Mystery in fiction

There is a contradiction in opinions when it comes to the audience of any show. On one hand they are frustrated when they don’t know what the characters want to do, and on the other hand, they don’t want the characters to succeed once they find out what they want to do. Sometimes it is just the appeal of mystery. When you don’t know what a character plans to do, it feels mystical and amazing. When you find out, the mystery is gone and you lose interest very fast, regardless of how well written the whole thing is.

Most of the times, it is not simply that. Take any show that uses tricks or strategies. When a character explains what he plans to do next, his plan will most likely fail, even if his opponent never finds out about it. In cases when a character does not explain his plan, then he will either win, or he will be winning until his opponent figures it out and explains it to us.

There is this predisposition when it comes to information; the more we know about something, the less we believe it is important, or it will be successful in anything. The reason is, because people usually take advantage of what they know, to benefit themselves, at the expense of the thing they know about. If they don’t know how to react to a situation, then they are powerless against it. It seems huge and overwhelming, magical and worthy of worshiping it. It’s like ancient religions that were treating the sun or the wind as gods. The reason those religions ceased to be, is because we now know how to predict the weather, and we have chemicals to make the crops grow. We don’t need to hope the weather will be good anymore. We have the knowledge for it.

This brings us back to the contradiction I mentioned in the beginning. On one hand, it is very frustrating to have the characters in most series being dense, shy, and unable to express or explain themselves. Most misunderstandings wouldn’t happen if they were honest and open. For the same reason, most conflicts wouldn’t last more than a few minutes, and we wouldn’t have something to fill a whole show with. This is why it is usually boring to have characters who are extroverts, sit down to talk about the issues they have instead of hiding them, or be plain able to get it when a girl likes them. The more they know and tell others about it, the less interesting they become.

But wait, what about all those overpowered protagonists who seem to know everything and win all the time? Why aren’t they considered boring by the majority of people, and are instead treated as idols? Well, this is where the presentation makes the characters seem far more interesting than they actually are. As personalities, they really are bland and boring. It’s the event of steam-rolling opponents for NOT knowing as much as the protagonists do, that feels satisfying.

Another way to see the whole issue, is by understanding the difference between strategy and tactics. A strategy is about what a character will mostly focus on, from the beginning, and all the way to the end. Tactics on the other hand, are about adjusting to the changes every new event causes. If the audience knows someone’s strategy, then most will lose interest in him. They already know how he wants to end the whole thing. There is nothing more to it, so why bother? If his strategy is not working though, then many will maintain their interest, just to see if he uses some tactic to turn the game to his favor.

This is why in fiction, revealed strategies are considered a failure, while crafty “on the spot” tactics are considered great. If you think about it, most traditional stories are about the villains having a masterplan that they blindly abide to, with not much adjusting to it. Meaning, they use a strategy that as soon as we learn about it, we want to see it failing. The heroes on the other hand, usually have no strategy. They don’t have long-term plans, they are mostly reacting to the masterplans the villains use, as means to sabotage them. They use tactics, as they gradually learn more about their opponents, and supposed that is why they win at the end.

Another way to see this, is fatalism. When a story is about destiny, then there is very little motivation to follow the characters if we know what will happen to them. It’s not the same as being spoiled about what happens next, or having already seen a series in the past. These happen outside the series. Fatalism is done in-series, where they tell you the protagonist is the chosen one, or that he will die in a week. Why would you follow a story that tells you how it will end? You don’t want to know, or you hope it will not happen. Ok, you may be curious to find out how a predetermined event will happen. It’s still not as fun as when something unexpected happens.

The reason we like surprises, is because we don’t like the idea of seeing ourselves as robots, bound to orders, or fate, or our instincts. We want to believe we are free to do anything we like with our lives. Nobody is going to stay idle if he is told something bad will happen to him in the future. He will obviously try to prevent it, even if it’s supposed to be his destiny.

Bottom line, as much as we wish characters would keep their cards open instead of keeping us in the dark for no apparent reason, the truth is, the more we and the other characters know about what is going on, the less we care and the more we believe something bad is going to happen to them. Because knowledge is power … and it hurts like a bitch.

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There is this reddit topic about the ups and downs of Rokka no Yuusha. One aspect that makes it sound controversial for being both good and bad, is its mystery aspect. A guy was defending it as the thing that was making the world massive in content, and a creative way to have problems for the heroes. It’s not about defeating monsters with superpowers but rather learning about the world.

I replied by stating what many thought about the mystery aspect. It wasn’t there for showing a vast world and interesting characters. It was withholding information and kept the plot going in circles. If the world is rich why do you need a mystery to hide it? Just show it by having the characters traveling in it, not by being stuck in the same area and going in circles. And if the characters are interesting why do you need to keep their motives secret? Just show us their motives and do something with them instead of implying something is there but we are not going to show it to you.

His response was that the mystery was a way to control how much information is given to the viewer. Without it, the show would be a documentary, full of long exposition dumps. A slow progression on the other hand, keeps the revelations far from one another and maintains the intrigue for many books. In other words he does the same mistake so many others do when it comes to expectations.

I have talked about this issue in previous topics, where I named it anticipation schlock and mystery box. It’s when the only thing a show does to keep you watching, is promising the revelation of a mystery or the explanation of a motive at some point in the far future. And when it finally does, it ends without doing anything with said revelation or explanation. That’s so lame. Why don’t you tell us how the world works early on, and then spend the series in showing us how it slowly evolves through the events? Why not tells us right away the motives of the characters, and then spend the series in how they develop and learn?

The mystery aspect is only there to prevent progression. You also don’t watch the series for the world or the characters but rather for the sake of getting answers. And when the answers finally come you will most likely be disappointed because they were either predictable or were not what you expected. You are not going to like them either way. You can’t even say you enjoyed the series for the journey instead of the destination because there is no journey. The characters are stuck in the same area or are going in circles without ever telling us their motives, since the guilty guy must remain hidden. How can there be immersion to the setting when we know so little about it? How can we like the characters when we also know so little about them?

And if one series was not enough to prove my point, think of recent titles which also had a mystery aspect to them (Game of Laplace, The Perfect Insider, Sakurako`s Investigation). Does it flesh out the characters or is it simply chewing away time from every episode? I personally don’t give a shit about any of these series because the characters are kept dull or the cases are stand-alones. I find the mystery aspect to be a hindrance, with those who like it, suffering from what I described in the past as dopamine blue balls. That is, being addicted to anticipation and a promise of answers that will just leave them disappointed.

If you check my top anime list you will find two titles that have mystery in them. I like them because over there the mystery is adding to what is going. In Death Note the viewer knows what is going on. We know who the guilty guy is, how he does it, and who is trying to stop him. They even explain most of their plans before they execute them. The mystery exists only in-series; the characters are trying to reveal something we already know about. This is what was making the mind games more thrilling, we could see their train of thought and how the events were affecting them.

In Monster we don’t know the motives of the guilty guy but the protagonist is constantly moving to different areas and learns more about the secondary characters. The show goes in circles and it’s way longer than it needs to be but it’s not stuck in the same area with character who don’t reveal anything, and furthermore they indirectly tell you information about the villain.

Good mystery keeps things going; it’s like a light bulb that attracts the bugs that are the characters. Most scriptwriters though use it only as a fancy Christmas gift box, full of ribbons and shit. You wait for days, going in circles while staring it under the tree, and when you eventually open it, you are left disappointed with the content and realize you could have spent those hours going in circles far more creatively. If you expect me to like mystery shows, don’t treat mystery as hindrance. I am not a blue ball dopamine junkie.

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Someone on reddit made a topic on what makes a mystery anime good. I liked those tips, so I will present them to you, as means to learn what good writing is all about.

It is forbidden for the culprit to be anyone not mentioned in the early part of the story. If it’s someone who appears at the end of the story, then there is no pay off. It’s just some guy we barely know of.

It is forbidden for hidden passages to exist. That is, the method the culprit used being some area we had no idea it existed up until the mystery was solved. This is similar with a following tip where it is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not presented. Withholding crucial information from the viewer so he won’t be able to solve the mystery before the ending is weak.

It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used. This means the solution can’t be futuristic technology or magic the detective has no knowledge about. The solution is supposed to be based on logical evidence, not something supernatural that cannot be explained with reason.

It is forbidden for accident or intuition to be employed as a detective technique. That means no sudden epiphanies or accidentally finding the solution by tripping on the culprit. It makes everything cheap and convenient.

It is forbidden for the detective to be the culprit. Because it would be a major troll if he is. He is not solving a mystery, he knows who did it and pretends he is solving it.

It is permitted for observers to let their own conclusions and interpretations be heard. Biases and personal opinions are what make any mystery interesting. It is boring if everybody sounds like he is objective and impartial.

It is forbidden for a character to disguise themselves as another without any clues. That is, a mystery cannot be solved just because the detective pretends to be an ally of the culprit, so he can feel safe and reveal everything with an infodump. That’s not detective work, that’s bullshit.

And now I will add a tip that is similar with the previous one. A mystery is not allowed to be solved just because the culprit can’t keep his mouth shut when he thinks he won. Having the detective cornered and the villain explaining everything before attempting to kill him means the detective didn’t solve anything.

Keep these in mind and try to find an anime with mystery that didn’t fuck up in any of these.