Avengers: Endgame

[tzikeh]

(x-posted to tumblr, pillowfort)

I’m not mad at the movie per se; I’m mad about the narrative construct employed by pretty much any movie/show/insert-form-of-storytelling-here that the death of one or more main characters (especially The Grand Sacrifice For All Humanity) is the only option in a high-stakes situation––anything else, and the payoff is just not enough, somehow. There is no closure without death? That’s a pretty terrible position for storytellers to take.

This is so baked into our collective consciousness that no one stops to think about it and ask, “Well, but… do you mean there’s no other way to bring this story to a satisfying conclusion? Like, none? If no one dies, then the story isn’t satisfying?”

Everyone went into Endgame expecting at least one death of one of Our Heroes, if not more. We expected it because of this pervasive-yet-provably-unfounded narrative cliché, and I don’t think that’s how narrative creators should be approaching storytelling. I think it’s time for a radical change in how we conclude entertainments (re: provably unfounded--see final paragraph of post).

Honestly, from now on, if a storyteller says anything along the lines of “If none of the main characters die, there’s no emotional payoff,” I am going to stop engaging with that storyteller’s works immediately.

You know what would be a huge emotional payoff? Seeing the characters we love–-have loved for ten years-–fighting the good fight, and emerging victorious. Joy is a huge emotional payoff. But we seem unable to question this central tenet of our storytelling, and it leads a lot of writers to purposely write toward crappy endings.

I’m not saying narratives should never include the death of a major character. I love me a heroic sacrifice! But if every high-stakes story means Someone Has To Die, that means that we, both writers and audience, are unconsciously locked into this pattern and blinded to any others such that writers start writing with killing off beloved characters as the goal because now it's the rules, and it doesn’t have to be. The fact that we all “knew” that someone “had” to die, and we “knew” it for, if we’re being honest, even before Infinity War–-I think that’s bad for us. I really do think it’s bad for us.

If anyone ever says that a happily ever after ending in which all of the main characters live isn’t narratively or emotionally satisfying, they have likely absorbed that idea from society's disdain for romance novels and “chick flicks,” which as we know must be objectively terrible because women like them. So here’s what you do. Point that person at the nearest hard-ass, backwards-ballcap-wearing, swole Chicago Cubs fandude, and ask them about the 2016 World Series. Was it gratifying? Did our heroes fight the good fight and emerge victorious? Did everyone go ape-shit? Did we hold a parade? Was it a spectacular, emotion-filled conclusion to a hundred-year-long story?

DID ANYONE ON THE TEAM DIE?

NO?

Joy is a huge emotional payoff.

Comments

[oldtoadwoman]

Amen. Things that subvert cliches just end up becoming different cliches. And we've now hit the point where the "shocking" death isn't shocking anymore and, indeed, I've literally heard people complaining that not enough people died in Endgame or Game of Thrones (so far, GoT has two more episodes to kill people off).

not enough death

[tzikeh]

"Not enough death" makes me bonkers, and it's a direct result of this storytelling "finale" trope that has somehow taken over nearly every type of storytelling out there with the possible exception of sitcoms. We go in to every final episode, final movie, final novel, firmly expecting Big Death to the point that people predict who will die and how/why. We approach the final chapter of any narrative we love with trepidation instead of excitement. Emotional shoring up against the sadness or melancholy that a beloved story is coming to an end is one thing; emotional shoring up against losing a beloved character or characters is another. We shouldn't have that second burden as a default.

[dorinda]

If I had the brain cells left that god gave a gerbil, I'd be able to link you to a post (or was it an article) I recently read, about...what to call it...Stakes Inflation, basically.

The stakes of movies in particular, though like everything else it's been bleeding into TV shows, are in an arms race to the Mostest. So now tptb feel the stakes always have to be OMG THE UNIVERSE WILL ENNNNND, solved by SOMEONE WILL DIIIIEEEEE.

And I'm like, ugh. You're all exhausting. Stop yelling. The stakes can be anything, as long as the characters care about it, and I care about the characters (two things which are still beyond the grasp of too many content creators, alas).

[tzikeh]

100% agreed - and as I think back over my fandoms, even going back to the late 70s and early 80s, the Big Finish nearly always came with a Big Death, one way or another. I agree that it's gotten worse/more common/more expected, but that trope seems to have had its hooks in pop culture media narratives for a long while now--movies, TV, and comics. I would even include book series, for a lot of authors.

I also don't see it ending any time soon. The best I feel I can hope for is occasional subversion, but even those will receive calls of (see previous commenter) "NOT ENOUGH DEATH!"

[rhi]

Yeah. I came out of the first GotG going, "Um, that whole golden mesh of ships that died was a LOT of folks not coming home." I came out of the second one going, 'Never going to these again,' after both Yondu and Ego had left behind piles of bodies. I'm right there with you on 'please quit killing people to prove there are stakes here.'

[tzikeh]

It's so... cheap.

[the_shoshanna]

YES. What you said.

[tzikeh]

Now I just have to find a way to get Big Narrative's attention....

[kirbyfest]

THIS.

[tzikeh]

Yeah.

(Also AWESOME icon -- I gotta make new icons for new fandoms now that I'm sort-of-kind-of back on DW)

[kirbyfest]

Love me some Janet. All Janet all the time.

[illariy]

Here via sciatrix.

I wholeheartedly agree. I hate that people dying has become so cliché that some TV and film producers seem to think that there must be at least one death or even better, multiple deaths, for a story to have impact.

I think the joy in our heroes emerging victorious is more easily shown when there was actual focus on our heroes' emotions during the fight, when we have been shown what the fight cost them, and when the ending is celebrated properly. Now, Endgame does a little of showing the strain on the heroes but I still felt that it relied too much on the flashy action scenes and special effects. But maybe that is just me.

[tzikeh]

I wanted to write something about emerging victorious in the post specifically w/r/t Endgame--can you imagine that final fight, everywhere, all of the battles and the struggles and finally the StarkSnap, and all of the Enemy are dust, Thanos is dust, the Evil is defeated, and the film shows us Our Heroes, one by one, standing up, looking around, finding one another, we go from set battle scene to set battle scene and each hero is taking stock... as they make eye contact we go from one, to another, to another, exhausted, bloodied and bruised, but standing and seeing each other and we finally land on Tony, dying... and we all think this is it. This is The Death. We get Sad Peter. We get Sad Pepper. Tony begins to fade.

BUT WAIT

A Doctor-Strange-Brand-Name Portal opens next to Tony, and Doctor Strange steps through followed by Shuri, who promptly jabs Tony with a Wakandan Anti-Radiation Pen.

It would have been so easy. The screaming cheers on opening night would have deafened Times Square.

And then comes the Doylean question: what do we do about Robert Downey Junior not appearing in any more Avengers films?

Shit, son, if you can't come up with a compelling reason for a man who has nearly died several times to step back and allow the next generation of heroes to step forward after introducing Captain Fucking Marvel, you don't deserve to make movies.

[illariy]

I would have loved to see that scene as you wrote it here!

Shit, son, if you can't come up with a compelling reason for a man who has nearly died several times to step back and allow the next generation of heroes to step forward after introducing Captain Fucking Marvel, you don't deserve to make movies.

This deserves standing ovations. So much this!