Should Caitlin Snow and Killer Frost be separated?

They are not separate beings from the beginning, they share a single physical body. I don't think that rewriting history is a good idea. Either way, this won't be 100% correct. At least the way we have it now is correct for most of the show's run. 

So, do you think keeping them like this even in last season when they are separate is how it should be done?

@MAT13 wrote:
So, do you think keeping them like this even in last season when they are separate is how it should be done?

Yes. I think listing them differently at the beginning of the show and at the end will be confusing.

@tnt wrote:
They are not separate beings from the beginning, they share a single physical body. I don't think that rewriting history is a good idea. Either way, this won't be 100% correct. At least the way we have it now is correct for most of the show's run. 

Show's kind of rewriting history in a way now that the personalities have split into their own separate bodies though. We wouldn't be changing Caitlin's appearances, just adding an extra character from the split onward. Same could be said for Legends of Tomorrow, Zari from season 3-4 is Zari Tomaz and then because of timeline changing, she became Zari Tarazi in season 5 with a completely different personality and personal history... and there's been episodes where both versions and possible just the old version is featured due to, well, I'll just say magic-y things to avoid spoilers. 

Perhaps Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost could be renamed to Caitlin Snow with Killer Frost as AKA name, and then when they split we add new Killer Frost character and add a description that this is the Killer Frost in her own body and separate from Caitlin.

@MAT13 wrote:
Perhaps Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost could be renamed to Caitlin Snow with Killer Frost as AKA name, and then when they split we add new Killer Frost character and add a description that this is the Killer Frost in her own body and separate from Caitlin.

That would be confusing. It definitely would beg the question, why the appearances of Killer Frost are not consistent throughout the show.
For what it worth, our data need to be consistent and spoiler-free for the users both familiar and not familiar with the show. Unfortunately, TVmaze system is not really made to support all tricks that writers do with the characters. Hell, it can't even properly display correct character images when it's portrayed by different actors.
Also, in my opinion, editing the show should not require watching it or having a deep knowledge of all twists and turns of the plot. I think it should be kept as simple as possible.

@kevin87 wrote:
Same could be said for Legends of Tomorrow, Zari from season 3-4 is Zari Tomaz and then because of timeline changing, she became Zari Tarazi in season 5 with a completely different personality and personal history... and there's been episodes where both versions and possible just the old version is featured due to, well, I'll just say magic-y things to avoid spoilers. 

To be honest, I was gonna just rename the character to Zari and leave the last names for the AKA, but apparently forgot to do that :D
However, I'm not 100% sure if it's the right way, and maybe we indeed need to split them. The situation is not really the same as with Snow/Frost, because new Zari just didn't exist before at all.

@tnt wrote:
That would be confusing. It definitely would beg the question, why the appearances of Killer Frost are not consistent throughout the show.
For what it worth, our data need to be consistent and spoiler-free for the users both familiar and not familiar with the show. Unfortunately, TVmaze system is not really made to support all tricks that writers do with the characters. Hell, it can't even properly display correct character images when it's portrayed by different actors.
Also, in my opinion, editing the show should not require watching it or having a deep knowledge of all twists and turns of the plot. I think it should be kept as simple as possible.

To be honest, I was gonna just rename the character to Zari and leave the last names for the AKA, but apparently forgot to do that :D
However, I'm not 100% sure if it's the right way, and maybe we indeed need to split them. The situation is not really the same as with Snow/Frost, because new Zari just didn't exist before at all.

To be fair, putting her as Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost is already kind of a spoiler because she didn't get her powers until season 3... so having Caitlin/Killer Frost until the split and separating them after wouldn't be any more of a spoiler. There's also the fact that now they have different bodies, Frost might appear when Caitlin doesn't or vice versa. And even before that, there were some episodes where the Caitlin let the Frost personality take over so she could experience life, but then they at least shared the same body and was basically one person with split personalities. Now they don't.

I can see pros for both sides with Caitlin/Frost, though personally think after Frost became her own person we should have a split there... but I think the Zaris should be split most importantly.

Leave it to the Arrow-verse to complicate things! :) 

In my mind, Caitlin and Killer Frost should be separate entries as they are separate characters. It is a different situation from Barry/Flash or Cisco/Vibe kind of things. We list all of the different Harrison Wells' (Wellses??) Caitlin and Killer Frost are more like that situation than the typical superhero secret identity situation.

Same with the Zari's over in the Legends listing. They are different characters, even if played by the same actor. 

@LadyShelley wrote:
Leave it to the Arrow-verse to complicate things! :) 

In my mind, Caitlin and Killer Frost should be separate entries as they are separate characters. It is a different situation from Barry/Flash or Cisco/Vibe kind of things. We list all of the different Harrison Wells' (Wellses??) Caitlin and Killer Frost are more like that situation than the typical superhero secret identity situation.

Yes, it's different, it's more of a Bruce Banner/Hulk situation, with two separate consciousnesses. But how do we technically list them before season 7, when Frost finally became an independent person? The only place where characters are credited – press releases, and Danielle Panabaker was only credited in press releases as Caitlin Snow for the first 6 seasons, and only in season 7 they started credit he also as Frost. So how do we add Frost's appearances, as Uncredited? But what about episodes where Frost appears without Caitlin? If memory serves, there were a couple of such episodes in the past.

@tnt wrote:
Yes, it's different, it's more of a Bruce Banner/Hulk situation, with two separate consciousnesses. But how do we technically list them before season 7, when Frost finally became an independent person? The only place where characters are credited – press releases, and Danielle Panabaker was only credited in press releases as Caitlin Snow for the first 6 seasons, and only in season 7 they started credit he also as Frost. So how do we add Frost's appearances, as Uncredited? But what about episodes where Frost appears without Caitlin? If memory serves, there were a couple of such episodes in the past.

Bruce Banner / Hulk is a good comparison. I don't see those two as split in terms of having two separate characters. But if they would split bodies, I think I would prefer them split into two characters from that point on.

So, back to my earlier proposition... what if we simply rename current "Caitlin / Frost" to just Caitlin and keep Killer Frost as AKA. Then it's not a clearly visible spoiler. And when they split, we add Killer Frost as separate character since at that point they are separate, but before they can share the single character since they shared the same body.

It doesn't matter if the show credits Danielle as Killer Frost in early seasons since we don't care for partially credited names. If inside the show we find out some character's name is more complete than what is in the credits, we rename it to include the most full version of it. If a character is credited as Clark but be find out in the show he goes by name Clark Kent we won't keep Clark in our character list but edit it to Clark Kent. This is sort of the same with Killer Frost. They credit Danielle as Caitlin but we also know from the show that she goes by Killer Frost so adding that to AKA name would be fine, imho. And she would continue to be Caitlin in season 7 (and would have AKA  Killer Frost even though she is split, but this is no different to say season 1 where she also wasn't or didn't have Killer Frost inside her). I don't think we need to complicate things past this. We just need to add Killer Frost as a new character in season 7. And have current Caitlin / Frost renamed to Caitlin with Frost as AKA name. Any special info required can be added to character description to clarify things (i.e. the fact that Killer Frost got split and hence the new character since she no longer is part of Caitlin).

This wouldn't be confusing at all. And Killer Frost wouldn't be shows as a spoiler name in early seasons where she doesn't yet make appearance.

In fact, this would be more logical and easy to follow than the fact that we have Batwoman's Kate Kane split into two characters to avoid spoilers :)

@MAT13 wrote:
 

Bruce Banner / Hulk is a good comparison. I don't see those two as split in terms of having two separate characters. But if they would split bodies, I think I would prefer them split into two characters from that point on.

So, back to my earlier proposition... what if we simply rename current "Caitlin / Frost" to just Caitlin and keep Killer Frost as AKA. Then it's not a clearly visible spoiler. And when they split, we add Killer Frost as separate character since at that point they are separate, but before they can share the single character since they shared the same body.

They either two separate characters (and we track every Frost's appearance), or Killer Frost is Caitlins AKA, and we already have it like this. But I'm sure it will be confusing to have Frost listed separately only in season 7, because she's obviously appeared earlier, and even without her counterpart. 

It doesn't matter if the show credits Danielle as Killer Frost in early seasons since we don't care for partially credited names.

It's not about the name, it's about a character. If Killer Frost is just another name for Caitlin Snow, then they are a single character and don't need separation. But if she's another character, we can't add to the main cast "Danielle Panabaker as Killer Frost" prior to season 7, because only in season 7 they started crediting her as such.
So this begs the questions I asked earlier, how to credit Frost in seasons 3-6? We can't list her as the main cast, but we also can't list her as Uncredited in the episodes where only Killer Frost appears (I think that happened somewhere in season 4, but I can't remember for sure), because Danielle Panabaker is credited on-screen.
BTW, there's also her Earth-2 doppelgänger, who needs to be separated as well (now we have her listed in some very confusing way). So any ideas on how to solve that within the scope of TVmaze policy are welcome.

As I've said before, TVmaze crediting system is not really working for the modern twists and turns. It is designed to cover the simple one actor—one character / one character—one actor situations, anything above that usually is problematic. And the Arrowverse is probably the most problematic in this way.

@tnt wrote:
They either two separate characters (and we track every Frost's appearance), or Killer Frost is Caitlins AKA, and we already have it like this. But I'm sure it will be confusing to have Frost listed separately only in season 7, because she's obviously appeared earlier, and even without her counterpart. 

It's not about the name, it's about a character. If Killer Frost is just another name for Caitlin Snow, then they are a single character and don't need separation. But if she's another character, we can't add to the main cast "Danielle Panabaker as Killer Frost" prior to season 7, because only in season 7 they started crediting her as such.
So this begs the questions I asked earlier, how to credit Frost in seasons 3-6? We can't list her as the main cast, but we also can't list her as Uncredited in the episodes where only Killer Frost appears (I think that happened somewhere in season 4, but I can't remember for sure), because Danielle Panabaker is credited on-screen.
BTW, there's also her Earth-2 doppelgänger, who needs to be separated as well (now we have her listed in some very confusing way). So any ideas on how to solve that within the scope of TVmaze policy are welcome.

As I've said before, TVmaze crediting system is not really working for the modern twists and turns. It is designed to cover the simple one actor—one character / one character—one actor situations, anything above that usually is problematic. And the Arrowverse is probably the most problematic in this way.

If Bruce Banner / Hulk wouldn't be separated, I think it's perfectly fine to keep them as one character until the split. For a show like United States of Tara from a few years ago, we wouldn't give each of her alternate personalities a separate entry, right? Season 1-6 would be Caitlin/Killer Frost and then starting with the split, we have just Frost as her own character. One body = one entry (Or else that also has implications for The 100 in season 6 with their body snatching stuff) No need to further complicate their already overcomplicated plot tricks. It'd also be fine to have her as Caitlin Snow and put Killer Frost as an AKA since technically adding any super names to people who didn't get their powers in their first appearance is a spoiler if you haven't watched it from the start, like Harrison Wells/Reverse Flash or Cisco/Vibe. That's almost like with Call the Midwife, there's one nun who leaves the church later in the series but stays and is credited as her civilian name after that and every once in a while, somebody will add a separate character for her civilian name, or change the nun to the civilian name and put her name she used as a nun as the AKA, but that's a big spoiler.

The Earth-2 version should just be "Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost (Earth-2)" but for some reason, it seems like somebody possibly went back and deleted the Earth-2 character page and changed those uncreditted appearances to the main Earth-1 version because I remember editing the E2 entry's name a little to try and keep them uniform and had it as "Caitlin Snow (Earth-2) / Killer Frost" because at that point, Earth-1 version was just Caitlin Snow and she didn't have powers yet, like with how Katie Cassidy's Earth-2 version had a different super name. (For those, if they shared the same super name I would put "(Earth-#) at the end of both names, but if the super name was different, like Black Canary and Black Siren or Supergirl and Overgirl etc, I'd just put "(Earth-#) after their normal name and put the different super name last.) 

The problem is the comic book shows will never really fit with the current policy. The policy was written with a more traditional character role in mind. What we may have to do is sit down and figure out a set of rules for the comic book shows to take into account the various super characters/alt Earth characters (by the way the listing for Season 1 Harrison Wells is Harrison Wells/ Reverse Flash so ...) and whatever other bits of weirdness we know is out there. 

Been able to link characters would be great in these scenarios. 

Please don't hit me @david 

While this is unclear, I separated Zari characters in the LoT. I will try to remember and add every appearance of Zari-1 after Zari-2 took her place (and vice versa), but don't mind a fresh pair of eyes.

@tnt wrote:
While this is unclear, I separated Zari characters in the LoT. I will try to remember and add every appearance of Zari-1 after Zari-2 took her place (and vice versa), but don't mind a fresh pair of eyes.

I've got them on Blu-ray so I can FF through the episodes to find them when I get a chance. I don't think there's been a Zari 1-and-not-2 situation yet. 

@kevin87 wrote:
I've got them on Blu-ray so I can FF through the episodes to find them when I get a chance. I don't think there's been a Zari 1-and-not-2 situation yet. 

I think I added them all, there were actually not so many appearances, but I'd appreciate a double check :)

Ok, I think I found the solution (at least it seems so). Did a bit of re-watching :D
After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Killer Frost dropped the "Killer" part from her name, emphasizing that on several occasions. Since the body split became after that, the new separate character should be named simply the Frost, and Killer Frost will stay where she should, as a meta-alternate name for Caitlin Snow.

Should work, right?

@tnt wrote:
Ok, I think I found the solution (at least it seems so). Did a bit of re-watching :D
After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Killer Frost dropped the "Killer" part from her name, emphasizing that on several occasions. Since the body split became after that, the new separate character should be named simply the Frost, and Killer Frost will stay where she should, as a meta-alternate name for Caitlin Snow.

Should work, right?

Sounds good. New Frost character should probably have a description mentioning that just in case people may wonder why is she named like that or split at that point :)