DE: Canon messed up

[yakalskovich]

 What is the worst mess that your charrie's canon has made, and how are you dealing with it?


[[Post courtesy of rewatching the second half of the third season of 'Vikings'.]]

Comments

[mogget_cat]

[[The last few episodes of Vikings season 3, my boyfriend and I kept saying "Ya done fucked up!" at the screen whenever a certain character was on the screen and realizing, incrementally, that he had fucked up.]]

Centuries ago, Yrael casually manipulated a member of the Abhorsen's family into dabbling with Free Magic by insinuating that it would be an avenue by which they could take back control of their life. They took to Free Magic like a duck to water (of course, because Yrael knows how to pick 'em), leading to a bloody coup in the royal city, the near-assassination of the king, centuries of subjugation of the northern tribes, the sacrifice of many young women, the rise of a necromancer who was instrumental in the freeing of the Destroyer, the deaths of many Old Kingdom soldiers in various battles, and worst of all (in Yrael's opinion) the deaths of many of the fish in the Greenwash River.

He's dealing with it by (largely) leaving the mess for others to clean up. It's their job, not his. He might help out a bit, but only just a bit. >_> For the fish. And the mice in the long grasses under the cool light of the moon.

(The only canon screw-up I'm trying to fix is filling in the backstory of the world, because the author seems content to leave it in bits and pieces.)

[likeroaringlions]

...oh god the James Plays are basically all about messed-up situations, but James II is probably the most intense. However you want to define "mess" I feel like the end of the play, where poor disastrous James II stabs poor disastrous William Douglas to death, that's pretty messy.

For a completely different meaning of "worst mess" there's all the points that drive Les Mis brick fans mad: UGH NO HUGO the Amis would not have liked Louis-Phillipe-the-person; what the hell is Javert's job anyway; if you don't give your characters first names you're stuck with whatever your fans decide; etc etc etc.

[bjornwilde]

Rollo: Umm....flushing all that nice uncle character development at the first chance of power? At first I was really grumpy about it but I've figured out motivations and I hope to present them well. He's still an ass for doing it, but he at least has a reason beyond a grab for prestige and power. (I need to rewatch season 03)

Touji: Haven't played him much but his anime and manga end at one hell of a cliff hanger, which doesn't seem as if it will be cleared up. As I understand it, the light novel series (which is the original material) does go beyond where the anime/manga leave off, so I just need to bring myself to read it.

Izana: The fan service in the second season. Fan service was present in the first season, but it wasn't so in your face; ymmv. I plan to completely ignore it. Also the anime completely ignores the friendship between Izana and Yuhata, which play a huge role in the ending fo the manga. I am weaving their friendship into the narrative I bring to Milliways so it's not so out of the blue.

[cottoncandypink]

It really is a feature, rather than a bug, with Wilford's canon. There are only two episodes that follow the same path in all his live action canon. The game side is just as bad with continuity, for different reasons. But the contradictions are explained away as being on different choice paths, so of course things are different this time around.


The only real instance of "stop this nonsense right now" tends to be directed at Fischbach himself every time he promises new material and never delivers.

[freedom_is_grey]

In the 'fan of the story and characters' way, the lack of a voice for the protagonist of Origins (and maybe the vast potential backstory differences), means that the Warden does not get any cameos or appearances in DAII or Inquisition. Similarly, Varric is the only companion from DAII to get screentime in single player in Inquisition. So I am attempting to weave a narrative that lets that be addressed without changing the main events of canon and who is actually doing the driving in them.

It's fun!

In terms of messes, uh. The mage and templar war was pretty bad, second only to THE GIANT HOLE IN THE SKY TO THE FADE. Demon armies, undead/undying ancient Tevinter magisters, a certain old grandpa elf deciding destroying the world to rebuild it anew is a GREAT IDEA . . . Thedas is pretty much nonstop mess. Non. Stop. I mostly run with it?

[wedic]

I think the one that caused me most hassle was actually with Carlotta's canon, when Enid Blyton forgot what age children start secondary school and how many years they are there for, causing her to turn fifteen twice and go through six academic years between the ages of fifteen and eighteen.

[cottoncandypink]

lol whoops.

[likeroaringlions]

ehhh details

[street_sparrow]

Sleepy Hollow, season 3. And the last two or three episodes of season 2, but mostly season 3.

[yakalskovich]

Yes, that is awful. Vikings, season 4, is pretty awful as well, but not quite that dimension of a train wreck.

[cottoncandypink]

I never even managed to finish 4. Knowing how the story goes, season 4 just felt so unnecessary that I quit watching. I'd have rather had a season with Ivar being crazy bonkers in his cart, and nothing else.

[vance_prime]

IT'S BEEN NINE YEARS FINISH THE DAMN SERIES ALREADY VALVE

[feminine_menace]

Being written in 1992 about the near future (I estimate 2007 or so) and not anticipating cellular broadband, smartphones, or DVDs and streaming video.

I have actually dealt with it by updating some of the technology in canon: the details are in YT's userinfo.

[cottoncandypink]

Future prediction is so hilarious hit or miss like that. In a lot of ways, I think when writing future prediction, one should look at the current failures. Things like VR and AR bombed huge in the 80s, and videophones were an obscene luxury that bordered on a joke for decades. Now everybody's drooling over the Occulus and Vive, playing Pokémon Go, and Facetiming with their friends.

[feminine_menace]

To be fair, Snow Crash also got some things right. It anticipated (in a way) Wikipedia, Google Earth, and augmented reality. The fact that people still use videotape and buy their software in a physical store rather than downloading it is pretty hard to get over, though...

[cottoncandypink]

Yeah, I don't know if anybody really anticipated the cloud, but even in the 90s, digital media was pretty standard in sci-fi and future prediction. Even when we were still using video tapes, it felt like there had to have been a better way than using something that was often destroyed by the thing that was designed to play it.

[have_no_mercy]

The Smallville comics are kind of a mess, especially in terms of how they dealt with Tess. I've chosen to ignore them.