Does continuity preservation mean better character development?

[Cypocalypse_Complex]

I just wanna know your thoughts on this.

Do you think the two are mutually exclusive entities, or would you rather have them overlap at a certain degree.

Anyway, I blogged two articles about this, but I'm still posting a link. Not an optional read but could be helpful to a certain degree.

http://cypocalypse.multiply.com/journal/item/106/
http://cypocalypse.multiply.com/journal/item/107/

[worstblogever]

I'd be a hypocrite if I said universally yes. But I know before I'd said I'd like a lot of the past seven years of Nightcrawler forgotten, because it makes his character so convoluted. A lot of the "crazy Polaris" moments I'd wish never happened. I have, in the Polaris thread in the past, tried to justify, in character, a lot of the swings in Lorna's personality. I might not like what was done, but I could write her in a positive light, in spite of some of her less than pleasant moments. But Kurt's personality shifts? That's harder to explain away, without some really bizarre plot device.

Whedon writing Beast in Astonishing, lamenting the way he was wisecracking at the genocide in Genosha, and realizing it was a psychological defense mechanism against the horror of the atrocity he saw... that was a good example. Beast did joke about it back then. But at least Whedon acknowledged it, and still managed to paint Beast in a positive light about it.

You can't flat out ignore continuity to take the parts you like. You can just focus the image on what you want, explain what you can in a plausible light, and take the focus away from the character's history you don't. That's really my best answer on this.

[Pach!]

It's stupid when people want stuff referenced constantly like "I hate you because you killed my grandfather" when "I hate you"would have been more than enough.

[xmanson]

The problem is when they writers just igonore that hating part. Not that they don't mention why he hates (which for some would actually be nice to know why).

[Fatguy]

Continuity is the best and worst thing about comic books.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

I'd say that it really does depend upon the situation. Providing that it doesn't result in a conversation where one character questions or contradicts something which they blatantly should know, then it's okay. It won't wreck a sory.

Acknowledging past stories or developments for the sake of it can produce some very clunky writing. So logic has to be the rule of thumb. If the story doesn't call for the character to reference it - don't have them reference it.

My major pet peeve is when a writer tries to paste over previous development by keeping elements of a previous story, but ignoring the elements they didn't like. Because, more often than not, that creates huge pockets of anti-logioc, just waiting to be turned out.

Chris Claremont's handling of Captain Britain since House of M is a prime example of this. We've still had no explanation of how Brian shifted from prophecy fulfilling man made God to being Roma's lackey, again. But if Claremont had kept the former status Brian held, several of his plot elements from New Excalibur and X-Men: Die by the Sword would not have worked. It's kinda like trying to reboot a character by re-writing via omission.

[Pro]

several of his plot elements from New Excalibur and X-Men: Die by the Sword would not have worked.

You make it almost sound like that would have been a bad thing.

[Omega Alpha]

It depends. I think if you're going to retcon a story, you have to do it in a better story than the one before and/or make the previous one work better. That's why retcons like "Jean was on a cocoon all along" or "Norman was after Gwen to kill her because they had sex, not because she was Peter's girlfriend", never work. If you are simply going to ignore previous continuity, you have to take the characters and/or stories to a better place than they were before. For example, Carey pretty much ignored how Rogue was with Milligan, Austen, etc, but it wasn't a bad thing, since he wrote her well.

Anyway, I think continuity is better used when you approach and use it, but as a rule don't make stories dependent on it, otherwise you end up making things too inaccessible to new readers. Some people say Joe Q exaggerates and use "new readers" as an excuse only, but I had to drop books like JSA and Meltzer's JLA exactly because, as someone who is not well-versed in DCU continuity, I had no idea what was going on half of the time, so I can see why he says that.

[Alan2099]

Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

Jean Grey's Phoneix stuff and anything involving Wolverine's origins are swiming in their retcons.

One god example of just writting it off was Punisher. They ditched the entire Angelic Warrior aspect of him with a throw away caption and moved onto the meat of the story they wanted to tell. They didn't ignore his past, they just said it wasn't worth talking about and moved right along.

[Phil Hunn]

It's stupid when people want stuff referenced constantly like "I hate you because you killed my grandfather" when "I hate you"would have been more than enough.

But when they phrase it "My name is [insert name here] You killed my grandfather - prepare to DIE!", that makes it awesome :)

[Daithi]

It's stupid when people want stuff referenced constantly like "I hate you because you killed my grandfather" when "I hate you"would have been more than enough.

My point of view:
"I hate you". Why does he/she hate them? What's the story behind them?
"I hate you because of X". Oh now I understand. On with the story.

I agree with you that it doesn't have to be constantly referenced. However at least explain something once.

My feeling is that continuity shouldn't be something set in stone. Most characters have conflicting histories anyway. It should be used to embellish something.

However if you are going to use continuity make sure it's right. If you have a character say something like "Oh I thought X was the first Phoenix" make sure it's right. Otherwise it comes across as lazy writing even if the you're a good writer.