I mean, you're not wrong. (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, September 23, 2016, 17:45 (2982 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by Cody Miller, Friday, September 23, 2016, 17:50

Also, when you use the word "clear" a bunch, I assume you're sort of referring to logic, right? Like, coherence. Things can't just be happening because they're happening. There needs to be a why, and the why generally needs to make sense or been built up to and earned. Just making sure I'm reading you right.

No not at all. Clarity has nothing to do with logic. It has nothing to do with the audience or reader knowing everything. It has to do with emotional continuity.

Ah, okay. Either way, they don't have to be separate (which I'm sure you know). The audience and reader doesn't have to know everything (or even close to everything) for something to feel earned, valid, or to make sense within a universe that clarity has established. Clarity can enhance all of that, and sometimes logic itself based upon the "rules" of a particular universe establish the clarity of the world and characters and their actions.

I agree and this has nothing to do with what my teacher was saying. She wasn't saying that the story doesn't have to make sense (In fact, fiction has to make more sense than real life.) She was saying that (great) literature leaves room for many interpretations. Hollywood types might characterize a story that lacks nuance or ambiguity as being too "on the nose." That is not art. That is propaganda.

I think there is an important difference between ambiguity and lack of information. Inception is a great example of a movie with an ambiguous ending, but one that provides the viewer with enough information to come up with their own interpretations or explainations for what they are seeing. The Matrix is in a similar boat. Even if the precise nature of all the events is a bit unclear, there is enough material there to give the story weight, and give the viewer thoughts and questions to "chew on" over time. I think that Destiny's story (without the grimoire) is too sparse to pull this off. The ambiguity isn't the problem. It's that we aren't given enough information to take us beyond the most superficial questions.

But even Inception and the Matrix are not 'ambiguous' in their themes. You know what the characters want and how the world works at all times, and what ideas the filmmakers are putting forth. We don't see what happens to the top because it doesn't have anything to do with the theme or the real story at all, which is itself very clear. Is Cobb dreaming or is he not? It doesn't matter, which is why we don't get the answer.

Inception is the story of Ariadne performing inception on Cobb so he can get over his wife. An inception within an inception. But even if you don't pick up on that, you still understand the nature of the film's stance on letting go.