Editing Retroactive continuity (section)

==Related concepts==
Retroactive continuity is similar to, but not the same as, plot inconsistencies introduced accidentally or through lack of concern for continuity; retconning, by comparison, is done deliberately. For example, the ongoing continuity contradictions on episodic TV series such as ''[[The Simpsons]]'' (in which the timeline of the family's history must be [[Floating timeline|continually shifted forward]] to explain why they are not getting any older)<ref name="Cross">{{cite book|last1=Cross|first1=Mary|title=100 People who Changed 20th-century America, Volume 1|date=2013|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=[[Santa Barbara, California]]|isbn=9781610690850|page=591|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AVBS79mK7bUC&pg=PA591|access-date=16 March 2017}}</ref> reflects intentionally lost continuity, not genuine retcons. However, in series with generally tight continuity, retcons are sometimes created after the fact to explain continuity errors. Such was the case in ''[[The Flintstones]]'', where [[Wilma Flintstone]] was mistakenly given two separate maiden names over the course of the series: "Pebble" and "Slaghoople".<ref>{{cite web|title=Wilma Flintstone: A fox in leopard clothing?|url=http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/story.html?id=400b0b01-ec31-42e1-8421-1cb78f133c7c&k=44564|publisher=Canada.com|access-date=23 August 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150622033230/http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/story.html?id=400b0b01-ec31-42e1-8421-1cb78f133c7c&k=44564|archive-date=22 June 2015}}</ref>

Though the term "retcon" did not yet exist when [[George Orwell]] wrote ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', the totalitarian regime depicted in that book is involved in a constant, large-scale retconning of past records. For example, when it is suddenly announced that "Oceania was not after all in war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia and Eurasia was an ally" (Part Two, Ch. 9), there is an immediate intensive effort to change "all reports and records, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks and photographs" and make them all record a war with Eastasia rather than one with Eurasia. "Often it was enough to merely substitute one name for another, but any detailed report of events demanded care and imagination. Even the geographical knowledge needed in transferring the war from one part of the world to another was considerable." See [[historical revisionism (negationism)]].