Dear friends,
Jun. 26th, 2012 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficSpeaking as an author, if I ever tell a story in twenty-part installments over six years, each about 45 minutes in length, along with online games, tie-in novels, video games, and other such silliness to add to said six years' worth of fiction...
...and then when all that is done, it becomes necessary for someone to write an essay to explain the basic rules, circumstances, and endings of my little world...
...which includes the main character spending hundreds of years as an immortal smoke monster, which makes it hard for him to be made aware of his past life in the Sideways World, where "Through chance, free will and paradox-correcting Magic Paint, a second Purgatorial Splat was created by these people. In this splat, the characters can say goodbye and forgive each other before returning to the Magic Light and Water that creates all life. These Oceanic passengers went through a very important time on the Island. They saved the world and created a place they could meet one last time, before moving on."...
...as NEVER SHOWN OR HINTED AT ON SCREEN OVER THE COURSE OF SIX SEASONS...
Please feel free to shoot me. Not, like, in the face or anything. Just kneecap me. While I'm in the hospital, I can think about what a prat I am.
I mean, fuck George Lucas and everything, but at the end of Return of the Jedi, no one is going "but how come Obi-Wan showed up after he died only blue and transparent? Who was Luke Skywalker's father? What's the Force? Why is the Empire bad?"
There's letting the audience figure things out for themselves and then there's making the audience write the damn script for you. Fuck that. Stories aren't Mad Libs. You leave the margins there for the audience, but the text can't be "yeah, what he said, that sounds right."
...and then when all that is done, it becomes necessary for someone to write an essay to explain the basic rules, circumstances, and endings of my little world...
...which includes the main character spending hundreds of years as an immortal smoke monster, which makes it hard for him to be made aware of his past life in the Sideways World, where "Through chance, free will and paradox-correcting Magic Paint, a second Purgatorial Splat was created by these people. In this splat, the characters can say goodbye and forgive each other before returning to the Magic Light and Water that creates all life. These Oceanic passengers went through a very important time on the Island. They saved the world and created a place they could meet one last time, before moving on."...
...as NEVER SHOWN OR HINTED AT ON SCREEN OVER THE COURSE OF SIX SEASONS...
Please feel free to shoot me. Not, like, in the face or anything. Just kneecap me. While I'm in the hospital, I can think about what a prat I am.
I mean, fuck George Lucas and everything, but at the end of Return of the Jedi, no one is going "but how come Obi-Wan showed up after he died only blue and transparent? Who was Luke Skywalker's father? What's the Force? Why is the Empire bad?"
There's letting the audience figure things out for themselves and then there's making the audience write the damn script for you. Fuck that. Stories aren't Mad Libs. You leave the margins there for the audience, but the text can't be "yeah, what he said, that sounds right."
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Date: 2012-06-26 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 03:12 am (UTC)Actually, no joke, people really do argue this. "I mean, all we ever see them do is blow up a planet! A planet with sympathies for what was, as far as they were concerned, a dangerous terrorist group!"