(Postmodern stories + endings might break these promises deliberately, as commentary on meaning-making, or w/e. But for now let's look at stories that are trying to be good in a non-postmodern sense and failing.)
Show this thread
-
...involving characters' actions propagating wildly through the rest of the story. Jaime pushes Bran out of a window -> Catelyn arrests Tyrion -> Tywin goes to war, etc. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
Show this thread
Read a review that points out "actions have consequences" stops applying later. I haven't watched S4-7 so here's a S8 example: one of Varys's last scenes is him hurriedly writing letters to people about Jon being Aegon. This scene is never followed up on. No consequence.
-
-
Overall thinking and writing about this has given me a stronger appreciation of the nature of the difficulty in writing a good ending. That includes e.g. ending this thread! What was I building to? What did all of these tweets mean?
Show this thread -
Here's one possible ending: the process of meaning-making does not actually end at the ending, of course. After a story ends it gets digested by its audience and the audience is an active participant in meaning-making. It may e.g. come up with meanings unintended by the author.
Show this thread -
Audiences construct fan theories to guess at the meanings of events, and sometimes the ending is so unsatisfying audiences prefer their fan theories to the "official" meanings.
Show this thread -
Audiences also write fanfiction that offers better or at least differently exciting meanings. On that note
@AliceShipwise is almost done writing a totally original S8 script and it's fantastic: https://www.aliceshipwise.com/gameofthrones/scripts/S08E01_fealty_part1.html …Show this thread -
There is a beautiful kind of freedom that opens up in this environment. It becomes reductive to talk about "the" meaning of anything that happens in the story. There is a multiverse of meaning, represented in fan theories, fanfiction, headcanons, etc.
Show this thread -
IOW this whole thread was about
@Meaningness all along! "Meaningness is an interactional dynamic that arises between oneself and one's situation. ... The only kind that exists is nebulous: ambiguous, fluctuating, uncertain; like a dance, not like a statue."Show this thread -
"That might seem unsatisfactory at first. However, once you accept that meaning is like that, you can see that it's actually much better than the hypothetical solid kind of meaning. It provides freedom and creativity and exploration and lightness, where the given-by-God...
Show this thread -
... kind of meaning would be restrictive, dull, heavy, boring, and inescapable. If the universe had inherent meaning we would all be living in a totalitarian prison." From:https://meaningness.com/neither-objective-nor-subjective …
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.