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Comment by legohead | Hacker News Reader

Similar to his theory, I've noticed that for there to be a great achievement by the protagonist, there has to be a great suffering first. Once I noticed this pattern, it has ruined a lot of shows for me. I can't sympathize with characters, because I know this is just part of the formula and they will soon be achieving greatness.

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Suffering through and overcoming challenges on the way to victory/triumph/transformation is as old as the earliest myths, and is often called "The Hero's Journey": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

If you want to learn more, you might enjoy Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces

Blockbuster movies were ruined for me when I read "Save the cat". I then went on to ruin them for others by recommending the book :-)

In all honesty though, the most enjoyment I get from large-budget movies now is the visual effects. The plot is basically the same shape: all 21 of the Marvel movies have the same basic shape, and that is because that shape sells really well.

Same for me except I started to notice characters that get no or very little backstory. Then I just sit and wait for them to die. Stupid brain.

In particular if it's a serialized piece, like episodic television, and you meet "an old friend" of a major protagonist character (or in Star Trek a commissioned officer on the finitely-staffed ship) they've never mentioned before, the new character often literally exists to be a source of adversity and loss for the major character.

This is Ebert's "Law of Economy of Characters" - "Movie budgets make it impossible for any film to contain unnecessary characters. Therefore, all characters in a movie are necessary to the story—even those who do not seem to be."

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