Panel Shuffle

[amenon]

Back in the day, Twokinds used to be all about the subtle emotions

[SirJahar]

Bah. Retcons.

[TinyVoices]

Bah. Retcons.

But Keith has always been angsty.

[amenon]

Indeed. Here's one from the originals (This one was actually toned down, and wouldn't work. [2004-12-03])

[Cyon]

*starts timer* Let's see about that

I hold that panel as one of Keith's defining moments, so changing it seems quite unnecessary as if it's been dumbed down.

[amenon]

The moment is important, but the more subdued version is preferable to me. Trace and Flora are reminding him of events, yes, but this is still something that's... five, six years in his past at the time. What Keith eventually became known for is a sort of quiet, stubborn, weary depression... with just a hint of hope somewhere in there. Not Linkin Park lyrics.

Not to say it's completely out of place, though; I can see an arc there. You could say that this is some of the first moments of his coming back alive, and starting to believe again in things he'd dismissed. And gods yes there can be pain in something like that.

But I think the melodrama is the dumber side of this. Much of the early story is very, very clumsy. Tom has gotten massively better since.

[SirJahar]

Retcon is retcon. No matter how you justify it or dress it up. It still undermines old readers understanding and interpretation of the characters and story.

[amenon]

I haven't seen much so far that I'd classify as a retcon. Karen's nose was downgraded, that's probably one. It also looks like there (now) wasn't a new Grand Templar during the early parts of the story. Pretty minor stuff. And I don't think anything that really matters can change, because with an ongoing project like this, that's more like a rolling window. The farther back in time something is, the less weight it has, because the more potential there is for the story to have changed since then.

Oh, I guess that's it. It's not that these are retcons that are happening now; these are retcons that have already happened a long, long time ago, but are only now becoming official. Karen wasn't ever going to track someone by scent, because at some point Tom decided that wasn't a thing. And now everyone can see that it's off the table. (Unless, of course, Tom wants to change his mind again )

Edit: Thinking about it a bit more: are retcons less than ideal? Yeah! But guess what? It would be completely ridiculous to expect Tom to get everything right on the first try on a decade+ story. He's allowed to change his mind.

[TinyVoices]

Pretty minor stuff.

I sorta want a thread about this. It clearly has discussion.

I feel I agree with Jahar. Things like Flora no longer being a princess, there not being a Grand Templar after Trace, Keidran not being able to hunt by smell, the way that Keith behaves about Laura back during the single digit chapters, and a plethora of other things aren't that "minor" to me. They're small changes, yes, but holy crap they change the lore and main build work of the story so much. I based a lot of how I saw characters on these "minor" things, and now I'm being informed they were retconned.

(And, yes, indeed. Because I never bought the comics, I never knew until this past month that a lot of "minor things" were changed from the story. I still don't even know the complete list of changes. My last full reading of Twokinds happened in 2012, also. So even if he had progressively introduced changes to the story, I wouldn't have known unless I had been told to reread the comic.)

[SirJahar]

And I'm less saying "get it right the first time" and more saying "work with what you've got."

[Schrodinger]

I haven't seen much so far that I'd classify as a retcon. Karen's nose was downgraded, that's probably one. It also looks like there (now) wasn't a new Grand Templar during the early parts of the story. Pretty minor stuff. And I don't think anything that really matters can change, because with an ongoing project like this, that's more like a rolling window. The farther back in time something is, the less weight it has, because the more potential there is for the story to have changed since then.

Oh, I guess that's it. It's not that these are retcons that are happening now; these are retcons that have already happened a long, long time ago, but are only now becoming official. Karen wasn't ever going to track someone by scent, because at some point Tom decided that wasn't a thing. And now everyone can see that it's off the table. (Unless, of course, Tom wants to change his mind again )

Edit: Thinking about it a bit more: are retcons less than ideal? Yeah! But guess what? It would be completely ridiculous to expect Tom to get everything right on the first try on a decade+ story. He's allowed to change his mind.

These aren't George Lucas levels of authorial revisionism. For as much has been taken away from these early chapters just as much has been added or refined.

It makes sense that there wasn't a new Grand Templar at the beginning, Trace had only just disappeared. It makes sense that Trace would inflict a curse on Maren that would give her a freakish appearance and little benefit. Trace fiddling with transformation magic in the bath seems incongruous with the magical ability he displayed outside of his maddened state (Templar!Trace). Floating magitek towers replaced with ones more conventional for the setting. An entire chapter reorganized to better fit narrative flow.

And it's not like we haven't already documented the changes. If any alterations broach into the realm of breaking the story's own rules, we'll be there to call attention to it.

[SirJahar]

He's allowed to change his mind.

And what does that mean for is as readers? Don't get too atatched to certain details, they might be
whiped out in a few years to better fit the new flow? Don't count on the evidence your interpretation is built upon being there when you need it for an argument? Not even the story as we read it can be trusted as precedent?
Even small changes like a few words of dialog can change the feel of a scene that was huge in how we read the characters from then on.
In the end, I still stand by this: retcon is retcon.

[TinyVoices]

Spoiler!

retcon

retcon

retcon

Please move this discussion to this thread here, everyone. Thank you.

[Loren.Ipsum.2]

Please move this discussion to this thread here, everyone. Thank you.

Thanks TinyVoices.

ANYWAY, back to shufflin':


Umm, Rose, your poker-face is slipping a bit...

[SpottedKitty]

<snrk> I can almost hear a "ka-ching" noise in the background.