There are some plots--in TV, books, movies, etc--that are are predictable. This does not mean that they're bad. Sometimes, especially when I've had an exhausting day, all I want is something straightforward and simple, something that won't make my brain or heart hurt. And I'll freely admit: I love Downton Abbey to the bottom of my heart, and boy does it ever make my heart hurt, but it is not exactly subtle. I can usually see the hurt coming from a mile off and attempt to build whatever hasty fortifications I can. Do they work? Not really. And I'm not criticizing it for the fact that I can (sometimes) anticipate events--I'm just pointing out the fact.
However, while predictable plot lines aren't bad, and can be quite engaging, and moving, and surprising, and powerful despite the fact, as with Downton Abbey, they never have quite the effect as things that take you really by surprise. And a lot of that surprise has to do with the suspense that comes from accepting the possibility of pain, from knowing that there are no limits that the creator isn't willing to cross.
There are some shows, books, movies, etc, that you know will never do anything drastic. You know the ones I mean. You can always tell--maybe you've read/seen other work by that creator and know what you're in for, maybe throughout the work there are opportunities to take it to the next level and it doesn't go there, maybe it's just a feeling you foster, throughout the experience, based on writing style or the choices the creator makes. However you arrived at the knowledge, you know that nothing truly bad will ever happen to the main characters. Nobody "important" will ever die, all of the scrapes and dangerous situations will be escaped from, there will inevitably be a happy ending in which everything has been worked out and everyone is settled with their Romantic Interest. And again, I'm not saying that happy endings are bad things. But when you know that it's coming, it makes the journey of getting there a whole lot less impactful.
The stunning ones, the ones that live in your bones, are the ones that rip your heart out. Maybe early on they kill off a character unexpectedly, or take the story where you never thought they would. They do something heart-wrenching, something mind-blowing, that you never thought they would dare to do. Because not many stories dare to be daring. Generally, people like happy endings, like knowing that the people they are reading about/watching are safe, and producers and publishers like people being happy (they're the ones that will keep spending money). Deus ex machina is the beloved of the audience, for its presence ensures and reassures that the creators are not willing to do anything truly injurious to the characters, and thus will not do anything injurious to them, ever. But the daring ones take away the safety net of predictability. By demonstrating that they are willing to take that leap past the point of no return, they establish the pervasive, ever-hovering threat that they will do so again. They obliterate the limits of expected story lines, and that is a scary thing for audiences. It indicates that they are serious. That they have no qualms about doing the unimaginable. In this they create the suspense that is the hated and adored of all fans.
Just knowing that something irreparable can happen, because it's already been done once and what's to stop them from doing it again?, makes the thing so much more alive. Every emotion is heightened during the experience--every cliffhanger more frightening and every hint more meaningful. It is an exhausting state to be in, a horrible state, a state of constant tension and paranoia. It is a wonderful state. You become so much more attached to the characters, so much more invested in the story. The experience is that much sharper and that much more powerful. You soak everything up, all of the dialogue and the choices and the hilarity and the happiness, all of the dilemmas and the characters and the relationships between them. They become precious things, when if the unthinkable hadn't happened, they wouldn't be, not to the same extent. Because you never know. Everything is coated in a poignant layer of disquiet, all within the audience's mind.
This is why I love it when books and TV shows make me cry, when I am left reeling and in pain for days. As much as I hate it when bad things happen to the characters I love, I love it when bad things happen to the characters I love.
A few of the stories imprinted on my heart because of their proficiency in this torture :
- Fables, a graphic novel series by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham. This is one of the most striking things I've ever read, because 1) the story line is incredibly original, complex, and continuously surprising and nuanced, 2) the artwork is astoundingly beautiful, and adds a whole other layer to the plot and to the reading experience, and 3) it breaks my heart with every volume.
- Primeval, a British TV show that finished airing in 2011 (though all of it is on Netflix Instant Watch and I'm sure various other internet-places). The season finale of Season One is the episode that changes it all, and from then on the punches just keep coming. There is no reprieve. Amazingly disregarding of customary narrative conventions. You learn quickly not to get too comfortable with the state of things. It has great characters and relationships, and is very, very funny when it's not throwing you for a loop.
- Fringe, an American TV show which just aired it's series finale on Fox a few weeks ago. Shockingly inventive, and yet somehow believable from the beginning, I can't remember exactly when you realize that this show does what it wants. The plot arcs are incredibly complicated and complex, everything building on and off of everything else to create a layered web that you don't even really notice the depth, and genius of, until you start exploring it. It has some of the best characters and character depictions I've ever seen. The kind of show that is truly willing to do anything. Anything. No matter what kind of pain it inflicts on the viewers in doing so.
- Unspoken, by Sarah Rees Brennan. Arguably all of her other books too (particularly The Demon's Lexicon series), which are just as powerful and suspenseful and heart wrenching, though less notably so than in this one. The full extent to which the author will go is not evident until the very last pages ("She can't," you think while reading. "Sarah Rees Brennan won't. She just won't." And then she does, and the book becomes that much more intricate and emotional, and you realize that you never really expected her to in the first place, because what she does is downright cruel to her readers). Her fans constantly complain about what she does to them in this book, and she takes great pride in her reputation as a heartbreaker.
- Doctor Who, a longstanding British TV show which is wonderful for many reasons, and which I am including here because when my friends and I watched the finale of the latest season (Season 7, episode 5 of the current series), we cried not once but twice, the last time for a good twenty minutes because Things Happened and they were not Pleasing Things. I've watched intermittent episodes of previous seasons, all within the current series, and have cried multiple times, notably during the momentous episodes.
There are many other books which possess this quality, and which I love very much, but the things listed above are the things which I hold most notably in my mind as examples of this. I could also give a list of shows and books which aren't daring in this way, and which I still adore. Though this is one of the features of stories that I appreciate the most while reading/watching, and which I think can change the whole tone, depth, and impact of them, it itself is not an exclusive indicator of a good story.
There are many of those which do not cause intense emotional distress.
--Flannery
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