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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 7608160" data-attributes="member: 6716779">Well Game of Thrones has finished and the tears are flowing. Being generous the last 2 seasons were a bit rushed, being less generous they botched the season/show. This is particularly noticeable by how good the show was back in seasons 1-4. There was no real gradual decline (well OK season 5 and 6 perhaps) but the show fell off a cliff season 7 or 8 YMMV.  I would argue this is because they pulled to many swings that the fans were not expecting, made no sense and/or left massive plot holes. Just to be clear there is nothing wrong with subverting expectations but the execution and follow up are key. For example perhaps the most famous one- Luke I am Your Father is one but they followed it up well in Return of the Jedi and it did not fundamentally change Luke as a character. There is also nothing wrong with things being a bit predictable either, for example the Empire being defeated was not a shock but the journey from point A to B and the conclusion is. The Game of Thrones books are another one. They subvert expectations well in a way that is a lot more realistic perhaps than say Elric of Melinbone which is another example but those books were written in a different time. Elric of Melinbone probably doesn't stand up well today but compared with other stuff from the 60's and 70's I would argue it does. To me subverting expections is basically a joke term used to describe plot twists that make no sense or are poorly handled. The term could also be used where things just get ignored and there is no payoff to any of the plot seed planted in books, movies, TV shows, or even video games.  Game of Thrones and The Last Jedi are kind of the poster child here, but those example also had problems before them. In GoT's case the books themselves decline in quality around book 4, while The Last Jedi had The Force Awakens before it which also had a few problems. In general you probably want to overlook small things while larger problems are a lot harder to overlook. Its also easier to overlook some things if the movie is also enjoyable. For example in TLJ Luke goes away to basically die, but leaves behind a map to his location (huh wtf?). In the same movie they throw away Finns character progression from TFA for no reason I can make out effectively putting him back where he started at the start of TFA. Expectations subverted.  Things also do not have to make to much sense when compared to the real world. Vancian magic in D&D, superheros in the MCU, the Force in Star Wars. They do however need to make sense in the context of the world they live in. Wonder Women (from the movie) is a good example for all the right reasons, she got trained from a very young age and she is a demigoddess to boot. Superman is from another planet, Spiderman gets bit by a radioactive spider.  All silly from a real world PoV its like they are comic book characters or something. But it makes sense in their universe. Luke, Anakin and Rey being great pilots makes sense, Rey using force powers untrained not so much. This is part of the world building that goes into media. Not all things need a lot such as an action movie but for things that are adaptions of novels or cover an arc such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones it helps. Now what happens if you subvert expectations in a bad way. The three main things that can go wrong here are .1. Subverting things in a way for shock value that doesn't expand or enhance the story in any significant way.or 2. Overdoing the plot twists or having to many of them.3. Not following up or explaining left over plot points.  Number 1 undermines your story, number 2 kind of destroys the stories cohesion while number 3 makes things seem a bit pointless. There are videos floating around of G RR Martin explaining this that if you build up a story where the butler did it, but then the big reveal is the maid did it (with no real explanation) your story will suffer. In The Empire Strikes back we have the reveal that Vader is Lukes father, in RoTJ we have the reveal that Leia is his sister. Vader turning on the Emperor may or may not be one and it was foreshadowed (I can sense good in you) so it works. In Game of Thrones a little bit of foreshadowing was there but the pacing was all wrong and fan expectations had been built up for something else especially in the case of the Nights King (go watch season 1 again). There are good surprises and bad surprises. And if you have to many (The Last Jedi) you get to the point where nothing really matters as the author/director/writer etc can do anything and yell "surprise" and then try and justify it. Once or twice sure, but don't over do it.  So how do you do subvert expectations right? Well you need a good story and compelling characters to pull it off without destroying what came before. If you played the game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic that games big reveal is another good example. Star Wars is just to easy to use. How about Star Wars legends: Thrawn Trilogy. People complain about TFA being a remake of ANH so what did the Thrawn Trilogy do that was different from fan expectations?.1. The force was fairly minimised. The main villain used his brains over force powers followed by.2. A lack of superweapons. The Empire did not have a death star in their back pockets.3. A compelling villain. How do you top Vader or compete with Vader? TFA gave us Darth Emo a poor retread of Vader while Heir to the Empire gave us Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn is different than Vader, a lot smarter but no real threat in terms of personal combat ability. He has some ability but Luke would choip him into pieces. And Disney has reused Thrawn in the new canon he is that good (pity they didn't reuse Mara). 4. A very different world of the movies. The Empire is still the villains but they suffered a major defeat at Endor. Thrawn has 4 Star Destroyers. Smaller than Vaders squadron in TESB and a lot smaller than the Imperial Fleet at Endor.5. It builds logically on what came before. Han and Leia are happily married, Lukes a Jedi, Lando has his own business, the Empire still has a few ships left over.  So the fans of Star Wars get a bit of what they want and it wraps up a few loose ends from RoTJ in a fairly logical way. The Trilogy also covers how Thrawn goes from 4 Star Destroyrs to rebuilding the Imperial Fleet using things like new ships, clones, and strategy. It also covers what happened to the Empire and what happened in the Star Wars universe fairly well. Expectations subverted though (in a good way). Up to a point you want to engage in service, they're the ones paying for your material. But if you pull to many stunts well they may no longer be your fans. THis applies to multiple forms of media, I would not expect fans of Metallica to buy their sutff if they did a country and western album.</blockquote>

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