Basic Trope: Revising or rewriting past events or Canon elements to serve a current plot need.
- Straight: In the first two seasons of the show Bob's Crazy Adventures, Alice and Bob are cousins. Starting in the third season, Alice and Bob are a Sibling Team, and they have a cousin named Claire who didn't even exist in earlier episodes.
- Exaggerated: The show undergoes several mid-season retcons during its run, and the stars Alice and Bob are the only characters common to every season of the show.
- Downplayed:
- Alice's appearance changes in the fourth season.
- Bob's last name used to be spelled "Freemann", but it was later changed to "Freeman".
- Alice and Bob appear to be siblings, only to changed to cousins. Bob only calls Alice's father "dad" because he's more of a father than his actual one.
- Justified:
- It's an altered reality.
- Bob had his name legally changed.
- Bob was adopted.
- They were revealed to be lying about being cousins and simply didn't mention their actual cousin previously.
- Inverted: The writer reverts the canon to its previous version.
- Subverted:
- The retcon was All Just a Dream.
- The third season is an Alternate Continuity spinoff, separate from the main series.
- The 'retcon' isn't as incompatible with previous canon as commonly believed. EG: In the Western Bob's Crazy Adventures, Charles is stated to be a Mexican in season 1 and 2, and a Texan in the subsequent seasons as Texas didn't join the USA until the period between seasons 2 and 3, meaning that he was a Mexican Texan in the first two seasons
- Double Subverted:
- When Bob wakes up, we see that a completely different retcon is in effect.
- The writer makes the third season Canon due to its popularity.
- Parodied: In the third season of Bob’s Crazy Adventures, any and all familiar characters are completely gone, and replaced with new ones. There isn’t even a single character named Bob. By the fourth season, Alice, Bob, and the other characters are back, and the show continues as if the third season never happened.
- Zig Zagged: Whether Alice and Bob are siblings or cousins is Depending on the Writer.
- Averted: Nothing is rewritten.
- Enforced:
- This is done to omit countless Plot Threads that would be nearly impossible to resolve.
- The title of something (such as a business) in the universe of Bob's Crazy Adventures was an instance of Getting Crap Past the Radar, but the censors finally caught onto the name and told them to change it.
- It's the Long Runner show with now-controversial elements in early episodes, so the creators decide to cut the said things off and replace by the more acceptable one.
- Lampshaded: "The new season of Bob's Crazy Adventures: It's Bob like you've never seen him before!"
- Invoked: Peggy Sue
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: The Status Quo Demon prevents all retcons.
- Discussed: "Something doesn't feel right here..."
- Conversed: "Why is this show so different from what it used to be? It's like the characters have nothing in common with their old versions, except for the names."
- Deconstructed: A fan writes a Fix Fic which uses the old canon.
- Reconstructed: The Fix Fic becomes Ascended Fanon.
- Plotted A Good Waste: The writer decides to leave a mistake in.
Everything you knew about Retcons is wrong! See for yourself!
