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Realism vs Satisfaction in Narrative/Storytelling?
Froge Offline
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RE: Realism vs Satisfaction in Narrative/Storytelling?

If the two can't go hand in hand, I'll take satisfaction over realism. I don't have any particular argument in mind, but I am drawn towards less realistic stories with more satisfying narratives, like in ATDD. It's probably a cultural thing. I immerse myself in fiction as a reprieve from reality (not saying that reality is bad, it's just I want to enter a different universe sometimes).

Also, realism sometimes makes stories worse, like in The Hobbit films. Or it could make things better, like in Nolan's batman trilogy. I don't think realism vs satisfaction is so much a dichotomy as it is a perspective taken by the writer on how to execute the story. If the execution is well done, then either way can go well. Of course, it's always better if they go hand in hand.

On the other hand, I find proper character development to be more important than satisfaction. Fundamentally, all stories are about people, or if they're not about people, then they're about some form of sentience that we can relate strongly to. If there is good character development, chances are, we will be able to empathize with those characters regardless of how unsatisfying the story turns out. This is probably shown best in Telltales' The Walking Dead, where the body count kept increasing and the situation kept getting worse, but because of how realistic the characters were, we were still able to enjoy the story.

In other words, stories should have realistic characters, but the events and settings can be made unrealistic to satisfy the audience.

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09-16-2014, 03:47 PM
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RE: Realism vs Satisfaction in Narrative/Storytelling? - by Froge - 09-16-2014, 03:47 PM



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