#SGE is also my favorite failed retcon example | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

irenespring · 5 months ago

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After my latest fic chapter I feel compelled to remind people who have never read the SGE books that Clarissa Dovey (whose ideology and behavior I did not alter) is supposed to be a good guy. She is the benevolent, motherly mentor figure. We are supposed to like her very much.

In related news: The School for Good and Evil is the single largest case of authorial "oh shit I forgot all my world building when it came time to do the story framing" I have ever seen in all of media.

#house md #hatecrimes md #fanfiction #school for good and evil #clarissa dovey #clarissa dovey is terrible and i will die on this hill #This is based on the books #The movie seems to not have the homophobia part of the worldbuilding so this does not apply to movie Dovey #SGE is also my favorite failed retcon example #Judging by the framing the author clearly didn't realize the homophobic implications of the writing when he wrote it #So in the companion book (book 3.5) he tried to fix it #But he did that by saying that Agatha (whose arrival is around 12 years after my fic setting) got Dovey to change the policy #And now people of the same gender can go to the Ball together #It's an extremely throwaway line whereas Agatha's other virtues are highlighted #So we're not supposed to look at this issue to hard--ergo retcon not “thing Agatha was always supposed to have done”#But it doesn't work as a retcon because IT CONFIRMS THAT THE SLAUGHTER OF GAY STUDENTS DEFINITELY HAPPENED #So the author does not exonerate Dovey at all #Though of course after confirming she killed the gay students who couldn't fit in the closet he still tried to make us like her in book 4 #Because no one does scattershot story construction like SC #SGE is my love to hate book series I will not apologize

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