Week 3 Seminar: The Retcon

Change what an earlier scene meant without changing the scene. The cheapest repair in the course, until it isn't.

10 March 2027

The technique#

A retcon, short for retroactive continuity, adds new information that changes what an earlier scene meant. The earlier scene stays exactly as it was. Only its meaning moves.

The case: the fake gauntlet#

In Thor (2011), an Infinity Gauntlet sits in Odin’s vault. In the mid-credits scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thanos puts one on. Two gauntlets is a contradiction. In Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Hela knocks the one in the vault over and calls it a fake. One line fixes it, and nothing in Thor has to mean anything different except a prop.

Skybound (2016), the sixth season of Ninjago, ends with a wish that undoes the season’s events. That is a retcon too. It cost the season.

In the seminar#

We price the two. For each retcon you bring: what the new information changed, what it cost, and who paid. The Retcon Proposal is marked mostly on cost, so this is the week to learn to count it.