The Merits and Demerits of predictable story telling

[SnowFire]

Ah.  That plot twist is fine - it's transgressive, yes, but you're allowed a little bit of that if you're driving the knife deep, and the gameplay assumption that wouldn't happen helps make it more unexpected and impactful.  (Plus, the game shipped with only Hard mode, which makes getting stuck a bit less likely unless you've been truly deathmarching on Classic.)  I'd call that a healthy amount of spice, plus the plot makes it *mostly* work (complete with foreshadowing for those paying attention in C9/C10), for all that much else in that route is problematic.

Spoiler

Specifically in that they didn't bother to give good reasons for the remaining Eagles to stick with Byleth, barring Ferdinand and maaaaybe Bernadetta.  Caspar & Linhardt's families sided with Edelgard, and Dorothea's politics fit Edelgard better than SS Byleth.  Petra's a true outsider & free agent so could probably be made to fit anywhere, but the Byleth / Petra supports are about Petra learning Fodlanese & going back to Brigid, which doesn't quite match a "Petra impressed by Byleth as paragon" that Silver Snow probably needs it to.

Anyway, I think people tend to give a bit more credit to first-half plot elements as "developments" since you're still painting the base picture.  You don't even necessarily need foreshadowing or a reason, early, because it's still setup.  Nobody will bat an eye if some sort of Orson-like figure shows up and immediately betrays you, say.  It's only later on that out-of-nowhere plot "twists" become riskier, since at that point people expect you to paint with the canvas you've already set up.

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

Ah.  That plot twist is fine - it's transgressive, yes, but you're allowed a little bit of that if you're driving the knife deep, and the gameplay assumption that wouldn't happen helps make it more unexpected and impactful.  (Plus, the game shipped with only Hard mode, which makes getting stuck a bit less likely unless you've been truly deathmarching on Classic.)  I'd call that a healthy amount of spice, plus the plot makes it *mostly* work (complete with foreshadowing for those paying attention in C9/C10), for all that much else in that route is problematic.

I'm not really a fan of the gameplay implications of that particular twist. I don't mind it too much, since it didn't hit me personally, but I've been very turned off by somewhat similar situations in Fates and Engage.

Spoiler

I forget the exact details but in Fates it was something like: I was doing an Ironman for my first time through Birthright, had been using Kagero as my ninja but she died, so I spent some time and effort bringing Kaze back up to speed since he was somewhat underleveled. But then he went and died in the cut scene.

Then in Engage, I spent some time planning out how I wanted to reclass various characters, what weapon skills they'd need, which Emblems I'd have to give them, and so on... and then learned that it had all been a big waste of my time because the Emblems went away.

Now, obviously, not everyone is going to have the same experiences as me here. It's going to vary a lot from player to player. How much an individual's game is personally impacted will effect how they feel about it, for sure. And probably also the temperament of the player and whether they're more of a planner (which I definitely am) or whether they're the sort of person who likes to feel that they're constantly having to adapt to new circumstances (which I typically am not).

I guess that my point is that when you introduce any sort of twist into a video game, the stakes are even higher than doing so in other media. You have a chance to get it wrong in the story and to get it wrong in the gameplay. Or not even "get it wrong", necessarily. People have different tastes. No matter how well you execute a twist, it's still going to alienate, disappoint, or turn off some people. And when you're operating on two different axes, that means you're probably going to be losing more of your audience than when you only have to worry about how it's playing out in the story.

[Jotari]

Kaze's scripted death was stupid to begin with as it has no actual bearing on the plot. It's not like Pelleas where something is made out of his death, he just dies from a random bomb and if you happened to have a support with him it comes out as a completely jarring nothing plot point.

[DefyingFates]

11 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I agree. Incidentally, what did you think of the video?

 

I'm a big fan of OSP and agree with what was said in that video for the most part (though I'm still a very spoiler-averse person by nature so that part of the video disconnected from me a bit).

[Jotari]

On 6/8/2023 at 8:14 PM, lenticular said:

I'm going to say that yes, a story can still be interesting even if it's entirely predictable. Or possibly "interesting" isn't the right word here. A story can still have merit? Still be worth engaging with? Or let's frame it the other way: being entirely predictable at every stage does not make a story worthless. My logic here is based on rereading/rewatching/replaying favourite stories. Let's say I decide to rewatch The Princess Bride. It's a personal favourite of mine and I have lost count of the number of times that I have seen it. Absolutely nothing that happens in it would be even a little bit surprising. But I would still enjoy it.

Going back to this and how I said rewatching isn't quite the same as a perdictable story, as it's based off of the connections you made the first time; I'm wondering if you have any opinion on the slew of Disney Live Action remakes. Because I find them an excellent example of perdictablity in the negative. I'm fine with watching two separate adaptations of the same work as it can lead to two different experiences, but the Disney Live Action Remakes are so similar in style, script, look and, frequently even a shot for shot copy, that they come across as soulless with any changes that are there basically being token changes. But I'm in the (somewhat vocal) minority as they are making bundles of cash each time, so people are definitely watching them (myself included, as my girlfriend loves them). And maybe that's the crux of the issue. Maybe it's not predictability that's the issue but a lack of new experience. Isn't cliche just another word for predictable, in a way? A story or plot beat that you've seen a hundred times before that doesn't offer anything new doesn't create engagement, unless you got so invested in it the first time that it gets a pass for nostalgia.

[lenticular]

26 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'm wondering if you have any opinion on the slew of Disney Live Action remakes. Because I find them an excellent example of perdictablity in the negative.

I've no opinions on them, since I've not seen any of them. I suppose that it's somewhat telling that I've never felt any particular desire or compulsion to seek them out, which is at least partly because they didn't really catch my interest at all. But mostly it's just because I hate going to the cinema and have no interest in paying for Disney+. 

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Kaze's scripted death was stupid to begin with as it has no actual bearing on the plot. It's not like Pelleas where something is made out of his death, he just dies from a random bomb and if you happened to have a support with him it comes out as a completely jarring nothing plot point.

Agreed. I think it's a good example of a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist turning out badly. It's unpredictable, certainly, but in the worst sort of way, adding nothing of value to either the story or the gameplay.

Meanwhile, I'd characterise the Edelgard twist as being good in story but bad in gameplay, and the Emblems twist as being meh in story and mixed in gameplay (with both advantages and disadvantages). The Kaze twist is pretty clearly the worst of the three. I don't think I've ever seen or heard anyone saying that they enjoyed it.

[vanguard333]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'm wondering if you have any opinion on the slew of Disney Live Action remakes.

I'm not the person that you were replying to, but I have seen some of the Disney live action remakes, and I do agree that the Disney Live Action remakes are soulless copies that are far worse than the original stories. However, I think the problems with them are a lot more complex than just them being too similar.

Don't get me wrong; them being too similar is a problem, but the main reason it's a problem is that they are essentially just copying the story into a new medium. Animation and live-action (or 2D animation and CG animation in the case of the Lion King) have different strengths and weaknesses in presentation and storytelling, and any adaptation or remake in a new medium needs to utilize those advantages. The original animated Disney films took full advantage of every 2D animation technique that they were using and showed their advantages. The remakes show essentially zero regard for the change in medium; instead copying almost everything beat-for-beat in a very lazy way. And, when there are changes, it's usually in the form of adding needless subplots that exist solely to pad out the runtime; there is no care or craft being put into the remakes whatsoever.

 

For a bit of contrast, Alita: Battle Angel was a somewhat-recent live-action adaption of a manga and anime series, and it's really good. There's a ton of care and craft put into it, it utilizes the strengths of live-action, and, even though the film's plot essentially compresses the first several story arcs, no one who has read the manga or watched the anime, to my knowledge, came away thinking that the movie was too repetitive or too similar. One notable example of just the opposite: the author of the manga hated the anime, but loves the movie.

It was a fantastic movie, and it flopped because advertisers didn't know how to market it and it had to compete with Captain Marvel in theatres. It's a real shame; the bad adaptations get all the money and attention while the good adaptations flop.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

I'm not the person that you were replying to, but I have seen some of the Disney live action remakes, and I do agree that the Disney Live Action remakes are soulless copies that are far worse than the original stories. However, I think the problems with them are a lot more complex than just them being too similar.

Don't get me wrong; them being too similar is a problem, but the main reason it's a problem is that they are essentially just copying the story into a new medium. Animation and live-action (or 2D animation and CG animation in the case of the Lion King) have different strengths and weaknesses in presentation and storytelling, and any adaptation or remake in a new medium needs to utilize those advantages. The original animated Disney films took full advantage of every 2D animation technique that they were using and showed their advantages. The remakes show essentially zero regard for the change in medium; instead copying almost everything beat-for-beat in a very lazy way. And, when there are changes, it's usually in the form of adding needless subplots that exist solely to pad out the runtime; there is no care or craft being put into the remakes whatsoever.

My biases agree with you, and yet the movies are successful. There are two possible reasons to explain why. Number 1 is that capitalism interferes with artistic quality and there is no survival of the fittest, merely survival of the richest (ie the most advertised). Number 2 is that we're old foggies and these movies are genuinely good and beloved by children who are seeing the stories for the first time. Probably a bit of both, but it'll be interesting to see if the people growing up on them now will have any nostalgia for these movies twenty years from now.

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

For a bit of contrast, Alita: Battle Angel was a somewhat-recent live-action adaption of a manga and anime series, and it's really good. There's a ton of care and craft put into it, it utilizes the strengths of live-action, and, even though the film's plot essentially compresses the first several story arcs, no one who has read the manga or watched the anime, to my knowledge, came away thinking that the movie was too repetitive or too similar. One notable example of just the opposite: the author of the manga hated the anime, but loves the movie.

It was a fantastic movie, and it flopped because advertisers didn't know how to market it and it had to compete with Captain Marvel in theatres. It's a real shame; the bad adaptations get all the money and attention while the good adaptations flop.

I've seen that movie, and honestly I found it very so so.

[vanguard333]

On 6/9/2023 at 11:46 PM, Jotari said:

My biases agree with you, and yet the movies are successful. There are two possible reasons to explain why. Number 1 is that capitalism interferes with artistic quality and there is no survival of the fittest, merely survival of the richest (i.e. the most advertised). Number 2 is that we're old foggies and these movies are genuinely good and beloved by children who are seeing the stories for the first time. Probably a bit of both, but it'll be interesting to see if the people growing up on them now will have any nostalgia for these movies twenty years from now.

I'm only in my 20s; I'm not old!

There are probably a multitude of reasons for it. I think what's going on is that these remakes are essentially the movie equivalent of gaming the algorithm:

1. Their name promises something comfortable and familiar.

2. There's still a stigma in the west with animation that animation is just for kids' media, so the idea of a "live-action remake (even though these films are often mostly CGI, making them essentially still animated)" essentially tells anyone who believes that idea, "Here's a version of that movie you loved as a kid that you can now watch as an adult".

3. Since it's an adaptation of a classic kid's movie, it also promises a distraction for the kids, and in this case, an even longer distraction since the remakes are longer than the animated originals.

4. No one dares try to compete with a big budget Disney movie in theatres anymore, so these movies essentially have free reign whenever they're in theatres.

5. These movies always staple on one new song that's out-of-place solely so the movie can be nominated for original song awards.

And this isn't the full list of ways in which these movies are essentially two-hour-long clickbait (or, I guess, 'watch-bait', since it's a movie?).

 

On 6/9/2023 at 11:46 PM, Jotari said:

I've seen that movie, and honestly I found it very so so.

I will admit that it had its problems, though I think it was good overall; I brought it up mainly as a more recent example of a direct adaptation that had actual heart & effort.

Edited June 13, 2023 by vanguard333

[Dark Holy Elf]

It came up in the previous thread, but I generally disagree pretty strongly that a story being "predictable", or knowing the story in advance, is a bad thing in most cases.

When I went to watch Shakespeare plays in my home city's Shakespeare festival, the free program handed to attendees at the door always spelled out the story in advance. Did this reduce theatre-goers' enjoyment of the plays? Seems unlikely, seeing as the festival kept doing it year after year (costing them valuable space on their free programs) and their attendance numbers kept rising.

Plenty of movies, books, etc., are a big enough part of popular culture that people know the ending and even some other story beats before experiencing them (Shakespeare, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, 1984, etc.). The reception of these works does not seem to suffer from this.

To me, the main place where it's useful to not know things in advance is not about the plot beats themselves, but about the feel of mystery. Obviously, mystery stories themselves are all about this, and generally these are the stories we agree to try not to spoil for others, but any story can invoke this sense of mystery. I have fond memories of wondering about these mysteries in various stories and certainly if I knew all the answers in advance, I would never have been able to enjoy these speculations. But even then, at least for me, I'm generally wondering about story points that have already been hinted at. Wondering about e.g. how the murder was committed in various Ace Attorney stories, or even about who the Flame Emperor is, are fun because the work had me interested in those questions. I'm rarely just wondering about "what will happen next in the story".

Regarding prequels, I feel they also kinda prove my point. We often know the major story beats of a prequel, and that's okay! Take the Star Wars prequels. It's a pretty common sentiment that Revenge of the Sith is the strongest movie of the three, even though it's also the most predictable since (at least if one is familiar with Episodes 4-6) we know where the story will end! We know Palpatine will take over the Republic and become Emperor, we know Anakin will turn to the dark side in Palpatine's service and get injured enough that he needs some strange body suit, we know Yoda and Obi-Wan will live and go into hiding, we know Padme will give birth to twins and then die. That said, we don't watch the movie because it's a list of things that happen, we watch it to see how and why the characters make the individual choices they do, to consider under what circumstances that good people (perhaps including we, the viewers) might end up going down terrible paths, and/or just to watch some cool fight scenes.

[vanguard333]

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Regarding prequels, I feel they also kinda prove my point. We often know the major story beats of a prequel, and that's okay! Take the Star Wars prequels. It's a pretty common sentiment that Revenge of the Sith is the strongest movie of the three, even though it's also the most predictable since (at least if one is familiar with Episodes 4-6) we know where the story will end! We know Palpatine will take over the Republic and become Emperor, we know Anakin will turn to the dark side in Palpatine's service and get injured enough that he needs some strange body suit, we know Yoda and Obi-Wan will live and go into hiding, we know Padme will give birth to twins and then die. That said, we don't watch the movie because it's a list of things that happen, we watch it to see how and why the characters make the individual choices they do, to consider under what circumstances that good people (perhaps including we, the viewers) might end up going down terrible paths, and/or just to watch some cool fight scenes.

Exactly. Audiences know the exact fate of all the characters in Revenge of the Sith, yet it is still a compelling story and the best movie in the prequel trilogy.

[Hrothgar777]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Exactly. Audiences know the exact fate of all the characters in Revenge of the Sith, yet it is still a compelling story and the best movie in the prequel trilogy.

Interestingly, back in 2005 the official trailers spoiled more or less the whole plot of the movie. George Lucas was like "everyone already knows. Whatever. They'll come watch it anyway because it's just that awesome."

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said:

Interestingly, back in 2005 the official trailers spoiled more or less the whole plot of the movie. George Lucas was like "everyone already knows. Whatever. They'll come watch it anyway because it's just that awesome."

That makes sense. Incidentally, I don't even remember any of those trailers; the only trailer/commercial for Revenge of the Sith that I remember is one that showed Anakin holding a red lightsaber; something that never actually happens in the movie (aside from when he has Dooku's saber, and that wasn't the scene I remember seeing in the trailer), and I honestly think I'm misremembering that trailer because it's been so long.

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Take the Star Wars prequels. It's a pretty common sentiment that Revenge of the Sith is the strongest movie of the three, even though it's also the most predictable since (at least if one is familiar with Episodes 4-6) we know where the story will end! We know Palpatine will take over the Republic and become Emperor, we know Anakin will turn to the dark side in Palpatine's service and get injured enough that he needs some strange body suit, we know Yoda and Obi-Wan will live and go into hiding, we know Padme will give birth to twins and then die. That said, we don't watch the movie because it's a list of things that happen, we watch it to see how and why the characters make the individual choices they do, to consider under what circumstances that good people (perhaps including we, the viewers) might end up going down terrible paths, and/or just to watch some cool fight scenes.

Minor bit of pedantisism here, but original series canon actually puts Padma's death in Luke and Leia's early childhood, as Leia says she has some memories of her always being sad in Empire Strikes back (not that this remotely effects the point you're making).

 

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Minor bit of pedantisism here, but original series canon actually puts Padma's death in Luke and Leia's early childhood, as Leia says she has some memories of her always being sad in Empire Strikes back (not that this remotely effects the point you're making).

Having watched the original trilogy for the first time around the time the prequels were releasing (I was only two years old when The Phantom Menace released in theatres), I always interpreted that line in Return of the Jedi as Leia talking about her adoptive mother, not her birth mother.

Also, a minor bit of pedantry here, but the word is "pedantry", not "pedantisism".

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Having watched the original trilogy for the first time around the time the prequels were releasing (I was only two years old when The Phantom Menace released in theatres), I always interpreted that line in Return of the Jedi as Leia talking about her adoptive mother, not her birth mother.

Well the line now retroactively refers to her adoptive mother, but there's no indication in the original trilogy that it was the situation. Luke is specifically asking about their mother. Obi-Wan also says that their mother took Leia to live on Alderan. Funnily enough the original trilogy also pretty clearly says that Uncle Owen was Obi-Wan's brother, not Anakin's. These are the two quotes in question.

BEN

When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your 
mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep 
you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible.  So I took you 
to live with my brother Owen on Tatooine... and your mother took Leia 
to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan.

LUKE
Leia... do you remember your mother? Your real mother?

LEIA
Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.

LUKE
What do you remember?

LEIA
Just...images, really. Feelings.

LUKE
Tell me.

LEIA
(a little surprised at his insistence)
She was very beautiful. Kind, but...sad.
(looks up)
Why are you asking me all this?

He looks away.

LUKE
I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her.

 

So yeah, there's really no way of getting around that Leia and Luke's mother was alive when they were born and died in their childhood per Return of the Jedi. We have two seperate characters refer to her, Luke specifies her real mother and the continuity is even so different that Vader never even knew she was pregnant (as opposed to Revenge of the Sith where it's the entire reason for his turn). So it's retcons all around, and really that's fine. Revenge of the Sith had a good story and the inability to safe his wife is a good reason for Vader to be seduced by the dark side (keeping Uncle Owen as Obi-Wan's brother seems like it would have been an easy fix for the prequels though, instead of giving Anakin this whole other family of people he doesn't know). But if Lucas ever claims he had the whole story planned from the start he's obviously being loose with those terms.

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Also, a minor bit of pedantry here, but the word is "pedantry", not "pedantisism".

Ah! I've been out pendaticated!

[henrymidfields]

There's also the reverse-whodunnit in the form of Detective Columbo - or how we know who the criminal is - no surprises there, but the characters in the story don't. And the main enjoyment is how the detective is going to find out who did the crime. Persona 5 also kind of fits this too - we know Shido is corrupt and responsible for a lot of bad stuff in the story, but what we find out is how he has stayed above arrest and how the Phantom Thieves try to bring him down. Persona 4 Golden's Animation, I heard, re-wrote a lot of the narrative in the assumption that everyone knows Adachi is the killer and focuses more on why Adachi is the way he is, and how he interacts with Yu over the course of the story.