The original post: /r/television by /u/AporiaParadox on 2025-02-09 13:46:52.
Sometimes, a show will have a character do something that is treated as being a good thing or no big deal, but viewers see it as something horrible if you think about it just a little, either at the time it was aired or years later once society’s morals have changed. And sometimes, as a direct response to this reaction, the show itself will acknowledge that what previously happened was actually not OK as a sort of apology.
This is common with franchises that have been going on for a long time, such as Doctor Who or Star Trek. The Doctor in particular constantly has his previous actions examined with a more critical eye and called out, especially how he often just abandoned his old companions and how for a supposed pacifist he sure kills a lot of people (although at this point this hypocrisy is more of an established character flaw).
Another example that comes to mind is how in Avatar: The Last Airbender, there’s a scene where Iroh pretends to be be paralyzed so that he has an excuse to not move as an actually paralyzed June is stuck on top of him. It’s played for laughs and it’s the kind of pervy old man behavior you’d expect from an Anime, but felt out of place for Iroh. It’s never acknowledge again in the show, but a later Avatar comic had Iroh actually apologize to June.
Or how in South Park, there was an episode that ruthlessly mocked Al Gore and climate change, by portraying Al Gore as an attention-seeking nutjob obsessed with a mythical creature called ManBearPig. Once Matt and Trey eventually accepted that man-made climate change was real, they did an episode in which they revealed that ManBearPig was real and that Al Gore was right, basically apologizing for their previous stance.
So what other examples are there of the writers acknowledging that something that happened earlier that was treated as either good or no big deal was actually a bad thing?