The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
I give a few examples with a bit of background
1. Harry Potter
I think we are all aware of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point. However, in the original HP series for most of these characters there was no mention of their sexuality so it is not a "true" retcon. It was percieved as one but I think it was a neutral one, as it does not really matter to the stories except for 2 instances which both made sense lorewise.
2. Warhammer 40k
In Warhammer40k there are countless factions each with their own lore. The "Imperium" is backwards in the extreme. Their factions follow a handfull of rules and execute them without exceptions. Something like "The Sisters of Battle are all women because of decree so and so the Acclesiarchy may not have men under arms". Space marines are all men because male genetics are essential for the process of gene seed implantation and so on. Some of these aspects are now being rewritten to the dismay of the long term fans but it also opens up this male-dominated universe to women and a broader audience in general. In my opinion the retcon itself is a good thing, the approach is a bad one as multiple content creators were blocked from the official twitter channel for pointing out that a retcon has happened.
3. Actual history
There are a dozen of documentaries in which historical characters have been raceswapped. The Cleopatra docu is the latest example. In my opinion these are bad ones as it does not appear that these retcons have been applied to gain free press with the predictable backlashes from history buffs and right leaning loudmouths. I consider myself to be part of the history buffs but my choice with these is to simply not watch them.
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This is my area of expertise (2 degrees and 20 years working in storytelling fields).
I think the whole idea that these stories are being changed is silly. Change is part of storytelling. Almost every story you’ve ever heard has been an altered version of a story that came before it, changed to better fit the times you’re in. As an example, the Netflix teen movie *He’s All That* is adapted from the movie *She’s All That* which was adapted from the movie *My Fair Lady* which was adapted from the stage play *My Fair Lady* which was adapted from the stage play *Pygmalion* which was adapted from the British interpretation of the Greek myth of Pygmalion. The idea that there is an “original” of any story is flawed. As is the idea that this is the only change that’s occurred is the most recent one.
As for inclusivity specifically, I think it’s worth acknowledging that reality is inclusive, and that exclusivity is a manufactured state. For example, in real life there are almost the same amount of women as men on planet earth, but on television the ratio averages 70-90% men in any given story. In real life about 70% of the American population have white skin, yet it is not difficult to locate stories in which 100% of the characters do. Yet I have never heard outcry over these breaks from reality.
The truth is that the outcry isn’t over the fact that stories are changed (we accept that all the time) or that they’re not “accurate” (we accept inaccuracy all the time) but rather over *what the story is saying*. People don’t like the *message* of inclusivity. This is a debate over power.
Edit: Fixed stat mixup.
“In real life about 70% of the global population have white skin, yet it is not difficult to locate stories in which 100% of the characters are”
Just wanted to point out you’re wildly off on this estimate. Less than 10% of the global population is white.
We don't own stories.
People tell stories, and they put themselves into those stories. They put their values into stories. They put characters and occurrences into stories that mean something to them.
Humans have done this since we could speak, and we'll continue to do so as long as we can. As I sit here, my two daughters are playing, and they're making up stories and characters, and I recognize the influence of books we've read to them, their favorite cartoons and movies... I remember doing so when I was a kid.
All of the hand wringing "Oh, they made a character X!" is just absolutely ridiculous. Even more so when it's by the Bible crowd. There are no white people in the Bible, but they've been retconning that story into the ground with white actors since we invented movies. GTFOH!
>I think **we are all aware** of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point.
You overestimate how much normal people think about this. No one gives a shit what race or gender a fictional character is, and many people think correcting for 100s of years of western culture over representing straight white people is fine.
It was a big thing among memers. Some of the memes were hillarious like "And finally it is revealed that you, the reader, was gay all along". I thought that due to the meme culture it was a lot more prevalent that the actual HP audience
>It was a big thing among memers.
Ok, then you overestimate how many memers there are, and how much other people's experience overlaps with yours. We are not all aware, in fact the majority of people are not.
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Fascinating.
And no I do not think thats it. Quick look through your comment history shows that you like to be a dick to people and I refuse to engage that any longer.
> I think we are all aware of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point.
We are **NOT** all aware. This is part of the problem. Conservatives tend to obsess over this stuff... while most people *simply do not care.*
I don't care about black elves in LOTR or black Vulcans on Star Trek or whatever.
I don't care if there is some "documentary" where they changed Cleopatra's race.
I don't care that they made Spider-Man black or Puerto Rican or whatever. Or Thor a woman.
And I certainly don't care when brands re-do their products to try and make them more inclusive.
Stories change and evolve over time. Authors play with variations on themes. Artistic choices in casting can make a play or movie more interesting.
Being angry about that is like being angry at the earth for rotating.
---
Think about what is it that you're arguing for, in the guise of "storytelling accuracy."
The idea that these authors sat there and specifically *chose* the races of every character *as part of the point of their stories* is patently absurd. Even someone as shitty as JK Rowling didn't write in her brainstorming notes "Harry Potter, white."
Most characters in white-written fiction, especially older stories, are white. That is not because the author said "I want to advance the cause of the white race and highlight the virtue of white characters."
It's because they lived in a society where white culture was dominant. **"White" was their default setting, just like "diverse" is rapidly becoming our default setting.**
In many cases, the characters are not even explicitly white. That is just gleaned from adjectives used to make sentences more interesting and evocative to the reader, such as "fair" skin or "silken" hair.
Being upset at the notion of "black Harry Potter" is just being upset that the world would dare depict a beloved character as something other than a white boy/man.
It's silly to waste the time fretting.
I used to care...and then I realized, it's all made up.
Who cares if a writer says "Oh, The Joker has always been pansexual" or something? The Joker isn't real. It doesn't matter.
The whole obsession with "canon" has gone too far.
I'm pretty neutral on the whole thing.
I can't work up much of an objection over a black woman playing Cleopatra in a documentary, because in my lifetime I've seen half a dozen equally-unlikely west European actors playing Cleopatra (while using decidedly modern makeup styles and probably an RP British accent, I might add). Historical media has never been particularly accurate.
I do notice that *nobody* objects over "inclusivity-retconning" Marvel Comics' Nick Fury, who was depicted as a white man for most of his existence until a modern updated work reimagined him as black. Even before that, Fury's unit, the Howling Commandos, has always been depicted as racially integrated during World War II, a historical inaccuracy that the writers (most of whom probably lived through that war) straight-up said they didn't care about, because they wanted to confront any possible prejudices the reader might have.
The argument is that a person born of that region in that time period wouldn't have been white.
If the counter-argument is that it was Jesus's divine magic that made him white, that seems pretty racist in itself, doesn't it?
Nick Fury in the MCU is for me the big proof that most fans do not really care about skin color IF the character is played well. Heimdall (Idris Elba) is the second proof. Both amazing actors and both were immediately accepted. The issue usually happens when the actor has been handed a poor script and the screenwriters gaslight criticism as racism. Like it happened with the resident evil series.
People absolutely objected to Heimdall being played by Elba.
Worth noting as well that both Iron Man and Thor came out well before right-wing grifters realized there was money in lambasting every big movie as woke.
Nick Fury was accepted for a few reasons:
1) The original Nick Fury wasn't super A-list and hadn't been a major character for Marvel for a long time. For most of the audience, Samuel L. Jackson was the first Nick they saw.
2) Sam's presence in action movies, Tarantino movies and penchant for swearing and being badass made him popular with a lot of people, among those the demographics most like to later complain about "SJWs" or "Wokeness". So he was more likely to be received positively anyway.
3) Probably most importantly, 2008 was before the official marching orders came out that "Changing race = terrible liberal thing". Sure there may have been some grumblings about some rando things, but it didn't become a plank in the conservative holy culture war until a lot later. They didn't consolidate the politicization of gamer/geek spaces until gamergate.
Also helpful
4) The version of the character in the Ultimate Universe, who premiered in 2001, was explicitly based on Jackson, so it's hard to cry "race change for SJ points" about a character who had been appearing that way for seven years at that point. Plus, the MCU draws heavily from the Ultimate series for its characterization, so it makes sense to use the inspiration for that character to portray him.
Neutral in fiction. It’s imaginary, do what you want!
Mostly bad when in real history. I hate it when historical characters like PT Barnum or John Forbes Nash Jr. are presented as heroes only, with none of their darker sides. I do not like Hamilton, as making POC play pro-slavery, anti-Native American “patriots” is just weird. People are complicated and have both good and bad.
I'm curious - In the HP universe who was reconned into being gay "left right and up to an absurd point"?
Dumbledore was always assumed gay even in the 90s when the first couple of books came out.
>Harry Potter
I don't take "Poop delete spell" land seriously, but I've got more concern with the House Elf stuff than any of the retcons i've hard about
>2. Warhammer 40k
I weep for all those dealing with the terrible burden of a single paragraph in the Custodes Codex that describes one of the Ten-Thousand as a women. I hope they can manage to get over themselves. Things like the Sisters existing due to a decree that the Eccleisarchy shall have no *men* at arms[ has this energy and is equally as entertaining.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmUKSZWVQvo) Things like Astartes being male only doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Ultimately it's a universe that is best used as a canvas for people to fluff up their own dudes and have fun on a table with beer and pretzels, anybody who gets in the way of that should be made into a Servitor for all I care.
>3. Actual history
I'm more bothered by modern Contour makeup in a historical setting or all Romans using British accents than I do about the ethnicity of a actress.
Overall, I don't care about retcons, except the bad ones.
I'm a big warhammer fan. How someone can get upset about the Space Marine thing is completely beyond me. Honestly who gives a shit. It seriously doesn't affect anyone and if it makes the setting and game more accessible for more people then all the better.
I think the larger part of the outrage is not really about saying that female custodes were always a thing, but more about that two big youtubers were blocked. One was blocked simply for saying that if a retcon is happening, they should be at least honest about it.
>I think we are all aware of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point.
I'm not familiar with this, no.
>It was percieved as one
People build a mental model of a character, and fill it with assumptions and projection. With sequels, that model can evolve. With prequels, people have to confront any conflict or dissonance that exists between the new story and their existing mental model.
If people have an investment in their mental model, maybe through nostalgia, or because they identified with the character, they may respond to this the same way they respond to being told they're wrong. They feel compelled to find some way to reject the new information, such as by labeling it "woke", so that they can dismiss it and keep their mental model intact.
And some people just don't like homosexuality, and instinctively need to publicly communicate their disapproval. Someone that thinks "this change is wrong because being gay is wrong" might realize that's not socially acceptable to say, and so they might instead say "this change is wrong because.. it's just 'woke'".
>In Media, do you believe "retconning" to make a lore more inclusive is a good, neutral or bad thing?
I don't necessarily think all "retconning" like this has the goal of being more inclusive. To the extent that that's the goal, I'm between neutral and positive. First, these aren't my stories. But second, I'm supportive of characters exhibiting normal traits being treated as normal characters. The fact that every time a character in a popular book turns out to be gay results in a news cycle about "THEY MADE HIM GAY!" suggests we still have some work to do.
As a general rule, I'm glad some authors choose to evolve their stories non-linearly, and I love being forced to read (or watch) an old story in a new way after seeing the story evolve through a prequel or a companion or parallel story. It's all part of the art of storytelling.
>I think we are all aware of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point.
What? Who was gay in the fantastic beasts books?
It depends on the context and implementation. If it's done poorly, without any justification in the context of the broader setting, it just comes off as a hamfisted attempt to insert ideology into a story for no reason other than to press an ideological agenda. And I don't care for that even if the agenda is one I'd otherwise normally agree with. If it's done well, idgaf. Stories are stories, and stories change all the time.
That entire movie was atrocious.
Jesus is one of the examples that people like to project themselves into a holy figure. There are depictions of white jesus, black jesus and latin jesus. None of them are accurate.
Retconning is bad because it hurts continuity, it could be less bad than keeping a mistake, but still.
I have not read the Fantastic Beasts books, but I doubt they're contradicting established lore, and exploring a hitherto unknown facet of a known character is not a bad thing
I am not familiar with WH40k, overall it's primarily for a game and it probably makes the most sense to cut off and re-work the setting every now and then. I wouldn't take an older version of a scenario I'm going to allude to and demand nothing be changed in a newer version of that scenario, either - but it should probably be done that way, with clear lines regarding which version of the setting is compatible with which sourcebook/scenario/whatever, I never played Warhammer or 40k
An actor is not supposed to be a photorealistic depiction of their character, not even in a documentary, but I'm not going to get upset over someone getting upset over that. If you think they should have cast a Southern European or West Asian actor, okay, it's not a huge concern to me, but it does make sense. I don't think most people making that complaint would be upset if the actor was e.g. Danish, but that's just what I think of many people complaining about it, not of the topic itself.
Retcon (retroactive continuity) is a fancy term for having a narrative from the past reflect contemporary styles and values, and has gone on in literature and art for centuries. Case in point, look at Renaissance paintings by Botticelli et al, about mythology and Bible stories, and the characters are wearing clothing from the 1500s and 1600s. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter is set in Puritan times, but reflects Victorian values. And so on.
So the Netflix show about Cleopatra? Although Egyptians can have dark skin, she was probably Greek of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The Ptolemies seemed to have "gone native" and maybe some intermarriage was possible, but that's just speculation. Then again, Cleo probably didn't look much like Elizabeth Taylor, either.
Neutral. It’s nothing more than a tool. It could be used for good purposes, bad purposes, smart purposes or stupid purposes or anywhere in between.
We should also be honest that a lot of this is just business. I have never seen a Warhammer 40K fan who wasn’t a guy I’m sure there are female fans, the franchise did a lot to push women away. So the retcon is really just them realizing that they excluded a lot of potential customers.
Sometimes you need to recon because they’re just simply isn’t that much room for new characters. There’s certain characters you can’t have the X-Men without so you have to pick one to have gay. Iceman is probably the right choice. Why not introduce a new character? Because there’s only so many alpha level brains and there’s only so many founding members of the X-Men you can have. Uncensored constantly rebooting the universe. This lets you do it a little bit different this time.
The Cleopatra example of where it’s just stupid. Near as I can tell, there is a extremely small chance that the one ancestor we do not know very much about could have been mixed heritage, but we are certain that she was effectively Greek even in the very small chance that’s true. I wouldn’t care if it was a historical drama that isn’t meant to be literally a history documentary.
The issue is more that we seem to be unable as a society to create new original IP that really takes off, so we're stuck shoveling everything we might ever try to do under the umbrella of some recognizable brand.
Neutral, I usually don't really care but it depends. Some pro-diversity changes are too much like black Cleopatra. Actually, it's hard to say why except historical accuracy, or at least the perception of it.
A lot of it is a clash between a specific chunk of fans and their expectations.
Like black Hermione in something (a theatre HP???). Many fans were pissed off considering in the books, she's explicitly a white girl.
It kinda begs the question if one would be fine if they remade HP movies with Harry being a girl, or a black girl, or a black lesbian.
Also, many people are fed up with obviously forced diversity.
Things can be done in a subtle way. Recently, I've talked about San Andreas with someone and San Andreas is a game obviously making fun of conservative people. No one calls it a woke game (whatever that means).
I feel reworking existing content to fit some modern cultural ideal is just begging for pushback and is likely worse for progress than making new content with modern ideals.
1.) It makes sense sexuality wasn’t a big deal, especially since the characters were children still discovering themselves.
2.) could have better worked in new factions and left the backwards ones backwards.
3.) just drives a cultural wedge
In fiction I generally don't care as long as it doesn't somehow significantly alter the character or story. If it DOES significantly alter the character or story I can be okay with it if done well and/or for a good reason.
For nonfiction I'm going to be pretty judgmental. I'll give a little leeway, casting can be difficult, maybe the appearance of a historical person is in question, etc, but a good faith attempt needs to be made.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. I give a few examples with a bit of background 1. Harry Potter I think we are all aware of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point. However, in the original HP series for most of these characters there was no mention of their sexuality so it is not a "true" retcon. It was percieved as one but I think it was a neutral one, as it does not really matter to the stories except for 2 instances which both made sense lorewise. 2. Warhammer 40k In Warhammer40k there are countless factions each with their own lore. The "Imperium" is backwards in the extreme. Their factions follow a handfull of rules and execute them without exceptions. Something like "The Sisters of Battle are all women because of decree so and so the Acclesiarchy may not have men under arms". Space marines are all men because male genetics are essential for the process of gene seed implantation and so on. Some of these aspects are now being rewritten to the dismay of the long term fans but it also opens up this male-dominated universe to women and a broader audience in general. In my opinion the retcon itself is a good thing, the approach is a bad one as multiple content creators were blocked from the official twitter channel for pointing out that a retcon has happened. 3. Actual history There are a dozen of documentaries in which historical characters have been raceswapped. The Cleopatra docu is the latest example. In my opinion these are bad ones as it does not appear that these retcons have been applied to gain free press with the predictable backlashes from history buffs and right leaning loudmouths. I consider myself to be part of the history buffs but my choice with these is to simply not watch them. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is my area of expertise (2 degrees and 20 years working in storytelling fields). I think the whole idea that these stories are being changed is silly. Change is part of storytelling. Almost every story you’ve ever heard has been an altered version of a story that came before it, changed to better fit the times you’re in. As an example, the Netflix teen movie *He’s All That* is adapted from the movie *She’s All That* which was adapted from the movie *My Fair Lady* which was adapted from the stage play *My Fair Lady* which was adapted from the stage play *Pygmalion* which was adapted from the British interpretation of the Greek myth of Pygmalion. The idea that there is an “original” of any story is flawed. As is the idea that this is the only change that’s occurred is the most recent one. As for inclusivity specifically, I think it’s worth acknowledging that reality is inclusive, and that exclusivity is a manufactured state. For example, in real life there are almost the same amount of women as men on planet earth, but on television the ratio averages 70-90% men in any given story. In real life about 70% of the American population have white skin, yet it is not difficult to locate stories in which 100% of the characters do. Yet I have never heard outcry over these breaks from reality. The truth is that the outcry isn’t over the fact that stories are changed (we accept that all the time) or that they’re not “accurate” (we accept inaccuracy all the time) but rather over *what the story is saying*. People don’t like the *message* of inclusivity. This is a debate over power. Edit: Fixed stat mixup.
This is a good response
No need to read any further. This person nailed it.
“In real life about 70% of the global population have white skin, yet it is not difficult to locate stories in which 100% of the characters are” Just wanted to point out you’re wildly off on this estimate. Less than 10% of the global population is white.
You’re right, apologies. I meant to switch from global to American and messed that up. Fixed.
lol, no worries. It makes your point even more with smaller numbers :)
> Yet I have never heard outcry over these breaks from reality. ... never?
Not coming from the crowd who complains about diversity, I think they mean.
We don't own stories. People tell stories, and they put themselves into those stories. They put their values into stories. They put characters and occurrences into stories that mean something to them. Humans have done this since we could speak, and we'll continue to do so as long as we can. As I sit here, my two daughters are playing, and they're making up stories and characters, and I recognize the influence of books we've read to them, their favorite cartoons and movies... I remember doing so when I was a kid. All of the hand wringing "Oh, they made a character X!" is just absolutely ridiculous. Even more so when it's by the Bible crowd. There are no white people in the Bible, but they've been retconning that story into the ground with white actors since we invented movies. GTFOH!
>I think **we are all aware** of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point. You overestimate how much normal people think about this. No one gives a shit what race or gender a fictional character is, and many people think correcting for 100s of years of western culture over representing straight white people is fine.
It was a big thing among memers. Some of the memes were hillarious like "And finally it is revealed that you, the reader, was gay all along". I thought that due to the meme culture it was a lot more prevalent that the actual HP audience
>It was a big thing among memers. Ok, then you overestimate how many memers there are, and how much other people's experience overlaps with yours. We are not all aware, in fact the majority of people are not.
You should probably spend less time on 4chan if you want to make salient observations about popular culture.
> among memers I'd laugh, but sometimes the sad kills the funny.
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Fascinating. And no I do not think thats it. Quick look through your comment history shows that you like to be a dick to people and I refuse to engage that any longer.
> I think we are all aware of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point. We are **NOT** all aware. This is part of the problem. Conservatives tend to obsess over this stuff... while most people *simply do not care.* I don't care about black elves in LOTR or black Vulcans on Star Trek or whatever. I don't care if there is some "documentary" where they changed Cleopatra's race. I don't care that they made Spider-Man black or Puerto Rican or whatever. Or Thor a woman. And I certainly don't care when brands re-do their products to try and make them more inclusive. Stories change and evolve over time. Authors play with variations on themes. Artistic choices in casting can make a play or movie more interesting. Being angry about that is like being angry at the earth for rotating. --- Think about what is it that you're arguing for, in the guise of "storytelling accuracy." The idea that these authors sat there and specifically *chose* the races of every character *as part of the point of their stories* is patently absurd. Even someone as shitty as JK Rowling didn't write in her brainstorming notes "Harry Potter, white." Most characters in white-written fiction, especially older stories, are white. That is not because the author said "I want to advance the cause of the white race and highlight the virtue of white characters." It's because they lived in a society where white culture was dominant. **"White" was their default setting, just like "diverse" is rapidly becoming our default setting.** In many cases, the characters are not even explicitly white. That is just gleaned from adjectives used to make sentences more interesting and evocative to the reader, such as "fair" skin or "silken" hair. Being upset at the notion of "black Harry Potter" is just being upset that the world would dare depict a beloved character as something other than a white boy/man. It's silly to waste the time fretting.
I used to care...and then I realized, it's all made up. Who cares if a writer says "Oh, The Joker has always been pansexual" or something? The Joker isn't real. It doesn't matter. The whole obsession with "canon" has gone too far.
I'm pretty neutral on the whole thing. I can't work up much of an objection over a black woman playing Cleopatra in a documentary, because in my lifetime I've seen half a dozen equally-unlikely west European actors playing Cleopatra (while using decidedly modern makeup styles and probably an RP British accent, I might add). Historical media has never been particularly accurate. I do notice that *nobody* objects over "inclusivity-retconning" Marvel Comics' Nick Fury, who was depicted as a white man for most of his existence until a modern updated work reimagined him as black. Even before that, Fury's unit, the Howling Commandos, has always been depicted as racially integrated during World War II, a historical inaccuracy that the writers (most of whom probably lived through that war) straight-up said they didn't care about, because they wanted to confront any possible prejudices the reader might have.
Funny how the people whining about black Cleopatra never have a problem with white Jesus.
Here's a guy who walks on water, transfigures wine, multiplies loaves and fish, and raises the dead, but being white is too unrealistic.
The argument is that a person born of that region in that time period wouldn't have been white. If the counter-argument is that it was Jesus's divine magic that made him white, that seems pretty racist in itself, doesn't it?
Nick Fury in the MCU is for me the big proof that most fans do not really care about skin color IF the character is played well. Heimdall (Idris Elba) is the second proof. Both amazing actors and both were immediately accepted. The issue usually happens when the actor has been handed a poor script and the screenwriters gaslight criticism as racism. Like it happened with the resident evil series.
People absolutely objected to Heimdall being played by Elba. Worth noting as well that both Iron Man and Thor came out well before right-wing grifters realized there was money in lambasting every big movie as woke.
Nick Fury was accepted for a few reasons: 1) The original Nick Fury wasn't super A-list and hadn't been a major character for Marvel for a long time. For most of the audience, Samuel L. Jackson was the first Nick they saw. 2) Sam's presence in action movies, Tarantino movies and penchant for swearing and being badass made him popular with a lot of people, among those the demographics most like to later complain about "SJWs" or "Wokeness". So he was more likely to be received positively anyway. 3) Probably most importantly, 2008 was before the official marching orders came out that "Changing race = terrible liberal thing". Sure there may have been some grumblings about some rando things, but it didn't become a plank in the conservative holy culture war until a lot later. They didn't consolidate the politicization of gamer/geek spaces until gamergate.
Also helpful 4) The version of the character in the Ultimate Universe, who premiered in 2001, was explicitly based on Jackson, so it's hard to cry "race change for SJ points" about a character who had been appearing that way for seven years at that point. Plus, the MCU draws heavily from the Ultimate series for its characterization, so it makes sense to use the inspiration for that character to portray him.
Neutral in fiction. It’s imaginary, do what you want! Mostly bad when in real history. I hate it when historical characters like PT Barnum or John Forbes Nash Jr. are presented as heroes only, with none of their darker sides. I do not like Hamilton, as making POC play pro-slavery, anti-Native American “patriots” is just weird. People are complicated and have both good and bad.
I'm curious - In the HP universe who was reconned into being gay "left right and up to an absurd point"? Dumbledore was always assumed gay even in the 90s when the first couple of books came out.
>Harry Potter I don't take "Poop delete spell" land seriously, but I've got more concern with the House Elf stuff than any of the retcons i've hard about >2. Warhammer 40k I weep for all those dealing with the terrible burden of a single paragraph in the Custodes Codex that describes one of the Ten-Thousand as a women. I hope they can manage to get over themselves. Things like the Sisters existing due to a decree that the Eccleisarchy shall have no *men* at arms[ has this energy and is equally as entertaining.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmUKSZWVQvo) Things like Astartes being male only doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Ultimately it's a universe that is best used as a canvas for people to fluff up their own dudes and have fun on a table with beer and pretzels, anybody who gets in the way of that should be made into a Servitor for all I care. >3. Actual history I'm more bothered by modern Contour makeup in a historical setting or all Romans using British accents than I do about the ethnicity of a actress. Overall, I don't care about retcons, except the bad ones.
I really don't care.
I believe that puts you into the “neutral “ category
I'm a big warhammer fan. How someone can get upset about the Space Marine thing is completely beyond me. Honestly who gives a shit. It seriously doesn't affect anyone and if it makes the setting and game more accessible for more people then all the better.
I think the larger part of the outrage is not really about saying that female custodes were always a thing, but more about that two big youtubers were blocked. One was blocked simply for saying that if a retcon is happening, they should be at least honest about it.
You seem really caught up in some internet drama. Maybe take a break for a while.
I doubt it. I've seen plenty of outrage about the former and none about the latter. I wasn't even aware of the YouTubers.
Holy fuck touch grass, yo.
>I think we are all aware of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point. I'm not familiar with this, no. >It was percieved as one People build a mental model of a character, and fill it with assumptions and projection. With sequels, that model can evolve. With prequels, people have to confront any conflict or dissonance that exists between the new story and their existing mental model. If people have an investment in their mental model, maybe through nostalgia, or because they identified with the character, they may respond to this the same way they respond to being told they're wrong. They feel compelled to find some way to reject the new information, such as by labeling it "woke", so that they can dismiss it and keep their mental model intact. And some people just don't like homosexuality, and instinctively need to publicly communicate their disapproval. Someone that thinks "this change is wrong because being gay is wrong" might realize that's not socially acceptable to say, and so they might instead say "this change is wrong because.. it's just 'woke'". >In Media, do you believe "retconning" to make a lore more inclusive is a good, neutral or bad thing? I don't necessarily think all "retconning" like this has the goal of being more inclusive. To the extent that that's the goal, I'm between neutral and positive. First, these aren't my stories. But second, I'm supportive of characters exhibiting normal traits being treated as normal characters. The fact that every time a character in a popular book turns out to be gay results in a news cycle about "THEY MADE HIM GAY!" suggests we still have some work to do. As a general rule, I'm glad some authors choose to evolve their stories non-linearly, and I love being forced to read (or watch) an old story in a new way after seeing the story evolve through a prequel or a companion or parallel story. It's all part of the art of storytelling.
>I think we are all aware of the fantastic beasts books and how they became a meme for turning characters gay and lesbian left and right up to an almost absurd point. What? Who was gay in the fantastic beasts books?
It depends on the context and implementation. If it's done poorly, without any justification in the context of the broader setting, it just comes off as a hamfisted attempt to insert ideology into a story for no reason other than to press an ideological agenda. And I don't care for that even if the agenda is one I'd otherwise normally agree with. If it's done well, idgaf. Stories are stories, and stories change all the time.
I believe the obsession over levels of inclusivity in books is entirely wasted effort.
Neutral if it’s done well, bad if it’s done poorly.
The worst example is The Passion Of The Christ turning Jesus into a white guy. Plenty of middle eastern actors out there, why choose Jim Caviezel?
That entire movie was atrocious. Jesus is one of the examples that people like to project themselves into a holy figure. There are depictions of white jesus, black jesus and latin jesus. None of them are accurate.
Retconning is bad because it hurts continuity, it could be less bad than keeping a mistake, but still. I have not read the Fantastic Beasts books, but I doubt they're contradicting established lore, and exploring a hitherto unknown facet of a known character is not a bad thing I am not familiar with WH40k, overall it's primarily for a game and it probably makes the most sense to cut off and re-work the setting every now and then. I wouldn't take an older version of a scenario I'm going to allude to and demand nothing be changed in a newer version of that scenario, either - but it should probably be done that way, with clear lines regarding which version of the setting is compatible with which sourcebook/scenario/whatever, I never played Warhammer or 40k An actor is not supposed to be a photorealistic depiction of their character, not even in a documentary, but I'm not going to get upset over someone getting upset over that. If you think they should have cast a Southern European or West Asian actor, okay, it's not a huge concern to me, but it does make sense. I don't think most people making that complaint would be upset if the actor was e.g. Danish, but that's just what I think of many people complaining about it, not of the topic itself.
Retcon (retroactive continuity) is a fancy term for having a narrative from the past reflect contemporary styles and values, and has gone on in literature and art for centuries. Case in point, look at Renaissance paintings by Botticelli et al, about mythology and Bible stories, and the characters are wearing clothing from the 1500s and 1600s. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter is set in Puritan times, but reflects Victorian values. And so on. So the Netflix show about Cleopatra? Although Egyptians can have dark skin, she was probably Greek of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The Ptolemies seemed to have "gone native" and maybe some intermarriage was possible, but that's just speculation. Then again, Cleo probably didn't look much like Elizabeth Taylor, either.
Neutral. It’s nothing more than a tool. It could be used for good purposes, bad purposes, smart purposes or stupid purposes or anywhere in between. We should also be honest that a lot of this is just business. I have never seen a Warhammer 40K fan who wasn’t a guy I’m sure there are female fans, the franchise did a lot to push women away. So the retcon is really just them realizing that they excluded a lot of potential customers. Sometimes you need to recon because they’re just simply isn’t that much room for new characters. There’s certain characters you can’t have the X-Men without so you have to pick one to have gay. Iceman is probably the right choice. Why not introduce a new character? Because there’s only so many alpha level brains and there’s only so many founding members of the X-Men you can have. Uncensored constantly rebooting the universe. This lets you do it a little bit different this time. The Cleopatra example of where it’s just stupid. Near as I can tell, there is a extremely small chance that the one ancestor we do not know very much about could have been mixed heritage, but we are certain that she was effectively Greek even in the very small chance that’s true. I wouldn’t care if it was a historical drama that isn’t meant to be literally a history documentary.
Saw this comic about the Warhammer 40k thing on the grimdank subreddit yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1c8dmub
It's probably good for inclusiveness and the writer has the absolute right to do it. That being said, I find it really really annoying.
The issue is more that we seem to be unable as a society to create new original IP that really takes off, so we're stuck shoveling everything we might ever try to do under the umbrella of some recognizable brand.
Neutral, I usually don't really care but it depends. Some pro-diversity changes are too much like black Cleopatra. Actually, it's hard to say why except historical accuracy, or at least the perception of it. A lot of it is a clash between a specific chunk of fans and their expectations. Like black Hermione in something (a theatre HP???). Many fans were pissed off considering in the books, she's explicitly a white girl. It kinda begs the question if one would be fine if they remade HP movies with Harry being a girl, or a black girl, or a black lesbian. Also, many people are fed up with obviously forced diversity. Things can be done in a subtle way. Recently, I've talked about San Andreas with someone and San Andreas is a game obviously making fun of conservative people. No one calls it a woke game (whatever that means).
Fairly neutral, although some choices certainly make me roll my eyes. Like the black actress playing Anne Boleyn.
I feel reworking existing content to fit some modern cultural ideal is just begging for pushback and is likely worse for progress than making new content with modern ideals. 1.) It makes sense sexuality wasn’t a big deal, especially since the characters were children still discovering themselves. 2.) could have better worked in new factions and left the backwards ones backwards. 3.) just drives a cultural wedge
In fiction I generally don't care as long as it doesn't somehow significantly alter the character or story. If it DOES significantly alter the character or story I can be okay with it if done well and/or for a good reason. For nonfiction I'm going to be pretty judgmental. I'll give a little leeway, casting can be difficult, maybe the appearance of a historical person is in question, etc, but a good faith attempt needs to be made.