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This post is but a dream
One Christmas, I watched the 80s BBC series The Box of Delights. It really was a chamring childrens' story. Full of imagination and adventure, with a delightfully christmas feel. But after watching it, I was furious, and refused to ever watch it again. Why? Because Kay wakes up and learns it was "All Just A Dream".
It's an ending that I was warned against by a teacher in primary school, since it's not all that creativeand it wasn't in 1935 when the original book was wrtitten. It's recycled enlessly with fan theories, having been applied to pretty much everything from Rugrats to Batman. And I'm not alone in hating it.
Why does it cause such anger? Is it just the unoriginality?
One factor is, it's not saying anything interesting. It's saying the fictional story you've just experienced didn't really happen. Which seems something of a mundane point. It's about as interesting as saying that this story actually all came from the mind of a writer - a twist that would at leasty have the benefit of being true. I think to me though is that it abruptly shifts the focus away from the story we've been invested in and onto someone who don't care about.
So we don't have an adventure involving a plucky youngster and a magical box, meeting a 700 year old Punch and Judy man. We just have a story of "A boy gets on a train and falls asleep". We know nothing about Kay Harker and his dream, so why do we care? What would have happened if Kay had decided to throw out the box and do nothing? Nothing at all because it was just a dream! What did Kay learn from his dream? We don't know. He falls asleep at the start of the show and wakes up at the end.
Of course this is also a plot device that can be applied to anything. The story of Cinderella? It's a story of a girl who gets tired aftyer having to do all the housework and dreams of escape. Star Wars? Luke is bored working on a farm, sees a fragment of a message in the memory banks of an old droid and fantasises the entire adventure. Roseanne? It's all just a book that Roseanne Connor was writing... Oh, they actually did that.
So does it ever work? Total Recall hints that it's a dream but that's left to the audience to decide. If we have an established character dreaming, and the dream changes them or reveals something about them in some way then it works. But these exceptions are so rare. Yet, especially amongst amateurs, it's so common. Why? Well, brcause it's easy. But the whole idea is just lazy. So writers - stop it!
It's an ending that I was warned against by a teacher in primary school, since it's not all that creativeand it wasn't in 1935 when the original book was wrtitten. It's recycled enlessly with fan theories, having been applied to pretty much everything from Rugrats to Batman. And I'm not alone in hating it.
Why does it cause such anger? Is it just the unoriginality?
One factor is, it's not saying anything interesting. It's saying the fictional story you've just experienced didn't really happen. Which seems something of a mundane point. It's about as interesting as saying that this story actually all came from the mind of a writer - a twist that would at leasty have the benefit of being true. I think to me though is that it abruptly shifts the focus away from the story we've been invested in and onto someone who don't care about.
So we don't have an adventure involving a plucky youngster and a magical box, meeting a 700 year old Punch and Judy man. We just have a story of "A boy gets on a train and falls asleep". We know nothing about Kay Harker and his dream, so why do we care? What would have happened if Kay had decided to throw out the box and do nothing? Nothing at all because it was just a dream! What did Kay learn from his dream? We don't know. He falls asleep at the start of the show and wakes up at the end.
Of course this is also a plot device that can be applied to anything. The story of Cinderella? It's a story of a girl who gets tired aftyer having to do all the housework and dreams of escape. Star Wars? Luke is bored working on a farm, sees a fragment of a message in the memory banks of an old droid and fantasises the entire adventure. Roseanne? It's all just a book that Roseanne Connor was writing... Oh, they actually did that.
So does it ever work? Total Recall hints that it's a dream but that's left to the audience to decide. If we have an established character dreaming, and the dream changes them or reveals something about them in some way then it works. But these exceptions are so rare. Yet, especially amongst amateurs, it's so common. Why? Well, brcause it's easy. But the whole idea is just lazy. So writers - stop it!