Well, I’m pretty sure I’m just sticking my head back in the lion’s mouth here, but this feels like it’s crying out for a response because this is a perfect example of what makes interpretation a subjective process: the elevation or privileging of one piece of data over another – in this case, the one second shot of a character looking up, rather than, say down, sideways or just closing his eyes.
Imagine for a second a movie in which the MC is a drug addict who spends the entire movie trying to kick the habit, only at the end to die of a drug overdose with a heroin-induced smile on his face. Do we conclude the story judgment is good? No, because for an entire movie someone’s been trying to kick the habit and in the end it killed them. Is it possible that the filmmaker’s message is that you just need to accept who you are and die from your addictions? Maybe.
In the case of K, we have an MC who spends the entire movie dealing with three things: trying to survive the people who are attempting to kill him, the desperate need to find out that he’s special (i.e. not just a generic replicant with implanted memories), and finally, that he’s worthy of true love. You can allocate the third to the RS, of course, but it certainly crosses over into the MC throughline.
When we end the movie, what do we have? K is dying from his wounds, he’s definitely not special as a replicant, and he’s learned that even the name Joi gave him was just an automated response (as shown by the building-sized ad who calls him “Joe” while neon lights flash “See what you want! Hear what you want!”
From the “I” perspective, “I” wanted to live, to discover that I was special, and to be loved. I ends up bleeding out on the steps while Deckard goes to reunite with his daughter.
You wrote: [quote=“jhull, post:15, topic:1268”]
I’m pretty sure the filmmaker intended the scene of K lying back and looking up as a welcome acceptance of his true self
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As you’ve said before, the filmmaker might intend one thing, but the message of the movie might be another. What’s equally possible in the filmmaker’s choices – and I suspect more likely in terms of the movie’s final message, is that the story judgment is intentionally ambiguous. Should we feel like K resolved his problems and came to a good end? Or should we feel like the search for self is pointless? As has been said of the original Blade Runner and the question of whether Deckard was a replicant: there is no true answer.
For us to seek objective confirmation that this is to be a Judgment: Good story, we would need to see K adopting a new context. What we get is a vague-maybe-kinda-possible-smile in a few frames. We have to ignore everything that came in the third act and decide that this one set of frames were the important ones. Is it possible that the message of the movie is, “don’t worry about dying alone and unloved because that still makes you a person”? Maybe. But that is one of a couple of reasonable subjective interpretations, not an objective one.
All of which raises a question for me: does Dramatica account for movies that intentionally have ambiguous story judgments?
No, but you also don’t get to define the binary option on whether story judgment is good or bad based on any criteria you want to set. In this case, you’re saying the criteria for whether story judgment is good is based on whether K decided to save Deckard – but that’s his role in the OS, not the MC throughline. The MC throughline is about the situation of being a replicant, and in K’s case, this manifests in his life being in danger, the fact of whether or not he’s the “chosen one” (the child), and whether he can be loved. That’s what his situation is about – not whether he would or wouldn’t sacrifice himself for someone else.
The storyform is a holistic impression of an argument. Resolve Outcome and Judgment are a couple of them that work together to prove the message of the story.
Luke’s decision to Trust resulted in Success and was a Good thing. Angier’s decision to stay steadfast in his Desire resulted in Success but was a Bad thing.
It’s Story Judgment, not Main Character Judgment, and it’s the emotional part of the Author’s argument. Frequently we see this in the guise of whether or not the Main Character resolves their personal angst. But in cases where the Authors Judgment might come across ambiguous, it can help to look at the combination of these story points to determine the best balance.
Okay, but in the only resource I have for this kind of thing - The Dramatica dictionary - it says: “the author’s assessment of whether or not the Main Character has resolved his personal problem.”
That seems pretty cut and dried, doesn’t it? Has there been some kind of redefinition of story judgment outside of the book itself?
It’s been part of the theory since the very beginning - it’s why you find it under Plot Dynamics, not Character Dynamics. It’s why it is called Story Judgment and not Main Character Judgment.
The theory book is not perfect in its description of every single story point. Occasionally they took shortcuts in an effort to help explain certain story points. The shortcut for this is whether or not the MC resolves their personal problems as that is the closest connection an Author has emotionally with the Audience.
I found this for you, which might help:
Chris Huntley on the Story Judgment a post here on Discuss Dramatica. It looks like he accidentally labeled his description of Story Judgment with Success/Failure, but you should be able to see what he was trying to say.
Many of the podcasts over the past twenty years deal with this story point, though I can’t remember exactly which ones. Might be time to get somebody to transcribe them all (not me).
That’s fine, and I’d have no problem with the notion that the Story Judgment is the author’s judgment (or message) about whether the Story Outcome is a good thing or a bad thing. But that’s not what the theory (as explained in the book) says. It couldn’t be more specific: it’s whether the MC is deemed to have resolved their personal problems. If that’s not true, then why on earth would this very site’s Dramatica Dictionary keep saying it? Is there any reason why it doesn’t just get changed to the very simple (though radically different) definition of: “The author’s assessment of whether the story outcome is a good one or a bad one”?
I read it, but still didn’t come away with a contrary definition of story judgment from the one offered in the book.
Look, I’m totally fine with a different definition of story judgment. It just seems baffling that – as you say – “It’s been part of the theory since the beginning” and yet it’s been wrong in every published version of the theory and software since then. It seems to put a pernicious burden on the user.
Here’s where that leaves us: if we apply your definition of story judgment, then it’s safe to say that the author’s assessment (or, at least, the message the audience is left with) is that K’s sacrifice in his role as the protagonist in saving Deckard is a good thing. The world is better off because of what he did. If we apply the definition of story judgment from the Dramatica theory book, then it’s very likely that the story judgment is bad. And if – and here’s where we get into a real mess – you say it can be either a judgment on whether things turned out “good” or “bad” (as opposed to success of failure) or a judgment on whether the MC did or did not resolve their personal problems, then we’re right back to a situation in which the interpreter is choosing to privilege one of two contrary definitions in analyzing the story.
It’s not wrong - just a “gist-ified” version of the Story Judgment. LIke Situation to Universe - and you can see all the problems–“pernicious burdens”–that are visited on users by those terms, yet some find value in it. Situation is not “wrong”, but it doesn’t describe the totality of Universe.
The definitions you point to are not wrong, they’re simplified versions of what that story point represents. The most important part is that you understand this idea that the storyform is trying to argue something - and that the Outcome and Judgment represent the logical and emotional outcomes of that argument.
It’s not “my” definition of Story Judgment - it’s actually the definition of Story Judgment.
They’re not remotely contrary. Different resolutions of the same story point.
Your assessment that K did not resolve his personal issues is your reading of the meaning of his sacrifice. You think it was a Bad thing that he didn’t resolve his personal issues. You point to his death as evidence of that - this is not what is meant by Story Judgment.
You can be resolved if you find out you’re not who you hoped to be–if the Author is making that Judgment.
He never found out who he truly was (outside of having an implanted memory like all other replicants).
I think he found out he was manufactured, not born, which was what was driving his personal issues.
He isn’t even sure if Joi really loved him because of the scene where the giant-sized ad is talking to him and we keep having it emphasized that it tells you what you want to hear, then the kicker: the ad calls him “Joe”, removing the meaning it had when his Joi gave him that name because now we know it’s just a generic, built-in response.
This would be an instance of the Influence Character Problem that motivates his Resolve to Change.
Just to interject the excellent discussion going on (apologies), I 100% felt that the ending was a ‘good’ judgement for K. I can see where @decastell is coming from, but there was no question for me. I just didn’t feel it that way whatsoever.
At the end, K is accepting death on his own terms, rather than the brutal replicant murders we see throughout. He saved Deckard, reunited him with his daughter, and pretty much accepted that you don’t need a ‘soul’ to be human, which I interpreted to be the source of his personal issues. That’s a hell of a ‘good’ judgement.
No, I point to his death as one aspect of the whole. I also point to the fact that throughout the movie he’s plagued by his situation of being a replicant because he isn’t “special” – that he isn’t a whole person with real memories. In the 2nd act he comes to believe that maybe he is (because his memory is real) only to discover that he isn’t – the memory belongs to the real “special” replicant child.
In this case I think you’re making that judgment. The filmmaker leaves nothing but a vague look on a second or so of footage that could be interpreted that way. I think he’s intentionally leaving the judgment as to K’s resolution ambiguous – forcing the audience to decide for themselves.
Again, no. He always believed he was manufactured, which was the source of his angst – “I’m not a real boy”. When he comes to temporarily believe that he was born, he seizes the possibility that he’s special. When he finds out the memory of the horse is implanted, he realizes he’s not special: he was manufactured.
Yes, but it’s also tied to his MC throughline. When he finds out that Joi was programmed to use the name “Joe”, it not only diminishes her IC influence on him to change, it also reinforces the negative aspects of his MC situation: I’m just a replicant and nobody can really love me (which is different from the RS question of whether Joi and K can love each other.)
That’s a totally valid interpretation of the movie. It’s just not the only valid one. You’re looking at this (as one should) through the lens of your own value system: “Hey, if I saved an important guy, reunited him with his daughter, I’d know I didn’t need a “soul” to be human.” That last part there? About not needing a “soul” to be human? Find one spot in the movie where K says or does something that incontrovertibly proves that he’s taken on that perspective. It’s not there so far as I can see – it’s only there when you frame his actions in a way that says, “in my personal value system, taking those actions means he must have come to this perspective.” That’s a subjective interpretation.
I’m pretty sure you’ll find the majority of people interpret his “vague” look as an indicator of peace which would mean a Story Judgment of Good. Trust me, I would love it to be Success/Bad–in fact, when you continued to argue I started to think that perhaps I missed something, that maybe the Hans Zimmer soundwall and the brightness of the 4K Laser IMAX at the Chinese had so consumed my senses that I completely misinterpreted the ending of the film…
…but then, everyone else I ask looks at me like I’m crazy and says No…he was totally at peace there at the end. And that means something to me. So now, faced with a better understanding of what the Story Judgment means in Dramatica, do you still consider the Author’s Judgment on the events a Bad thing?
How is this not his personal Throughline? That pretty much describes a Main Character Throughline in Universe and when the next version of Dramatica comes out I’ll basically copy and paste what you wrote above.
He has a Chosen One complex and it’s great that we finally have a story about someone who finds out they’re NOT this great savior.
The Influence Character Throughline, by definition, is “tied” to the Main Character Throughline. Their purpose in a story is to challenge the Main Character’s justifications.
You described the inequity from his perspective perfectly above. Joi being programmed to be whatever he wants describes an alternate approach to solving the story’s problems–essentially, instead of worrying about what you really are, be what they need you to be.
Which is exactly what he does when he goes to rescue Deckard.
So that advertising does not diminish her influence on him–it reinforces it. If he (or the Audience) didn’t see the countless billboards advertising her Influence Character Problem, that final finger point should.
[quote=“decastell, post:25, topic:1268”]
it also reinforces the negative aspects of his MC situation: I’m just a replicant and nobody can really love me (which is different from the RS question of whether Joi and K can love each other.)
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You’re looking at structure subjectively - from inside the point-of-view of the character. It might feel negative to him, but to the Author, I’m pretty sure it’s clear what the message is.
Also, the “RS question of whether Joi and K can love each other” is another inaccurate way to use Dramatica. It’s not a matter of “what if” or “whether or not” - those are subjective questions asked from a subjective point of view from within the characters.
The Author already knows what it is he is trying to say - he knows the totality of the message–a totality captured within the Dramatica storyform.
It’s more about being able to understand what the Author is trying to say with their story. Do you feel the writers/director intended his final act to be seen as a Good thing or a Bad thing? Does the MC seem to still have a problem with whether or not he is replicant or the Chosen One?
Taking this as an individual piece of the argument, would you then say that a valid way of measuring Story Judgment would be to ask an audience whether they thought it turned out well? I’m fine if the answer is yes – it just means that Story Judgment is a function of the audience’s response to the ending.
I’m not at all sure I have a better understanding of Story Judgment in Dramatica. I certainly understand the definition in the book, and I have a general sense of what you mean by it, but those two things have not integrated yet.
Let me pose the following scenario: “Jack and the Cartel” is a crime drama about an MC (Jack) who is a heroin addict. He desperately wants to kick the habit, knows it will kill him if he can’t, and hates himself for being unable to quit. When his dealer is executed by the higher ups, he unwittingly ends up enmeshed in the cartel’s conspiracy to take over the drug trade. By the end of the movie, Jack – who couldn’t kick his habit – dies of an overdose, but the information he gathered on the cartel is used by the cops to put an end to their criminal empire.
If you asked the audience (and likely the filmmaker): is it good that Jack’s death led to the end of the cartel? I imagine they’d say yes. If you asked them: did Jack resolve his personal problems? I imagine they’d say, no way.
So is the story judgment good or bad according to your way of looking at that story point?
I didn’t say it wasn’t in the MC throughline, I said that the source of his angst wasn’t from desiring to know the truth about his origins. The source of his angst was that he didn’t want to be just a replicant. Those are different things, though both in Situation.
This may be satisfying to you or me because we don’t want people to think they’re chosen ones, but I’m pretty sure K really wished he was the chosen one. Don’t you think this would be you and me imposing our value judgments on the storyform rather than considering it objectively? We might say, “Good, people should stop wishing they were chosen ones”, but that’s never the position of K in the story nor is there evidence that the filmmaker is making that point. Instead, it appears the point the filmmaker is trying to make is that we don’t know what it means to be human versus replicant. The line isn’t clear, and nor is our judgment of whether a replicant is less than or equal to a human being.
This is a really interesting and insightful observation. I love it. Again, regardless of whether I might agree about his MC throughline, it’s precisely this kind of interpretive insight that makes Dramatica compelling and valuable to be as a writer.
What is it you think the message is? Was K really loved by Joi? Or was she simply behaving the way he wanted her to behave and thus there was no love between them?
This is the kind of thing that drives me a little nutty: if what I’ve described is not the RS throughline, then what is the RS throughline as you see it? Don’t just leave me hanging there, dude
I think you and I have discussed this before and I thought we both agreed: we couldn’t care less what the author intended but rather what message the film actually conveys. That said, the idea of a message that can’t be articulated (a totality captured within a storyform but that can’t be turned into words) doesn’t make a lot of sense either.
Again, this language of “what the Author is trying to say” is dubious to me. If M. Night comes out and says point blank, “Hey guys, I studied Dramatica this past year and just want you to know that Malcolm’s MC throughline is in Activity”, do you really care? Clearly from the finished film, it’s not.
That said…
I think the film – regardless of what the filmmaker might have secretly intended – is telling us that K’s sacrifice to both protect the born replicant and to enable Deckard to see her, is a good thing.
I’d be willing to bet actual money that the filmmaker would say they intentionally wanted this to be ambiguous: that we don’t know whether to feel good for K (as opposed to the movie or for what he did) or bad for him. However, since I’m more concerned with what the movie actually conveys than what the director might have intended, I’d say the ending leaves K in an ambiguous position. Hey, wait – looks like the director got his wish!
Seriously, I think the fact that we have every reason to believe K is going to die, and yet we don’t see his death and thus aren’t even sure if maybe he’ll survive, is part of that effort to make the ending ambiguous. K lost everything he ever hoped to have, ending up without even the small comforts he’d created for himself. Had the filmmaker wanted to convey that K ended well, he might have said something, or seen something in his final moments. Instead we get a guy who’s probably dying, who’s definitely lost it all, but who might have a sort of half-smile on his face.
Do I think your interpretation of K’s personal outcome is wrong? No. I just don’t think it’s the only valid interpretation.
Ambiguity – even on the grand scale of a story’s outcome – is a tool of storyteller’s everywhere. Thought it takes place in a different way that’s not attached to a story point, Memento goes out of its way to make sure we don’t know whether Leonard’s wife died in the attack, or whether she lived and left him later – whether he found the guy responsible for the attack, or whether John Gammell tricked him every time. Again, this particular use of intentional ambiguity may not affect any story point in Memento, but I bring it up as a reminder of how vital and intentional a tool it can be.
No, for two reasons. One: you can’t take it individually on it’s own because it’s one part of the whole (the Author’s argument represented by the storyform) and the whole is more important than the part.
Two: it’s a measure of the Author’s Judgment in the efforts to resolve the story’s problem, not the Audience’s.
You haven’t told me Jack’s emotional state in regards to not being able to kick his drug habit. Is he at peace because the addiction gave him the drive to complete his mission or is he distraught and feels the entire thing wasn’t worth it?
Everything is integrated so you have to consider it all at once. Main Character Resolve is woven into the Overall Story, so whether they decide to Change or Remain Steadfast ties into the Outcome. Was it a Good thing that Jack Changed or Remained Steadfast, or was it Bad?
They aren’t different things. Not within the perspective of the Main Character Throughline:
Desiring to know the truth about his origins is the Main Character Concern. He didn’t want to be just a replicant is the Main Character Domain.
Both represent different resolutions on the source of his angst. You mentioned his Problem elsewhere.
Imposing our own value judgments—yes, the idea that it’s cool there is finally a story about a Chosen One who finds out he isn’t is completely one hundred percent my opinion.
And has nothing to do with the storyform. Just my own thoughts.
It’s not our Judgment, it’s the Authors Judgment and I think there are more indicators of Good over Bad.
The key, when this happens, is to look at the implied story points that come into play when you can’t decide whether or not the Author was specifically saying Good or Bad.
Even if he was trying to be ambiguous, the arrangement of other story points favors a Judgment of Good.
All I did was write the storyform in conversational terms.
I blended Influence Character, Influence Character Throughline, Influence Character Resolve, Influence Character Solution, Relationship Story Throughline, and Relationship Story Problem into a few sentences.
Basically I took a few of the ingredients that stated the Author’s argument, mixed them up together in a bowl, and served them up in a paragraph.
The filmmakers did the same over the course of 2.5 hours.
I have no idea if she loved him or not. It appeared as if she did, and that’s enough to support the argument above.
A Relationship Story Throughline is not a case of “what if?”, it’s a case of what is—just like all the other Throughlines. What is the problem incurred within their relationship and how does this find correlation with events in the Overall Story?
Problems occur in their relationship through trying to integrate into each other’s lives. Trying to fit the mold or fill in this space increases the inequitable space between them. There’s a word that perfectly describes this kind of problem under the Domain of Psychology…
Then that would indicate a Story Judgment of Good.
Ambiguity in regards to Story Judgment would suggest that we can’t tell whether or not the decision to Change or Remain Steadfast was a Good or Bad thing.
I think we’ve established a clear Judgment on the Resolve and Outcome.
The ambiguity you point to in Memento is a reading of the Story Judgment—Bad in this case. Leonard’s repositioning of who his John G is and the use of his disability to continue the cycle is shown to be a Bad thing. The ambiguity there is part of the Overall Story Concern of Conceptualizing: Leonard purposefully conceptualizes ambiguity.
This provides a pretty good opening to why I find the interpretive process confusing. The above sounds perfectly logical, except that if you take the thread back a little, you’ll find it was in response to this:
Which was in direct response to this:
So playing that back:
You say, "I’m pretty sure you’ll find the majority of people interpret his ‘vague’ look as an indicator of peace which would mean a Story Judgment of Good’
I ask, “would you then say that a valid way of measuring Story Judgment would be to ask an audience whether they thought it turned out well?” – the question is in some ways rhetorical as you literally just used ‘whether the majority of people’ (audience) interpreted the the look.
You then say it’s not the audience’s judgment but the author’s.
Now, I’m sure you’re going to say those things are all very logical and not contradictory, but I hope you can see how it looks that way. Either cite audience response or don’t.
By the way, I think referring to the “author’s intent” or “author’s judgment” is an exceedingly bad basis for a Dramatica interpretation. The author’s intent is irrelevant – I’m sure the guys who made “The Dark Tower” movie intended for it to be good, but it’s pretty clear that it isn’t. Similarly, if it’s meaningless that I might have written a book that’s intended to be Story Judgment of Good if no one but me sees it that way.
Sorry – should have clarified: Jack is completely miserable that he dies a heroin addict. We leave the camera on his sad, crying face for a full minute as he writes in his own bile and blood: “I hate how things turned out”. Meanwhile, his having gotten involved in looking into the cartel (and exposing himself to said heroin) is the only reason why they were stopped. If you’d watched this movie, you’d say, “Aw, thank heavens Jack saved all those kids by getting hooked on heroin again – too bad he died miserable and alone and not at all feeling good about what he’d done.”
Hope that clarifies things!
It was good for the world that Jack was steadfast, and terribly, terribly bad for Jack (look, he’s written a second note in his blood: “Seriously, Jim, I hate how things turned out. I’m so very unhappy.”)
Through what means did you allocate the one to concern and the other to domain? Why is it not a domain of “Being unaware of one’s origins” and the concern of “K has no future if it turns out he’s a replicant” (or, “K will never leave his miserable present if it turns out he’s a replicant”, or “Things will keep getting worse for K if he turns out to be a replicant”…etc)
Again, you keep referring to the Author’s Judgment. If the writer and director come out tomorrow and announce they wanted the story judgment to be bad will that affect your interpretation of the storyform? I certainly hope not…
Jesus. Try to give a guy a compliment…
That’s nice, but the question was:
Can you describe the relationship throughline for Blade Runner 2049 (as opposed to more generically describing what Dramatic means about an RS)?
As long as we don’t care about whether K resolved his personal problems, sure. If we do, that ambiguity I mentioned (“we have every reason to believe K is going to die, and yet we don’t see his death and thus aren’t even sure if maybe he’ll survive, is part of that effort to make the ending ambiguous. K lost everything he ever hoped to have, ending up without even the small comforts he’d created for himself.”) keeps it from being obviously one or the other.
Yes, but you do get that I’m talking about the fact that Nolan intentionally created ambiguity for the audience? My point was only that ambiguity is a tool storyteller’s use. It’s not created by the character – someone actually wrote that with clear and obvious intent for the audience to be unsure about certain key facts of the story. My point is that, since a writer can intentionally (and effectively – because that’s what matters) create ambiguity in a story – including the ending – that it’s possible for them to write a story in which there is no clear story judgment.
Story Reception is the 4th Signpost when it comes to the space between Author and Audience—the one the Author has little to no control over. The effectiveness of the reception differs for every individual, e.g. the Audience member could have been in a bad mood, sick, or distracted and therefore received the story different from others.
This is why the Users Group process is so effective—by minimalizing inaccuracies brought on by subjective experience and looking towards the collective appreciation of different story points one can come to a better understanding of Author’s intent—of the message they want to get across.
By Authors intent I don’t mean the Author necessarily sits down and says, “How can I make this Story Judgment of Good work?”, but rather they have some reasonable amount of purpose for writing the story and that can be appreciated through the various story points.
In #1, I didn’t mean to imply that reaction is the basis for the Story Judgment as that again, would be erring towards the subjective. What I meant was that you should look to the overwhelming majority as indication that you might be wrong about the Story Judgment.
I know Dramatica really well and can figure out the best, most accurate storyform for any narrative 99% of the time. Occasionally, the collective will find fault and when enough do, that is always a sign to me that I might have received the story wrong. I go back, reevaluate, and usually come to the conclusion that I was off and I adjust my understanding.
You remember Captain America I’m sure—tons of back and forth over Throughlines, etc. No one yet has come forth to support your appreciation of Story Judgment Bad. If enough did, I would be back in the theater tomorrow to reassess.
So I apologize if there are any logical inconsistencies, I’m trying to explain this the best way I know how.
That would indicate a deficiency on your part to accurately communicate a Story Judgment of Good (not that I think you remotely possess this issue). If enough people aren’t hearing what you’re saying, then you aren’t doing a good enough job aligning yourself with methods and processes of problem-solving that they can recognize (the Storymind concept).
I haven’t seen Dark Tower but I assume it wasn’t received well because it failed to accurately communicate a functioning storyform.
That, to me, would indicate that the Author was trying to say that Remaining Steadfast in this context (in regards to some Problem element) results in a Personal Tragedy (Success/Bad).
It’s not a moral judgment of the Outcome and Judgment, i.e. it was a “good” thing that he sacrificed himself in order to save the world, but rather a Judgment on the emotional implications of Remaining Steadfast—within the context of the storyform.
That’s why you can’t look at one story point individually—you have to appreciate them all at once for it to have any meaning. That’s the “religious” moment Wollaeger referred to another post—it’s not really spiritual but rather a recognition of the holistic relationship between all the Story Points at once.
So yes, in The Dark Knight it was a “good” thing that Wayne became the villain in order to save Gotham—but in context of the storyform, in regards to the switch from Process to Result that switch is deemed a Bad thing.
You can totally do this. It’s once you start trying to argue the implied story points based on this selection that you’ll find your argument starts to lose coherency.
It just so happens—and I don’t think this is coincidence—that the means by which you describe K’s Throughline PEEFECTLY matches up with the storyform I know most accurately describes this film.
My confidence lies in the confirmation of others (you) who pretty much make convincing arguments for various story points even without knowing the storyform.
It’s almost like there is this shared method for approximating Inequity that everyone possesses. Now if only someone would come along and detail the various points by which these assessments are made…
If they understood what Dramatica meant by Story Judgment, they wouldn’t say it was Bad.
I can copy and paste it again:
And that word would be Conceptualizing. Constantly adapting to make the other happy? That would be the Relationship Story Problem of Change. State of Being as an Issue? One is real. One is simulated. Their essential natures make it almost impossible for them to be together.
I’m not speaking in what if’s—I’m concretely defining what the problems are in their relationship.
And they perfectly sync up with problems and concerns in the other Throughlines. Which is how I know I’m not fooling myself as to the true nature of the story’s inequity as seen from that perspective—by virtue of the implied Story Points.
Of course a writer can be purposefully ambiguous. Unfortunately, when you take into account the totality of the other story points not specifically tied into an ambiguous ending like, say, Story Judgment, it becomes less unknown.
There is enough information—Signpost order, Benchmarks, and Requirements—that firmly set Nolan’s Judgment on Leonard’s decision to Remain Steadfast in regards to his Main Character Problem of Ability. Regardless of how ambiguous he wanted to be (and I actually feel that ambiguity is encoded in the storyform as described prior) the Judgment still comes across as Bad.
Knowing the other story points we can’t help but imply a Bad Judgment.
It’s like this: if you drew a smiley face, and drew everything but one eye—the Audience, or person looking at that drawing—would automatically fill in that blank space with the missing eye. We can’t help but fill in that Inequity.
Same thing with story points in a storyform.
Doesn’t matter if the original artist intended that eye to be filled in or not—something is going in there.
The great thing about Dramatica and its implied story points is that you no longer have to guess what will be filled in there.
Back to K and the conversation regarding Story Judgment (and the discussion of next week’s podcast!), you will find different Benchmarks and Requirements based on that choice of Good or Bad.
Just like the order of Signposts carry with them an implication of Success or Failure, the means by which we evaluate the level of Concern in each Throughline (Benchmarks) carries with it an implication of Good or Bad.
The choices left at the end strongly suggest a Judgment of Good which again, confirms the appreciation of the collective. Enough people recognize a Good Judgment because enough information exists to support that emotional assessment.
So is blade runner 2049 a complete storyform?
It strikes me that there may be a few missing beats that could have helped communicate K’s sense of the dissolving boundary/status between humans and replicants. For example, the exchange between K and Deckard at the very end could have had some acknowledgement by K or Deckard of K’s new sense of agency: “thanks joe!” The movie plays mute about these things but it doesn’t seem to be about deliberate ambiguity - clearly replicants are portrayed thru out the film to be as alive and full of agency as humans, they have soul, they bleed, they doubt the legitimacy of human authority.
I was also confused about Wallaces motivation: he’s a genius but hasn’t been able to figure out replicant reproduction on his own. He wants to find and analyze the replicant child in order to have a self perpetuating workforce on the off worlds. Wouldn’t that ruin his control and his business of being the guy who monopolizes replicant manufacture and sale and history? At the same time, he never feels remotely worried about the status boundary between human and replicant the way Joshi does, nor worried about a replicant rebellion (even tho he historically profited from a past rebellion which allowed him to acquire tyrell and get into the biz). Is this just a case of the film trying to show replicants are of great interest in different ways to a wide spectrum of parties?
How could blade runner have been better, within the argument it was intending to make?
Greater frequency of story points from the storyform. As it is, there are long stretches without story that make it difficult to accurately keep the entirety of the narrative present within your mind.
Personally I didn’t have a problem with the presentation. I enjoyed the long expanses and look forward to experiencing it again.
This, incidentally, is the number one complaint I’ve heard from friends. I’ve heard both “Too long” and “nothing happened” as the most popular reasons they disliked it. Interesting to hear a Dramatica-based explanation for that. So, would you say this is the result of too many ‘storytelling’ scenes, as opposed to actual narrative ‘structure’?
I loved the movie, but I do agree that a little bit of editing/shorter runtime would have made it much sharper and more structurally ‘alive’, so to speak. The last 20 minutes especially felt like the filmmakers realised they were almost out of time and suddenly hit the fast-forward button.
Hey, I will happily re-open that battle if you want. Do keep in mind that we don’t occupy equal positions from which to argue Dramatica, so when I say, “I think x” and you respond with, “that’s because you’re not understanding Dramatica, see, it’s actually y” then I think it’s natural and perfectly reasonable that people would be affected by that reality. Again, though, my issue is not that I’m convinced I’m right about the storyform, only that there is more than one viable interpretation of the storyform. This isn’t because it’s subjective, but rather because there is evidence both for it to be a story judgment bad (the Avengers broke up – which was something everyone was afraid would happen) and story judgment good (Tony doesn’t fall into a basket of tears when Cap sends him the note).
This seems a bit of an odd statement to me. True, every audience member is an individual with their own circumstances, but the definition of a beloved movie is one which the preponderance (or at least a significant number) of audience members, well, love. So we can’t say, “it doesn’t matter if the audience thinks this is a great movie because the Dramatica Users Group concluded it was broken.” Similarly, if the majority of the audience comes away with the impression that the story judgment was bad – that the message from the movie is that personal sacrifice is often wasted, for example – then a group of folks sitting around a table who disagree are welcome to do so but I don’t think the rest of the world is going to listen.
With novelists I often use the example of 50 Shades of Grey. Every writer I know despises the book (which I haven’t read), and feels it’s utterly undeserving of being successful. But all those people who felt it spoke to them probably felt that way because on some level it did. What people derisively call “granny porn” might actually resonate on a level that I can’t see or understand, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
I say all this just so that we don’t hit the point where the people for whom stories are made suddenly become irrelevant as participants in how stories are understood.
This is exactly my argument about Blade Runner 2049: K as protagonist does something we’d call “good”, but it didn’t work out for him.
This is kind of an interesting point – as a novelist, every throughline is (for me) a question. What drives the reader from chapter to chapter is whether the questions continue to be compelling enough that they have to find out the answer. I’m not saying the problems-approach is wrong, only that they’re interestingly different lenses through which to view throughlines.
It’s an interesting position to take that no film can leave an audience without a clear sense of whether the story judgment is good or bad. I’m not sure I share it, but I’m certainly open to the possibility.
