"Mysteries that are stretched interminably to fill time are not magically made more mysterious."
The greatest entertainer is the greatest swindler!
"Whatever. I've learned my lesson. I've grown up. I'm less naive. I now know how television writing works. Get the cliffhanger image, work backward from there, don't worry about the resolution. Resolution doesn't sell ads. Once Lost is over there's no more ads to sell".
"The second episode [of Alcatraz] ended with what can only be described as the typical supposedly mind-fuck Lost-type twist - and I would've been more excited about that if Lost ever managed to actually explain/clear up its shit in a satisfying way."
See? This shit is why I've long since stopped watching the Pokémon anime. Because it became increasingly clear that it will never end and Ash will never achieve his goal. So why should I get invested in his journey when I know it will end in failure?
—Know Your Meme user Ryumaru Borike on the controversial ending of
Ash Ketchum's battle against Alain in the Kalos League
Ash Ketchum's battle against Alain in the Kalos League"So far, the game's presentation style reminds me a lot of Lost. For those that never saw the show, the style of Lost was to raise questions and mysterious events, then move onto something NEW unexplained and mysterious, and OCCASSIONALLY answer some minor questions from earlier. While I love intrigue and wondering what's happening, at some point you have to give your audience some answers. Well, Lost wasn't very good at that part. Realms of the Haunting, I have a little more hope for because it was released as a completed game, not Season One. So I hope they're going to tie all this together, but I'm starting to get concerned here. What does anything mean in this intro? Why is this series of suspended islands called "The Tower"? What did my dad do to get damned? Why are there designated dead rat rooms and a trail of dead rats? Why are the statues talking and what are they referring to? Why is there another dimension in the basement? I know NOTHING about ANY of the characters besides their moral alignment. It's like everybody's a weird placeholder! RAAAAAGH!"
"[The trailers] never misrepresent the movie. And also the other thing I love about the trailers is they don’t give you answers, they just give you questions."
"This was the show that made me aware of the phenomenon of the narrative skyhook. Mysteries don't justify continued viewing unless you have some reason to trust the writers to attach their narrative hooks to planned-out plotlines, ultimately leading to some plausible, satisfying resolution... Viewers of The X-Files were instead left to dangle forever from the same old questions that had been loose ends since season one."
—Justin B. Rye, on The X-Files
The X-FilesFriendship Is Magic has a very... weird method of World-Building. Ever since the very first episode, they've dropped all these interesting little breadcrumbs and potential story beats, that's part of the reason it's drawn in a large amount of the adult audience and why the Fanfiction and Analysis Community have flourished. Unfortunately, the show doesn't follow up on these interesting tidbits until YEARS later, to the point when it almost feels like a carrot-and-stick. I can't tell you how long people had been BEGGING for an episode starring Celestia, or the episode where they reveal AJ's Parents. It took well into the latter end of MLPs' life cycle for us to get those, and for many people; they just got sick of waiting.
— Josh Scorcher during his review of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S7 E10 "A Royal Problem"
I'm not into ongoing comics, because to my mind, a good story is like a good bowel movement: it's only really satisfying once it's ended. Because if you just keep going, then eventually your body runs out of shit and moves on to pushing all your internal organs out your sphincter until only a foul-smelling shell remains, and anyone who wants to get in on your incredibly long poo gets turned off because they need to have gone through all the poo up to that point to have all the necessary context and this is where the analogy is breaking down somewhat.
Master of Masters: Also, take this black box.
Luxu: What's inside?
Master of Masters: You silly goose, it's not a Kingdom Hearts game if it doesn't raise more questions to the player.
Luxu: What's inside?
Master of Masters: You silly goose, it's not a Kingdom Hearts game if it doesn't raise more questions to the player.
Finding a good romance manga or anime is like finding the Fountain of Youth sometimes. You'll find likable characters/narratives and then the pacing is like atrocious. Then after like 70 chapters the girl just randomly realizes she loves the dude.
"If there's one tip I'd give out to anyone writing a story that spans several installments, it would be to make a plan. Sure, some people do prefer to improvise their story as it goes along, but when you're telling a series of connected stories where you write the first, release it, then write the second, and so on, and you do all that with no plan, this can be extremely risky. Because when you do it, this can result in you having a whole armory of unfired Chekhov's Guns that you promised in the first story would have a payoff later down the line, but you end up never firing them, or when you do fire them, it's like a damp squib because the payoff was nowhere near as good as you promised it would be. (clears throat) J. J. Abrams... (coughs) Sorry, guys, I've got a very bad cough today. But when you tell a series of stories without a plan, it can result in you having mysteries which have thoroughly disappointing answers and character arcs that lead to nowhere. But when you tell a story without a plan, and on top of that, you have tug-of-war between two directors fighting to tell their version of the story, you get the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy: the poster child of why when writing a series, you need to know what direction you're headed in."
— The Closer Look, "Star Wars - How To Kill A Franchise"
"Wait a minute. That flashback raised more questions than it answered."
