Lit Retconned Sources and Reading older material with Retcons in mind...

I love the Art of the Retcon, truly if one excells at it, it is a gift that did a lot for SW. On the other hand, some also overdid it and we ended up with some heavily retconned sources and some where casual readers may despair as to what retcon from what source when is applicable.. or still applicable since the retcon has been retconned as well already.

What sources are the most retconned? Which feature most retcons applied to them?

Probably futile or people too lazy to do it or too busy I guess but: Can we list sources and retcons to keep in mind when reading them? Such a list might be handy, even for Wookieepedia if anybody ever would attempt it.

Which retcons are the most popular? Which retcons are the most loved, which the most loathed?

Essential Guide to Retcons... kinda. The Essential Readers Companion provided some but far from all retcons in their comments to the listed stories.

Which characters are the most retconned? Which characters are actually someone else in a story thx to retcons? Which are merged?

Which dates or settings are the most retconned? Timeline stuff is among the most complex of retcons at times. Some retcons only work or are recognised in a combination of several sources and mentions or clever hidden by some authors.

So... anybody up for some fun compiling? Debate if a retcon helped or hurt a story may happen as well but friendly of course I hope and without bashing. Especially as some retcons rather show disrespect for earlier sources and authors and others respectfully update them.

 

I mean is A New Hope the most retconned film since it kinda being the center of everything and so early on and every new addition make us change our viewing of it


Also this is a fun topic and one I bring up from time to time

 

I would submit that Tales of the Jedi might be the most retconned comic series; its own arcs get retconned by subsequent arcs in the same series, after all!

I personally try to keep as many retcons out of my reading or watching experience I can and try to interpret the work as it was intended by the author. Only afterwards do I start processing retcons. The only works I can’t do this with is the two KOTOR games and the OT, which are just solidly one storyline in my head.

I appreciate a good retcon, but it’s the ones that connect multiple story elements or add extra continuity between stories that I like the best over “this story didn’t happen the way it’s shown,” like the ones that happen to TOTJ. Generally, the only times I really like those types of retcons are when an ending/conclusion to an organization or event is reversed, because if there’s more story to be told then I want more story.

 

For me it depends I’ve learned to role with the Retcon punched and just except them.

but I do enjoy looking at there original intent from time to time

I’ll say that with somethings it’s easier than others

I can but Force Awakens and Rogue One existing in the same universe

it’s a bit harder to look at Clone Wars 2008 and Revenge of the Sith and see the compatibility

 

Retconning is the only gymnastics I am fit to do.

 

@ColeFardreamer

I mean i guess the most loved is Vader being Luke's father if one counts that as a retcon

Most loathed, IDK, depends on who you ask, some people loath Rey being a Palpatine, some don't like Maul being alive in TCW to this day although some might love it these days now where it played out. I myself wasn't a fan of how much Vitate played a role in Revan's fall to the Dark Side

Hmm...Not sure i mean? I guess Sourcebooks get retconned but then updated later with new information?? Not sure on that one.

 

I dunno about anyone else, but I am not a fan of Leia being retconned into Luke's sister/Vader's daughter. The reveal itself is awkward, this barely matters in RotJ itself, it retroactively makes the kissing scene in ESB (and Han/Leia/Luke triangle in general) awkward, and neither the EU nor the DisnEU have, IMO, have utilized this relationship consistently effectively.

I would have preferred they left the "no, there is another" plotline from ESB dangling. This would have left a good jumping off point for the EU and, later, the ST.

 

Yeah us finding out that everyone was related to each other was a little awkward (it probably is a bit of a trope in fantasy stories but still). Vader being Luke's father was one thing but then all of a sudden finding out Leia was in the mix also seemed like a bit much).

The big positive I could see though in them wrapping the OT characters up is that if they hadn't then the second trilogy Lucas did probably would have been sequels instead of prequels and if you think all that poor writing, directing, and acting of the prequels ruined childhoods it would have been nothing compared to what it would have been like if Lucas had done a second trilogy about the OT characters.

 

I wouldn't say it barely matters in RotJ - Vader threatens Leia because she's his daughter and Luke's sister, which brings Luke the closest he ever comes to the Dark side (in the movies, anyway). That's pretty essential.

The retcon definitely doesn't work as well as "I am your father", and the way it's revealed to both Luke and Leia is a bit clumsy, but I think it's important for that loose end to have been tied up in the original trilogy itself. As much as I love the EU, I would hate to see a half-dozen contradictory "anothers", like we got for other ideas alluded to, but not shown in the films.

 

I agree that is the one moment where it pays off at all in a positive way, but I don't think Leia being Luke's sister is necessarily essential to it. Without that sisterly connection you just have Vader use something else to taunt Luke.

Even with that scene, when you put it up with Luke naturally assuming the only regular woman in his life has to be his long lost sister, Leia not reacting at all to Vader being her father, the apparent assumption that everyone knew that of course Leia was adopted this whole time, and the whole "Of course I love him. He's my brother" scene where Leia looks at Han like he's an absolute idiot for being jealous of Luke and I'd be okay with losing the "Maybe sister will turn to the dark side" scene. Speaking for myself of course.

 

Could you elaborate, my curiosity has peaked!

 

Oooh I'd love to get context cuz that sounds interesting.

 

This is a great topic! I think the most-retconned "event" by number of sources referencing it with diverging stories (and then other sources trying to fit them together into some sort of coherent whole) must be the acquisition of the Death Star Plans by the Rebel Alliance. Perhaps followed by the Ord Mantell bounty hunter encounter. Might be fun reading the Essential Timeline accounts of those and then all the depictions in one go.

I recently enjoyed rereading The Crystal Star in light of the retcons connecting it with the Jedi Outcast game.

A painful one is Traitor of course, though I would hesitate to call Vergere's role "retconned" so much as "wilfully misunderstood".

I agree that reading Dark Empire and the Jedi Academy Trilogy side-by-side with I, Jedi and the Mara-Luke conversation in Vision of the Future is a roller coaster retcon experience. That used to bother me a lot but I've grown to appreciate the whole mess since.

ETA: oh and the 7th Battle of Ruusan! It first comes up in the Dark Forces: Jedi Knight novella, as a summary from Luke + some ghost-memories of a Jedi who was there... then it got Darth Bane retconned into it, a retcon that was expanded by KJA's Bane of the Sith, which was then overwritten by the Jedi vs Sith comic, which in turn got expanded & retconned by Darth Bane: Path of Destruction...

 

Can i get some context to what the Bold part means please.

 

About half of I, Jedi is "The Jedi Academy Trilogy from the point of view of Corran Horn". In it, Corran keeps criticizing Luke's approach to teaching, essentially painting him as naively letting his students run headlong into the Dark Side; then eventually he leaves in frustration (after Mara does the same), only to return at the end and blow up Exar Kun's temple with proton charges. (Fwiw things are a bit more subtle than that and I can really recommend reading the books side by side.) Then in VotF, Mara tells Luke she's been avoiding him because he never really reckoned with his trip to the dark side in Dark Empire, citing that as the reason for his many fallen students. In the process she also claims she never took the reborn Emperor seriously, basically obliterating both the seriousness of the threat and Luke's redemption arc in DE and reducing his role in the JAT to that of a dangerously naive fool. (Again, there's more nuance in there, but that's the gist.)

 

I'm not really sure given that it was Mara making an assumption based on her views when she was not around during the story (and meta wise just a way for Zhan to talk down about a series he didn't like). But because people like Thrawn more than Dark Empire they take what Mara says as gospel instead of one characters views on what really happened.

 

I find retcons interesting in a meta out of universe way. Retcons seem acceptable to me if they are trying to build on something as opposed to limiting it or just being one author snapping at another work. For example the Squadron's game retconing Wedge's injury and being grounded in Aftermath so that we could have him in the game for a mission and get a line about Rogue Squadron. Now that's not always for the best. The writers of Bad Batch basically said "Yeah we know about the comic but we wanted to do it our own way" in a interview. So their are times a writer like Soule may decide to change the backstory of Vader's Castle from what it was in the VD for the Rogue One movie. And he's allowed to do that because it expands on the story (and because Canon levels are totally still a thing even if simplified and not officially recognized). And if its good, or at least if the fans like it, its deemed ok and no one thinks anything about it. But if its deemed bad or to conflicting with the source material then people usually get upset about it.

I feel like people are really likely to gloss over the retcons in the NEU as opposed to Legends or try and excuse them away. AS for Legends I really don't think that outside of the changes the TCW show and PT made its as bad as people make it out to be. It seems to be mostly the kind of things the NEU is doing.

 

I'd argue the one who excelled the most is the great, sadly often unsung Abel G. Peña. He was able to make seemingly impossible to reconcile stories (like Skye or the Mandalorian backstories from the Marvel comics) fit together seamless. Even little things like Luke's father being called Tan in the newspaper strip (making that a title for a pilot also fixed an old era in a TIE Fighter game, two birds with one retcon!) weren't underneath his watchful eye. This is especially interesting in contrast to someone like fellow hardcore fan Pablo Hidalgo, who by comparison rarely crafted these kinds of theories, and seemed utterly uninterested in making them. This is what he was saying in 2004:

(Note: Not making any value judgements on Pablo, this is just pointing out their different approaches. You can make up your own mind as to who's in the right here.)

This is tough to judge, like if you're the kind of fan who doesn't like retcons in the first place you won't enjoy anything that's put out. And then there's the nature of the rectons themselves. Zahn fans were really excited to see him "fix" stories like the JAT or Dark Empire (to the point where there was a whole genre of fanfic pre-HoT that speculated on what Zahn would do to the parts of the EU that they didn't like) but conversely fans of those stories would feel hurt to see their stories getting either mocked or partially decanonized. Because of that, it's hard to say which retcons are the most loved.

I think the New Mandalorians in TCW might be the most loathed? There was a huge backlash from EU fans at the time, who saw it as an example of the show/Lucas/Filoni not caring about the canon. Famously, Karen Traviss quit writing Star Wars novels because of it, and just about every SW project since in both Legends and Canon has walked back on its implications (like making Jango and Boba Fett mere bounty hunters wearing their old armor) with their own retcons.

Cronal/Perek/Blackhole/Shadowspawn, by far. He was weaved together from many different sources by Abel G. Peña, so he's literally built from retcons. And that's not even getting into their connection to Atha Prime, where thanks to bad luck with articles of his getting unpublished Peña couldn't make the connection to Atha (he was meant to be Shadowspawn, not Cronal) he wanted to.

Clone Wars. Dates back to when Zahn was given pre-Prequel dates that Lucas later changed his mind on, but then really came into its own when the Clone Wars Multimedia Project (CWMMP) included a specific calender with specific months... which was ignored by later Clone Wars media, and led to many retcons from both fans and LFL itself.

For me it's interesting seeing how Star Wars' approach to retcons work compared to something like Indiana Jones. There's plenty of inconsistencies in Indy, but because his expanded universe isn't nearly as popular, there's little-to-no retcons like there is for Star Wars. Does that make Indy better or worse? It all depends on if you think retcons are a good idea at all, or just a form of nerdy pedantry.

 

@ColeFardreamer

Here's something to consider and I do wonder if this should be it's own topic (If so feel free to make it) does one truly FIX a story? Like can a story be fixed.

You can take a story and work with it...move forward with what it set up...Ignore it and just kinda let it be it's own thing....But the story is still the story...It never changes.

The grander "meta universe" within might improve or disprove stuff but the story remains the same.

@harryhenry

I think retcons are just a nature of ongoing storytelling.

The One Ring in the Hobbit was retconned to belong to Sauron in Lord of the Rings.

Anakin and Vader were made one and the same, that's a retcon of A New Hope

Retcon derives itself from the world...Recontexualization...which is just what happens when you add new information into a story.

That's just storytelling in general, Nerd Culture just all of a sudden made it a bad thing for honestly dumb and stupid reasons.

It all depends on how you execute it.

 

It is an interesting ethical question, and I think it's something fans should keep in mind if they get excited at rumors claiming this or that part of the universe they don't like is getting retconned in-universe.
For me, I can both appreciate a work as it was alongside the retcons added later. That push and pull between the two just makes it more interesting. And it's why I'm not totally hurt by Mara slagging off Dark Empire or Corran slagging off JAT. I might enjoy both more than Zahn and Stackpole did, but it says something about where the EU was at the time, what their mindset was, and which side of the EU "won out" in a certain sense.

Oh I agree with all that, I think it's a classic case where people go overboard when critiquing mainstream nerd culture and try to "own the dumb online nerds" through saying things like "canon doesn't matter" or "retcons ruin the fun of fictional universes". But I don't wanna derail the thread, that's a whole other issue much bigger than this.

 

@harryhenry

Oh me too I just don't agree with the term "Fixing it" it's not a phrase i particularly like.

Now like, integration sure...I can see that, like how Dark Empire was integrated more into the wider Star Wars universe, but i don't think that "Fixes" Dark Empire, because I don't think one simply fixes it.

Plus I'm not a big fan in general when future stories try to retcon previous ones just to fix a aspect they don't like, I always prefer the 'just ignore it and move on' approach.

It be like IDK...If someone didn't like Luke and Leia being brother and sister and someone wrote a whole story trying to undo that or something.

Comics have this problem a lot...and i'm sure somewhere In Star Was this exist.

 

Yeah, superhero comics have that problem especially when it comes to character deaths. Even when a character STAYS dead during one run, the next writer can just come along and bring them back. That practise has cheapened death so much that there's basically no stakes left.

 

@harryhenry

Another thing about the term retcon i feel is frustrating is that i think it gets too equated with "erased"

Dark Empire was never erased from the wider Legends continuity....It's impact was minimized sadly as much as it probably deserved to be given the scope of the conflict but it is acknowledge it is brought up...Heck stuff like Holocrons are important, their meaning changes from what Dark Empire entails ...heck forget Holocrons Anakin Solo is a character and remained one because of it.

But Dark Empire is never erased....Maybe it's meaning in the overarching meta-story is changed a bit or downgraded but it's still there it still happened.