Episodic characterization as the real reason for supposed "contradictions"
Episodic characterization differs enormously from novelistic characterization, a common expectation modern people project on the Word of God. Episodic characterization involves things like the stories of Ananzi in Africa, where he will face first one challenge then another; but not really 'remember what he did last Friday'. Or again, it involves things like Archie Comics or X-Men or Donald Duck: do these characters 'remember what they did last Friday'? Or do they more seem to have the memories of goldfish and live for the first time in each story about them? This sense that the character has the memory of a goldfish is one of the defining features of episodic characterization, which typically uses characters to express a definite moral or spiritual message; not to worry about character consistency between different stories, especially not as much. For sometimes there will be traces of both characterological consistency and memories of goldfish in the exact same text. ...