The ‘General Hospital’ Retcon That Had Fans Seeing Red

In 2018, General Hospital decided to give beloved heroine a long-lost child with a man who had been her worst enemy for decades. Peter August (Wes Ramsey) was introduced as Anna Devane‘s (Finola Hughes) never-before-heard-of son with Cesar Faison (Anders Hove), a man who had stalked and tortured her throughout most of her adult life. As soon as the character came onto the scene, fans began protesting.

General Hospital’s Anna Thought She Had a Son

When Anna began having memories of giving birth to a child during her early WSB agent days, fans began scratching their heads, especially when she revealed who fathered this child. First, as storyline canon had it, Anna was a virgin when she met fellow agent Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) and married him, becoming pregnant with their daughter, Robin (Kimberly McCullough), shortly after. If Anna had a child with someone else before she ever met Robert, it meant that Anna and Robert’s love story had to change.

Second, Anna never would have slept with Faison, a man she loathed more than anyone in the world. The newly rewritten story history had Anna choosing to be with Faison as part of her cover to learn his various crimes. When she learned she was pregnant, she gave the baby up without even knowing its gender. Fellow WSB trainee Valentin Cassadine (James Patrick Stuart) was in her life at the time and in 2018, he told Anna she’d had a little girl who was raised by a good family.

Soon after, we learned that Anna had given birth to a boy whom Valentin gave to his father to raise. Faison named the boy Henrik, but as an adult, Henrik changed his name to Peter August and turned up in Port Charles.

Fans Protest Anna’s Newly Created Son

Fan outrage was so strong over this retconned son that GH had to re-write its own rewritten story.

“I really HATE the idea of Anna having son with Faison. Worst idea ever!” one fan said on X back in 2018.

Another fan pointed out that giving Anna a son with Faison didn’t work with Anna’s long-established history, saying, “For the love of God, Peter is Alex’s son. Anna never did it with Faison. The end.”

By 2020, GH changed things around again when it was revealed that Peter was really the son of Alex Devane, Anna’s twin. In a bizarre memory-mapping experiment, some of Alex’s memories had been implanted into Anna, leaving her to believe she’d had a child when she really hadn’t. Unfortunately, by that time, Peter was so unpopular that the show eventually had to kill the character off.

As one GH fan put it on X in 2024, “Initially Peter was the son of Faison and Anna. Arguably one of the worst decisions GH has ever made. They passive aggressively made him really Anna’s twin Alex’s son in a “Damn, bitch. Here!” move after a few years. They didn’t finally kill him off until 2 years ago.”

General Hospital airs weekdays on ABC and streams each weeknight on Hulu.