We need a name for a thing I'm about to describe. *I* need a name for it at least. I'm sure there's a name for it.

There's a modern (or at least louder in modern era) tendency in both fiction and the interpretation of fiction that every narrative be some sort of very specific kind of hyper-literal puzzle box that can be "solved" by wikis and lore and clues

and that this is in fact the goal of fiction, to create such a thing, the raw materials for this after-the-fact puzzle solving.

All aspects of a work must be read hyper-literally so that they can all be made into puzzle pieces. Metaphors can't really exist except to further the puzzle-solving. All parts are gears, locks, or keys, essentially.

I saw someone refer to this as wiki-culture, but that's already a term. It's a good one for this, though.

There are a lot of stories that follow these assumptions that I like, btw! Not like saying it's "lower". Just that it is often assumed to be the "correct" way to do or interpret narrative and that leads to very specific kinds of storytelling and story reading

The replies are really great on this already and I'll RT some in a bit. First, some context:

After we released our game I was really blown away by how large the hunger for really concrete literal explanations were for things that were by design shadowy and vague and open to interpretation.

But like, not in the sense of "hey I'm curious", but "hey, you left this out, when are you going to finish it or write the backstory lore etc"

Or, for example, we spent a lot of time on in-world fiction. Stories about constellations, fairytales, religious narratives. And I'd get emails asking if Mae was the descendant of an in-world fictional character. B/c what was the point of the in-world fiction otherwise?

The fairytales have to have a literal fact basis that directly drives the literal facts in the primary plot. They need geneologies. Birthrights. Gear A needs to turn Gear Q. etc

And again, let me stress, there's nothing wrong with stories that do this kind of thing. I like a lot of them! But this mode of /analysis/ just doesn't lend itself to discussing themes, or metaphor, or subjectivity. And those are to me the most interesting parts of stories.

And it leads to seeing things that aren't written like that as incomplete or broken or full of "pointless" bits. It's like reading Watchmen and trying to figure out how Tales Of The Black Freighter literally fits into the literal history of not just the world, but the main cast.

Like Ozymandius needs to be the great great grandson of the guy from Freighter, a thing that actually happened, or else it's just a vestigial pointless frustrating addition.

I don't think I'd ever be able to do these kinds of giant interconnected puzzle narratives. It's just not what's super interesting to me as a creator.

But better terminology for this kind of narrative and analysis would be helpful, because right now I think the fact that it's nameless gives it an air of common sense. Like this is just the standard way of doing those things.

ok sorry that was a long thread. fuck medium posts, i'm a maverick.

oh god the replies are plentiful and dense. you are all smarter than me and have clearly been thinking about this too. you are great.

it's cooooool that Storify is about to go away b/c the upcoming RTs are crucial and interesting. oh well. if you come across this thread in the future, read the replies.

oh btw this should double as my explanation for when anyone asks me why i find tvtropes to be crushingly depressing

addendum: a lot of folks are saying this comes down to an undue focus on worldbuilding, and i think that's offbase. worldbuilding isn't the same as clockwork narratives and analysis.

addendum 2: i think this also coincides with folks that encounter a narrative considering themselves less as "readers" than "consumers", and thus a narrative that doesn't behave this way is ripping them off somehow.

something isn't "vague", it's "unfinished". i paid for a finished thing. as a consumer i have a right to the kind of story i want. etc. it's a subtle thing but i think it plays here.

oh god this all also leads right into discussing characters as real people instead of people someone made up and you interpreted. god yeah this is a big subject.

oh god (pt 2) this also then bleeds into the whole "treating actual people as fictional characters with arcs" thing AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH I LOOKED TOO DEEP I'M FALLING INTO THE SKY

someone far smarter than me can probably arrange a macro-analysis of all of this but it's beyond me

I'm getting some replies that are just like "Well I like all of this!"

that's fine

totally like it!

And I shouldn't have to say this but I will- it's really lovely to have people invested enough in something you made such that any of this even becomes a discussion. So uh thanks for caring.

addendum #34523455: there's something to be explored here about how this kind of subjectivity-elimination analysis is attractive because subjectivity is scary and makes you vulnerable etc etc

i'm just tweeting essay prompts now. go for it.