Speculations Superpositions: Nika wasn't a retcon
- Thread starter Impact
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There's being open to possibilities, and then there's believing in random bullshit simply because you've personally constructed a justification for it, even when that justification requires you to ignore what the story itself has already shown.
Here's a sentence that speaks your language: retroactively finding thematic compatibility is not the same thing as the story having actually set something up. The Nika bullshit is still a retcon, no matter how much reverse-engineering you do on the text trying to defend Oda's decision to no longer give a fuck about his own in-universe coherence.
Also, the mere existence of infinite possibilities isn't inherently a positive thing, either.
Take your example with Shanks from the other day.
Shanks being a morally gray character would've worked better, than that possibility-cum-reality that is him having an evil twin. That's a soap opera b-plot. Just because it's possible, it doesn't make it qualitatively good.
What was already established - Shanks working for the balance of powers; him trying to keep WB from engaging in a conflict; Sengoku respecting him - narratively weighed more than introducing a brand-new character clone that can do anything Shanks can, only on the other side of the barricade. That's not an entertaining possibility: that's lazy writing.
Here's a sentence that speaks your language: retroactively finding thematic compatibility is not the same thing as the story having actually set something up. The Nika bullshit is still a retcon, no matter how much reverse-engineering you do on the text trying to defend Oda's decision to no longer give a fuck about his own in-universe coherence.
Also, the mere existence of infinite possibilities isn't inherently a positive thing, either.
Take your example with Shanks from the other day.
Shanks being a morally gray character would've worked better, than that possibility-cum-reality that is him having an evil twin. That's a soap opera b-plot. Just because it's possible, it doesn't make it qualitatively good.
What was already established - Shanks working for the balance of powers; him trying to keep WB from engaging in a conflict; Sengoku respecting him - narratively weighed more than introducing a brand-new character clone that can do anything Shanks can, only on the other side of the barricade. That's not an entertaining possibility: that's lazy writing.
To give you a good example of soft retcon
Adventure time writers sometimes take up random throw lines or jokes from past episodes and build on that
Such as Gunther being an super evil being
Oda didn't do any of that
If the gomungonu fruit don't exist, anyone who has read the devil fruit book would appoint that as weird
Adventure time writers sometimes take up random throw lines or jokes from past episodes and build on that
Such as Gunther being an super evil being
Oda didn't do any of that
If the gomungonu fruit don't exist, anyone who has read the devil fruit book would appoint that as weird
I don't want to be super picky, but didn't Vegapunk say the Rubber Fruit didn't exist in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia?
Because you seem to be saying anybody who read the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia would find that weird. Why? You seem to suggest they believe the Rubber Fruit was in the Encyclopedia rather than it was missing.
Because you seem to be saying anybody who read the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia would find that weird. Why? You seem to suggest they believe the Rubber Fruit was in the Encyclopedia rather than it was missing.
Where it concerns Katakuri's Fruit, I'm going to apply Hanlon's Razor.
We should not believe that a malicious retcon occurred because the alternative that something stupid happened exists.
It's possible whatever happened made it seem like his fruit was a Logia type, but it was a strange happenstance rather than what it really became which is the Special Paramecia.
Note: Happenstance is a noun that means a chance event, coincidence, or a situation that happens by accident rather than by design.
We should not believe that a malicious retcon occurred because the alternative that something stupid happened exists.
It's possible whatever happened made it seem like his fruit was a Logia type, but it was a strange happenstance rather than what it really became which is the Special Paramecia.
Note: Happenstance is a noun that means a chance event, coincidence, or a situation that happens by accident rather than by design.
No.
A retcon is a form of narrative tool that change a data of the story to shade a new light on pre-existing elements.
This new light can indeed erase the pre-existing narrative data completely or enhance it. In the case of One Piece, Nika is indeed technically a retcon. But not one that erease the data of the story. Rather the opposite. The reveal recontextualizes elements already present but hidden in plain sight (the mythogony, the powers of the fruits of Luffy, the thematic of the story, the contextual attribution of the fruit, the antagonism in response etc.)
Nika is what we call a positive retcon.
A retcon is a form of narrative tool that change a data of the story to shade a new light on pre-existing elements.
This new light can indeed erase the pre-existing narrative data completely or enhance it. In the case of One Piece, Nika is indeed technically a retcon. But not one that erease the data of the story. Rather the opposite. The reveal recontextualizes elements already present but hidden in plain sight (the mythogony, the powers of the fruits of Luffy, the thematic of the story, the contextual attribution of the fruit, the antagonism in response etc.)
Nika is what we call a positive retcon.