I really enjoy watching media analysis videos on youtube. I also in general just enjoy thinking about media and storytelling and the like in general - whenever I watch something or play something or read something part of my brain is always mining away at it for hidden meanings or allegories or what not. I also like watching videos that give advice on writing, which has a lot of overlap with media analysis, but not entirely.
A sentiment I’ve encountered a lot in writing advice videos and from speaking with people with Opinions on writing is that you should not include something in your story if it doesn’t further the story. Generally this is directed at world-building details - we don’t need to know the tax policy of Aragorn’s kingdom (unless its plot relevant, as George RR Martin strove to make it Game of Thrones). But I’ve also seen it directed at scenes and subplots - don’t include this scene or that subplot if it isn’t furthering your narrative - as well as, somewhat more obliquely, characters - mostly people saying X or Y character is pointless and adds nothing to the story, but is just there for eye candy or as a mascot or as a token X or Y or for no reason at all.
Perhaps its just because, if I was forced to choose a favorite medium to experience a story, my choice would be video games, but I find this a little wrongheaded. I’ve always been a big fan of world building, and actively seek out details about the worlds in media I consume - when I got into One Piece, I spent hours reading the wiki, same with Mass Effect, and one of my favorite games of all time is Xenoblade Chronicles X because its really a masterclass in worldbuilding, with its sidequests all focused on literally developing a colony on an alien world. For me, seeing a fully realized, complex, interactive world is just as satisfying as a good narrative, and so certainly I might choose a game just for its world building, no matter how bad its story is - and indeed Xenoblade Chronicles X has a somewhat lackluster story, especially compared to its worldbuilding.
Although conventional writing advice contradicts, this, I don’t think I am alone in this preference. I think its ultimately the preference behind the sort of nerdy obsessiveness common in fandoms like Star Trek. Why did Klingons change appearance between The Original Series and the movies? Its not enough that the answer is obviously budget - we want an answer that holds together in universe, some way that can reconcile the two series and make it make sense to us as a coherent universe. I think a lot of people dismiss these concerns as silly, but others consider them incredibly important, and although over the years I have found rationalizations that keep me from being insufferably pedantic about things like this, I’m still very sympathetic to the idea, and think its kind of small minded to assume that details like world cohesion aren’t important. Steve Shives, a prominent Star Trek youtuber, has opined that such details shouldn’t matter and should be ignored as long as the story is good - but why should story necessarily trump the believability of the world?
Watching classic Star Trek - by which I mean 90s era and earlier Star Trek - for me feels a lot like sitting down with family. This isn’t just nostalgia, but a function of how those shows were written. They are episodic, telling a single story each episode. If there is any overarching story at all, it functions not as a narrative per se, but a setting - TOS “story” was their five year mission to explore the galaxy, TNG has a similar mission plus occasional smaller arcs like the Borg, and DS9 has an overarching Dominion War, but those stories mostly serve as the backdrop to the smaller story happening that week, rather than a normal serialized plot. In each episode we see a smaller scale story, with plenty of time spent getting to know esch characters, seeing them during downtime, hanging with friends, eating food, goofing around, being on the holodeck, etc. This makes me really feel like I know and care for these characters and the world they are in in a much deeper way than I do in Discovery, which focuses on overarching narrative over all else. Even in the later seasons of Discovery, where they put more focus on episodic storytelling, there is still always a strong sense of urgency induced by the overarching plot which makes these small world and character building moments difficult to include, and thus makes me just give massively less of a shit about everything.
Most modern shows are written this way. Yet I have also seen a sentiment decrying “lore” in modern stories, that people are focusing too much on worldbuilding to the detriment of story. This, I think, is maybe a misuse of terms. I don’t want to put words in peoples mouths, but I usually see these comments placing blame on the MCU, claiming that it focuses on worldbuilding over narrative, but what they really mean is it focuses on franchise building over narrative. MCU shows and movies don’t spend much time at all making their worlds feel fleshed out and real - they spend time setting up other shows and properties to come. Thats a -kind- of worldbuilding, but its not the same as what I think is missing in a lot of shows, because these same shows have heavily serialized plots and little down time, rushing through plot beat to plot beat to finish their jammed packed narratives in six or eight or ten episodes. If anything I think this is just another symptom of people prioritizing story over worldbuilding, the stories have just gotten so large they span individuals shows and movies.
Super Mario 64 is a great game. It has a shit story. Its good because of its gameplay. For games, the idea that story is always the most important element is obviously untrue and easy to prove. But for other media, I think most people instinctually will agree that story is the most important. But, Firefly was one of my favorite shows in high school and early college, and it was not for its story that I loved it. What I loved most about it was its characters, who felt real and believable and I loved them, and the show spent a lot of its time letting us to get to know them. Its overarching plot? Forgettable. I think it was about some evil dudes who wanted River Tam because of her psychic powers? Snore. I also liked its worldbuilding a lot, although in retrospect it was cribbed from civil war America mashed up with random Chinese influences and is pretty fucking problematic, but my point is, I don’t think the story really mattered much - certainly not its serialized story, and even its story per episodes mostly was in service to the characters, which was the show’s strength. Even outside of video games, I think its entirely possible for a work of media to be successful and enjoyable for a reason other than story.
Mad Max Fury Road is another example. Its story is that the gross dude has some sex slaves, and Furiosa wants to save them, and Max gets caught up in it. It really is nothing to write home about, and is just a vehicle for some of the most impressive visual effects ever shown on screen, and some amazing cinematography and blood pumping action. And its fucking art. One of the best movies ever made if you ask me. Story isn’t even secondary here. Its not even really adding anything. Its just there to keep things moving.
Books might be the hardest sell here, since a book cannot be about its gameplay or visuals, but it certainly can be about its characters, or its world. Those are aspects which should be able to sell you on a media property. I loved Dragonlance as a kid and it was absolutely because I loved Raistlin and Tasslehoff and Tika and Flint and Fizban (or is it Zifnab?) not because the story was amazing. I think its okay to recognize different works of fiction can have different strengths, and those strengths are legitimate reasons to enjoy them, and story is not always the most important aspect of something just because it tells a story. Fuck, I didn’t even touch on political messaging and symbolism. Animal Farm, anyone? Anyways, I think I’m done for today.
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