Darth Vader is an actor? What else has been in? I was certain I would have spotted him, what with his helmet and breathing problems

“They Say” he’s been spotted in D.C. and other undisclosed locations ….

David brought up the salondotcom Buffy spoiler. I don’t particularly care for surprises, partly because like so many of us, it’s just about impossible to surprise me in terms of plot and action — Vaquero nevertheless remains in awe of my ability to say what is going to happen before it happens. But Buffy is one of the rare works where on first viewing the arc of the seasons that I couldn’t figure out what would happen before it happened, and it would honestly have spoiled my pleasure in that first viewing if I had known beforehand. Then came the pleasures of re-viewings, knowing what was coming and figuring out How They Did THAT!

As to the convergence between action and character challenge: partly that does happen below conscious choice, I think. That’s how image clusters happen, which are part of how this works, for instance.

Love, C.

There’s also riffs that clever writers and filmmakers can pull on such shticks. One of the old chestnuts of vampire movies is vampires in houses with blacked out windows which the heroes can conveniently break to then immolate said vampires in conveniently angled shafts of sunlight. And I think the series pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is sufficiently old I can discuss the clever riff: Buffy, while in a fight with head vampire mook Luke, says, “There’s one thing you forgot–the sun!” and smashes a conveniently blacked-out window in The Bronze. Vampire recoils in horror from the light on the other side of smashed black window, then suddenly realizes he’s not burning up and indeed, the light behind the window is one of the stage lights of the club. But Buffy has used this as a distraction so she can stake him, mentioning that the sun doesn’t come up for hours, “Moron.”

There’s the old business of playwrighting where if you put a gun on stage in the first act, you must use it by the third. I agree with that, but will point out that “use” is not the same thing as “will necessarily be useful to the hero or villain.” It’s a lot of fun to have the Everyday Household Object miss or break so characters have to be more clever about things too.

When does the story end? It ends when the moral or ethical or psychological question is answered

Only partially true. The plot does matter. It has to be a combination of both.
Bruce Wayne is going about his business. Then he hears of a new bad guy starting a new crime spree. So far, so good. But if it was just waiting to see if he “finds the strength to put on the mask one more time”, well, once he did we can cut to the credits. Not much point in showing him actually going after the bad guy, or putting him in jail. After all, if it’s just plot…

I don’t think it’s a metaphor.
The Joker’s attack is siginficiant not because it’s figurative, but because it strikes close to the bone.

Actually I’d expect more people have had close and personal encounters with taxes than with poisoned water supply.
If you could have a guarantee of, all else being equal, either getting a supply of non-intentionally-poisoned water for a year, or getting an exemption from paying taxes for a year, which would you choose? The one which most concerns you, of course. Taxes.

One plot element? Enter character holding lit oil lamp.

Argh! I hate that. You’re sitting there watching the movie and suddenly you are informed via music, camera work, and other vastly unsubtle mechanisms that This Common Household Item is going to be integral to the next scene. They may as well circle it and give it a caption “Bad Guy Will Soon Be Impaled Upon Convenient Fence Post” or “Bumbling Fool Will Cause Inferno with Bic Lighter.”

Whenever this happens, I roll my eyes and check my watch to see if the runtime of the movie is almost up. However, there are some people who love the anticipation of seeing how This Common Household Item will be used. They clap and laugh and seem to think the whole thing is oh, so clever. Saw II through Saw XVII are examples of this. (My boyfriend loves it, and I’d like to be the impale-ee to avoid having to watch it.)

We focus on Batman’s efforts to stop the Joker from poisoning Gotham’s water supply rather than the audit of his 2003 taxes because it’s a convenient metaphor.

I don’t think it’s a metaphor.

The Joker’s attack is siginficiant not because it’s figurative, but because it strikes close to the bone.

That said, there are certain stories that I actually enjoy even more after knowing the ending. The Sixth Sense and Angel Heart in particular provide a whole different story experience the second time around.

[And, of course, we can’t forget that there are some people who LIKE spoilers. A friend of mine always makes me outline the entire book for him - twists, who dies, who saves the day etc - if I’ve already read the one he’s about to start.]

I also like spoilers and make my friends tell me if they already know. I don’t, however, spread spoilers unless I already know the audience won’t mind.

What irritates the heck of out me (to the point of fury sometimes) is the so-called friends who refuse to tell me what I want to know because it would “ruin” the story for me. Who the heck are they to say what will ruin the story for me?

Seaboe

They’re perfectly entitled to their opinion as long as they respect the fact that I don’t want spoilers and have the courtesy to warn me if they’re going to reveal “the twist”.

They don’t have the right to make that choice for me.

Spoilers are like passive smoking, I don’t care if you smoke, just give me time to leave the room rather than leave me no choice but to breathe it in.

In practice it doesn’t bother me too much as I tend to avoid all pre-release publicity (other than release-date) for books, films and music; because even if there’s no plot-twist style spoilers, I prefer to experience things fresh for myself with an open mind. I’d much rather think for myself “My word, wasn’t that a dreadfully telegraphed plot-twist” rather than “Yeah, that reviewer was right, you could see that coming a mile off”.

More to the point of the main article though, I think perhaps David is making too fine a point of the difference between the how, the why and the what: yes for the most literal interpretation of “what”, there’s a good point that the what isn’t so important (especially if it’s boiled down to a generality like “the good guys win”.)

On another level though, the “how and why” are intrinsically part of the “what happens” if the author is doing their job as a storyteller. What happens at the end of the story is simply “the story ends”, or perhaps “the telling of the story ends”, why the story is done at that point is as varied as the telling itself.

Is it because the deeds have been done? Is it because the characters’ have finished their journey of development? Well it depends on which was the point of the story, and every shade in-between (and all the other wonderful story structures authors have been entertaining me with over the years.)

My point basically is that the “what happens” is the important thing, but what the phrase “what happens” means depends entirely on the concept of “what was happening” for the rest of the book too. If “what was happening” is “the characters were being changed by events” then that’s what happens at the end. If “what was happening” was “the characters did stuff” then that’s what happens at the end too.