Retcons are generally an unwelcome tool for writers to use. It’s often seen as an overall negative side affect of the writer either unable to figure out how to progress the story or, in some cases, the writer forgetting what they’ve already established. Usually retcons don’t seem like their intentional and as a result damage the overall narrative being told. That being said, the retcons that are intentional typically require a lot of effort to win the audience over and are often just improving or clarifying something that was lacking originally. When I think of a good retcon, Mr. Freeze is often the best example that comes to mind. Changing him from a villain of the week to a tragic figure turning to crime to find a cure for his wife’s disease. It’s one of the few times it feels like an overall improvement.
It comes to mind recently when I played through the most recent Honkai Star Rail story where the story revisits a previous story. A new character, The Dahlia, comes to recontextualize what actually happened in the Penacony arc and effectively rewrote a lot of the story. It was very strange for them to go back and try to change some core aspects of what had occurred and insert other aspects of the universe to try and connect more things to an otherwise completed story. But ultimately, while it did connect more aspects of the universe together, it made the Penacony story worse by changing the motivations of several characters and changing what was a rather happy ending to a tragic one for no conceivable reason.
The core fundamental purpose of the retcon, other than to introduce a new character that is common to gacha games, is to give more context and purpose behind Firefly’s involvement in the story. It’s not a bad thing to revisit a previously finished story from a perspective of a different character. Often times this new perspective can be a really great way to reveal aspects of the story the audience wasn’t initially aware of and add depth to the story overall. But doing that is not a retcon, that’s adding depth and refining a story. What the writers ended up doing here was changing the motivations of the characters involved and changing the reality of the stakes to make it feel so much lesser than how it was before. It turned out the main villain wasn’t making a tragic mistake but was manipulated into a no win situation and that he wasn’t even the main threat but rather something else completely different. But the worst part was changing the nice, happy and rather sweet ending with Firefly to a tragic one because this new character came in and manipulated the main character’s memories to be that happy lie instead. It made absolutely no sense.
But what was probably most telling was that the original Penacony arc, while far from perfect, was a generally liked and a well received story. There were certainly a lot of issues and plot holes, but not enough to distract from the story. This retcon felt as though the writers were too bothered by the plotholes that they felt the need to actually retcon the story which ultimately led to a disappointing and poor outcome.
Bit of a rant but it really bothered me how poorly done this retcon was. It’s a good example to learn from and what to avoid in one’s writing.
– Raphael
P.S: Sorry for missing a post last week! Life got rather hectic but things are settling down a bit thankfully.
Raph's Cozy Musings 