Take a game called Kingdom Hearts III, released in 2019. It was the third numbered game, but about the tenth new one in the series. The other seven were side games, spread across handhelds, a browser, phones and a console, and the story ran through all of them. A player who skipped the phone game had missed a promise.
3Numbered games
++
7Side games
++
from all 10Promises
People call a side game or side show a spin-off. It sells on the name, as lesson 5 said, and is usually smaller to make. But each one adds facts, as lesson 3 said. Two a year for a decade is twenty more parts, by different hands, each with its own promises, and most readers saw only some.
3 numbered→7 side→? games with promises
A series has 3 numbered games and 7 side games, and every one of them adds to the story. How many games carry the story?
games
Right. Ten. The numbered three are what the box counts; the story counts all ten. A reader who thinks they have played the series has often played three of it.
1962a teenager
↓→
Every month since
↓→
Todaystill young
Comics have a clock of their own. Spider-Man first appeared in 1962 and a new issue has come out almost every month since. A hero who ages a month per issue would be an old man by now. So the comic keeps a promise a monthly comic forces on itself: time barely passes, whatever the year on the cover.
Picture a hero who is 25 in a monthly comic. Move how long the comic has run and watch how old the hero would be if time passed as it does for readers. Made up to show the shape.
Age if time passed35 years, made up
Age on the cover25 years, made up
Years the comic has run: 10 years
Ten years: the hero would be 35. A reader who started at 15 is now 25 and would not mind.
Age if time passed55 years, made up
Age on the cover25 years, made up
Years the comic has run: 30 years
Thirty years: 55. The young hero on the cover is now a man with grown children, if time passed.
Age if time passed85 years, made up
Age on the cover25 years, made up
Years the comic has run: 60 years
Sixty years: 85. Nobody would buy the comic. So time does not pass, and sixty years of stories are folded into a short stretch of the hero's life.
What does a sixty-year monthly comic have to do about time?
Let the hero age, and replace him when he gets old.
Not yet. Some comics do, and most do not: the name on the cover is the hero, and a replacement is a different sale. The usual answer is to stop the clock.
Let it not pass. Sixty years of stories are folded into a short stretch of the hero's life.
Right. That is the trick: the clock stands still. It keeps the hero young and it makes a new promise: no story may mention how long ago an old one was.
Nothing. Readers do not notice.
Not yet. Readers notice a hero who was a teenager in 1962 and is still young. The comic has to choose, and the choice it makes is to freeze the clock.
Move the control.
The mangaone author, about 1,190 chapters
↓→
The animeabout 1,180 episodes
↓→
Invented episodesthe manga ignores
A weekly anime runs too fast. One author has drawn the One Piece manga since 1997; its anime, by a studio, has run close behind for years. In 2026 the studio cut it to 26 episodes a year, to follow the manga's pace, it said. An anime that catches up must invent stories, and the manga ignores them.
Each card is a piece of a franchise. Is it part of the main story, or a side story the main story may ignore?
One card at a time. Tap the pile it belongs to.
Card 1 of 5
A phone game whose ending leads straight into the next numbered game
Episodes an anime studio invented while waiting for the manga to get ahead
A novel the owner has placed on its official timeline
A short comedy episode in which the cast play themselves at a party
A spin-off show about a side character, made by the owner and sold as what happened next
A phone game whose ending leads straight into the next numbered game → Main story
Not yet. Main story. If the next numbered game begins where it ended, its facts are promises, however small the screen it came out on.
Episodes an anime studio invented while waiting for the manga to get ahead → Side story
Not yet. Side story. The manga's author did not write them and will not follow them, so the main story can contradict them without breaking a promise.
A novel the owner has placed on its official timeline → Main story
Not yet. Main story. The owner put it on the list, and lesson 2 said the owner's word is the test, not the size of the thing.
A short comedy episode in which the cast play themselves at a party → Side story
Not yet. Side story. It is sold as a joke outside the story, and nothing later will be checked against it.
A spin-off show about a side character, made by the owner and sold as what happened next → Main story
Not yet. Main story. It was sold as what happened next, so the next part will be checked against it, whichever character it followed.
3Main story
vsvs
2Side story
Right. Three main, two side. The test is the same as lesson 2: did the owner say it counts? The trap is that the main story is bigger than the numbered games, and most readers have seen only part of it.
The games
++
The comic
++
The show
So a franchise has not one clock but several. The numbered games, the side games, the monthly comic, the weekly show: each adds promises at its own speed, by its own hands. That is the third cause of a tangle: too many hands writing at once, and no one list that all of them read.
Yearly gameone company
++
Monthly comicanother
++
Weekly showa third
A franchise has a yearly game, a monthly comic and a weekly show, each made by a different company. Which is the most likely result after five years?
The three contradict each other, because each added facts on its own clock and nobody read all three.
Right. Five games, sixty issues and 250 episodes, by three companies. The pairs from lesson 4 across all of that are not checked by anyone unless someone is paid to.
They stay in step, because they share a name.
Not yet. A name is not a list. Three companies on three clocks drift apart unless somebody keeps one list that all three write to.
The show wins, because television reaches the most people.
Not yet. Reach does not decide what counts; the owner does. Until the owner rules, all three are on the list and all three disagree.
Lesson complete
A side game, a monthly comic and a weekly show add promises on separate clocks. Few readers see all.