The lighter side of ADHD
Idk, I feel like knowing standard story structure is a way to help you get more understanding out of a story. IMO, a good story is predictable in some ways. If knowing the ending takes all the fun out of it, then it probably wasn’t a very good story.
Also: I generally watch for two specific moments in any movie: the “meeting with the goddess” and the “atonement with the father”. Those two scenes really tell you a lot about what the writer cares about and how they think about their characters.
Also: I generally watch for two specific moments in any movie: the “meeting with the goddess” and the “atonement with the father”. Those two scenes really tell you a lot about what the writer cares about and how they think about their characters.
Ooooh, I'm intrigued! Tell me more... I love a good trope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey
The Meeting with the Goddess - This is where the hero gains items given to him that will help him in the future.
Atonement with the Father/Abyss - In this step, the hero must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in their life. In many myths and stories, this is the father or a father figure who has life-and-death power. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving into this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although an encounter with a male entity most frequently symbolizes this step, it does not have to be a male—just someone or something with incredible power.
It all seems like a stretch to me. Someone found/created these in a story, maybe some other folks repeat the pattern, but some significant portion is just errors in our pattern recognition, people applying these themes post-hoc.
To be fair, in order to tell a "good" story, certain literary devices must be used in order for the characters and the plot to make sense. Otherwise it's just rambling. That's why classic stories are classics. But I do think you make a valid point in that these literary devices were noticed and defined much later on, as civilization evolved and rediscovered old stories (the older Greek epics, such as Homer's Odyssey, comes to mind); those literary devices can definitely be interpreted and even implemented in various ways depending on the author and reader.
This applies even with music. Take Chevelle, for example; their frontman, Pete, has written every single one of their songs to date. He doesn't follow the "traditional" lyrical style, and rarely uses rhymes. Yet somehow, they manage to knock out banger after banger. Also, Pete famously enjoys hearing how others interpret Chevelle songs. Same with Rush - Neil was a lyrical genius. My dad actually used one of their songs (The Trees) for a poem assignment in high school 😂
these literary devices were noticed and defined much later on
If you take any college level course in literature or drama you learn that this is exactly what it is. The "Hero's Journey" is a recognized pattern in popular storytelling across history, all the way back to Greek Theater, which has appeared across numerous different cultures.
It wasn't done on purpose. It's just a recognized trend that is so popular and pervasive it has gained a title and academic studies into its existence.
It looks like I've been using these terms in some bastardized hybrid of Campbell's formulation of the hero's journey and Vogler's (which is the one I learned in school), so don't take this as canonical, this is just what I look for:
For me, the "meeting with the goddess" moment isn't the kinda trivial "this will be important later" exchange like Frodo meeting Galadriel, but an experience of pure joy in the midst of utter sorrow, so like when Moana's grandma appears as a ghostly manta ray and reignites her determination. In romance stories, this is where the couple gets that perfect date where everything seems effortless and transcendent.
It can take many forms, but the important thing is just that this is a glimpse of what victory could look like, without having actually achieved it yet. It's a chance for us to see the true, unbridled motivation of the protagonist in a way that doesn't feel contrived like just stating it to the audience, and it usually has a stark contrast to the horrors that are currently going on in the overall arc of the story. It can be one of the most memorable moments outside of the climax of the fight against the "big bad".
It's usually either right before or right after the "all is lost" moment (well, the first one -- the one before they really form their initial plan to take down the "big bad" and see that initial plan fail and have to pivot to something that incorporates their mastery of their original self into their new mastery of the supernatural world they dove into).
My take on "atonement with the father" is more conventional. It's that moment where the hero says "I'm going forward with this journey even if you think it's foolish, I've learned to love myself for exactly who I am in a way that you never could". If you imagine a scene where someone says "Don't you dare walk out that door", and the hero does it anyway, that's the atonement with the father.
It doesn't have to be a literal parent or even parental figure. The important thing is just that it shows the hero recognizing that they had previously accepted some artificial constraint on who they were able to be, or what they were able to do, and they're ready to move past that constraint.
Sometimes this is linked together with a "temptation" moment, where the nay-saying figure has an appealing offer like "Give this up, come home with me and take over the company like you always wanted" or whatever.
The most powerful ones, I think, are less about the authority figure and more about confronting something within the hero themself.
The reason that I like this moment in particular is that it has to be tied to something from their old life, before they started their adventure. So it sets up a contrast for later on, when they'll have to incorporate something positive from their old life in order to defeat the big bad for real. Here, in this moment before the big battle, they're discarding something about their old life -- what will they choose to keep and emphasize later on?
In Guardians of the Galaxy, Quill rejects the abusive relationship with his father figure Yondu and later on embraces his friendship with his new buddies in order to defeat the big bad. It's a nice little push-and-pull: he's becoming more self-reliant, and careful in his social entanglements... but not to the point where he's forsaking the need for friends and teamwork.
Anyway, those are the two moments I watch for. One that's a starry-eyed vision of what their journey's victory could look like, just at the moment where they need that boost. And one that's a sober self-evaluation and rejection of past behavior. If they do it right, both of those moments should have some kind of echo in act 3, so most of the time I feel like if they nail those two moments the rest of the story is probably gonna at least be good if not great.
Those are great interpretations, I love it. Thanks!
Yea, it's all about the themes, allegories, or other messages presented in a story that makes them phenomenal or not. I'd go further into detail but it's been a few years since my college literature courses and my memory ain't the best anymore.
But, out simply, it isn't the ending that makes a story but the journey to it.
I've watched so many movies, I'm pretty good at guessing the ending of most films partway into them. No spoilers ahead, but my wife and I just watched Last Night in Soho yesterday and I accidentally spoiled half of the ending, midway through. I didn't catch the twist ending, but I definitely saw the direction the story was headed.
Also, when the main character was screaming accusations at the old guy, I was screaming at the screen, "Where's your proof? Why are you making assumptions all of a sudden? How did we get here?" Turns out I was right about that one too.
My wife has watched almost as many movies as me and she also likes to theorize what's going to happen. But she sometimes gets annoyed with me because I'm really good at picking up where the plot is headed. She was super excited to show me The Illusionist because she saw it once and thought the twist ending was spectacular... and I guessed it really early into the film. She was so mad at me, haha.
Yes. This is why I can't watch TV shows anymore, they all follow the same patterns where a seemingly normal interaction is stretched out over multiple episodes and delves into unrealistic and horrible/comedic shit. Every single time. I already know that 3 more characters are going to be introduced in seasons 2 and 3 (if it even gets that far....eyeballs Netflix), and the stories will be so interwoven and complicated that the only way out is either killing someone, or they somehow figure out the Power Of Friendship.
However, I thoroughly enjoy shit tier self-aware movies like Fast & Furious, Evil Dead, Sharknado, and such, because they are so ridiculous. The producers knew exactly what they were doing and clearly enjoyed every moment of it.
"Danger to manifold"
Shut up!
Floor pan falls out
Peak movie
I annoyed the friend who introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I would frequently predict plot twists and even specific lines in the show on my first watch through.
Yo. Buffy is peak tropes. The site "TV Tropes" was created for Buffy. Invented the term "Big Bad", the first episodic show to have an overarching story across the season. The only femme in the "Notable Examples" list of "The Chosen One" trope article on Wikipedia. Buffy is using every literary archetype, story diamond formula, and third thing, in its story telling. If you like process and figuring how things are made, Buffy changed everything in TV, and it's a worthy exercise to look at how and why.
I can recommend 21 rewatch podcasts, and share my playlists if you're ready to go Deep. I haven't actually started my rewatch yet, almost done prepping, been 2 months since I had the idea tho.. I really hope this isn't something I made too big and is overwhelming now
I really hope this isn't something I made too big and is overwhelming now
Narrarator: It was.
I mean... a show like Buffy is known and accepted to be formulaic. IIRC, Whedon literally referred it as a monster of the week episode vs a "big bad" plot episode. Unfortunately, to most people, pointing it out doesnt make you seem clever, it just makes you obnoxious.
edit: and, to clear, I am not trying to be rude. I am mostly writing about myself, here.
I was once watching American Gods and there is a scene where Mr. Wednesday tells Shadow Moon "Oh, it's my day" when he learns that the day is Wednesday.
I began to think about what did he mean "my day". Then I remembered that >!Wednesday derives from "Woden's Day", "Woden" is another word for "Odin". And thus Mr. Wednesday is Odin.!< This was then revealed in one of the last episodes of the season.
I read the book, and there were so many not-so-subtle hints early in the book that it seemed like it wasn't supposed to be a surprise. I think the show made it more of a reveal, but if you know literally anything about Odin or norse mythology (even the Marvel version) the clues were substantial.
This is just called "having media literacy".
Every
Fucking
Time.
Except Tenet? I still can't predict it I love it.
It's also why I'm so anxious all the time. My brain is calculating all the distinct possibilities of events based on the choices I've made.
This is one of the reasons I really enjoyed the first few seasons of American horror story. At first I was like "oh yeah I know why this is going" but they change it up often enough where you had no idea where the last episode would leave you.
Yeah, something that makes me really like movies is when I can't predict what happens. A lot of the time I'm like "that guy's the traitor" halfway through and then just waiting for things to play out. Doesn't make for good experience.
I can't let go of dangling plot threads, so either I'm meta-gaming the twist like "Well, there's only three recognizable actors, and one is the obvious decoy, so it's either A or B so let's review every choice they made so far and see if it benefits the villain."
And then I'm either right and the end is spoiled, or I'm wrong and they are just going to leave that plot thread unresolved like a broken toenail in your sock that doesn't come out in the wash.
I may predict things but I'm also able to immerse myself in things pretty easily. Sometimes I feel like The Watcher.
They keep putting that one object in frame.
THEY KEEP PUTTING THE CAM ON IT!!!
And now they killed a character with it.
Chekhov's gun
My brother and I have established that I don’t try to call the shots when we watch a movie together for the first time, but it’s ok if I call out when someone is about to die but only just before they die.
He also has ADHD, but he can turn that part off for movies and that makes me kind of envious.
