no worry about repercussions. Not to mention all the political intrigue that got laser-focused on him that is just never addressed at all.
- Jurassic Park (1990) ends with the revelation that some dinosaurs have escaped to the Costa Rican mainland. Once Site B is introduced, no mention is made of them. This is briefly discussed in the second book, where a character mentions that they tried to look for them and found nothing, but the jungles of Costa Rica are dense enough that they could easily remain hidden there. It should also be noted that Michael Crichton hated sequels, and that The Lost World (1995) was only written at the insistence of Steven Spielberg so that he could make a 2nd movie. Thus many parts had to be retconned and threads that were meant to be left open to illustrate the unleashed dangers were ignored. Made worse by the fact Spielberg used very little of the 2nd book for the sequel movie(s).
- The end of The Final Warning, the 4th book in the Maximum Ride series ends with a cliffhanger: The Voice tells Max about a mission that she should go on. The 5th book, Max, begins with a CSM show, with no mention of the mission from the 4th book ever again.
- In The Mister, Kit's widow Caroline brings up that she thinks she may be pregnant with Kit's child, who would potentially displace Maxim as Kit's heir (Maxim being Kit's younger brother), but this plot point ultimately goes nowhere.
- A major hazard of the multi-author format of the New Jedi Order series. Perhaps most notable were the arcs dealing with the Insiders, a conspiracy set up by the heroes that was to keep La Résistance going even if the Yuuzhan Vong destroyed the New Republic, and Tahiri's possible destiny as a half-human half-Yuuzhan Vong Dark Messiah, but smaller arcs were dropped as well.
- Oliver Twisted: In the original story, Oliver Twist, a nurse steals a locket from Oliver's dying mother and it ends up in Monks' possession, just for him to throw it down the river Thames to erase proof of Oliver's identity. In this story, there is no Monks, and nothing comes of the nurse stealing the mother's locket. Furthermore, Claypole and Charlotte are no longer involved in the story after Oliver escapes the Sowerberrys' home.
- Perry Rhodan, given its nature as an extreme Long Runner written by a team of authors, is quite full of plot lines that simply disappear and/or come to a sudden (and usually bad) end after a lot of buildup. It's actually quite common for a new character to be introduced - or for a formerly random mook to be given an upgrade to Mauve Shirt along with Nominal Importance and a half-chapter Backstory - only to be killed off-screen in the next issue. One particularly bad example from the early days of the series includes a hobo-turned-scientist (with the long and poignant backstory this implies; it takes up about half an issue)... who is killed on his first mission. By a falling tree. On Venus. Very slightly after it seemed he might experience happiness for the first time in his life.
- The Railway Series: The Fat Controller says that if Wilbert proves useful during his visit to Sodor, he knows where to find another Austerity tank engine to help on the branch lines. Between 1994's Wilbert the Forest Engine and 2011's Thomas and his Friends, this is never brought up again.
- K.A. Applegate's series Remnants became a major Kudzu Plot, with many arcs were left undone by the end—most egregiously, what the "Ancient Enemy" was and how both the Troika and Billy related to it.
- Star Trek Expanded Universe:
- The Rihannsu novels repeatedly have the Klingons turn up briefly and look like they're going to get more deeply involved in the story (they turn up in Swordhunt raiding a Romulan colony, then there's a scene at the High Council, and then they attack Artaleirh in Chair), and just as quickly are forgotten each time in favor of the Romulan/Federation story.
- The Star Trek: Voyager Relaunch novels switched authors after book four, and there's at least one major Aborted Arc. By the end of the Spirit Walk books, arch-foe the rogue changeling had taken control of the government on the planet Kerovi. No-one knew he was there, and he was clearly up to something dangerous. It seemed as though the arc was being set up to be a big one, but it was swiftly dropped in Full Circle, the first novel from the second author. He was discovered, and arrested by the Kerovi authorities. In fact, the changeling then dies off screen. We don't even visit Kerovi in Full Circle.
- In "The Stones Are Hatching" Uncle Murdo tells Phelim that his companions are working for the Stoor Worm and the Obby Oss is a hatchling. This is never mentioned again; this is odd because Murdo had little reason to lie, yet Sweeney, Alexia and the Obby Oss never show any signs of being aligned with the Stoor Worm.
- In Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, the second volume brings up how Karen "LLENN" Kohiruimaki is taking great pains to keep her Gun Gale Online playing a secret from her family, who disapproves of VRMMO games after roughly 4,000 people died playing Sword Art Online. As Karen begins putting even more hours into GGO to prepare for the second Squad Jam, her sister becomes concerned about her not answering the phone, and Karen can't say why. Volume 4 skips ahead to months after the second Squad Jam, during which time Karen barely played at all, so this plotline has presumably been forgotten about.
- Tower and the Hive: At the climax of the third book, Damia's Children, Zara makes a mental connection to the captive Hiver queen, thus can tell that the temperature in her enclosure is set too low. Zara lets the authorities (who had failed in every attempt to communicate with the queen and couldn't figure out why she seemed to be going dormant) know. This saves the queen's life and seemed to be a breakthrough in communicating with, thus understanding, the Hivers. This plot point is ignored in the next book, Lyon's Pride. And when it is mentioned again, it's in the context of "We don't know how Zara did it, neither does she, and we haven't been able to do it again" and ignored, past the implication that Zara's refusal to take part in operations against Hiver ships was due to her mental connection. She's eventually Put on a Bus to Earth to study medicine and is never mentioned again after that.
- Ward:
- In one interlude, we're shown Teacher's faction laying the groundwork for some kind of plan on Earth Cheit, by using Mama Mathers' power to plant the seeds for manipulating the minds of their world leaders. Nothing ever comes of this, and Earth Cheit is seemingly entirely forgotten about for the rest of the story, despite political tensions with them suggesting a conflict would happen at some point.
- The Machine Army is frequently referenced as a very big threat that is slowly but surely approaching a portal to the City the story takes place in. During the final arc, they arrive in force and starting wreaking havoc, though with multiple other, much more serious threats happening they're largely relegated to the background. Once the main threat is resolved, however, we're not given any information about what happened with the Machine Army or how exactly they were apparently stopped.
- Wild Cards had some plots abandoned, presumably because some creators left, probably taking their copyrighted characters with them. Tachyon's infection with the Typhoid version of the virus is treated as something that can be cured by another character who disappears from the series. Tachyon is also jumped into a different woman than his girlfriend, a Chris Claremont creation.
- In the Dale Brown novel Wings of Fire, one plotline involves Sky Masters, Inc. being the victim of a takeover, with the heads of the purchasing company having a Child Prodigy daughter that really impresses Jon. All this is seemingly forgotten by the next book.
- Worm: The arrival of Leviathan results in a few of these, because the author decided to up the stakes by doing a dice roll for every character involved in the battle to see if they lived or died. This meant a couple of storylines got abruptly cut short because the characters involved were killed in battle with Leviathan. Most notably, a supervillain named "Kaiser" was clearly being setup as the next Arc Villain for the story, but Leviathan kills him, rendering all the build up moot.
