Chatterbox: Inkwell

Continuity

Who else here cares about it? For the unfamiliar, continuity, in this context, refers to the consistency of the events, characters, locations, and other elements in a fictional universe. Maintaining continuity is hard, particularly in the case of media which has sequels/prequels or spinoffs, and continuity errors are quite frequently made. These are sometimes referred to as plot holes.


Here is a really obvious continuity error:

Two men are trapped on a spaceship. There is no way to get off the ship without an indelibity laser, and they have 30 seconds.

10 seconds pass and they decide to teleport off.

See? I EXPLICITY STATED that there is no way to escape without the "indelibity laser" (whatever that is), and then despite that, they teleport away!

Continuity errors are often less outrageous, such as a character in a movie changing clothes between shots, or someone saying that they don't like martinis, and then later drinking one.

As you all know, I am a Whovian. Doctor Who is riddled with plot holes! I just finished watching the 1977 serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang this morning - great story, but, full of holes. For example:


Li H'sen Chang is dismissed by Magnus Greel (who is pretending to be the god Weng-Chiang), since as he failed to recover his time cabinet and proved unworthy through other failures, his services shall no longer be required.

Later in the story, however, Weng-Chiang/Greel gives one of his other servants a poison pill for losing the bag that contained the key to the time cabinet, explicitly stating that death by posion is the penalty for failing him. If that is so, then Greel should have done the same thing to Chang. Why didn't he?


I welcome discussions about that plot hole or any other you would like to bring up, or just about continuity in general.

 

Or, if you want, you can say what you think an "indelibity laser" is. ;)

submitted by Joe the Stickfiddler, age 15, Continuity Vortex
(October 25, 2014 - 7:57 pm)

back to the Inkwell

Oh man, YES I care about continuity!!! One of the reasons I like the Inheritance Cycle (Christopher Paolini) so much is that the continuity is flawless. When I say flawless, I mean flawless. I have not found one mistake in the logic of the books that is not caused by Eragon's inexperience. And those are just when Eragon acts illogically because he thinks "it might work," without pausing to consider the consequences.

submitted by A Curious Dragon, age 13, New Hampshire
(October 26, 2014 - 8:50 am)

goop

(oops I made a continuity error) 

submitted by top
(October 26, 2014 - 2:11 pm)

Uhhhhh! I HATE potholes! Ask any one in my family!

Fluffy says; butz! Buts? Hmmmm...? 

submitted by Winter Firefly
(October 28, 2014 - 11:17 am)

ARGH yes. Those sort of things are really annoying! The worst ones are where the protagonist and the antagonist are sitting at opposite sides of the lunch table or something and one of them just asks for the salt like nothing is unsual about their relationship. Esspecially ones were it's actually a magicial fantasy/school world. Please, if they are rivals in the magicial fantasy world, don't just drop it when they get to the classroom!

submitted by Theo W., age 14, Dark, Dreary Places
(October 28, 2014 - 5:48 pm)