Long-Form Storytelling Should Probably Be Meandering

What do Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Attack on Titan and The Office all have in common? Well, in my opinion of course, they are all sagas, as opposed to one-off stories that is, with a brilliant initial idea that hooked millions of people but that, sadly, their narrative thread was sorta lost along the way, leading to some perhaps sub-optimal plot developments and, subsequently, lame endings. Now, if you're a fan of any of those stories hear me out, because my point isn't that I dislike them or that they became absolute trash near the end, well, except perhaps the last two seasons of GOT, but still... My point is that, because all of those stories were building up to an epic finale, or they simply kept trying to outdo themselves, they more or less lost what was it that made them special to begin with. This is an idea I've come to entertain recently and that, the more I look into, the more I believe it to be true. In essence, for long-form storytelling to work, there can be no ultimate ending, much less one hinted at from the very beginning, because then the longer the story goes on for, the more pointless the journey becomes.

All of those stories begin with a pretty powerful ace. There's something about their initial idea that just demands our interest, something so new and creative that hooks us and makes us want to stick around. It can be an intriguing mystery, an alternate world, a rich lore, a creative new style, or usually a combination of all four and then some. But within all that, what makes us care are the characters. Usually long-form storytelling is written to include a large cast, among which there's an obvious hero or there are a few select characters that are simply more important. And when they are all interesting in their own way, and they inhabit an interesting world, the show becomes great. For Game of Thrones I'd say it was the fantasy element slowly bleeding into the sneaky and bloody politics game wherein we discover complex portraits of a wide array of morally gray characters. It started off pretty damn great but the problem was that, slowly but surely, the big pay-off the story promised wasn't being delivered, and then the can was kicked down the road so much that when we did get the ending, it didn't make much sense, and we certainly didn't care for it. So does that mean such a story should lack an epic ending? Not necessarily, but if that ending comes at the cost of the overall story's quality, then yes. The constant build-up to the ending was eventually its own downfall, a downfall I submit wouldn't have happened if the epic showdown wasn't built up from the very beginning. We desperately wanted the ending only to then get it and long for the beginning.

With Harry Potter something similar happens, although it seemed a bit less planned, at least from what I understood out of the movies and from listening to people who have critiqued them by appealing to their knowledge of the books. The basic structure appears to be that every single year at Hogwarts entails a brand new adventure, and because the alternate magical world brilliantly tied in with a relatable academic experience, and especially since the story developed and grew up alongside its fans, its massive success is certainly warranted. It's a million dollar idea if I ever heard one, and though it may seem simple, that's probably its biggest ace. I say simple because, at its core, it's basically writing a normal slice of life story in a high school setting but by replacing its real-life elements with magical ones. So instead of chemistry you learn potions, instead of zoology you learn cryptozoology, instead of football you play quidditch, and so on. But in all that setting, at the heart of the story is a wide array of characters. More so than the actual magic spells and fantasy creatures, the story's heart beats stronger when the characters are, quite simply, hanging out. It's what makes you want to exist in that world, it makes you want to spend time with those characters, it's what makes you think that whenever you watch a movie or pick up a book you are just checking up on them and finding out how they've been doing. So yes, it's a great idea, but, at least in my view, its ace is gradually lost the more Voldemort becomes a main character. At a certain point, hanging out, getting in trouble, dating and whatnot, it all becomes vain when an evil magic dictator is out to kill everyone. It became unnecessarily epic perhaps, and in all that spectacle, small character moments were lost. Sure, it was the point of the story, it was clearly building up to that... But should it have been?

With Attack on Titan I need to be a bit careful because the story is not yet complete, but I think I can argue more or less the same thing. Because while this story's theme is quite darker in its early stages, I think the same theme still applies, that is to say, AOT has a wide array of characters, not in a magical school but in a fighting academy, all of them going through the motions of normal teenage life, almost in a casual way during happier times, but also going on dangerous missions. For that reason, I for one have to confess that I was a bit disappointed to see AOT quickly turn into a borderline mecha anime with massive battles and magical powers, all set within the backdrop of a political war with ethnic considerations. I would have gladly watched fifty episodes of just these characters venturing out into their destroyed old world in trying to reclaim the outer wall from the titans, and then another fifty episodes of them discovering the world beyond the wall, eventually reaching the sea. I think it would have been far more interesting, perhaps somewhat similar to zombie stories though with a new twist, but it would have given much more room for character growth and interaction, as well as action scenes based on stealth and tactics, more so than it already is. I think giving humans the ability to become titans was a kind of trodden path, and the origin story of the titans themselves was, if not predictable, then kinda bland. I just think there's something golden about stories containing a group of kids growing up in a very harsh world and bonding through struggle. It's just a little frustrating that we don't get as much of that as we would have if the story had stuck with it.

Lastly, with The Office my point is a little different in that, being a comedy show, it doesn't develop quite in the same way as my other examples, it's not quite written in the same style. But instead of becoming darker, it became way over-the-top and bloated. The original idea was to shoot a documentary in a paper company where most people are fairly normal and even boring, except for the boss who is quite the clown. Then in all that awkwardness we found a distinct and refreshing sense of humor, the kind of thing that often does happen in our lives, only difference is there aren't usually cameras around for us to stare directly at... So how was the story lost along the way? I submit it did so by either going on and on for far too long, or by not trusting its already existing characters to stand on their own, or a combination of both. In early episodes we had normal office stuff such as in-house basketball games, healthcare plans, conflict resolution, christmas parties, conventions, sales calls and so on. Later on we had new characters being introduced left and right, we had crazy and convoluted love triangles, unrealistic week-long trips to crazy places, and so on. The writers kept trying to outdo themselves and thus the whole thing just got crazier and crazier to the point where its original idea became almost an afterthought. It seems like The Office gradually left the office...

So what I am saying? I'm saying I appreciate all of these stories and admire certain aspects of each of them, though I can't quite say I fully love them. I think something great was lost along the way, and I have been wondering if the solution for long-form storytelling would be to become meandering, to lack an epic ending per say and to instead adopt a more play-by-play basis, such as what I consider to be one of the greatest works of art of all time – The Sopranos.

A day in the life of a waste management consultant

David Chase's brainchild is brilliant in more ways than I can name, but one particular aspect I quite enjoy is that, while the character development and the story's plot points carry from season to season, there isn't really an overarching narrative from episode one. There's no coming threat, there's no mortal enemy that makes Tony Soprano the chosen one, there's no secret to discover that will change the entire story as we know it, and there's no escaping the mafia lifestyle in favor of other crazy shenanigans. Basically, the entire show, though it does contain an arc within each season, it doesn't really contain a major one that spans for the entire story. That gives its writers a lot of freedom to breathe and to let the characters to develop as they make sense, allowing for each character to be discovered and to even receive organic input from the actors. George R. R. Martin writes in precisely this style, though I'm not convinced it works very well when the whole thing is building up to an epic conflict. With The Sopranos we don't feel like the story is dragging or losing its touch because the story is more or less loose, the story is just about following the everyday lives of these characters, both criminal and otherwise. And for that reason we can always return to them, we can return to their world and just spend time with them, we can enjoy getting to know and understand them without having to worry about how things have changed and the initial magic is gone. In essence, it makes the journey much more valuable by lacking an ultimate destination.

So yes, I'm starting to think sagas in general, whether on the screen or on the page, should probably lack overarching plot developments or locked-in epic finales, and thus should be more or less meandering, they should mainly be about a wide array of interesting characters inhabiting an interesting world. Because while a big secret can drum up a lot of attention, it will soon deflate after being revealed, whereas great characters can carry a story for at the very least eighty-six kinda random episodes.

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