No Goblins Allowed :: List of retcons?

I would just find such a list depressing.

Mirrodin
- The nature and origin of the oil was changed from being an unfinished weapon that was brought to Mirrodin on Karn and Jeska's oily boots to being normal glistening oil from Karn's leaking heartstone
- Mirrodin being devoid of life was retconned
- Changes to the plane itself such as vedalken being mutated, blinkmoths being extinct or the Mephidross swallowing most of Mirrodin's surface were ignored

Shandalar
- The race of the Onakke was retconned from troll to ogre

Theros
- Elspeth fleeing to Theros instead of travelling with Karn

Magic Origins
- Gideon's origin story
- Jace's origin story
- Chandra's origin story
- Nissa's origin story
- Liliana's origin story

Zendikar
- Depending on how you read previously established info about Ob Nixilis, him being demonified by the Chain Veil and having his spark supressed by Nahiri (instead of him being messed up by Zendikar's mana) is a retcon
- The nature of the Eldrazi works differently now (that's actually several retcons, e.g. changes to their physical nature, their characteristics being redefined in the Zendikar artbook etc.)
- Sorin's part in imprisioning them was removed/changed
- Sorin's age was changed. He started out as about 6.000 years old, but then they said the Eldrazi's imprisoning was 6.000 years ago and that Sorin was already incredibly old back then
- The vampires of Zendikar didn't play a role in luring the Eldrazi to Zendikar after the retcons
- Said vampires were shown worshipping an Eldrazi titan when they should actually hate the Eldrazi and know the truth about them
- The vampires' involvement in trapping the Eldrazi was retconned a second time from "just kinda there" to "vampires didn't even exist back then"
- Zendikar's vampires were created by the eldrazi now, which is a return to the idea that vampires were around at the time of the titans' imprisonment and therefore Nahiri has no reason to be surprised that there are vampires on Zendikar 5.000 years later
- They might've retconned how the eldrazi-binding seals on Zendikar worked, though I'm too confused to tell for sure...

Innistrad
- Sorin being surprised Nahiri doesn't show up in Teeth of Akoum is contradicted by the reveal that he had locked her into the Helvault

Ravnica
- The removal of the Interregnum seems to be confirmed now

Regatha
- Chandra now never told Gideon her origin story, which means the ending of The Purifying Fire can't have happened, which technically means none of Chandra and Gideon's appearances in any block can have happened either
- The short story 'Burn' changed the part about Chandra not telling Gideon her origin story, putting the ending of TPF back into canon while establishing that the origin story in TPF was a distorted version made up by Chandra

Amonkhet
- A version of the short story 'Writing on the Wall' that hinted at a possible future romance between Chandra and Nissa was published canon for several hours before the part in question was edited out

Did someone say retcons?

Spoiler

I might have missed a few, and I simply covered each of the origin stories as a single retcon in order to not open a huge can of worms again. I also didn't cover visual redesigns, minor inconsistencies in novels that are obviously due to having different writers (e.g. some stuff in the Mirrodin tilogy, or inconsistencies between The Thran and The Brothers' War). I also don't think counting retcons related to the Revision is really fair or reasonable, so I skipped that, too.

Edit: Oh, and actually Magic Origins blatantly misportrayed things about Ravnica and Zendikar that would be huge retcons if we took them at face value, but I'm kind of hesitant to do that...

So do you think the creative team tries to read the pre-existing stories but chooses to go different directions, or do you think they just feel its not worth their time to go over it?

It can't be that hard to get and read the books though?

Pantera Canes wrote:

It can't be that hard to get and read the books though?

Do you have all 50-some Magic novels? Like, if you got a job working in Creative today, and found out that they did not have a novel library on-site, would your personal collection be sufficient enough, and if not, how hard do you think it would be to find 20-year old books that didn't sell well about lore from a collectable card game that wasn't even a cultural touchstone for about the first decade?

Even I don't own all the books yet (I'm missing like 3), and I scour the web and used book stores constantly.

@Jman22: Go for what specifically? The Revision or the Magic Origins stuff?
@Gamma: I guess we could, but that would be stuff related to the Revision, which probably is a huge can of worms in its own right...

Oops, and I meant Lorwyn, not Zendikar. I'll go and edit that...

Pantera Canes wrote:

It can't be that hard to get and read the books though?

The 3 books you are missing, how much of that story, lore, or character have they brought up in the past 6 years?

Author:	Jman22 [ Tue Jun 21, 2016 3:51 pm ]
Post subject:	List of retcons?
I'm just curious, has anyone ever made a specific list of all the retcons that have happened? If not, there should be. Pavor has been keeping a list of retcons, farther down the thread Pavor Nocturnus"]

Author:	AzureShade [ Tue Jun 21, 2016 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
I don't think anyone has ever made an official list because it usually devolves into semantics and personal grudges over ill-defined details. Starting things off with the most obvious current retcons: Origins -Nissa went from being something of a racist who spent much time among the elves of Lorwyn to something of a wholesome nature girl who was repulsed at the way the elves of Lorwyn treated the goblins that they saw as eyeblights and fled the plane as soon as she got there because it flipped over to Shadowmoor and that scared her. -Chandra used to have a brother and did not have a good relationship with her parents, who were going to marry her off in hopes that having a husband might calm her down a bit. Instead, Origins gave us Chandra who loved her parents deeply, was an only child, and had to watch them killed by an overbearing government and be blamed for their deaths. -Liliana didn't really have much in the way of retcons. It was more a clarification of her past. -Jace was pretty clear of retcons as well. Again, just some clarifications. -Gideon's story was all new, and as far as I know, retcon free...ish.

Author:	Barinellos [ Tue Jun 21, 2016 4:22 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Gideon's origin was matched to a lot of the details, but the circumstances of them were pretty radically altered. While the details aren't really contradicted, per se, they don't match the spirit most of those details. The biggest thing was that he was supposed to be given his sural by his teacher, who was given it by HIS master who was killed by a pyromancer and was a planeswalker. They completely removed that.

Author:	theamazingsquid [ Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:27 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Didn't jace lose chuncks of memory he previously had before? Also, the entirety of the teeth of akoum

Author:	The GammaMage [ Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:19 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
I would just find such a list depressing.

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Author:	Moppi [ Wed Jun 22, 2016 6:49 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
The GammaMage wrote: I would just find such a list depressing. There totally should be one. Kind of like a Magic Retcons version of the Has DC done something stupid today? website. Let us not keep MTG Creative be lax on their work, all it's doing is just make them prone to committing retcons over and over, and even making the Gameplay people just accept that it's just another day in the office when they do so. They promised of better quality for Magic Stories right? Then they should work better honoring what they have established and not just rely on retcons, the "rule of cool" and that "we're inspired by the comic book industry's procedure" shenanigans as reasons when they do so. ______________________________________ Speaking of other retcons, IIRC, Elspeth had some right?

Author:	Pavor Nocturnus [ Wed Jun 22, 2016 5:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Did someone say retcons? Spoiler Mirrodin - The nature and origin of the oil was changed from being an unfinished weapon that was brought to Mirrodin on Karn and Jeska's oily boots to being normal glistening oil from Karn's leaking heartstone - Mirrodin being devoid of life was retconned - Changes to the plane itself such as vedalken being mutated, blinkmoths being extinct or the Mephidross swallowing most of Mirrodin's surface were ignored Shandalar - The race of the Onakke was retconned from troll to ogre Theros - Elspeth fleeing to Theros instead of travelling with Karn Magic Origins - Gideon's origin story - Jace's origin story - Chandra's origin story - Nissa's origin story - Liliana's origin story Zendikar - Depending on how you read previously established info about Ob Nixilis, him being demonified by the Chain Veil and having his spark supressed by Nahiri (instead of him being messed up by Zendikar's mana) is a retcon - The nature of the Eldrazi works differently now (that's actually several retcons, e.g. changes to their physical nature, their characteristics being redefined in the Zendikar artbook etc.) - Sorin's part in imprisioning them was removed/changed - Sorin's age was changed. He started out as about 6.000 years old, but then they said the Eldrazi's imprisoning was 6.000 years ago and that Sorin was already incredibly old back then - The vampires of Zendikar didn't play a role in luring the Eldrazi to Zendikar after the retcons - Said vampires were shown worshipping an Eldrazi titan when they should actually hate the Eldrazi and know the truth about them - The vampires' involvement in trapping the Eldrazi was retconned a second time from "just kinda there" to "vampires didn't even exist back then" - Zendikar's vampires were created by the eldrazi now, which is a return to the idea that vampires were around at the time of the titans' imprisonment and therefore Nahiri has no reason to be surprised that there are vampires on Zendikar 5.000 years later - They might've retconned how the eldrazi-binding seals on Zendikar worked, though I'm too confused to tell for sure... Innistrad - Sorin being surprised Nahiri doesn't show up in Teeth of Akoum is contradicted by the reveal that he had locked her into the Helvault Ravnica - The removal of the Interregnum seems to be confirmed now Regatha - Chandra now never told Gideon her origin story, which means the ending of The Purifying Fire can't have happened, which technically means none of Chandra and Gideon's appearances in any block can have happened either - The short story 'Burn' changed the part about Chandra not telling Gideon her origin story, putting the ending of TPF back into canon while establishing that the origin story in TPF was a distorted version made up by Chandra Amonkhet - A version of the short story 'Writing on the Wall' that hinted at a possible future romance between Chandra and Nissa was published canon for several hours before the part in question was edited out I might have missed a few, and I simply covered each of the origin stories as a single retcon in order to not open a huge can of worms again. I also didn't cover visual redesigns, minor inconsistencies in novels that are obviously due to having different writers (e.g. some stuff in the Mirrodin tilogy, or inconsistencies between The Thran and The Brothers' War). I also don't think counting retcons related to the Revision is really fair or reasonable, so I skipped that, too. Edit: Oh, and actually Magic Origins blatantly misportrayed things about Ravnica and Lorwyn that would be huge retcons if we took them at face value, but I'm kind of hesitant to do that...

Author:	Jman22 [ Wed Jun 22, 2016 10:48 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Pavor Nocturnus wrote: Did someone say retcons? Spoiler Mirrodin - The nature and origin of the oil was changed from being an unfinished weapon that was brought to Mirrodin on Karn and Jeska's oily boots to being normal glistening oil from Karn's leaking heartstone - Mirrodin being devoid of life was retconned - Changes to the plane itself such as vedalken being mutated, blinkmoths being extinct or the Mephidross swallowing most of Mirrodin's surface were ignored Theros - Elspeth fleeing to Theros instead of travelling with Karn Magic Origins - Gideon's origin story - Jace's origin story - Chandra's origin story - Nissa's origin story - Liliana's origin story Zendikar - Depending on how you read previously established info about Ob Nixilis, him being demonified by the Chain Veil and having his spark supressed by Nahiri (instead of him being messed up by Zendikar's mana) is a retcon - The nature of the Eldrazi works differently now (that's actually several retcons, e.g. changes to their physical nature, their characteristics being redefined in the Zendikar artbook etc.) - Sorin's part in imprisioning them was removed/changed - Sorin's age was changed. He started out as about 6.000 years old, but then they said the Eldrazi's imprisoning was 6.000 years ago and that Sorin was already incredibly old back then - The vampires of Zendikar didn't play a role in luring the Eldrazi to Zendikar after the retcons - Said vampires were shown worshipping an Eldrazi titan when they should actually hate the Eldrazi and know the truth about them - The vampires' involvement in trapping the Eldrazi was retconned a second time from "just kinda there" to "vampires didn't even exist back then" - Zendikar's vampires were created by the eldrazi now, which is a return to the idea that vampires were around at the time of the titans' imprisonment and therefore Nahiri has no reason to be surprised that there are vampires on Zendikar 5.000 years later - They might've retconned how the eldrazi-binding seals on Zendikar worked, though I'm too confused to tell for sure... - Khalni Heart suddenly being located on a different continent Innistrad - Sorin being surprised Nahiri doesn't show up in Teeth of Akoum is contradicted by the reveal that he had locked her into the Helvault I might have missed a few, and I simply covered each of the origin stories as a single retcon in order to not open a huge can of worms again. I also didn't cover visual redesigns, minor inconsistencies in novels that are obviously due to having different writers (e.g. some stuff in the Mirrodin tilogy, or inconsistencies between The Thran and The Brothers' War). I also don't think counting retcons related to the Revision is really fair or reasonable, so I skipped that, too. Edit: Oh, and actually Magic Origins blatantly misportrayed things about Ravnica and Zendikar that would be huge retcons if we took them at face value, but I'm kind of hesitant to do that... I think you should go for it.

Author:	The GammaMage [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 1:04 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Are we including older stuff, like changes to the World Spell between the comic and the later novel?

Author:	Pavor Nocturnus [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 6:32 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
@Jman22: Go for what specifically? The Revision or the Magic Origins stuff? @Gamma: I guess we could, but that would be stuff related to the Revision, which probably is a huge can of worms in its own right... Oops, and I meant Lorwyn, not Zendikar. I'll go and edit that...

Author:	LilyStorm [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 7:54 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Well this wpuld essentially be creating a history of the entirety of the story of magic which would be really cool and probably useful. You could even have a little time-line with each story released and each change in another story.

Author:	Pantera Canes [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 8:29 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
So do you think the creative team tries to read the pre-existing stories but chooses to go different directions, or do you think they just feel its not worth their time to go over it?

Author:	AzureShade [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 8:55 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Pantera Canes wrote: So do you think the creative team tries to read the pre-existing stories but chooses to go different directions, or do you think they just feel its not worth their time to go over it? It depends. I remember a few of them straight out admitting that there is some lore that nearly preexists them and that finding accurate accounts from primary sources is a daunting task. Also, some of the older lore is just dumb from today's standards and re-envisioning it for the modern audience could be seen as more acceptable. So yeah, it's not like they have a coterie of historians on staff who review all their ideas and line-item all the conflicts and mistakes. They do what research they can and make a go at it.

Author:	Pantera Canes [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 10:30 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
It seems like a lot of the thing people mention as conflicting with pre-existing lore is from the novels. I can understand random article or piece of PR material would be hard to find as it wasn't archived correctly if at all. Though that is a lot older material and they don't even seem to want to interact with those characters and stories. It can't be that hard to get and read the books though?

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Author:	AzureShade [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 10:55 am ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Pantera Canes wrote: It can't be that hard to get and read the books though? Do you have all 50-some Magic novels? Like, if you got a job working in Creative today, and found out that they did not have a novel library on-site, would your personal collection be sufficient enough, and if not, how hard do you think it would be to find 20-year old books that didn't sell well about lore from a collectable card game that wasn't even a cultural touchstone for about the first decade? Even I don't own all the books yet (I'm missing like 3), and I scour the web and used book stores constantly.

Author:	Pantera Canes [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 12:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
So the retcons mentioned are in 20 year old books? The Zendika book(s), ones involving Chandra and Jace? You are talking old books they are not even touching in the story. Its like asking if a mechanic knows how to work on your car and the response is how are they suppose to know how to find a book on a model-T. The 3 books you are missing, how much of that story, lore, or character have they brought up in the past 6 years? I don't have all the books. Though to answer your question, if they made the poor decision of hiring me (because I am really bad at writing, my strong suits are more logical and facts like science and math) then I would try to get the books. It should easily be able to be expensed to the company as a resource. I am constantly doing research for my job. Also constantly looking at how we did things before to try and keep it consistent.

Author:	Barinellos [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 1:03 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
AzureShade wrote: Pantera Canes wrote: It can't be that hard to get and read the books though? Do you have all 50-some Magic novels? Like, if you got a job working in Creative today, and found out that they did not have a novel library on-site, would your personal collection be sufficient enough, and if not, how hard do you think it would be to find 20-year old books that didn't sell well about lore from a collectable card game that wasn't even a cultural touchstone for about the first decade? Even I don't own all the books yet (I'm missing like 3), and I scour the web and used book stores constantly. Pre-revision notwithstanding, I have all the books. And we really shouldn't count the revision with everything. That's a totally different situation.

Author:	Jman22 [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 1:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Pavor Nocturnus wrote: @Jman22: Go for what specifically? The Revision or the Magic Origins stuff? @Gamma: I guess we could, but that would be stuff related to the Revision, which probably is a huge can of worms in its own right... Oops, and I meant Lorwyn, not Zendikar. I'll go and edit that... Well, ideally I'd like to construct a list of retcons in MTG, and from there categorize the extremity of each retcon. For example, something like "Battalion 5 was involved with this assault by the Boros Legion" compared to... Well, the Origins retcons. But stuff from, let's say, pre-Urza I think we could easily forgive. I'm mostly thinking Time Spiral (where they promised more story focus) forward. Edit: Not to mention that this would help consolidate all the story in an easier to digest format. AzureShade wrote: Pantera Canes wrote: It can't be that hard to get and read the books though? Do you have all 50-some Magic novels? Like, if you got a job working in Creative today, and found out that they did not have a novel library on-site, would your personal collection be sufficient enough, and if not, how hard do you think it would be to find 20-year old books that didn't sell well about lore from a collectable card game that wasn't even a cultural touchstone for about the first decade? Even I don't own all the books yet (I'm missing like 3), and I scour the web and used book stores constantly. A friend of mine has all 50, and I almost decided to start collecting them all myself.

Author:	AzureShade [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 1:56 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
Pantera Canes wrote: The 3 books you are missing, how much of that story, lore, or character have they brought up in the past 6 years? I'm, missing Nemesis and The Moons of Mirrodin (I have read both, but they were not owned). I'm just saying that not everyone has well stocked Magic library. People who do not horde Magic lore but are good game designers and great writers and story tellers do end up on the Creative team sometimes. People join the team with years worth of "blind-spots" and pressures to catch up to the current set designs and familiarize themselves with very recent sets that are not quite out yet. I can see where this sort of environment would cause some skimming errors or changes in story to ease current story concerns. Magic doesn't seem to have a MaRo "Guardian of the Color Pie" for story. And since, unlike comics, Wizards isn't resetting their entire universe every few years to retell the same stories in a fresh new way, sometimes things get the retcon scissors.

Author:	Jman22 [ Thu Jun 23, 2016 11:32 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: List of retcons?
And sometimes, Mark Rosewater ends up on Creative because the entire team quit over business stuff, and we nearly get a sitcom for the Weatherlight Saga story. And while I generally try to be leinient towards Creative, especially recently, it is hard to argue in their favor when it comes to BFZ block. A TON of stuff got changed, and they could have pretty easily gone back and gotten some more of the major points correct. I have apparently lost my Ravnica and Guildpact novels. Sad day.