"I rank the frequently blundering poet with Choerilus: when he
Does produce two or three excellent lines I am startled to laughter,
As I am taken aback by good Homer's occasional drowsing.
True, with a long piece of writing a drowsiness does steal upon you."
Does produce two or three excellent lines I am startled to laughter,
As I am taken aback by good Homer's occasional drowsing.
True, with a long piece of writing a drowsiness does steal upon you."
— Horace, Ars Poetica (Charles E. Passage translation)
Certain facts or events are presented in a series that conflicts with related information given in earlier episodes. Usually not as overt as a Retcon, as it often occurs from not double-checking the Universe Bible or fan-made encyclopedias. Usually as simple as one episode stating a character was 30 years old and another episode mentioning the year they were born and it's off by 5 years. When you get to Negative Continuity, this becomes more the rule than the exception. Compare Continuity Snarl and Continuity Drift, which are for multiple works contradicting each other rather than a single work contradicting itself.
A common feature of Long-Runners, as it's difficult to keep track of continuity after multiple years or decades, especially as new writers are brought on board. Also ubiquitous with prequels, as trying to tell a story that fits perfectly within "later" canon can be near impossible. Broad Strokes is often used to paper over the inconsistencies, trying to make sense of a lot of contradictory information into a coherent whole. See also Characterization Marches On and Early-Installment Weirdness, which is often rife with these kind of continuity issues.
Contrast Revision, which is when a retcon fits within the broad spirit of the original information and may give a reason it is different, such as Unreliable Narrator.
Example subpages:
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Advertising
- One of the Somersby apple cider commercials tells the story of how music was only listened to until lord Somersby accidentally invented dancing. Then in a later commercial featuring young lord Somersby, we can see some people dancing in the background, even though it is supposed to take place earlier canonically. Given the nature of these commercials, which run on deliberate Anachronism Stew for the Rule of Funny's sake, people can justify it.
Asian Animation
- In the third episode of BoBoiBoy's first season, Adu Du comments on BoBoiBoy while the latter is playing footballnote . In the second season's third episode, Adu Du has no recollection of what football is.
- Occasionally, Noonbory and the Super 7 forgets that Totobory's leaves only allow him to taste things, not eat them. This error has occurred in "Big, Bigger, Biggest" and "The Great Switcheroo".
Audio Plays
- Big Finish Doctor Who: In the Fourth Doctor Adventures story "Destination: Nerva," the Fourth Doctor rambles about a "Butler named Butler," a character from an audio drama recorded before "Destination: Nerva" but coming after it in the Doctor's timeline. The line was a Tom Baker adlib, and he didn't care about such things. Fan Wank of God is that the Negative Space Wedgie allowed the Doctor to foresee future events.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes:
- A few early strips allude to the family having two cars, and the very first strip shows Calvin's dad washing a car resembling a Ford LTD. However, in all subsequent appearances, we've only seen one car, an econobox hatchback, and even then the car's taillight design changes between appearances.
- Does Calvin's dad take the bus to work or does he drive? Depending on the needs of the joke at hand, it changes (such as when Calvin rolls the car into the ditch while his dad is at work, or when Calvin builds a snow mound over his driveway, preventing the car from getting out and making his dad late for work).
- The position of the window next to Calvin's bed changes between strips; it's changed from the side of the house, the front of the dormer, and the side of the dormer, and also alternates between the left and right dormer.
- This occurs between strips when Calvin's parents are in bed. The first two strips show Calvin's dad on the left, but the third one has him on the right, and the fourth one has him on the left again.
- The first strip shows Calvin capturing Hobbes in the wilderness in the present, but subsequent strips allude to Hobbes having known Calvin since he was a waddling infant. Word of God noted in commentary that he came to regret showing how Calvin met Hobbes and would've preferred it to be a mystery.
- Calvin is shown writing with both his left and right hands. While he could be ambidextrous, the more likely explanation is that Watterson just didn't keep track of which hand Calvin uses to write.
- Peanuts:
- The June 06 1959 strip has Snoopy say that he doesn't have any siblings, yet they appear later in the strip's run (and were mentioned in the March 18, 1970 strip). To make matters worse, when he first meets his siblings in the strip, he claims they all speak different languages, which is also later proven false. He also started calling Charlie Brown the "round-headed kid" around the late 1960's, even though he called him by his name earlier, although that could be more of Characterization Marches On.
- Even stranger, the December 5, 1960 comic has Snoopy denying being a beagle.
- Even though Violet's birthday is seemingly June 17th, according to the June 17, 1962 strip, a couple of the 1950's strips hinted her birthday is January 28th: In the February 22, 1951 strip, she said her birthday was last month, and in the January 29, 1955 strip, Charlie Brown said her birthday was yesterday.
Fan Works
- One of Coeur Al'Aran's most prominent weaknesses as a writer is that many of his RWBY fics tend to suffer in-story continuity errors, wherein he forgets previously-established fic lore and timeline details and ends up contradicting it in later chapters, likely because he tends to be juggling the plot points and ideas for at least three different (and generally lengthy) stories at any given time.
- This usually happens prominently when Coeur tries to incorporate an update to RWBY canon's lore into the already-established setting of a fic that began writing before said canon update occurred — i.e., incorporating Salem's canon origins and backstory that were established by Volume 6 into White Sheep, after early chapters outright stated that she'd never had children before and that the Grimm would cease to exist if she died (both of which are stated and implied respectively to be untrue in canon as of Volume 6); and zig-zagging a lot in Relic of the Future on the lead-up to Salem's death and the fates of Jacques Schnee and Atlas in the first timeline before and after the release of Volume 8, as well as making an early mention of his pre-Saphron OC Stand-in for Jaune's eldest sister Sapphire Arc in Relic before later chapters of the same fic posted after Volume 6 replaced Sapphire with the canon sister Saphron Arc.
- However, there was also a prominent instance in the aforementioned Relic where Coeur forgot over the course of about 40 chapter updates about Velvet and Coco in that fic being established members of the ASH Gym, and he failed to rectify all the continuity contradictions in their later appearance once he caught on to the error. Likewise, Not this time, Fate and Arc Royale heavily go back-and-forth on without much consistency on what the Jaune of that fic's universe has and hasn't done during his millennia-long Groundhog Peggy Sue situation — although some of the inconsistencies that Fate!Jaune's Arc Royale appearance has relative to his original appearance can be hand-waved in Royale by the fact that he's lying to and deceiving his peers.
- Arc Corp in particular has commentors quip that instances of this trope within the fic, which have ranged from misremembering which characters are accompanying others to having one character be inexplicably alive just a few chapters after being killed off, are caused in-universe by some undocumented reality-warping anomaly.
- Calvin's phone number in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series is first shown to be 555-7186. Five episodes later, it's 555-6846.
- The Dissonance of The Earthling Saiyan: Cell mocks Yamcha by saying he died to a Saibaman during the fight against the Saiyans in Book 1. Yamcha and the other characters react as if this is true. While that is how Yamcha died in canon, in this AU it was Vegeta who killed him. While it's possible Cell was referring to an Alternate Timeline Yamcha, the humans of this timeline have never seen a Saibaman before and should have no idea what he's talking about.
- The End of the World (FernWithy): The series is a Doorstopper written in Anachronic Order, so there is the occasional discrepancy even after the author went back to revise the earlier-written stories. Most are fairly small and easy to disregard, but three stories give contradictory information about District 9's victors. The Hanging Tree claims there are only two during Haymitch's Victory Tour, a man and a woman (although a second District 9 female Victor, Etta Bossard, is also mentioned in passing in a later chapter), and implies that Darla the woman is the older one. The Golden Mean and a complete list of Victors in the author's universe temporarily made available on LiveJournal say there are five Victors from 9, all older than Haymitch, with Darla being much younger than both of the men. The Narrow Path claims that there were only four: Darla, a woman who won a year after her, and two older men.
- Nobody Cared:
- Snape thinks about the Order of the Phoenix's meetings from the first war before going into a Flashback about how he met Harry as a baby. During this, Lupin is mentioned as being at the meetings and that he was always nice to Snape. Later on, Lupin mentions that he was never in the Order and Snape remarks how Lupin was never at any meetings.
- Hermione mentions that Professor Vector took her to Diagon Alley to get her school supplies because her parents were out of the country at the time. Later on, Hermione's parents having gone with her to Diagon Alley to get her school supplies is a significant event, as it is what turned her parents against the Wizarding World and eventually against their daughter entirely.
- The Palaververse: The fics are supposed to be able to happen in canon, so "The White Horse" has this because Sombra should not be around after Luna's banishment.
- A wand for Steven: The first chapter states that Steven and four gems (Pearl, Amethyst, Ruby, and Sapphire) were found by the veil. Later on, Peridot wakes up during the summer before Year 3, making it five gems instead.
Films — Animation
- 101 Dalmatians: In the original film, Patch had no trouble barking, but in the sequel Patch's London Adventure, he has a squeaky bark.
- At the end of Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Kida gains more tattoos on her face, which could be a sign of her becoming queen; but in the sequel, all of her tattoos save her first one are inexplicably gone. This is justified, as the sequel was originally intended to be an animated TV series that was scrapped due to the movie flopping at the box office, and thus had poorer animation, making it impossible for Kida to still be animated with the new tattoos on her face.
- In Disney's Bambi, Bambi's mother says not one deer has lived half as long as the Great Prince. However, in Bambi II, when Bambi is still a fawn, the Great Prince says he was Bambi's age when he met Bambi's mother.
- The Cars franchise takes place in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic vehicles, and as such, most world landmarks are given a vehicle motif. However, some landmarks have contradicting designs: At the end of Cars 2, the Taj Mahai and the Great Wall of China both appear in the credits and have a car motif, while the Statue of Luberty, as seen in one tie-in storybook, resembles a Ford Model T. However, when all of these landmarks appear again in Planes, the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall are instead both given a plane motif, and the Statue of Luberty now resembles a forklift.
- At the very beginning of Finding Dory, upon close inspection, the scene where Dory first meets Marlin and helps him try to find Nemo noticeably cuts out some of Dory's introductory lines from Finding Nemo, such as "Hi, I'm Dory", and the background fish in those scenes are completely different.
- Another example can be seen with the Tank Gang at the end of both films. In the first film's credits, the Tank Gang has presumably all escaped from their bags from the dentist's office and are now swimming around in the ocean, but at the end of the sequel, they're still stuck in their bags for some reason, and end up being taken into the Marine Life Institute after being washed ashore there.
- In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the little girl who hugged Quasimodo at the end of the first movie is present at the start of the second movie and hasn't aged at all — even though enough time has passed for Esmeralda and Phoebus to have a young son.
- In The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, Crash and Eddie point out that dinosaurs don't talk, despite having met Gavin and his kids who are talking dinosaurs in the previous film.
- The Disney Direct-to-Video film The Lion King 1 ½ (which is essentially a recap of the first film's events, but from Timon and Pumbaa's point of view) actively contradicts the events of The Lion King on many levels. On the other hand, given whose points of view this is, some people have interpreted it as a parody because of how many events it contradicts.
- A throwaway line in Monsters, Inc. 1 suggests that Mike and Sulley have known each other since elementary school. Yet, its prequel Monsters University shows them meeting for the first time in college. There was also a promo (seen in Toy Story 2) where Sulley complained that Mike was too interested in his elementary school crush to pay attention to geography, which is why they've chosen the wrong door. Plus, a guidebook said they met in kindergarten when Sulley mistook Mike for a chair and briefly sat on him. Interestingly, the 4th-Grade line was going to be canon in the prequel, but the directors had difficulty trying to find a way to make the story work that they decided not to make the line have any meaning.
- Winnie-the-Pooh:
- Piglet's Big Movie recounts how Kanga and Roo first came to the Hundred Acre Woods. Tigger takes part in the event, even though Pooh and the others first met Tigger in Winnie the Pooh & the Blustery Day, in which they already know Kanga and Roo.
- In the holiday-themed Compilation Movie Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving, Rabbit and the other characters act as though Kessie hasn't been seen in the Hundred Acre Wood since her debut episode in New Adventures "Find Her, Keep Her." However, there was another episode ("A Bird in the Hand") where Kessie returned to visit the Hundred Acre Wood. Kessie is also still in her young form when she cameos at the movie's end despite having grown up by the time of "A Bird in the Hand" (a form she has been in all of her subsequent appearances, like in The Book of Pooh). Maybe Seasons of Giving takes place between "Find Her, Keep Her" and "A Bird in the Hand," but if not, then it's an error.
- Winx Club: The Mystery of the Abyss: The movie is set between seasons 5 and 6, but the Winx are shown in their base outfits for the latter season, which they don't receive until the sixth season's second episode—"The Legendarium".
- In Wreck-It Ralph, Sugar Rush is depicted as a side-by-side multiplayer arcade cabinet similar to the Mario Kart Arcade GP series. In Ralph Breaks the Internet, it's suddenly a traditional single-player arcade cabinet, because the plot requires a mechanical malfunction to shut down the entire game.
Mythology & Religion
- Classical Mythology could have a page to itself due to its numerous continuity errors:
- Aphrodite both rose from foam created by Uranus' severed testicles and was born to a mistress of Zeus.
- Dionysus is both the son of Zeus and the son of Persephone and Hades.
- After swallowing the pregnant Metis, Zeus developed a severe headache. When Hephaestus split his head open to relieve the pain, Athena sprang forth. She became the most important goddess of her generation, and Zeus took great pride in knowing that he'd "fathered" her all by himself. Hera became jealous and gave birth to a child all by herself, to prove Zeus wasn't the only one who could do it. That child? Hephaestus. Some authors solved this by having somebody else, like Prometheus or Hermes, split Zeus's head instead or deny that version of Hephaestus's birth.
- Norse Mythology: The canon consists of numerous sources which contradict each other on many points. In particular, the important story of Balder's death exists in two very different versions.
Professional Wrestling
- Impact Wrestling gives the name of Dixie Carter's father as Bob (his real name), yet also implies that it is Ethan, as he's the grandfather of Ethan Carter III.
- On the August 1, 2002, episode of WWE SmackDown, Jamie Noble introduced Nidia to the announce team of Michael Cole and Tazz, saying that they don't mess with Tazz because he's "one of them street thug kind of fellers." The problem is that Tazz was one of Nidia's trainers on WWE Tough Enough, so she already knew what he was like.
Radio
- All the episodes of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are based on Noodle Incidents from the Canon. A couple, however, don't quite fit:
- "The Saviour of Cripplegate Square": Supposedly, the incident Holmes referred to when he said, "the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money" in The Sign of the Four, but in this story the woman in question insists the money didn't interest her. Still, she thought her charges were Too Good for This Sinful Earth and was "saving" them. And Holmes seems to believe her since he uses the case as an example of how love is not a positive emotion.
- "The Shameful Betrayal of Miss Emily Smith": Based on Holmes's reference in "The Adventure of the Priory School" "to that terrible murderer, Bert Stevens, who wanted us to get him off in '87". The murder Stevens wants them to get him off for is one he's actually innocent of. He commits the terrible murder afterwards, and is entirely unconcerned with getting away with it.
- "The Determined Client": From Watson's reference to "an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow" in "The Golden Pince-Nez", but there is no ancient barrow in the story at all.
- The Navy Lark:
- The Pilot, "Operation Fag End", establishes that Lieutenant Commander Stanton has a side hustle supplying the fish for the Jubilee Fish Café but in "Tug-of-War" from Series 2, he is horrified by the idea of Sub-Lieutenant Phillips eating fish.
- When Lieutenant Price briefly returns in "A Hole Lieutenant", CPO Pertwee is horrified by the idea of him starting up the Unit Comfort Fund again, despite the fact that Lieutenant Murray had already started it back up in "Strike Up the Band".
- Mr. Pertwee has no idea that announcer Robin Boyle is married during the introduction for "Back in the Navy", despite directly addressing Mrs. Boyle in "Ship Ahoy!", only three episodes ago.
- In "Stuck on a Sandbank", Johnson complains that CPO Pertwee has tagged along with him without being invited the last eight times they've gone on leave. Despite that, three leaves ago in "The Portarneyland Fishing Limit", Pertwee actually was invited by Fatso.
- Heather mentions in "Just the Ticket" (aired in 1966) that she's been listening to Sub-Lieutenant Phillips for eight years, which would be 1958... even though she first met him in "The Missing Jeep", which aired in 1959.
- Heather tells Captain Povey in "Off to Sea at Last" that she was six in 1939, giving her a birth year of 1933 and a current age of 33. However, Heather mentioned she was 23 during her introduction to Sub-Lieutenant Phillips in "The Missing Jeep", which means she would've been born in 1936 and (going by her birthdays in "The Comfort Fund" and "Mr Phillips Gets Engaged") should now be 31.
- Sub-Lieutenant Phillips' time at Dartmouth is the topic of the Whole Episode Flashback "When Sub-Lt Phillips Was at Dartmouth" from Series 9... contradicting what Mr. Phillips himself said in Series 3's "Mr Phillips Has Navigation Tuition" that he never went to his navigation course due to sickness.
- Sub-Lieutenant Phillips recalls in "The Anniversary and the Washing" that he and CPO Pertwee have known Commander Murray for the last twelve years. As the episode aired in 1970, that would mean they met him in 1958... one year before his introduction in "New at the Helm".
- Sub-Lieutenant Phillips and CPO Pertwee find out Commander Murray's Embarrassing Middle Name is "Butterfield" in "Number One Gets Married"... forgetting they had already learned that back in "Open Day".
- The first series' "The Comfort Fund" gives Sub-Lieutenant Phillips' age as 33, and "When Sub-Lt Phillips Was at Dartmouth" revealed that he started at Dartmouth at 18, and after four years, passed as a Navigation Officer and straight onto service aboard Troutbridge. However, in "Sub-Lt Phillips to Leave for Dartmouth", Sub-Lieutenant Phillips says he was in the class of '59, meaning he joined Troutbridge the same year the series began and been 22 at the time — 11 years too young for Series 1!
- Sub-Lieutenant Phillips claims to have never been to Shanghai in "Sir Willoughby at Shanghai", despite visiting only one series prior in "What is the SSE?".
- Commander Wetherby has no idea who Captain Atcheson is in "Friday the 13th", even though from Series 8-11, Captain Atcheson was a member of a board of inquiry with him, where they interacted frequently. It was also established in "When Sub-Lt Phillips Was at Dartmouth" that they had been working together since at least the late '50s, making Commander Wetherby forgetting his colleague even more of a headscratcher.
- While Ramona is unconscious in "The Montezula Revolution", Captain Povey claims it's the first time she's had her big mouth shut in 38 years, which would be 1937. This contradicts "Are Captain and Mrs Povey Married?" which saw the Poveys celebrate their fifteenth wedding anniversary — this happening in 1961 means they would have been married in 1946.
- In Series 4, we met Ramona's "dear sister", the equally ghastly Valentina, while the Series 9 episode "Cuthbert Joins the Navy" showed off Ramona's rude nephew, Cuthbert Spinks — presumably Valentina's son. Despite this, in Series 14's "Povey — An Admiral at Last", Captain Povey gets ready to meet Ramona's sister again... a certain Clarissa Lumley, who is very obviously a different character to Valentina (Valentina lives in England and is voiced by Judy Cornwell, Clarissa lives in Singapore and is voiced by Heather Chasen).
- After announcer Barri Haynes says the word "game" during the introduction for "Captain Povey's Wig", Commander Murray claims he's been waiting fourteen years to hear that word during an opening announcement, despite the fact Haynes used the word only a few episodes earlier in "Bunged in the Rattle". Similarly, "games" was uttered in "The Mickey Mouse Toothbrush" and "The Put-a-Horse-out-to-Graze Fund", and "gamekeeper" in "The New NAAFI".
- The late Admiral Sir Benjamin Troutbridge is given a birth year of 1741 early on in "Johnson's Birthday", which, being transmitted in 1960, means that he was born 219 years ago. However, thirteen years later in "The Brain Pill", Admiral Troutbridge's 225th birthday is celebrated, when by this point in time it should be his 232nd instead.
- In "Helen, The New Wren", Commander Murray claims that he and Rita live with her father, Admiral Ffont-Bittocks, despite the fact that they moved out into the house next to the Poveys back in "Number One's Married Quarters".
- The Troutbridge crew and Commander Wetherby seem to be unfamiliar with each other in "The Jubilee Navy Lark", despite the fact that they had been meeting frequently since Series 8.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons gods:
- The Demon Queen of Spiders, goddess of the drow, is called Lolth. R.A. Salvatore accidentally spelled her name Lloth when she became a Forgotten Realms character, and the error increased to the extent it needed a rationalization.
- Juiblex had similar problems by often being misspelled as Jubilex. Since both are Demon Lords, it is quite easy to invoke I Have Many Names to justify the differences.
- In the Dragon article series "The Wizards Three", Ed Greenwood occasionally forgot that, in Dragonlance, "dark elf" isn't a race, but means any elf who has turned to evil. On one occasion he outright referred to Dalamar as a drow, and on another he had him refer to "his people" raiding the surface world.
- Magic: The Gathering:
- In the novel Rath and Storm, it's briefly mentioned that Hanna's mother Rayne is dead. However, we later find out in Prophecy that she's quite alive. And then she dies in that book.
- Recent Portuguese cards and documentation are printed in Brazilian Portuguese instead of Portuguese Portuguese, resulting in many unwarranted changes in terminology.
- Star Trek Adventures: Page 42 of the core rulebook repeats the misconception that different ships had their own unit patches in Star Trek: The Original Series, originally caused by a costuming error
in "The Omega Glory".
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- When "Elemental HERO Burstinatrix" first came out, her flavor text says she's the "only" female member of the "Elemental HEROes" which was true at the time. It corrected the English text later as "first," but the Japanese text hasn't been, even though more female "Elemental HEROes" have been released.
- Recent Portuguese cards and documentation are printed in Brazilian Portuguese instead of Portuguese Portuguese, resulting in many unexpected changes in names and terminology. Apart from spelling changes (Portuguese activar > Brazilian ativar), there were also term changes (Portuguese Anjo "Angel" > Brazilian Fada "Fairy"; Portuguese jogador "player" > Brazilian duelista "duelist").
- The Chinese rule book has never been updated to be consistent with printed cards for all their pathetically short run.
Toys
- BIONICLE
- The original intro of the story involves Takua summoning the Toa in their canisters to the island. He got blasted into the sky to witness six metal capsules descending form the "heavens" and landing in the sea, then drifting to the island shores. Later material explained that these canisters had been floating in the ocean for a thousand years before Takua attempted to do this.
- Another example is what the Order of Mata Nui reported about Karzahni. In their book, they write about how he is amassing an army in his own realm to lead them into battle. When Karzahni reappears in the story, he reveals he's been following the Matoran who later became the Toa Inika ever since they had gotten away from him, so he would've had no time to train any army.
- When the Rahkshi attack Ta-Koro in the movie Mask of Light, Tahu, the village's protector, boldly shouts "None have breached Ta-Koro's gates before! And none shall this day!" Except that the previous set of baddies, the Bohrok-Kal have broken into the village and defeated Tahu himself, right before the movie's story. The reason for this oversight is that the movie and preceding Filler Arc were handled by different writers, and in all likelyhood the movie was written first but released later.
- Probably due to the same reason, some scenes of the second movie, Legends of Metru Nui, are at odds with the novels' and comics' stories. One of the more significant issues is Matau learning that his blades double as wings. In the movie, everyone is surprised when they activate and save him from plunging to his death; according to the comics, he has already used them to fly earlier.
- The comics leading up to the third movie, Web of Shadows, didn't want to spoil Vakama's betrayal, and so showed him leading his team into the Coliseum to clash with the villains. Yet, in the movie, we learn that Vakama, having become evil due to the villains' influence, was in the Coliseum the whole time, waiting for his former comrades to try and take him back.
- The book Tale of the Toa was written without the Mata Nui Online Game in mind (which at the time had been considered non-canonical), but it had some issues of its own. In the comics, the fact that the Rahi beasts have to be defeated by taking off their infected masks is common knowledge from the get-go, but in the book, which was written in accordance with the comics, this is only discovered halfway through. Other parts of the book were later also Retconned to better fit in with the timeline and accommodate the events of the Online Game.
- The online animations and the book Makuta's Revenge offer differing accounts on which Bohrok-Kal stole which Toa Nuva symbol. Usually, the former is considered more canonical. The mini-comic in the toys' instruction manuals contradict both, making it an example of Advertising-Only Continuity.
- Makuta's narration in one of the 2003 comics claims he's been hiding for years after his 2001 defeat. Later on, the writer established that the entirety of the 2001-2008 storyline (barring the 2004-2005 flashbacks) took place within a single year. Of course, Makuta might just be Breaking the Fourth Wall here and meant "years" in real-life terms.
- A lot of continuity gaffes stem from different writers having more influence on certain media, retelling events their own way. The Bionicle movies in specific are basically their own canon, often based on undeveloped concepts, referencing ideas contradicted by other media, and aiming for wider viewer appeal with simplified stories and explanations. At times the creators were aware of continuity errors but chose to ignore them for the sake of the films' themes or presentations, like the island of Mata Nui in the 4th film being lush with jungles despite earlier story explaining that all life had been extinguished on it.
Video Games
- Baldur's Gate: When a Bhaalspawn dies, the body dissolves and the divine essence goes to fuel Bhaal's resurrection. This is showed by the cutscene when the protagonist dies, and the epilogue in bg1 after Sarevok's death, with both turning to dust. Comes Baldur's Gate II and we discover that Imoen is a Bhaalspawn too, despite she chould have died and been resurrected many times in the first game as any other normal character. Even more egregious is that the regular mechianics continues in bg2 anyway, even after her soul was stolen. While you must reload if you die, because you can't be resurrected, she can undergo the process whenever you want.
- This is even lampshaded in a banter in the expansion Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, where it is established that the soul of a former Bhaalspawn can be resurrected through special means but would not carry anymore divine essence and be a normal mortal. Imoen asks to Sarevok how it feels to die, and he sarcastically answers that she should already know considering how weak he sees her, after which she acknowledges that her experience is a different thing as it is like simply seeing black and then suddenly awakening somewhere else (even if during your playthrough she never died at all!). She is still a Bhaalspawn that can die and be resurrected infinite times, anyway, until the epilogue when she chooses to relinquish her divine essence.
- Batman: Arkham Series:
- Batman: Arkham Origins caused one within itself when they decided to give Batman: Year One's corrupt S.W.A.T. officer Branden a first name: his bio in the game proper is listed as "Howard", but according to a radio transmission the player can listen to on the Cryptographic Sequencer in the "Cold, Cold Heart" DLC, his first name is "Scott."
- Batman: Arkham Underworld sees Harley Quinn in her Batman: Arkham Asylum costume — which she stated in that exact game was new and a tag at the start of Underworld says the game takes place "9 years ago", which given Batman: Arkham Knight states the events of Origins takes place ten years before it, means part of Underworld takes place not long after Origins.
- Batman: Arkham Origins, developed by WB Games Montréal (not the original developers from Rocksteady Studios), portrays the first meeting between Joker and Harley Quinn dramatically different from what's heard from videotapes in Batman: Arkham Asylum. Instead of just another villainous rambling from Joker and slutty responses from Harley Quinn in Asylum, the conversation is quite solemn: Joker keeps pondering on his newfound nemesis, Batman, and talks about him as if they're destined for each other, while Harley Quinn, portrayed as being uncharacteristically timid and shy, only gives back minor responses and ultimately submits to the belief that he was talking about her. Batman: Arkham Shadow would address this by showing the Joker likes to pretend (or not pretend, as the case may be) that he's completely forgotten about Harley and his regular sessions with her are the first time they've met with Harley amused and playing along with the joke, implying the tapes from Asylum are another case of this "act."
- BoomBots: If you unlock Klaymen as a playable character and decide to play through the game as him, the first message you recieve tells you that Dr. Pick created Klaymen. Anyone who has played The Neverhood knows that it was Hoborg who created Klaymen.
- Crash Bash: The opening cutscene of the game establishes that Aku-Aku and Uka-Uka have to use their allies as vessels for their argument because "the ancients" (who have never been mentioned before or since) won't allow for them to fight directly. Even though they fought each other just fine during the Final Boss of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped.
- Discussed in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in the "A Criminal Past" DLC when Jensen gets his augmentations back. The game notes that giving him access to the new experimental augs from the main game nine months before he canonically knew they existed constitutes a Plot Hole and gives you the option to either respect continuity at the cost of a weaker Jensen or accept the plot hole so you can have all of your shiny new toys. Can also be a case of Unreliable Narrator as Jensen survived a bombing that did some damage at the start of the game and the DLC is framed as Jensen giving a very overdue after-action report following the events of the base game and the other DLC.
- Disco Elysium is normally incredibly good at keeping track of what you did, which makes it weird in the few cases when later scenes do contradict previous ones:
- Players who explore long passages of the game without Kim will sometimes find him knowing about things he shouldn't, repeating in-jokes from conversations he wasn't there for, and sometimes even being reacted to by other people as if he had been there on an earlier meeting. This is especially relevant to the way the game tracks your character's drug abuse. You will only lose Relationship Values with Kim for taking up a new drug habit while Kim is there to watch you, making it clear he's not supposed to know about what you do when he's not there, but Kim will still mention it in the ending if you only took one drink, in your room, after Kim had gone to bed.
- Even if you have been drinking throughout the game, if you have the Wasteland of Reality thought internalized during the ending, Kim will tell Jean that you have been dry all week. This is due to an Orphaned Reference — in older versions of the game, Wasteland of Reality couldn't be acquired if you were drinking in the first two days of the game, so there wouldn't have been an inconsistency.
- The game is internally inconsistent about when Harry wrecked his car. Kim and your character will deduce from the visual evidence that the crash happened on Sunday night, but Idiot Doom Spiral tells you it happened on Saturday night. You partied with the Union of Moribund Alcoholics through Sunday morning before becoming suicidal around midday Sunday and vanishing.
- In the first scene when Kim uses his Trigat Mini camera, it's described as a digital camera, but in the second, it uses film.
- During Chapter 6 of F-Zero GX's Story Mode, Black Shadow attempts to murder Captain Falcon by strapping a speed-senstive bomb to the Blue Falcon. However, Captain Falcon manages to knock the bomb off and survive. During the next chapter, Black Shadow is suprised to see that Captain Falcon is still alive and well. But it shouldn't be very suprising, considering that the Blue Falcon is parked right in front of him.
- Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2, and Lightning Returns have terrible continuity, both in-game and cross-game*. It's absurd to the point where Lightning Returns has completely different reasons/motivations/developments/explanations, etc., for events the characters reflect upon and the lore of the games themselves after the prior two built everything up. Yet they still apparently happen the same way.
- Etro is stated to be the goddess of time in XIII-2, but in Lightning Returns and the expanded universe material, her dominion is over the life and death cycle, meaning time travel and visions of the future/alternate timelines she made possible in XIII-2 couldn't have been done by her, and the rest of the series' god entities were either sleeping or dead.
- Due to Fallout being split between the West Coast setting of the original games written by Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment, and the East Coast one of the newer games by Bethesda, this is a fairly frequent occurrence, especially as Bethesda keeps trying to "one-up" various elements of previous games in their newer ones.
- In Fallout 2, Myron proudly claims to have invented the addictive drug known as Jet, and if asked, will tell you the story of how it was created, partly by accident, as a result of the Mordinos' efforts to create a potent drug that they could produce in the wasteland. You can find Jet in Fallout 3 however, despite the fact that it's very unlikely that such a drug would have been able to spread in such quantities all the way across the entire country, and even in some sealed locations that haven't had an outside human presence in a very long time, like vaults. Fallout 4 actually goes even further and indicates that the drug was made before the nuclear war due to being on a list of drugs hidden in a vault before the bombs fell. No canon source has addressed this yet, though knowing Myron, it's fairly believable that he lied about creating it, and instead found the pre-war recipe and simply tweaked it for his own uses.
- Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 establish that the T-51 Power Armor was the pinnacle of personal protection before the Great War, only being eclipsed by the Advanced Power Armor used by the Enclave, which was developed well after the war while they were hunkered down in their protected vaults. However, Fallout 4 would introduce both the T-60note and X-01,note both of which are far superior to the T-51. Fallout 76 would go even further and introduce the T-65, an even better version of the T-60 used solely by the Secret Service in Vault 79, and one of the strongest armors in the series to date.
- While ghouls have always had a bit of a debate on exactly how long they can go without food or water, and whether they even need either or if they can just survive off of ambient radiation, Fallout 4 takes it to a whole new level by introducing Billy, a child ghoul who has been trapped in a fridge for ''210 years'', yet is no worse for wear once you let him out. (Outside of his ghoulification of course) If Billy is any indication, ghouls do not need any form of sustenance to live, which goes against not only certain plots in prior games,note but even within Fallout 4 itself, as Kent Connolly still requires sustenance according to terminal entries, and ghoul settlers still require food and water to live in your settlements. (Though that last point may just simply be a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation)
- The Mr. Handy line of robots (along with all of it's variants) are explicitly said to be the products of General Atomics International in the earlier Fallout games. However, a plaque in the REPCONN Headquarters in Fallout: New Vegas instead shows it off as a product of RobCo.
- Feral: It's established in several quests that airships cannot visit the Blood Tundra's harbor without crashing. When the Fera Air Mail airship rotates into the Blood Tundra, it docks in the harbor without experiencing any problems.
- In Final Fantasy XIV's side story, Set with the Sun, Fordola is shown to have been friends with Yda in her backstory and her distinctive facial tattoo is in honor of Yda who had a similar tattoo. This is a problem for both characters. For Fordola, the game proper already showed that Fordola's tattoo is identical to one her dead father had and all but stated that tattoo was to honor him. For Yda, she had already appeared in the game's 1.0 version without a tattoo. Her sister Lyse also pretended to be her despite not having such a tattoo and while her impersonation admittedly didn't fool many, it strains credulity that Lyse thought she could pull it off at all while missing an obvious distinctive feature of her sister's.
- Fire Emblem:
- Since Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is a prequel, characters who appear in or have children who appear in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade are Saved by Canon and won't die for real if they fall in battle (though they'll still become unplayable). Rebecca is an exception — despite her son appearing in the previous/next game, she dies for real if she falls in battle. No explanation is given for this, suggesting that it was simply an oversight.
- In Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, it was established that Minerva initially rode a pegasus before she became a wyvern rider, tying into how the Dracoknight class that rode wyverns promoted from Pegasus Knights in that game. Later material reinforced this, with the trading card game Fire Emblem Cipher releasing a card of Pegasus Knight Minerva that could be used to summon that version of the character in Fire Emblem Fates. Later on, Fire Emblem Heroes released a younger version of Minerva, who rides a wyvern despite the events of the remake being previously established as canon. Her past as a Pegasus Knight is ignored.
- In Fire Emblem: Awakening, undead monsters known as "The Risen" terrorize the land of Ylisse. However, they don't appear until a few chapters into the story. Depending on how you play, Robin and Lissa's first support converstation will be unlocked, which mentions the Risen before they show up. The European version of the game corrects this by changing the Risen into bandits.
- On the way to the True Ending of Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, the CPU Candidates are promoted to full CPUs. Yet at the beginning of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, the direct sequel, Nepgear introduces herself, Uni, Rom and Ram as CPU Candidates. Despite a few ways to reconcile this (mk2's Good Ending is the canon one, or the immortal goddess CPUs being reinstated after the events of the game), the game doesn't explain it.
- Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the map of Hyrule is intact as such, with Castle Town in particular showing more streets than the earlier game. However, in the cutscene where Purah excitedly shows the completed map on the Sheikah Slate atop Akkala Tower, Castle Town is prominently visible as its destroyed version. Notably, the area directly in front of the Hyrule Castle drawbridge should look more like a U with a line connecting the top, but it looks like a J instead.
- Kingdom Hearts II has Donald Duck and Goofy surprised to learn a certain tower is the residence of Master Yen Sid. In the prequel Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, they are met at said tower and indeed came there specifically to find him for help in finding a missing Mickey Mouse.
- At the end of the first episode of Life is Strange, both Max and Chloe are surprised when it suddenly starts to snow.note The other citizens of Arcadia Bay are also confused about this and like Chloe they act like they've seen something for the first time- but the prequel revealed that the same thing already happended in the summer of 2010 while a wildfire threatened to burn Arcadia Bay. While Max had some reasons to not know about thisnote The other characters and primarily Chloe should've remembered this.
- Between the first and second Mass Effect games, "thermal clips" were invented to replace all guns' original heat sink system. During the same period, mechs became widespread compared to their initial limited numbers. This is an issue when rescuing Jacob's father, who was marooned eight years prior to the first game. Despite being cut off from the galaxy, the planet still has a plentiful supply of thermal clips and mechs.
- Metroid games since Metroid: Zero Mission have established Samus's Power Suit as being able to from physical matter into energy at will. Metroid: Other M staes that it is something formed and maintained by her will, and being knocked unconscious causes the suit to dematerialize. This causes problems with the chronologically later game, Metroid Fusion — where the plot hinges on the Power Suit being a physical object that remains around Samus whilst she is unconscious, ans an X parasite is infecting her.
- The first cutscene in the story mode for Puyo Puyo 7 directly contradicts itself. Ringo's reaction to the Puyos raining from the sky in Suzuran implies she's never seen them before, and this is the first instance in the series where Suzuran is recorded to have Puyos, being that it's where Suzuran debuts. There's already a statue of Puyos in front of the school Ringo goes to (which the actual Puyos are raining in front of), and Ringo already has a Puyo hairclip by the time she sees them for the first time, without explanation.
- Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction reveals Ratchet to be the last of the Lombaxes... but in Going Commando, Angela Cross is one too. Whoops. Apparently, Word of God has said she's a separate but similar species. Regardless, in the prison in Tools of Destruction, they mention "prisoner's of Lombax descent", so Angela could also be half-Lombax. Then it became a Flip-Flop of God: as of A Crack in Time, Angela has been confirmed as a Lombax (apparently females don't have tails).
- Resident Evil:
- Resident Evil 3: Nemesis states that Raccoon City was completely blocked off from the outside by the military to contain the viral outbreak and supposedly takes place before and after the events of Resident Evil 2 (apparently the entire second game took place while Jill was unconscious from the T-Virus infection). In the game, you can see most of the city is a burning wreck, and the entranceway for the RPD is littered with construction equipment while also having two of the main doors inside being barricaded. However, Resident Evil 2 shows the front entrance of the RPD being rather clean as if nothing happened on the property. Not only that, but the opening cut scene shows Leon and Claire entering Raccoon City without any blockades barring their way and most of the city looks abandoned rather than an inferno.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic the Fighters has eight Chaos Emeralds instead of the series standard of seven, to accommodate for the eight playable characters. This is likely because it was developed by Sega's arcade division, AM2, rather than Sonic Team.
- Although the moon was half-obliterated in Sonic Adventure 2, it has since been shown intact in subsequent games, as early as Shadow the Hedgehog, only two games later. Word of God is that the moon is still damaged, but all subsequent appearances have been of the opposite, intact side. Shadow Generations depicts the moon as damaged, with the exposed core cooled into solid rock, while Sonic × Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings showing how a ring of debris formed around it. While a great Mythology Gag, it doesn't fit at all with the notion that the damage was somehow not visible.
- In Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure, Blaze and Eggman Nega are from a different dimension than Sonic's world — in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and the Sonic Rivals games (respectively), they're from the future of Sonic's world. Sonic '06 was cosmic retconned, so Blaze went back to her Rush backstory in later games, but the Rivals interpretation of Eggman Nega stuck — the current canon is that he's Dr. Eggman's Kid from the Future who can freely travel across time and dimensions, explaining how he ended up in Blaze's world in the Rush games.
- While Sonic Generations makes it abundantly clear that the "classic" incarnations of Sonic, Tails and Dr. Eggman are from the past, Sonic Forces suddenly puts forth that Classic Sonic (who is explicitly the same Sonic from Sonic Mania) is from another dimension. The "classic" and "modern" Canon Splitting seemed to be the series' concrete stance for a few years, but was eventually abandoned with TailsTube returning to the Generations explanation; Tails says that "time is one dimension of reality" to explain away the discrepancy in Forces.
- The Word of God confirmation that "Sonic's World" and Earth are separate worlds leads to confusion with many of the 2000s Sonic games. The first two Adventure games heavily imply that Sonic has always lived amongst humans and that there's nothing unusual about them. Sonic Battle makes it more explicit, as it's clearly shown that the characters live in the human-populated Emerald Town. Gerald Robotnik's journal entries from several decades ago reveal that the Chaos Emeralds and Echidna tribe have existed on Earth for centuries, even though by the logic of earlier games, they should be exclusive to "Sonic's World". The first episode of TailsTube explicitly addresses the "two worlds" by explaining that animals like Sonic and Tails live on islands, while humans live on larger countries and continents — meaning that it's literally one planet, but figuratively two worlds.
- Episode Metal of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 starts out with Eggman reviving Metal Sonic, who was defeated on Stardust Speedway during the events of Sonic the Hedgehog CD and left deactivated on Little Planet the entire time until then. The problem is, the series' official timeline places Sonic 4 in the "Modern" era, which puts it after several "Classic" era games—like Sonic the Fighters, Sonic Drift, and Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble—where Metal Sonic appears alive and well. The series has also specifically confirmed that Metal Sonic is the same individual in all of his appearances, which removes the potential explanation that these games feature a different Metal Sonic from the one left on Stardust Speedway.
- In Sorcerer, casting AIMFIZ on the Wizard of Frobozz will result in the Wizard transforming the protagonist into a pile of manure, despite Zork II, which occurs earlier in the timeline, ending with the Wizard either dead or depowered.
- Space Quest: The WD40 terminoid in Space Quest V: The Next Mutation is sent to collect on the payment Roger Wilco didn't make for the Gippazoid Novelty Company's Labion Terror Beast Mating Whistle after defeating the Arnoid sent to collect payment in Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon. In that game, Roger defeated the Arnoid, who demanded payment for the whistle from Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge. And in that game, examining the order form shows the whistle is for free, which later games never brought up again in-story. The developers admitted it was an oversight, and the Space Quest wiki runs with the idea it's the company's fault for charging for an allegedly free item.
- Spyro: Year of the Dragon clearly states dragon eggs only occur once every twelve years. In Spyro: A Hero's Tail you must rescue different dragon eggs despite the fact no one seems to have aged much since the third game, and certainly not twelve years. However, Year of the Dragon also flies contrary to Spyro the Dragon (1998), where one had to chase thieves with dragon eggs. While time passed between the games, twelve years seems unlikely.
- Street Fighter:
- In Street Fighter II, Guile's motive for entering the World Warrior tournament was to get revenge on M. Bison for killing his friend Charlie. In Street Fighter IV, he's insistent that Charlie is still alive because (as established in the Street Fighter Alpha prequel series) they Never Found the Body.
- The SNES sequel to Final Fight, Final Fight 2, established that Guy became the Bushin-ryu successor after training under Genryusai. It would be contradicted in Street Fighter Alpha by having Zeku revealed to be Guy's predecessor, even though Genryusai's daughter Maki would show up in later fighting games (specifically Capcom vs. SNK 2 and the portable versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3). Udon's World Warrior Encyclopedia attempts to reconcile this inconsistency by having Genryusai be Zeku's predecessor.
- Ultima has a considerable number.
- The entire game of Ultima Underworld takes place in a dungeon destroyed several games ago.
- In Ultima IX, the Tapestry of Ages is supposed to depict the previous Ultima games. It supposedly magically painted itself throughout history as the events unfolded, yet the earlier games have no such tapestry. The visual depictions are not accurate to the details of each story. The tapestry is meant as a reminder that the Avatar visited Britannia on eight occasions, once for each main entry in the series, ignoring how the Avatar was not on Britannia in Ultima II and Ultima VIII, and remained on Britannia in other games.
- The Tapestry is just the tip of the iceberg — people have written entire dissertations about all the continuity errors in IX.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Nobody in or out of the game can decide what counts as a higher vampire, with the situation made even worse with the Blood and Wine expansion. Geralt's dialogue outright contradicts itself on separate occasions, the target of a contract identifies themselves as a higher vampire but is permanently killed and drops the essence of katakan (which is a lower vampire according to one of Geralt's lines), the image used in the codex entry of a higher vampire is of a lower vampire, and so forth.
Web Animation
- Red vs. Blue: Word of God says Grif was the Army's sole draftee, and his resentment of it drives him to be the world's biggest slacker. However, in the first episode, he says he "signed on to fight some aliens." It's eventually revealed in Season 17 that despite claiming he was drafted, he ensured he'd be picked.
Webcomics
- In Drowtales an update had a conversation play between two characters implying they had never met before that point, despite the characters having been established as close friends early in the series. Fans quickly pointed this out, and the conversation was edited and corrected.
- Kevin & Kell: The 2025 saga of Edward the coyote living as a rabbit and his partner Donna doesn't fit with the Flashforward at the end of the original story of the coyotes trapped in the Warren from 2003. The flashforward shows a coyote/rabbit couple, sixty years later, with the coyote still wearing the rabbit costume Lindisfarne provided and his partner unaware of his backstory. In the 2025 story, Edward finds an excuse to get surgery so he doesn't need the costume any more, and then comes clean to Donna about everything. And it can't be a different coyote in the flashforward, because Edward says he's the only survivor.
- Teahouse has a few inconsistencies over the comic:
- Claret's hair color changes from light green◊ to a much darker one◊.
- Axis' hair color changes, his tattoos vanish and his skin tone has become lighter. Seen here◊, which also notes the sudden change in maid outfits.
- Claret's hair color changes from light green
- Wonderlab:
- In Episode 35, My Sweet Home was said to have been shipped off to a different facility, being replaced with the Drowned Sisters. Despite this, it returns in the "A Party Everlasting" arc alongside the other Abnormalities introduced in the series.
- During its first proper appearance in Episode 49, the hearts lining the bottom of Distorted Catt's teacup body are drawn upside-down. However, the hearts get drawn right-side-up in every appearance afterward.
Web Videos
- The Chronicles of Jaller: Invoked, lampshaded, and Played for Laughs in "Black Piraka Gets Noticed Part 2."
Penguin the Penguin: Wait, vasn't there a table zere? And what's zat doing zere?
Axon: What— Oh! [laughs] Yeah, we don't work very hard with continuity here. Those scenes were filmed months ago. - Dragon Ball Z Abridged: In Episode 21, the "Krillin Owned" meter hits 13 when Krillin is unable to look away in time from Burter and Jeice's "Seizure Procedure" technique. It hits 13 again two episodes later when Captain Ginyu-in-Goku slaps Krillin.
- Flander's Company: In the Season 4 finale, there's view of the energy blast that destroyed Damien rising above the atmosphere. Cool shot, except the stream is clearly coming from France, while the last battle is supposed to happen in Pennsylvania, at Reed Richards' manor, as with the beginning of season 4.
- Movie Timelines: Frequently called out by host Josh Spiegel, whenever a franchise's sequels can't be bothered to maintain consistency.
- The Nostalgia Critic: In the anniversary special, To Boldly Flee, one of the main villains, Turrell, blames the Critic for destroying his home planet in his review of Battlefield Earth. Except in that review, a random person offscreen lit a cigarette, which ignited the atmosphere on Turrell's planet, something Turrell himself points out.
- SuperMarioLogan gives a rather glaring one revolving around Bowser and his mother, specifically their ages. His mother is 200 years old as of "Chef Poo Poo's Kitchen Disaster!", but Bowser himself is confirmed to be 312 as of "Bowser Loses a Tooth!".