When an adaptation of a work is made, writers often make changes to the plot. One way of doing this is by giving a reason for something that was not explained in the original. This usually happens in works that have Adaptation Expansion, where the story in the adaptation is longer than in the original work. Sometimes this is done to avoid a Plot Hole.
This happens a lot with book adaptations of films, where we get a look at the characters' thought processes concerning their actions and extended scenes. The book may be adapted from an early draft of the script, and hence may include explanations and details that ended up being cut from the movie for the sake of pace or brevity (or changed, just to confuse the issue). The tabletop roleplaying game adaptation of a film or book will often include huge amounts of explanation or expansion, because player-characters and scenario plots may want to poke around areas of the setting that didn't feature much in the original. Compare All There in the Manual.
The trope also applies when a Riddle for the Ages from the original work is resolved in a derivative work of any kind, including Fan Fiction.
Can overlap with Cerebus Retcon if the explanation is dark.
Named by the Adaptation is a subtrope, where the adaptation gives a name to someone or something that was unnamed in the source material.
Related to Unambiguous in the Adaptation, in which information that was left ambiguous, implied or open to interpretation in the original work is explicitly confirmed or denied in the adaptation (whereas this trope involves filling in missing information). The opposite of this trope is Adaptation Explanation Extrication, where the original work explains the element, but the adaptation doesn't.
When an attempt to do this creates more questions than it answers, it's a kind of Voodoo Shark.
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- CN City serves as a City of Everywhere where all the Cartoon characters on Cartoon Network live and work at, and gives off several examples of this trope in-action for the Cartoons to certain degrees.
- Chief among them is how come Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have glass windows to their bedroom in some episodes but do not in others. Due to the 3D environment that makes up CN Cities' Bumpers; one such Bumper showed the girls flying home through their windows: which are revealed to be on swivel joints similar to a revolving door that the girls fly through.
Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: By the end of his first week after meeting Shizuka, Rentarou transcribes the entire text of her favorite book into a text to speech app completely by hand, when a sensible person would download an ebook or Kindle version for the app. However, in the anime, Shizuka mentions that the book series she uses for communication was never released in a digital format.
- Ace Attorney (2016): This happens in "Reunion, and Turnabout" (the second case of Justice for All). In the case, Phoenix's friend, Maya, who is a spirit medium, is accused of murdering her client while being possessed by a spirit she was supposed to channel. Turns out the girl she was supposed to channel, Mimi Miney, was actually alive and killed the client to keep it a secret, while Maya's aunt Morgan, whose help was necessary to pull this off, wanted Maya framed to get the position of the master of their clan. This, however, leads to Fridge Logic: While Mimi had much to lose if it was found out she was alive, it wasn't as much as a sentence for murder, and if she didn't know what kind of person Morgan was, how did she know she wouldn't turn her over to the police the moment she asked her for help with the murder? The anime version of events explains this: She didn't. Mimi's plan was to bribe Morgan into faking the channeling and it was Morgan who made Mimi into an accomplice by threatening to reveal the fact that Mimi was alive. Since Morgan knew that Mimi was desperate to keep it a secret, she knew Mimi would comply.
- The Asteroid in Love manga never directly explains why it took so many years for Mira and Ao to reunite; the reason was only somehow implied in Chapter 26, as Ao is troubled over her father's impending transfer, and the fact that she'll have to say goodbye to her friends, at which point she mentions "things like this happened many times before" in her Inner Monologue. In the anime, a line was added to Ao's Inner Monologue during the part of second episode that adapts Chapter 5, when she notes she "had to move far away" a few days after The Promise.
- The anime adaption of The Case Files of Jeweler Richard introduces lapis lazuli and ultramarine a couple of episodes before it’s actually needed; in the novels, the reader is just meant to assume Richard explaining the properties of this gem happened off screen at some point.
- Dragon Ball Z: In the original Dragon Ball manga, the evil warlock Babidi is on a blind hunt searching for Piccolo, Goten, and Trunks, who have seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth. However, somehow between chapters, he goes from only knowing their names, to knowing the complete address of just one of them, without any indication of how he picked up the information. The anime changes this by reintroducing the vindictive mother of the boys Trunks had beaten in a tournament sometime earlier, and explains that she gave Babidi the information he wanted out of sheer pettiness.
- In the book A Dog of Flanders, the windmill catches on fire, but there is no explanation given as to how it came about. In the 1975 TV series/1997 movie, the windmill catches fire because Hans forgot to oil the gears, leading to parts of it getting overheated. In the 1992 anime, someone accidentally drops their cigarette while inside, not realizing it needed to be put out. Regardless of how it happened, Nello is still accused of setting the windmill on fire because Alois's father doesn't want a poor boy hanging around his daughter.
- In the original Endo and Kobayashi Live! novels, there was no explanation as to how Elizabeth could have conceived August's child, despite Elizabeth's parents forbidding them from meeting out of a Parental Marriage Veto (it was a case of Perfectly Arranged Marriage, but he is dying). The anime includes scenes of Elizabeth Fast-Roping in and out of her room to see August, including a scene of them implied to have sex.
- Rick and Morty: The Anime: Episode six of the anime revealed that Tammy Guterman was a normal teenage girl who had a difficult relationship with her uncle and one day ran away from home. She was captured by Galactic Federation agents, who recruited her to be one of their agents. That explains why a human teenage girl was part of an alien government and confirms that Tammy is actually human and isn’t a human-like alien.
- The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa):
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999):
- Despite it being stated in the game that Zelda managed to hide from Ganondorf for seven straight years and survive on her own, having learned the ways of the Sheikah from Impa to defend herself, she was quickly reduced to a Distressed Damsel the moment Ganondorf kidnapped her, not having any chance to use the skills she learned. The manga changes it to Zelda instead opting to have her consciousness locked away, allowing a separate male consciousness known as Sheik to take her place for the next seven years, resulting in Zelda unable to defend herself when her alter ego expired, due to never learning the fighting skills that Sheik did.
- In the game, it's never explained why Link has earrings as an adult. The manga changes it so Link is given the earrings by Impa as a rite of passage after he proves himself to her.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2001): In the original game, Mikau is only found mortally wounded after his failed attempt to save the Zora eggs from the Gerudo pirates. Here, Aveil is shown fatally cutting him down with a sword.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Zant has a vague backstory that involved competing with Midna for the throne of the Twilight Realm, and ultimately failing. In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), Zant was an aide to Midna's father and her tutor. When the King died, Zant sought to marry Midna and become regent, a plan that fell through when Midna rebuffed him and the elders refused to offer support.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999):
- In Mobile Suit Gundam, it is left unresolved whether the Zabi family assassinated Zeon Zum Deikun or if he died of a sudden heart attack. In Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, Kycilia Zabi explicitly states that, yes, her family did kill Deikun.
- Pokémon Adventures:
- In Pokémon Red and Blue and their remakes, the nature of Bill's experiment that turned him into a Pokémon was never specified. In the Adventures manga, it shows that this happened when he was fixing the transporter storage system. He got his shirt caught on the door and accidentally closed himself in one part of the machine while a Rattata was in the other part, causing him to get fused with the Rattata.
- In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl as well as their remakes, there's a trio of Psyduck blocking the way north on Route 210 and the player has to head to Route 215 to find the Secret Medicine to ease their headaches, never explaining why the player can't just fight the trio. Pokémon Adventures turns this roadblock into a huge mass of Psyduck that Diamond, Pearl and Platinum can't fight their way through and it's later revealed it was a convoluted plot by Team Galactic to force Paka and Uji (the ones who were supposed to be Platinum's bodyguards to Veilstone City) to be ambushed.
- In Pokémon Sword and Shield, it's never really explained why the player can't harm Zacian or Zamazenta during the Hopeless Boss Fight at the start of the game in the Slumbering Weald. In the manga, the Zacian and Zamazenta that are encountered by Henry and Casey are illusions, hence why they can't be harmed. Plus, it's later revealed that these were set up by Sordward and Shielbert to steal the Rusted Sword and Rusted Shield and kidnap most of Casey's Pokémon with the exception of her Scorbunny.
- The Running Shoes are a major case of You Have Researched Breathing in Generations III-VI. The Hoenn and Sinnoh chapters show that they use compressed air to propel the wearer, allowing them to run at high speeds.
- In Squid Girl, it's never explained how Squid Girl is able to lift heavy things with her tentacles despite being so small. The anime adaptation explained that her bracelets can control her center of gravity, making it able to lift heavy objects.
- Sonic X:
- In Sonic Adventure, it's never explained how Birdie managed to escape from the Egg Carrier - it's first seen tumbling out of the sky without explanation. In the adaptation of the arc, the bird (now named Lily) is shown escaping during the Tornado's initial pursuit of the Egg Carrier - the Tornado's attacks tear a hole in the Egg Carrier's hull, and Lily falls out of that hole and straight into Amy.
- Sonic Adventure 2 never fully explains how the Chaos Emeralds got from the Eclipse Cannon's generator chamber, to the middle of the Ark, or why Eggman didn't think to take the emeralds once the alarms started going. During the adaptation, the emeralds get sealed and flow down the Ark before he has any idea of what is going on.
- In the original Tower of God Webcomic, there's no explanation given for why Hwaryun attacks Bam and Rachel during the Crown Game, leading to Bam's Die or Fly moment where he uses Shinsu for the first time. Really, it seems to make no sense at all considering her real goals and affiliations. The anime adaptation shows Hansung Yu telling her to do so to test Bam's abilities by invoking Die or Fly by threatening Rachel. This also explains why Hansung would have run the Crown Game at all — something that's questioned by Lero-Ro right after the game, while the answer given by Hansung is both vague and opposite to his true goals.
- In Transformers: Cybertron, the Tagalong Kids who were there for no discernible reason in the original Japanese Galaxy Force version are now around because only they can hear a certain sound made by the Plot Tokens.
- In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow becomes King of the Emerald City after the Wizard departs. The sequel, The Marvelous Land of Oz, introduces the idea that there was a royal family who ruled the Emerald City before the Wizard took over, and when the Scarecrow is deposed by General Jinjur's army, Glinda refuses to help restore him to the throne because he has no more right to it than Jinjur has — even though she approved of him taking the throne at the end of the previous book. In the anime The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which adapts both books, Glinda explains that when she approved of the Scarecrow becoming King she thought the royal family had died out, and only since then had learned that the rightful heir had been hidden away but was still alive.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX never explains why some Muggles have the power to see and communicate with monster spirits. The American dub gives Sartorius a line explaining that monsters choose to reveal themselves to those they trust.
Comic Books
- Dog Man (Dav Pilkey): The original version of Dog Man’s origin George and Harold wrote in kindergarten doesn’t elaborate on where the bomb came from. This version explicitly has Petey send the bomb as a trap for Officer Knight and Greg the Dog, to get rid of them as he feared the potential of Greg’s intelligence working together with Knight’s physical strength.
- Fantastic Four: Life Story
- The team sneaked into the ship in Fantastic Four #1, but there was little explanation on why it had to be that way and not a proper and authorized flight, beyond "we can't let the Commies reach space first". This comic changes it: the ship that Reed was building was experimental, and the project was cancelled because it couldn't be properly tested. So Reed called his friends and infiltrated the place in order to launch the ship before it was dismantled.
- It also explains why they took Johnny Storm, who would fail any tests for becoming an astronaut: they simply had no time to select a proper crew.
- Although the cosmic rays give the FF their powers, it does not become a source of superpowers just waiting for anyone: here, it is the interaction between the cosmic rays and Reed's experimental fuel.
- The origin also explains the suits: initially, they were the suits of the "Cassandra 4" testing crew, and they wore them to pass security undetected.
- The Silver Surfer's reason why he cannot lead Galactus to uninhabited planets is because Galactus truly feeds on planets that possess the Power Cosmic, namely the "power of consciousness" of every living being on a planet.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: In real life, the Mississippi River is not directly below the Gateway Arch, which would make it impossible for Percy to plummet down directly into the river as he did in the books. In the Graphic Novel, Grover catches him with the flying shoes, but is only able to carry him a short distance, enough to get him over the water.
- This
licensed comic of The Real Ghostbusters explains why Egon's hair looks different in the cartoon — after the events of the first movie, he accidentally ate a toadstool that changed his hair.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), King Acorn and Uncle Chuck unknowingly enabling Robotnik's coup was implied to be merely down to being poor judges of character and complacency with their artillery (bordering on an Idiot Ball moment for the otherwise crafty Chuck), while Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) backstory bothers to show Robotnik's slow manipulation of their trust (and ability to cover up his crueler impulses) along with other stressful factors that clouded their better judgment.
- In the Stranger Things spin-off comic we learn how Nancy was able to escape the Upside Down. Will heard Nancy's screams and found her but because of the Demogorgon was unable to call out to her. When he noticed her looking at the gate in the tree, he threw a rock to distract the Demogorgon which enabled her to sneak out.
- Transformers: Wings of Honor: Obsidian's profile says he was the one who led the Autobots in attacking the Decepticons when the Decepticons were thrown into disarray by Unicron's attack, thus explaining how the Autobots took the planet back so quickly in The Transformers: The Movie.
- Ultimate X-Men (2001): The idea of the X-Men hiding seems a bit at odds with the iconic sign at the entrance "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters". In this case, it is explained: it is a joke of Xavier, who trusts in his psychic powers. Other than the X-Men themselves, anyone who looks at it reads that it is the "Westchester Chapter of the Jehovah's Witnesses", and leaves them alone.
Films — Animated
- Anastasia (1997) is a loose remake of a 1956 live-action film. In the original 1956 film, it's left as a Riddle for the Ages whether the main character really is Anastasia, but in the 1997 animated remake, it's made explicit that she's the real Anastasia.
- The Lion King (2019):
- The film explains why the hyenas are forbidden from living in the Pride Lands - Shenzi's clan are a particularly bloodthirsty, gluttonous group who refuse to control their hunting habits. Scar mentions their territory used to be greener before they overhunted it into a wasteland. Thus, since they refuse to obey the "delicate balance" Mufasa teaches Simba about, they are not allowed to live in the kingdom. On the same beat, the film goes into greater detail about why the Pride Lands fell into ruin, since Scar led the hyena clan in overhunting the prey animals until nothing was left, resulting in a mass famine.
- The climax changes the manner in which Simba gets back on Pride Rock after being pushed to the ledge by Scar, showing him instead biting Scar's jaw, forcing him to involuntarily pull Simba back up, whereas in the original film he somehow dramatically leaps from an impossible angle onto Scar.
- Mufasa: The Lion King later provides a whole prequel's worth of explanations for things in the 2019 film (and by extension the 1994 film if someone wants to include them as the same in their headcanon), including why Mufasa and Scar fell out, how Mufasa became king of the Pride Lands, the formation of Pride Rock, how the pride was formed, etc.
- The Wild Robot (2024): The book never offers any justification for the amount of force used in the attempt to recover Roz beyond simply being in the nature of the robots to accomplish the tasks given to them by any means necessary. Here it is explicitly acknowledged that Roz has done things no Rozzum unit has ever done before, and studying her could be a valuable asset to the company.
Films — Live-Action
- Beauty and the Beast (2017):
- The film explains why Belle and her neighbors know nothing about the castle in the nearby woods or about the Prince-turned-Beast: the Enchantress's spell has erased all memory of the castle and everyone who lives there from the outside world. The original fairy-tale has a different explanation (the Prince's family ruled a different land and the enchanted castle wasn't his own, but just his temporary home for the duration of the spell), but in Disney's animated version this is a Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole, which the live-action version fills.
- Interestingly, the live-action adaptation itself has this trope occur, too. Here, the Beast's library contains a magical Portal Book that allows the reader to travel to any location just by thinking about it. The Beast explains that the Enchantress left it as a "cruel trick"—even though he could technically leave at any time, he would still look like a hideous monster and be shunned wherever he goes. That's all well and good...until Belle discovers that Maurice is ill and the Beast decides to allow her to leave the castle to go to him, which is proof that he loves her. Unfortunately, the presence of the Portal Book leaves audiences wondering why Belle simply didn't use it to warp to Maurice instantly, then travel back to the castle with him. That question is answered in another adaptation: The Beast's Tale, the official manga. It's explained that only the Beast can make the book's magic work, meaning he would have to travel with Belle directly into her village to rescue Maurice, likely leading to all three being attacked or even killed.
- Similarly, the film explains specifically why the servants were also cursed alongside their master. The original movie never went into any detail about this, making it seem like she did this for no reason. The movie outright clarifies that the servants think they were cursed specifically for failing to curtail their master's behavior when he was a child, allowing his cruel father to mold him into a monster.
- The original movie does not explain why Belle's mother is nowhere to be seen. This movie explains that she died of the plague.
- Attempted and Defied with The Big Sleep. When the filmmakers cabled original author Raymond Chandler to ask whether Owen the chauffeur was murdered or not, Chandler shrugged and said he hadn't thought about it. Ultimately, Howard Hawks decided the mood of the mystery mattered more than actual details, and not only left this thread loose but cut even more exposition explaining the plot.
- Cinderella (2015):
- The animated film didn't clarify why Lady Tremaine hated Cinderella so much. The remake gives her a backstory of having been similar to her, marrying for love, and then being heartbroken when her husband died. It's also clear that she was jealous that her second husband loved his daughter more than her.
- The film adds a scene where one of the former servants asks Ella why she's still at the house and hasn't left, and it's later stated that she tried to be kind to the stepfamily in the hopes of changing them.
- In the animated version, it was implied that the stepfamily just didn't recognise Cinderella at the ball. Here, the Fairy Godmother puts a spell on her that prevents them from knowing it's her.
- The Count of Monte Cristo (2024): The extreme bad luck of the Morrels who lost all their ships in perilous trade journeys in the novel is simplified to Danglars hiding the ships on purpose so he can buy their company for next to nothing and enrich himself with the slave trade.
- D-Day, a remake of Commando, has a few scenes that actually makes more sense than the original. The Schwarzenegger original had the hero jumping off a plane and landing in a marsh without any injuries; the remake has the hero stealing a parachute instead.
- Dragonheart:
- The film implies that Queen Aislinn had a loveless marriage to King Freyne, which led to a troubled relationship with their son Einon, but never goes deeper into it. The novelization reveals Freyne was a dragonslayer (also explaining how Draco knows of him) who claimed her as a bride of conquest since he only coveted her beauty and slaughtered Aislinn's dragon-loving people. The union left Aislinn unable to love Einon, making it easy for Freyne to corrupt the prince and make Einon a tyrant like himself or worse.
- The film makes Bowen look like a fool for missing the obvious signs that Einon was always no good until Einon tells him, despite other characters like Draco telling Bowen to wake up and smell the coffee beforehand. The novelization has a moment where Bowen asks Gilbert if Einon's evil could be because he was bewitched, and Gilbert replies upfront that no one can bewitch the devil.
- In the film, Gilbert tells Bowen he's on a pilgrimage but never says why. The book and a deleted scene reveal Gilbert is trying to find Avalon to pray to King Arthur and his Knights buried there to bring back the Old Code.
- Bowen looks like an idiot for not recognizing Draco as the dragon he's been hunting for years. The novel has Bowen remember Draco as a dragon missing the middle claw on his right hand from a prior attack from Freyne and having a scar on his chest after sharing his heart with Einon. Bowen checks each dragon he kills for these signs; when he meets Draco again, Draco's right hand has been reduced to a "maimed stump," missing some fingers and claws.
- The movie heavily suggests that Einon rapes Kara before she stabs him in the shoulder, but the plot point never comes up again. In the novelization, Kara soon reveals to Bowen that Einon raped her.
- In the film, Bowen's character arc of an honorable knight turned cynical dragonslayer and reverting to a knight of the Old Code is incomplete. The book explains that Draco uses the cons with Bowen to pick at Bowen's conscience as he sees the peasants suffer under Einon's rule. Bowen is at the end of his rope when he, Darco, and Kara arrive at the swamp village, no longer able to justify conning the king's minions as the locals are gaunt, starving, and beyond poor. The desolate atmosphere forces Bowen to face the reality of Einon's oppression as Kara previously urged him to, a plot point nonexistent in the film.
- Reuniting with Bowen at the swamp village, Gilbert is surprised that he's still alive and in one piece. The novel explains that Gilbert wakes the morning after Bowen and Draco's standoff, finds Sir Eglamore's decayed arm on the ground, and mistakes it for Bowen's.
- Harry Potter:
- In the books, students at Hogwarts tend to be referred to according to their houses ("a first-year Gryffindor" or "a third-year Ravenclaw" and so forth), even though the books are meant to be from Harry's perspective; Harry isn't in a position to be keeping track of which house every student belongs to. In the films, the Hogwarts robes are given color-coded scarves and neckties corresponding to the four houses, meaning anyone can tell which one a student belongs to just by looking at them.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets explains why Harry couldn't use Parseltongue to communicate with the basilisk when he fought it in the chamber. In the book, he never even tried for no adequately explored reason, but to be fair, the confrontation is much shorter since instead of hearing Harry, the basilisk relies on its sense of smell to find Harry meaning Harry had no real opportunity to hide like he does in the film. Still, in the film, Riddle immediately dissuades him from doing so by telling him that the basilisk will only obey the Heir of Slytherin. The book explains that according to legend, "the Heir of Slytherin alone" can control the monster, but that was probably because no one but the heir was expected to speak Parseltongue.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: In the book, Harry casting the Patronus he'd initially attributed to his father resulted from a random "Eureka!" Moment on his part. The film adds in other cases of future characters influencing past events (Hermione throwing the rocks into Hagrid's hut and howling to distract Lupin in his werewolf form) so that there was a solid basis for his realization there.
- Hulk:
- Bruce's mother in the film, Edith, mentions that Bruce has always been "bottled up," but that was before her tragic death. The novelization reveals David previously gaslit Bruce into believing he should suppress his anger or else bad things will happen to him or Edith if he ever gets mad again, planting the warning into Bruce's subconscious.
- In the film, Bruce and Betty being colleagues despite the antagonistic history between their respective fathers seems like a case of life working in mysterious ways. Bruce also believes he may have met Betty when they were children since they lived in the Desert Base area simultaneously, but the film does not answer. However, the novelization reveals they did briefly meet as kids, and years later, Talbot arranged for them to work together as part of a grand scheme to put the screws to Bruce.
- The film doesn't explain whether or not David escaped from imprisonment or was released and how he can have a house and job after the heinous crimes he committed. The Peter David book reveals that Talbot released David from the mental hospital as another part of his plan to get to Bruce. David murdered the Berkeley lab janitor, Benny Goodman, and took his ID and house to pass off as him at the lab, thinking he'd fly under the radar in an invisible job.
- In the original Into the Woods play, the need for the baker and his wife to acquire the items the witch needs in order to lift the curse she cast on their family within a three day time limit isn't given any real explanation beyond 'standard story tradition'. The 2014 film adaptation has the witch explain that a blue moon will appear in three days' time and give her the power she needs to reverse the curse, and that another blue moon won't appear for another century in the event the baker and his wife miss the opportunity to break the curse this year.
- In the short film Johnny Lingo, it isn't clear why an islander would have the European name Johnny Lingo. The Legend of Johnny Lingo explains that Johnny Lingo's original name is actually Tama, but he got the name from one of his guardians named Johnny Lingo, who in turn got the name from another Johnny Lingo.
- In Forrest Gump, Jenny disappears the morning after she sleeps with Forrest with no explanation. In Laal Singh Chaddha, a Hindi remake of the film, Rupa leaving Laal after they sleep together is explained: she was arrested due to her being an accessory to her ex-boyfriend Abbas's crimes, leading her to be jailed for six months.
- In Dracula, while it is implied Dracula massacred the crew of the Demeter, there is enough evidence to suggest he was innocent and one of the crew did it instead. The Last Voyage of the Demeter removes any ambiguity by showing Dracula attacking the ship's livestock and crew.
- MonsterVerse: The three films' novelizations each provide quite a bit, including explaining away plot-holes present in the films.
- Star Wars: For lightsaber colors:
- An interesting case in where the explanation is different across explanations, but in Legends, the reason Sith use universally red lightsabers is because they create their sabers with synthetic crystals, all of which end up being red for some reason. In the new Expanded Universe, the blades are red because the Sith forcibly dominate another Jedi's Kyber crystal into serving them, causing the crystal to bleed.
- In Legends, kyber crystals already had their colors, with blue and green being the most common, which is why most lightsabers have blue or green blades and why other colors were rare. In Canon, kyber crystals are naturally colorless and only take on their color after bonding with the Force user they choose and the color symbolizes the Jedi's personality.note
- Warcraft: In the main continuity, a series of RetCons had left the origins of Garona Halforcen a jumbled mess. Originally she was intended to be a half Orc, half human Child by Rape result of Orcs abducting human settlers. This made sense in WarCraft: Orcs & Humans, when Orcs were presumed to have been in Azeroth for a long time prior to the start of the game. However, when later games retconned the invasion of Stormwind to occur immediately after the Orcs' arrival on Azeroth, it raised the question of how an adult Half-Orc could exist at a time when the two species had only just met. Numerous explanations for this were attempted over the years, such as claiming that Garona was actually half-Orc, half-Draenei (another alien race that had been on the Orcs' homeworld for several centuries) who just happened to look half human for.... Some reason, or that she was rapidly aged with dark magic, or even that she wasn't a half-Orc at all, but was magically given the appearance of one to elicit sympathy from the humans of Azeroth. Ultimately none of these stuck, and Garona remains a bit of a Continuity Snarl in the game series. However, the film managed to avoid the issue by revealing that, decades before the events of the film, the human Archmage Medivh visited Draenor with magic and impregnated an Orc woman, keeping Garona's original heritage while still providing a logical way for her to exist in the revised time line of the later games.
Literature
- Agatha H. and the Airship City: The medium allows for an easy addition of detail that the more comical comic omits.
- The prologue is set 16 years before the main story starts and focuses on Bill and Barry Heterodyne, who have only been seen in flashbacks (and alluded to by storytellers) in the comic.
- Small details and background information are added, particularly with Krosp and his creator Dr. Vapnoople.
- Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess:
- The Passholdt Fried Cream Things are apparently deep-fried lemon custard. The book includes a recipe. The recipe actually works.
- Jägers take up human hobbies to reconnect with their lost humanity. Dimo apparently knits multicolored socks.
- Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle: There are descriptions of the way the empire uses intimidation tactics to try to avoid outright war and battle that are not in Girl Genius itself.
- Agatha H. and the Siege of Mechanicsburg:
- One new point covered is how Lucrezia found out about the great movement chamber and set up her lab below it.
- The scene with Zola and Lucrezia is expanded from the comics, with Lucrezia explaining more of her original plan to take over Agatha's mind and her new plan to Zola's body.
- Gil and Tarvek's argument over the latter's role in helping Lucrezia in Sturmhalten is expanded upon significantly.
- BIONICLE novelizations:
- The Toa don't use their Elemental Powers in Legends of Metru Nui until they suddenly combine them at the end. This is a remnant of an early script in which they simply never had them. Despite elemental powers being defining traits of all Toa in previous stories, writers planned to introduce a rule that these were not basic Toa abilities. They relented on this idea but it was too late to correct the film by that point. The book and comic series (taking place during a montage in the film) offered an explanation, showing the Toa had depleted their elemental powers and it took until the end of the film for them to recharge. This didn't solve all the consistency gaffes — the film Mask of Light showed that the Toa's armor loses its color when their power runs out, yet in the film are always colorful — but the writers were confident enough in the explanation to ask viewers to go read the books and comics on DVD bonus features.
- Web of Shadows goes way deeper into the characters' thought process than the animated movie. Vakama's fall to the dark side is abrupt in the film. The novel explains it was mostly a ploy to get closer to the villains and find out where they're keeping the Matoran folk captive, hoping that he could convince them to let the Matoran and his teammates go, sacrificing his own freedom in exchange and staying banished in the ruined city. It's not until Vakama touches Makuta's throne and its power corrupts him that he loses his mind. In the movie, Vakama forgets the Matoran almost immediately, doesn't care about his team's safety and wants to stay in his old city to rule over it rather than viewing it as self-inflicted punishment. Notably, he doesn't get to touch the throne in the film, as he's already fully brainwashed by that point.
- The novel explains why Roodaka and Sidorak have a personal vendetta against the six Rahaga and also what the Rahaga even are: they're former Toa guardians who stole the Mask of Light from Roodaka and Sidorak, for which Roodaka mutated them into diminished, freakish Rahaga. This also explains how Vakama's team found out about the Mask of Light, which would have tied back to the Mask of Light movie. Though these explanations were excised from the film, some of them were at least mentioned in the DVD bonus features.
- The characters in the film The Legend Reborn are fairly basic, while the novelization adds a lot of depth. Kiina is revealed to be a Stepford Smiler who only pretends to be cheerful and very slightly manipulates Mata Nui into helping her. The novel even points out how nonsensical some of the film's dialogue is. It also adds an entire chapter fleshing out Tuma and his Skrall tribe, explaining that they want to conquer Bara Magna because they are hunted by even more dangerous foes from up north who have driven their kind nearly extinct, forcing them to strike a deal with Metus. In the film, Tuma and the Skrall are portrayed more as dim-witted brutes with no backstory whom Metus has simply taken advantage of. Their mysterious adversaries, the Baterra, are not alluded to in the film, as they were a late addition to the lore.
- The Legend Reborn's book and partial comic adaptation also explain that Strakk is likely to get banished after his attempt to kill Ackar. In the film, he walks away scot-free and vanishes from the plot.
- Doctor Who Novelisations:
- The novelizations of the first stories from Classic Who added various details to the episodes and even expanded a little more the details that were unexplained, usually written by the same scriptwriters of the series. This helped in actual years to get better help to recreate the Missing Episodes with modern technology, as well using the audiobooks of the time.
- In "The Daleks", the pacifist Thals are under threat of being wiped out by the Daleks but refuse to compromise their ideals, even in self-defence, until Ian proves that they do have things they're willing to fight for by seizing the Thal leader's fiancée and pretending he's going to trade her to the Daleks for his own safety, which prompts the Thal leader to punch him in the face. The TV version never explains how a man from a society that has been entirely pacifist for generations came by the idea of punching people, apparently assuming it to be something that all men know instinctively; the novelization adds a scene in which one of Ian's earlier attempts to bring the Thals around to the idea of constructive violence involved describing and demonstrating the sport of boxing.
- Isaac Asimov's novelization of Fantastic Voyage deliberately handled a number of plot holes that had been present in the original film:
- The issue of how miniaturization could work at all, let alone without making the Proteus a super-dense object that would simply punch through anything that stood between it and the center of the earth, is dealt with in a conversation early on explaining that it makes use of hyperspace, and that the objects are miniaturized as three-dimensional images through multiple other dimensions, which also decreases mass. It's essentially made-up science, of course, but hey, Better than a Bare Bulb.
- The part where the Proteus crew visit the lungs to top up their diminishing air supply shouldn't have worked, as the air molecules would be too large for them to breathe. The novel explains that the ship actually has its own miniaturizer on board, which the crew uses (and they have to expand the field to draw in more air from the surrounding room).
- At the end, the Proteus is crushed by a white blood cell, along with the treacherous Dr. Michaels, and the survivors have to make their escape alone — ignoring the fact that the ship itself being destroyed shouldn't stop the matter it was made from returning to its natural size when the time ran out, killing Benes in the process. In the novel, the crew realize this, and make sure to push the blood cell out along with them; the fragments return to normal size along with them.
- In addition, the novel also explains Michaels' decision to betray the mission, which the film didn't bother with. Apparently, the traitor wasn't a communist or anything, but rather a Well-Intentioned Extremist who believed that indefinite miniaturization was too dangerous a technology to exist, and was willing to let Benes die to prevent it. Other characters, though, subsequently point out that this wouldn't have worked in the long run; if Benes didn't perfect the technology, someone else would have.
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Interactive Novels: Several of these books provide small details missed out in the Five Nights at Freddy's games, such as the name of the Phone Guy and the true meaning of "IT'S ME."
- VIP: The book serves to give context to Monty's initial appearance in the Pizzaplex, as well as potentially explaining inconsistencies between Five Nights at Freddy's: Tales from the Pizzaplex and the games, with the mall being established as constantly under renovation.
- The Week Before: Several aspects of Five Nights at Freddy's 1 are elaborated on in this game, including Phone Guy's name and purpose, the meaning behind the phrase "It's Me," and the semi-nonsensical map layout.
- Return to the Pit: Multiple other routes Oswald could have taken through the original story are explored, such as never going into the ballpit, following the rabbit too early, or refusing to play along with the rabbit's disguise.
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens' last novel, was left unfinished (and the titular mystery unsolved) because of Dickens' death. Though the solution is actually known (Dickens has told several people that Drood's uncle, John Jasper, is the murderer), several people have disagreed with this and attempted to write their own endings (one of them even claimed to have communicated with the spirit of Dickens).
- In The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode Not So Awesome Blossom, the fight against Mojo Jojo's robots at the beginning of the episode ends with Blossom seemingly randomly flying around without bothering to attack the robots for no reason even as they continue trying to fire at her, resulting in all the destruction that leads to her loss of confidence for the course of the episode. In the children's book retelling of this episode, Blossom is explicitly described as having herself and her sisters fly around without attacking in an effort to draw the robots' fire while flying in between them so as to hopefully cause them to destroy each other, only for one of the robots to end up surviving and cause all the confidence sapping damage.
- The novelization of Revenge of the Sith plugs a lot of odder things in the original film.
- In the original film, it's never quite elaborated on why Anakin is so angry to be denied the title of Jedi Master other than just pure entitlement. In the novelization, it's explained that Masters can also access parts of the archive that are off-limits to Jedi Knights, and Anakin hoped that this might include an answer to the quandary of whether he could save his wife.
- While the original film is somewhat vague on how often Anakin's been suffering from his visions, the novelization explains that he's been having them practically on a nightly basis, to the point that he's started skipping out on sleep altogether. This not only shows why he's so convinced they're real, but also gives some context for his strange behavior.
- Dooku's psychology gets far more elaboration, including what he thought he would get out of teaming up with Palpatine: he was under the belief that Anakin would capture him alive, and then he would pull a "redemption" in prison after "learning" the atrocities of the Separatists, then rejoin the Jedi Order and corrupt it from within alongside Palpatine and a freshly-turned Anakin, turning it into a Sith army and an arm of Palpatine's new Empire. This is why he's so shocked that Palpatine orders him killed instead.
- Anakin's suspicion and paranoia about Obi-Wan and Padme is elaborated on in a subplot that explains he suspects they're having an affair—hence why he immediately turns on her when he sees Obi-Wan emerging from her ship.
- Yoda's change in personality between the prequels and original trilogy gets some explanation in internal monologue during his fight with Palpatine: Yoda comes to the epiphany while fighting Palpatine that the Jedi way, as he has learned it, was wrong—it was designed to defeat the old Sith that they fought thousands of years ago, not the modern Sith exemplified by Palpatine, who have reinvented themselves specifically to counter the Jedi. This is why he chooses not to have Luke and Leia raised by him and Obi-Wan, as he believes that the "raised from birth" methodology of the old Jedi was part of what made them so inflexible, and why he develops a disdain in the "warrior" part of being a Jedi, despite having been a great duelist, as he comes to accept that focusing on the physical was what rendered the Order blind.
- In the original film, Palpatine defeats three Jedi Masters over the course of about five seconds, with all of them going down like chumps despite being experienced fighters. The novelization gives considerably more detail and alters Palpatine's dialogue, having him play dumb to their investigation at first (behaving as if he's an unarmed old man who has been accosted by four armed warriors in his office) before asking one of them to read his mind. Since this requires the Jedi reading his mind to lower his guard, Palpatine is able to kill him in a surprise attack, and then follow up in the resulting panic by stabbing a second Jedi through the head. It's also implied that Kit Fisto lasted at least a bit longer. This also explains why Palpatine's accusations are so happily accepted by the Senate; Palpatine records most of this, and to someone not there, it sounds as if Palpatine was repeatedly threatened by the Jedi, was baffled at their accusations, and then the sounds of a scuffle with lightsabers ensued until the recording device was destroyed.
- The two-hour episode "The Way of the Warrior" in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had a minor subplot where Drex and some other Klingons assault Garak on the station and a second one where after the Klingons threaten to open fire on Deep Space Nine they dismiss Sisko's threats as "thoron fields and duranium shadows". The novelization of the episode ties these two together — Drex was assigned by Martok to get intel on DS9's defenses, and Garak figured it out. Garak then provoked Drex and his thugs to beat him up by making them think he had the information. Only Garak had dummied up a fake report by a "Chief Tam O'Shanter" saying that DS9 had minimal weapons and any scans would show false readings.
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed novel by Sean Williams not just expanded what we saw and played in the game, also gives the Player Character (The Apprentice, codenamed Starkiller) a proper name and a background: Galen Marek, son of the late Jedi Knight Kento Marek (unnamed in the games and killed in the first episode). His mother is briefly mentioned, but in the novel as well in TFU II got a name and a background too (Mallie Marek, also a Jedi Knight who died when Galen was just a baby).
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: Several of the Moffat-era episodes featuring Madame Vastra and Jenny strongly implied that, in the Whoniverse, their adventures were the basis for the Sherlock Holmes stories, with their gender and relationship, and Vastra's species, changed to make them more palatable to Victorian readers. In this context, the events of the episode "The Crimson Horror" were clearly the truth behind one of the best-remembered of the Noodle Incidents Conan Doyle sprinkled the stories with, "the repulsive story of the red leech".
- Fallout (2024): The reasoning behind Vault-Tec's experiments is finally explained: The experiments acted as tests to create new societal templates that would allow humanity to best survive the Wasteland and form a functioning civilization, as the current one was viewed as a failure. All this had the eventual end goal of re-conquering the surface, eliminating all other factions, and uniting the world under Vault-Tec so as to create "a world without war".
- Ghosts (US):
- In Ghosts (UK) it is never explained why Lady Button's ghost appeared as a floating transparent ghost after her death while everyone else appears corporal. A later episode in the remake shows a new ghost appearing transparent and becoming corporeal looking later, implying that this would also have happened to Lady Button if she stayed.
- The original never explains why some ghosts stay and even less of them receive powers or are forced to perform routines. It appears to be completely random. In the remake, there is a heavy implication that there is some afterlife authority that is watching over the ghosts and deciding when they move on and what powers they have, even if the ghosts themselves don't get such explanation.
- The original never explains why ghosts that predate the house are limited to haunt its bounds like later ghosts. In the remake an older ghost mentions boundaries changing, implying that this is something that can, and has happened before.
- In the original Good Omens book, it's never explained how Crowley managed to get holy water other than it having been dangerous for him to acquire. The Good Omens (2019) miniseries shows that he got it from his angel friend Aziraphale.
- In Hogfather, most of the beings created by excess belief (the Verucca Gnome, the Cheerful Fairy, and so on) materialise somewhere relevant to their role (usually UU). Billous, the Oh God of Hangovers, however, appears in the remains of the Hogfather's castle for no clearly explained reason (except that it's the focus of the gap in belief, but that doesn't explain why nobody else appears there). The Sky1 adaptation adds a scene in which the Hogfather's "little helper" reacts to his boss's disappearance by getting very, very drunk, even saying that he'll have "the mother of all hangovers in the morning".
- House of the Dragon:
- The books (neither Fire & Blood nor anything in the canon of A Song of Ice and Fire) don't given any reason, outside of ambition, as to why Aegon and his sister-wives decided to land in Westeros to establish a new kingdom. Here, Viserys reveals to Rhaenyra that Aegon had a vision of something terrible happening in the future and felt that he needed to unite Westeros under his house to save the whole world. The wording of the vision reveals that Aegon foresaw the Second Long Night.
- In Fire & Blood, Rhaenyra, despite being the leader of the Black faction, infamously doesn't do much fighting despite having an adult dragon, whereas her opponents' leader, Aegon II, rides his dragon to a couple of battles (and wins every time). The book gives no reason why, making it as if she treats her army as more expendable than her. The show reveals that Rhaenyra actually does want to be on the frontlines, but is vetoed every time by her councillors, who argue that she has to be kept safe at all costs (though at least one of them flat-out doesn't consider her fit to fight because is a woman). Since she needs as much support as she can from them, she is stuck dictating orders from Dragonstone while letting the rest of the Blacks duke it out.
- Played with in The Leftovers. The book never revealed the cause of the Departure or where the Departed went (if, indeed, they went anywhere), nor were there any attempts by the protagonists to figure it out. The series reveals a possible answer: Nora, a major character, went to Australia tracking down a machine that's alleged to send people to where the Departed went. Kevin finds her in the final scene and she explains that she went through the machine (and back) and found her Departed husband and kids, living together in an Alternate Universe of sorts where the world splintered and everyone living in their reality had Departed. The series never provides any conclusive evidence of whether she's telling the truth, but none of this was in the book.
- In an early episode of Masked Rider, a trio of skull-faced monsters are pointed out to have a weakness to water, and Masked Rider is able to destroy them by tackling them into a lake. This weakness is not mentioned in the original Kamen Rider BLACK RX, where going in the lake just makes them explode for no apparent reason.
- The first episode of Mirai Sentai Timeranger has a bad Unexplained Recovery moment when the Timerangers are trapped in a crashed ship which explodes with them on it... and are inexplicably uninjured afterward. In Power Rangers Time Force, Trip frees himself and gets the others off the ship before it blows.
- One Piece (2023):
- In the manga, the map to the Grand Line, as well as the conflict against Buggy to get it, is a case of Early-Installment Weirdness, as not only would it later be established that Buggy is already familiar with the region, the idea that there's a complete and useful map of the Grand Line is completely laughable. In this show, the value of the map is instead implied to come in the form of giving the topography of Reverse Mountain, the treacherous route that the Grand Line is entered from.
- The manga never bothered to give a source to Kaya's family wealth. In the series, it's established that her family owns the largest shipyard in the East Blue.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: In real life, the Mississippi River is not directly below the Gateway Arch, which would make it impossible for Percy to plummet down directly into the river as he did in the books. In "I Plunge to My Death" the show emphasizes this with a shot of Percy hanging over solid ground before showing that the river itself reached out and grabbed him from mid-air to pull him into the water.
- The Last of Us: The original game doesn't explain why the infected react violently to the uninfected to the point of killing them, a contradiction for a parasite whose literal life goal is to spread to new hosts. The TV series has the infected become violent only when they find opposition to the spread; if a person undergoes a Heroic BSoD and allows themself to be infected, the infected will gently do it.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events leaves many key mysteries unanswered, such as: what was contained in the sugar bowl that both the heroes and the villains were after? What is the mysterious sea object known as the Great Unknown? The Netflix series gave its own answers: it turned out that the sugar bowl contains a modified kind of sugar, which can grant those who ingest it complete immunity to the Medusoid Mycelium, and the Great Unknown is a Lovecraftian sea creature.
- The Walking Dead: Much to creator Robert Kirkman's displeasure, the show's first season finale provides an explanation for the plague that caused the walkers to rise - it's just a normal virus that arose like any other virus in Earth's history. This angered Kirkman who specifically never wanted to reveal the origins of the walker plague, let alone one so mundane.
- The 1998 series adapting The Worst Witch:
- The books never explained why Ethel could still talk when turned into a pig, and Mildred couldn't when Ethel later turned her into a frog as revenge. The TV series just has it so that Ethel can't speak either when she's turned into an animal.
- In The Worst Witch Strikes Again, Miss Hardbroom automatically assumes the monkey from Enid's room is a bewitched Ethel simply because Mildred once turned her into a pig. In the TV series, Miss Hardbroom assumes the monkey is Ethel both because it's wearing her tie and she isn't in the courtyard with everyone else - later revealed to be resting in the infirmary after an accident earlier.
- The TV series spells it out that witches aren't supposed to use magic for "selfish or trivial ends", and that all witches have to follow The Witches' Code, explaining why the girls don't use magic to do everything.
- The TV series also adds an explanation for why Agatha Cackle wants to take over the school. The books did say she was jealous over Miss Cackle's position as headmistress, but the series clarifies that she thought their grandmother willed the school to her. The episode also explains that they were also at the celebrations where Mildred embarrassed herself, which is why they were in the area in the first place.
- In the Sherlock Holmes story "The Norwood Builder" the climax of the story reveals that the culprit Jonas Oldacre killed a dog and left it to be burned in a fire to stand in for him when he faked his death. But since it would stretch credulity to believe that even the most incompetent quack of a medical examiner could mistake a dog's corpse for a human one, the Granada tv series changes it so that Jonas and his maid murdered a transient instead.
Theatre
- Drood: A variation. The musical adaptation to Dickens' unfinished mystery novel lets the audience vote on who the killer is. The cast then perform the ending corresponding to who was voted on.
- Pinocchio: The Musical gives an explanation to Pinocchio's ability to be alive even though he's a wooden puppet: he was a very ancient pine tree that was struck by lightning and fell down, and was given a second chance of life by the Blue Fairy (who is an Anthropomorphic Personification of the moon in this adaptation).
Video Games
- Another Code:
- In the original Two Memories, Jessica seems to just guess that the DAS is coded to Ashley's biometric data, apropos of nothing. The Recollection remake explains that she discovered this by trying out the device after it arrived, and has her explain it when Ashley asks her to take a photo of her.
- Also in Two Memories, it is not explained why D never bothered to explore the interior of the mansion himself despite being stuck on the island for 57 years. The Recollection remake has Ashley directly ask this, prompting D to explain that ghosts can't actually phase through walls, meaning he was just stuck wandering the outdoors.
- Black Mesa: A couple of unexplained plot threads from the original Half-Life 1 are given explanations here:
- Why certain scientists and guards won't follow you past a certain point is often justified — for example, the first guard you encounter after the Resonance Cascade stays behind to try and contact the surface, the scientist hiding in the dumpster soils himself after seeing a headcrab leap at him, a scientist isn't fit enough to climb up the elevator shaft in Office Complex, etcetera, etcetera.
- It's never explained why the marines that stuffed Gordon in the trash compactor in Residue Processing never checked to Make Sure He's Dead. Here, going into the compactor's control room lets you find one marine has been headcrabbed and the other reduced to Ludicrous Gibs, implying that headcrabs teleported into the room and attacked them, with one marine accidentally blowing himself up with a grenade in panic.
- The original game does state that the HECU is getting pounded by the Xen invaders and are ultimately forced to flee because of this, but this came off as an Informed Attribute because HECU forces would usually win against the Xenians in individual skirmishes. Here, while all NPCs gained several levels in badass, the Xenians took more, and will usually win skirmishes against the HECU. Additionally, several new scenes are added that emphasize the Xenians' might, such as two scenes where Alien Airraft use lasers to destroy tanks, and an Emergency Broadcast System announcement reveals that they're invading all of New Mexico, making the retreat look more justified.
- The Hazard Course add-on comes with a justification for Gordon receiving weapons training during a course primarily meant for becoming acquainted with the HEV suit: he was accidentally signed on for the security guards' "Firearms 101" course along with the standard HEV training, and rather than let the resources go to waste the coordinators insisted that he go through with it anyway.
- The Black Mesa: Blue Shift mod does the same for Half-Life: Blue Shift:
- The game explains why a security guard would be sent to fix an elevator by claiming the maintenance team is overloaded with technical issues that morning and the security team is helping out any way they can.
- The original Half-Life never explains why the HECU is tasked to wipe out all Black Mesa survivors in addition to the Xen aliens, beyond implications that they are to Leave No Witnesses. Here, one scientist indicates that Black Mesa abused its funding to conduct various unethical and downright illegal experiments even before the Resonance Cascade, and that the government has likely had enough and wants to prevent Black Mesa from causing any more catastrophies.
- In Captive Freight, the marines locking Barney inside of Rosenberg's container without disarming him first is a serious oversight on their part. Here, as the marines rush and knock out Barney, aliens suddenly teleport into their location, forcing them to quickly seal the container and defend themselves while forgetting to disarm Barney in the chaos.
- Dead Space 1: Several times during the game Isaac works with Nicole to navigate the Ishimura, only for the last stage to reveal that Nicole was Dead All Along, which aids the Mind Screw of the game that Nicole definitely did things outside Isaac's control, most notably that the Necromorphs attack her one time and she could die. In Dead Space (Remake) this is explained by the Marker making Elizabeth Cross and Isaac see their respective loved ones as each other, an illusion that is shattered in the same place as the reveal.
- Final Fantasy VII: Twice during the game Sephiroth leaves his signature Masamune behind, once imbedded within President Shinra during the group's escape and in the Nibelheim incident by Tifa's father after killing him. It's never been explained why he would leave his weapon where it could be lost or taken, and for that matter it wasn't explained if the katana used by his projections afterwards are the same one, notably his true body is unarmed in the final battle. Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis would reveal the weapon's origins, that it is an Evil Weapon created to be the arm of Jenova's champion by a blacksmith corrupted by its will, and that it has powers to return to him whenever he wills it.
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: In the release for the Game Boy, at the scene of choosing the right Holy Grail, the elderly knight bids Indy choose wisely the right cup, for the incorrect ones are all poisoned. In the original film, the right/wrong choice of cup is more about the metaphysical aspect: being the son of a carpenter, Jesus's cup at the Last Supper would not be ornate or golden, but much humbler.
- In King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow, it's revealed that the game's villain Abdul Alhazred, along with the villains from some previous games (Manannan from King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human and Mordack from King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!) and another sorcerer called Shadrack, were members of a mysterious organization known as Black Cloak Society. This point was never clarified, but numerous fan games have attempted to fill in this gap:
- It Takes Two to Tangle elaborates on the mystery of Shadrack. It turns out that he's not actually a human, but some kind of dark monster entity representing pure evil, probably of the same kind as the Nightmares from King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride.
- In Kings Quest I: Quest for the Crown - AGDI and King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones, it turns out that every villain from King's Quest series has been a member of the Society.
- Likewise, in The Silver Lining, nearly every villain from King's Quest series has been a member of the Society. The Society adheres to a kind of Blue-and-Orange Morality, and some of its members are actually good guys.
- The (in)famous library staircase puzzle in Maniac Mansion. In the original game, the staircase is broken, and it's impossible to repair it and go upstairs. For many years, fans have avoided bridging this gap because they felt that the mystery should remain: in particular, the rules of Maniac Mansion Mania series outright forbid making it possible to repair and go up the staircase. However, in the 2022 Fan Remake Meteor Mess, one of the characters, Jeff, can actually do this.
- The Gainax Ending of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, in which the protagonist Guybrush and his adversary, the zombie pirate LeChuck, turn out to be brothers and end up as kids in a carnival with their parents. The game's creator Ron Gilbert left the company shortly afterwards, and the sequel The Curse of Monkey Island tried to Hand Wave this ending by claiming that the "kids in a carnival" thing was just an illusion cast on Guybrush by LeChuck. However, numerous fan games have attempted to answer this question:
- Goodbye Monkey Island goes with the canonical "LeChuck's illusion" explanation, but elaborates on Guybrush's (mis)adventures in the carnival after the illusion is broken.
- Monkey Island: Carnival of the Damned also goes with the "LeChuck's illusion" version.
- The third game in The Mistery of Maniac Island series provides an even more Mind Screwy explanation for the ending than the ending itself, implying that Guybrush and LeChuck are both dead and traveling through different layers of afterlife.
- In Prisoner of Monkey Island, the little Guybrush and Chuckie come home from the carnival with their parents; however, Guybrush remembers his old life as a pirate, and escapes his parents' house to go back to the carnival. As the game is unfinished, it remains ambiguous whether Guybrush and Chuckie's life as kids and their parents' house is an illusion or not.
- Resident Evil 2 (Remake): The original never explained why Birkin never attempted to trick the U.S.S. by giving them a different viral container than the G-sample, beyond him being stressed and holding the Idiot Ball. Here, HUNK explicitly states that Birkin was to be brought in alive with his samples, meaning that deceiving them was pointless.
- In the original Sonic Generations, why the Sonics don't use the Chaos Emeralds to go Super immediately once they have all seven isn't explained. In Shadow Generations, it is revealed that the yellow Chaos Emerald that Shadow lost to Sonic was the fake from Sonic Adventure 2, which Rouge covertly replaced with the real one when Shadow finished his business with Black Doom, as he needed it to power his Chaos Control.
- Star Fox: Event Horizon claims that Doctor Andross became a giant head and hands because he uploaded his consciousness into a biotechnological robot body due to being sick, to keep his consciousness and rulership preserved when his disease kills him. The original Star Fox franchise did not really explain the reason behind his head and hands form, but supplementary lore did mention that he performed experiments on himself while banished to Venom.
Web Animation
- Dayum: In "School Subjects Portrayed by Minecraft", it's explained why the "soul sand" in Minecraft burns blue — it contains copper chloride.
- Final Fantasy VII Machinabridged does this for the original Final Fantasy VII regarding Shinra's plan to use Huge Materia to blow up Meteor. In the original game, no reason was given for the party stopping their plan, making Shinra look like a Designated Villain as a result, as Shinra was still trying to stop a meteor from obliterating the planet. In this version, the party members point out how dangerous blowing up Huge Materia in the atmosphere would be, essentially treating it like detonating a magical nuke, which would lead to horrible aftereffects for the planet, thus giving the heroes a good reason to stop Shinra's plan.
- Rockman X5: Duel of Fates: In Mega Man X5, X can only equip two parts when he has the Fourth Armor, as opposed to four when he's unarmored. Alia explains during the training course in the simulator that this happens because the armor's CPU takes up two of the slots available for parts when equipped, leaving free only two.
- Turnabout Jackpot explains why the Jurist System, a major part of Apollo Justice's climax, isn't around for Dual Destinies. Basically, the rampant corruption that defines "the Dark Age of the Law" is so entrenched among the higher-ups of the legal system that they feared the wider implementation of the Jurist System, thus they buried its future under a pile of red tape.
Web Videos
- Let's Play Pokémon White (MageKnight404): Before battling Ghetsis in the game, some sound effect plays and the player's Pokemon get an Unexplained Recovery. Here, N explicitly heals Hilda's Pokemon remotely... a with FullCure spell of course.
- Minecraft Misadventures SMP: Orchidea has two "Watchers", Riven and Felix, wandering the town, but in the main series, the details of this title and their role are unspecified. In the Daggerheart × Misadventures campaign, "Watcher" is the lowest rank of the City Guards, and Riven and Felix are in Orchidea because they were dispatched there in response to recent kidnappings and killings caused by emerging water elementals.
- The two Street Fighter fan films Balrog: Behind the Glory and Matador (Street Fighter) by Chubby Boy Films offer quite a few explanations behind elements of the Boxer and Claw characters that the games did not touch on.
- Balrog: Behind the Glory:
- Balrog's zig-zagged hairline was a Traumatic Haircut given to him by bullies, which motivated him to take up boxing.
- The differing names of the Boxer, Claw and Dictator characters in the East and West are shown to be the result of gambling. Mike Bison (Boxer), Balrog (Claw) and Vega (Dictator) bet $4 Million along with their names in a card game, which the boxer won. As a result, the three switched names.
- Matador:
- The purple heart-like mark on Vega (Claw)'s mask was patterned after a scar on his mother's cheek left behind by his abusive stepfather.
- Vega's claws belonged to his biological father, who was also a Matador until he was gored by one of the bulls he fought, which is also why Vega's mother had to remarry for financial security.
- Balrog: Behind the Glory:
Western Animation
- Beast Wars did this with the "Transmetal 2" toy line, so named because they were the 2nd wave of Transmetal action figures. In the cartoon, they give this an explanation: the Plot Device of the Transmetal Driver is what creates the Transmetal 2 upgrades. However, some of the transformers adopted from the T2 line received their transmetal forms without the driver; thus they're not technically Transmetal 2's even though they're part of the same toy line.
- Fangbone!: The original Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian books never gave a proper reason for why it was Venomous Drool's big toe that was the MacGuffin, simply going with the idea for the sake of grossout humor. The show goes into greater depth about this, with episodes like "The Breaker of Oaths" and "The Keeper of Toe" giving actual explanations as to the origins of the Toe of Evil.
- Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon only had the first season/arc of the original anime/manga to go on, and gave its own explanation for the absence of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto: that Queen Beryl had already conquered those planets and stolen the power gems from them that were needed for transformation.