Payoffs and Reader Expectation

[sartorias]

The other day I made a post about story payoffs. burger_eater made a comment to the effect that he's disappointed when the character he's invested in doesn't gain respect from the story. I asked him to explain that, and he did.

Comments

[kalimac]

When I read the bit in burger_eater's post I too thought immediately about Whedon's penchant for killing off semi-major characters unexpectedly, just to prove that in a deadly environment these things happen. A lot of viewers get very upset about these, but perhaps it's because they love the characters not wisely but too well.

I agree with your point about the expectations aroused by a comic tone: indeed, I just wrote a review of a work by Sir Arthur Sullivan with the observation that "you can’t possibly worry about the impending execution of most of the characters, because this is a comic opera, so everything's got to come out all right in the end."

However, the unfunniness to some people of black humor has nothing to do with the boringness of Kafka. Kafka isn't boring because his humor is black. Kafka is boring because he's boring.

I also have to agree with your strictures about Austen. I like Austen, but her biggest flaw is a tendency to tell a summary when she ought to show the event happening. She's capable of the most richly detailed and revealing conversations, but too often lapses into these summaries instead, especially at the ends of books, even P&P.