Yeesh!

All right, one more time. Tattoo this phrase on your eyelids, it’ll save a lot of agita all around:

The continuity exists to serve the stories, the stories do not exist to serve the continuity.

More often than not creators and editors who focus on the continuity rather than the stories end up crafting stories that are dull and impenetrable to all but the most hardline core fans.

The continuity is important, but it is a tool, nothing more.

And I’d rather have a writer who was excellent, who made me feel as i read his stories, than one who knew and remembered every appearance of the Unicorn, and everything the character did in those appearances. One is storytelling, the other is trivia.

And either way, I know more trivia than you do.

On the other hand, the continuity is the story, and when part of a story is ignored, the reader is pulled out of it; the history and relationships shared between readers and characters becomes fractured.  Why write a story that’s part of a series if the writer is going to ignore the parts that came before it?  I think the reason why the multiverse exists is so stories can be told without fracturing the history of events and character development.

I also find that the creators and editors who ignore continuity are the ones building “dull” stories because they end up telling a story that’s already been told.

This is not an attack, just my thoughts. :) Personally, I don’t mind lapses in continuity unless there is a dramatic and inexplicable change of character.