9 ms·

Chekhov's Gun

93 points by void_nill 6y ago

iso947 6y ago
He used a phaser
- Koshkin 6y ago
  Wrong thread.
  - duxup 6y ago
    I like to think it is more wrong website.
- celticninja 6y ago
  phaser? I hardly know her.
kbenson 6y ago
Well, if you want a much more in-depth discussion (at least if you follow the links...) with examples than Wikipedia, you could do a lot worse than checking tvtropes.org.[1] P.S. Sorry in advance for the loss in productivity to anyone that clicks though and doesn't know what they're in for... 1: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun
- RaycatRakittra 6y ago
  +1 for all statements regarding TVTropes. It isn't "just a click", trust.
  - moon2 6y ago
    Sure isn't just a click. Once you get in, you can never get out of a rabbit hole of hyperlinks. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuin...
    - baxtr 6y ago
      For F*cks sake. I didn’t know that page until now. I already got lost reading 4 articles in a row. Thanks for ruining my life
      - moon2 6y ago
        You can be optimistic and read this one https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SugarWiki/TVTropesWillEnhanceYourLife https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SugarWiki/TVTropesWil...
    - detaro 6y ago
      > These steps will help: > - Stay away from tabbed browsing. really good suggestion!
- brandmeyer 6y ago
  tvtropes covers so much ground, that I don't know where to start on this one, but maybe you can help me out. There is a category of story device that goes so far as to become more of a storytelling crutch. Or a wheelchair. Some examples from Star Trek that come to mind (since I'm re-watching TNG right about now): - Holodeck: Totally new environments on a whim! Just in case FTL travel wasn't enough! - Troi's empathy sense. Why script and act your way to communicate a character's emotional state when she can just tell you! - Multiple-universes time travel. Why stick with an existing world and its background when you can just replace it! - Technobabble. Solves any problem! Causes any problem! - The Q. Omnipotence itself! To be fair, Voyager did manage to tell some better stories with this one.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    There's definitely a middle ground with tropes, but I think it's also era dependent (and likely cyclical). Some tropes have periods in time when they come into heavy use because people are enjoying them (or there's a new twist to be done with new technological, cultural or social changes), and then become overused a too "tropey" because everyone starts recognizing them. I suspect there may have been a different level of acceptability to some of those tropes (or those tropes in that genre) at the time that series first aired, possibly because of a dearth of good science fiction on TV.
    - SilverCurve 6y ago
      I agree. There may be tropes that right now we want to see more, but in a few years will be viewed as "tropey".
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    While those are plot conveniences, it's still possible to create a good story using those tropes. In fact, some would argue that some of those tropes are what make Star Trek great. Good episodes have come from including the holodeck, Troi(yes, I would say that "Face of the Enemy" was pretty good), time travel and multiple-universes, technobabble, and Q. Chekov's Gun can rarely, if ever, improve a story. While a lot of people seem to fall for Chekov's Gun, I don't think that those who are aware of it usually consider it to be a mark of a good story. At worst, it's obvious that the writer is bullshitting its audience. Chekov's Gun is just one of the many reasons why Abrams/Kurtzman Star Trek is basically on fire right now. > - Multiple-universes time travel. Why stick with an existing world and its background when you can just replace it! I don't think people are bothered by time travel plots because of the infinite possibilities to change the setting. They dislike time travel because it's usually too easy to travel through time, and shows or movies rarely adhere to any consistent time travel mechanics. Time travel stories are good at conveying high stakes, but they almost always lack any real consequences. When someone brings up time travel as a solution, nobody ever says "You know, the last time we traveled through time, we all nearly got killed and almost destroyed the universe."
msoucy 6y ago
I saw this a while ago, and knew it would come back to haunt me.
duxup 6y ago
I wonder how this plays out in mystery stories where there is what seems to be intentional misdirection where you are lead to believe someone might be the killer, but they're not. Granted some things like "nobody liked him" could be still relevant to the overall story, but particularly in film or TV I find those bits of misdirection common, but also kind of annoying.
- russdill 6y ago
  The trope has a way of becoming overly predictable. Whenever I'm watching a mystery and there is an inconsequential detail that seems to serve no purpose, I immediately know to focus on that.
  - duxup 6y ago
    I suppose that's the reason for the misdirection... although I usually find it sort of annoying after the fact. But it is just entertainment.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Yeah, I'm starting to have this with all movies and TV shows. I mentally keep track of "inconsequential details", and get worried when some of them don't seem to be mentioned again for a while.
- antjanus 6y ago
  1Q84 subverts Chekhov's Gun in a fantastic way. It partially breaks 4th wall but it also somehow illustrates that real life doesn't abide by Chekhov's Gun. It's not a mystery per se but it deals with a lot of unknowns and protagonists finding out information that changes their world-view as they go through the story. It's a great trilogy/book.
Brendinooo 6y ago
Nice to have a term for this. Thanks. I used to think that it would be nice to have characters and plots that didn't really matter in a story, until I saw it happen a few times and I didn't like it at all. Guess he was on to something.
moon2 6y ago
Chekhov's Gun is a determining trope on "Frankenstein's Monster's Monster, Frankenstein". Quite literally, actually. There's a real gun at the beginning of the movie.
julianeon 6y ago
Related: if a new hire comes to your company and it's rumored that heads will roll, consider refreshing your contacts at other companies and replying back to 'are you interested' emails.
ErikAugust 6y ago
Well, except for the intentional red herring, right?
lihaciudaniel 6y ago
Once you read this article, it will ruin every book, movie and TV show you watch.
- ColanR 6y ago
  It's become too frequently used. You don't even need to read the article to have noticed it in play in way too many movies and shows.
rosywoozlechan 6y ago
I like when little things have subplots of their own in movies, like the tale of the boot in Fury Road.
k00b 6y ago
It's really fun to call out Chekhov Guns while watching movies with a group. You appear clairvoyant.
- soylentcola 6y ago
  Or in my case, I just annoy my SO. ME: "Oh, you know that (x) is gonna (y) before this episode is over...they just have to! It's Chekhov's (x)!" HER: :groan: :rolleyes:
  - k00b 6y ago
    Lol so true
ent101 6y ago
One of the reasons the final season of GOT was so bad is because there were a lot of Chekhov's guns that never went off...
- dehrmann 6y ago
  No one wanted to see Tyrion and Sansa fight the corpse of Ned Stark.
- soylentcola 6y ago
  They also left out several that still may or may not go off in the novels. The "Horn of Joramun" comes to mind but I guess that could still do its thing if the books ever get to that point. The show just had it happen another way.
dang 6y ago
See also from 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541508
Chathamization 6y ago
I've never been a fan of Chekhov's gun. Interactions and details that aren't directly connected to the main plot do a good job at giving the world texture and making it feel alive. Fiction that does away with too many unrelated details (and I'd argue a lot of fiction does this) often feels artificial and empty to me.
- stupidcar 6y ago
  What's more, when prose is too tight, any extraneous detail immediately stands out, and you automatically start wondering why the author mentioned it.
  - ColanR 6y ago
    More like, you immediately start guessing how the author will use it in the story.
- kbenson 6y ago
  There's a line, and it's different for different people. For example, for me Neal Stephenson plays right along that line pretty heavily, but does it well. He fills his stories with so many digressions and tangents about what the ramifications of the things he's envisioned are, that you're never quire sure whether he's rambling, of if this tangent it going to be one of the few that's integral to understanding the weird resolution he has planned at the end, and not just a fun bit of world building.
- cambalache 6y ago
  Chekhov wrote plays and specially short-stories. Different beasts from novels.
ckemere 6y ago
When I teach my students how to write academic papers, I always refer them to this statement. Basically, don't raise questions you're not going to resolve (unless in the discussion) and alternatively, raise questions that you will resolve. There may be an equivalent principle for prose, but I'm not aware of it. I read a paper recently where every figure made me ask a question that the next figure resolved. "Neurons specifically represent barriers! What happens if a door opens up and there is now a path? What happens if the barrier starts lowering into the ground until you can walk over it? What happens if it floats up into the air and you can walk under it?" It was truly beautiful.
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  And when I read such a paper it is truly a delight!
legohead 6y ago
I like the concept but in many cases it ends up being annoying/distracting. I'll see something innocuous in a movie or video game, and immediately think "welp, that's going to be an issue later."
qwerty456127 6y ago
What if something is there just for sake of creating proper atmosphere?
iso947 6y ago
The problem, with both Chekhov’s gun and the All is lost moment is once you see them, you can’t unsee them.
pierremenard 6y ago
Useful, but not universal. Efficiency is not the point of storytelling. Some details might not appear to have led anywhere in the story, but could have been there for texture, subtext or symbolism. Chekhov's minimal, efficient, realist style is unique to him and complements his tone and content, but it's not a necessary condition for good writing. Consider Nabokov's short story Symbols and Signs (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-signs https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-si...) which is beautiful purely because of subtext and texture.
- narag 6y ago
  It seems more relevant for movies and tv, where the camera often points to the gun very noticeably. I enjoy showing off as a prophet simply paying attention to that.
api 6y ago
I find this is one thing I use in reverse to get a sense of whether something is likely to be fictional. Real experiences are chock full of irrelevant details and false leads that go nowhere. Fiction usually ties things up neatly.
dzink 6y ago
Game of Thrones owed part of its success to not following this principle. I think when most works of fiction and Hollywood leave no detail unused, they lose unpredictability. Over time the audience will talk about shows that stand out from the crowd and Game of Thrones left enough details out to keep its outcome unpredictable to the very end. Had they not run into the budget and time constraints, they could have continued the show for much longer than we got.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  It's success was more around its character development and the setting. It set up a lot of things that looked like they'd be used later, but while there were seasons left, people actually gobbled it up. Then the author/writers realized they wouldn't be able to tie up all the loose ends they left, and definitely not in two seasons, so it was unsatisfying. It also meant they were tying up loose ends and not spending time on the character development that made the show.
  - kochikame 6y ago
    Same with Lost back in the day. They littered the first few seasons with all these potentially mind-blowing things and events... and then just never did anything with them. At all. It’s like they knew about Chekhov’s gun and deliberately decided to blow it off in the biggest way possible.
    - soylentcola 6y ago
      Yeah, I still love that show and will recommend it to people who haven't seen it yet (or at least to fans of genre fiction like that) but it was frustrating for sure. Speaking of Lost, I re-watched it with my SO last year because she had never seen it. It's weird how so much of the format has become the standard for network TV drama/adventure/mystery/scifi shows. There were multiple points where she just didn't see the big deal and I had to point out how there just weren't many shows that did things like this back then. I checked TVTropes but it's not on the list of "Seinfeld is unfunny" examples. Same concept though.
aazaa 6y ago
This has ruined many movies for me. But here's a thread that talks about movies/TV shows in which the gun was never fired: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/64x53j/whats_the_most_disappointing_unfired_chekhovs_gun/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/64x53j/whats_the... Funny quote: > Lost was a Chekhov's Gatling gun
Strilanc 6y ago
I wonder if there's an analogy between a schizophrenic looking at reality and a savy movie goer looking at a movie. There's certainly something a bit deranged to "movie logic". This random object can't be for nothing, it will be the linchpin later! Why would that street sign keep showing up if it wasn't incredibly important? Maybe the killer lives on that street!
- dsego 6y ago
  You are describing ideas and delusions of reference.
- elihu 6y ago
  I think that's actually something that movies and video games have in common. If you find a random key in real life, it's very unlikely to be useful. If you find a key in game while exploring a dungeon, you can be pretty sure there's a locked door you'll want it for somewhere later on. (I remember an old blog post Eskil Steenberg I read years ago about game design and procedural generation that talked about this; specifically, about the difference in the feel of the game between making sure there's only one solution to every problem, or allowing for some degree of flexibility so that the player is sometimes able to achieve their goals in unexpected ways.)
hpoe 6y ago
So one of the best books I ever read about storytelling is Orson Scot Card's Characters & Viewpoints. He points out that there are 4 types of stories. - Milieu: Stories about a setting. - Character: Stories about a person. - Event: Stories about an event. - Idea: Stories that explore an idea. Each one has a different point and appeals to a different set of people. What he stresses is focus on what type of story you are trying to tell and stick with that, revolve around that. I think that Chekhov's Gun falls under the similar idea. One of my favorite authors Brandon Sanderson has a books series that is a character story; however he often talks about seemingly insignificant world building details that don't seem relevant to the story, but he always manages to tie them back to how it effects the characters or what impact it has on their personality. Thus even though some people would consider random religious observances in the story Checkhov's gun they instead add to the story because they flesh out the characters and help make them more real.
jeffdavis 6y ago
Interesting point about a style, but it sounds like the kind of rule that's meant to be broken. The specific point about a gun seems even worse. It's cliche to show a gun early on that leads to some tragedy later, and bothers me when I see that done in a TV show/movie. It ties too much into an inanimate object when they could be developing a character. And in a lot of settings, guns are all around and have little to do with the actual story.
copperx 6y ago
This annoys me greatly in commercial movies because often it makes the plot predictable. Most of the things that you see are consequential to the plot, so there are no surprises.
- ColanR 6y ago
  This is exactly the comment I was about to make. It becomes a relatively simple mental exercise to guess the possible effects of each item in the scene on the plot. I think many of the better movies out there are known for adding details that do not play into the plot, but which are there more for art's sake. It's something that is usually appreciated where it occurs, and it definitely improves the quality of the movie.
  - petervm 6y ago
    But it's pretty satisfying when details are still relevant but simply misleading or difficult to put together. In my opinion, that's the ideal scenario. It's ok for superfluous details to be there for the sake of texture but depending on how it's done, it may cause the script to lose its "tightness". Westworld is one of my favorite shows because I think it accomplishes this very well (S01 and S02, not S03). There are a myriad of details, you get the feeling they'll be important but there's simply so much to keep track of that it's very difficult for it to become predictable and boring.
    - ColanR 6y ago
      Westworld is one of my favorite shows as well. (Have you seen Person of Interest? Same director, similar themes later on around S3-4) I think you're right, that westworld doesn't have a lot of superfluous details - but the degree of plot complexity required to make use of all the details it contains has led some critics to call it convoluted. On the other hand, the Lord of the Rings trilogy - the movies are full to bursting with strange details that never make any difference to the story. Bilbo's birthday party is one immediate example - there's a bare minimum needed to establish some characters, and then on top of that are details just there for the sake of themselves.
_peeley 6y ago
Learning about this trope has, to some effect, ruined some movies for me. The most recent example I can think of is (spoilers?) Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. As soon as I saw DiCaprio's character putting a flamethrower away into his shed, I just knew that there would be some ridiculous climax featuring the flamethrower being used in some way, which kind of ruined the surprise and spectacle of the scene.
salamanderman 6y ago
In the Harry Potter series, Rowling makes a conspicuous mention of the diadem in book 5 and it never pays off in the book. It seemed so strange to me. When it returned in the 7th book I literally yelped with joy.
aaron695 6y ago
Cheap lazy writing would be another way to look at it. Does any one actually think this is good? Do any good writers defend it? I'd put it up there with canned laughter. A cheap hack. I'd prefer a world it wasn't needed because writers were good at their art.
thedanbob 6y ago
This was one of the reasons I didn’t like the book A Canticle for Leibowitz. (Minor spoilers) There’s one character that keeps reappearing throughout the hundreds of years spanned by the story, and you get the impression that this guy is going to be really important at the end. And then no payoff whatsoever. I’m sure that was deliberate as it fits in well with the overall theme of the book, but it was still infuriating.

Chekhov's Gun

93 points by void_nill 6y ago

iso947 6y ago

He used a phaser

Koshkin 6y ago
Wrong thread.
- duxup 6y ago
  I like to think it is more wrong website.
celticninja 6y ago
phaser? I hardly know her.

kbenson 6y ago

Well, if you want a much more in-depth discussion (at least if you follow the links...) with examples than Wikipedia, you could do a lot worse than checking tvtropes.org.[1] P.S. Sorry in advance for the loss in productivity to anyone that clicks though and doesn't know what they're in for... 1: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun

RaycatRakittra 6y ago
+1 for all statements regarding TVTropes. It isn't "just a click", trust.
- moon2 6y ago
  Sure isn't just a click. Once you get in, you can never get out of a rabbit hole of hyperlinks. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuin...
  - baxtr 6y ago
    For F*cks sake. I didn’t know that page until now. I already got lost reading 4 articles in a row. Thanks for ruining my life
    - moon2 6y ago
      You can be optimistic and read this one https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SugarWiki/TVTropesWillEnhanceYourLife https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SugarWiki/TVTropesWil...
  - detaro 6y ago
    > These steps will help: > - Stay away from tabbed browsing. really good suggestion!
brandmeyer 6y ago
tvtropes covers so much ground, that I don't know where to start on this one, but maybe you can help me out. There is a category of story device that goes so far as to become more of a storytelling crutch. Or a wheelchair. Some examples from Star Trek that come to mind (since I'm re-watching TNG right about now): - Holodeck: Totally new environments on a whim! Just in case FTL travel wasn't enough! - Troi's empathy sense. Why script and act your way to communicate a character's emotional state when she can just tell you! - Multiple-universes time travel. Why stick with an existing world and its background when you can just replace it! - Technobabble. Solves any problem! Causes any problem! - The Q. Omnipotence itself! To be fair, Voyager did manage to tell some better stories with this one.
- kbenson 6y ago
  There's definitely a middle ground with tropes, but I think it's also era dependent (and likely cyclical). Some tropes have periods in time when they come into heavy use because people are enjoying them (or there's a new twist to be done with new technological, cultural or social changes), and then become overused a too "tropey" because everyone starts recognizing them. I suspect there may have been a different level of acceptability to some of those tropes (or those tropes in that genre) at the time that series first aired, possibly because of a dearth of good science fiction on TV.
  - SilverCurve 6y ago
    I agree. There may be tropes that right now we want to see more, but in a few years will be viewed as "tropey".
- ravenstine 6y ago
  While those are plot conveniences, it's still possible to create a good story using those tropes. In fact, some would argue that some of those tropes are what make Star Trek great. Good episodes have come from including the holodeck, Troi(yes, I would say that "Face of the Enemy" was pretty good), time travel and multiple-universes, technobabble, and Q. Chekov's Gun can rarely, if ever, improve a story. While a lot of people seem to fall for Chekov's Gun, I don't think that those who are aware of it usually consider it to be a mark of a good story. At worst, it's obvious that the writer is bullshitting its audience. Chekov's Gun is just one of the many reasons why Abrams/Kurtzman Star Trek is basically on fire right now. > - Multiple-universes time travel. Why stick with an existing world and its background when you can just replace it! I don't think people are bothered by time travel plots because of the infinite possibilities to change the setting. They dislike time travel because it's usually too easy to travel through time, and shows or movies rarely adhere to any consistent time travel mechanics. Time travel stories are good at conveying high stakes, but they almost always lack any real consequences. When someone brings up time travel as a solution, nobody ever says "You know, the last time we traveled through time, we all nearly got killed and almost destroyed the universe."

msoucy 6y ago

I saw this a while ago, and knew it would come back to haunt me.

duxup 6y ago

I wonder how this plays out in mystery stories where there is what seems to be intentional misdirection where you are lead to believe someone might be the killer, but they're not. Granted some things like "nobody liked him" could be still relevant to the overall story, but particularly in film or TV I find those bits of misdirection common, but also kind of annoying.

russdill 6y ago
The trope has a way of becoming overly predictable. Whenever I'm watching a mystery and there is an inconsequential detail that seems to serve no purpose, I immediately know to focus on that.
- duxup 6y ago
  I suppose that's the reason for the misdirection... although I usually find it sort of annoying after the fact. But it is just entertainment.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm starting to have this with all movies and TV shows. I mentally keep track of "inconsequential details", and get worried when some of them don't seem to be mentioned again for a while.
antjanus 6y ago
1Q84 subverts Chekhov's Gun in a fantastic way. It partially breaks 4th wall but it also somehow illustrates that real life doesn't abide by Chekhov's Gun. It's not a mystery per se but it deals with a lot of unknowns and protagonists finding out information that changes their world-view as they go through the story. It's a great trilogy/book.

Brendinooo 6y ago

Nice to have a term for this. Thanks. I used to think that it would be nice to have characters and plots that didn't really matter in a story, until I saw it happen a few times and I didn't like it at all. Guess he was on to something.

moon2 6y ago

Chekhov's Gun is a determining trope on "Frankenstein's Monster's Monster, Frankenstein". Quite literally, actually. There's a real gun at the beginning of the movie.

julianeon 6y ago

Related: if a new hire comes to your company and it's rumored that heads will roll, consider refreshing your contacts at other companies and replying back to 'are you interested' emails.

ErikAugust 6y ago

Well, except for the intentional red herring, right?

lihaciudaniel 6y ago

Once you read this article, it will ruin every book, movie and TV show you watch.

ColanR 6y ago
It's become too frequently used. You don't even need to read the article to have noticed it in play in way too many movies and shows.

rosywoozlechan 6y ago

I like when little things have subplots of their own in movies, like the tale of the boot in Fury Road.

k00b 6y ago

It's really fun to call out Chekhov Guns while watching movies with a group. You appear clairvoyant.

soylentcola 6y ago
Or in my case, I just annoy my SO. ME: "Oh, you know that (x) is gonna (y) before this episode is over...they just have to! It's Chekhov's (x)!" HER: :groan: :rolleyes:
- k00b 6y ago
  Lol so true

ent101 6y ago

One of the reasons the final season of GOT was so bad is because there were a lot of Chekhov's guns that never went off...

dehrmann 6y ago
No one wanted to see Tyrion and Sansa fight the corpse of Ned Stark.
soylentcola 6y ago
They also left out several that still may or may not go off in the novels. The "Horn of Joramun" comes to mind but I guess that could still do its thing if the books ever get to that point. The show just had it happen another way.

dang 6y ago

See also from 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541508

Chathamization 6y ago

I've never been a fan of Chekhov's gun. Interactions and details that aren't directly connected to the main plot do a good job at giving the world texture and making it feel alive. Fiction that does away with too many unrelated details (and I'd argue a lot of fiction does this) often feels artificial and empty to me.

stupidcar 6y ago
What's more, when prose is too tight, any extraneous detail immediately stands out, and you automatically start wondering why the author mentioned it.
- ColanR 6y ago
  More like, you immediately start guessing how the author will use it in the story.
kbenson 6y ago
There's a line, and it's different for different people. For example, for me Neal Stephenson plays right along that line pretty heavily, but does it well. He fills his stories with so many digressions and tangents about what the ramifications of the things he's envisioned are, that you're never quire sure whether he's rambling, of if this tangent it going to be one of the few that's integral to understanding the weird resolution he has planned at the end, and not just a fun bit of world building.
cambalache 6y ago
Chekhov wrote plays and specially short-stories. Different beasts from novels.

ckemere 6y ago

When I teach my students how to write academic papers, I always refer them to this statement. Basically, don't raise questions you're not going to resolve (unless in the discussion) and alternatively, raise questions that you will resolve. There may be an equivalent principle for prose, but I'm not aware of it. I read a paper recently where every figure made me ask a question that the next figure resolved. "Neurons specifically represent barriers! What happens if a door opens up and there is now a path? What happens if the barrier starts lowering into the ground until you can walk over it? What happens if it floats up into the air and you can walk under it?" It was truly beautiful.

ChuckMcM 6y ago
And when I read such a paper it is truly a delight!

legohead 6y ago

I like the concept but in many cases it ends up being annoying/distracting. I'll see something innocuous in a movie or video game, and immediately think "welp, that's going to be an issue later."

qwerty456127 6y ago

What if something is there just for sake of creating proper atmosphere?

iso947 6y ago

The problem, with both Chekhov’s gun and the All is lost moment is once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

pierremenard 6y ago

Useful, but not universal. Efficiency is not the point of storytelling. Some details might not appear to have led anywhere in the story, but could have been there for texture, subtext or symbolism. Chekhov's minimal, efficient, realist style is unique to him and complements his tone and content, but it's not a necessary condition for good writing. Consider Nabokov's short story Symbols and Signs (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-signs https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-si...) which is beautiful purely because of subtext and texture.

narag 6y ago
It seems more relevant for movies and tv, where the camera often points to the gun very noticeably. I enjoy showing off as a prophet simply paying attention to that.

api 6y ago

I find this is one thing I use in reverse to get a sense of whether something is likely to be fictional. Real experiences are chock full of irrelevant details and false leads that go nowhere. Fiction usually ties things up neatly.

dzink 6y ago

Game of Thrones owed part of its success to not following this principle. I think when most works of fiction and Hollywood leave no detail unused, they lose unpredictability. Over time the audience will talk about shows that stand out from the crowd and Game of Thrones left enough details out to keep its outcome unpredictable to the very end. Had they not run into the budget and time constraints, they could have continued the show for much longer than we got.

dehrmann 6y ago
It's success was more around its character development and the setting. It set up a lot of things that looked like they'd be used later, but while there were seasons left, people actually gobbled it up. Then the author/writers realized they wouldn't be able to tie up all the loose ends they left, and definitely not in two seasons, so it was unsatisfying. It also meant they were tying up loose ends and not spending time on the character development that made the show.
- kochikame 6y ago
  Same with Lost back in the day. They littered the first few seasons with all these potentially mind-blowing things and events... and then just never did anything with them. At all. It’s like they knew about Chekhov’s gun and deliberately decided to blow it off in the biggest way possible.
  - soylentcola 6y ago
    Yeah, I still love that show and will recommend it to people who haven't seen it yet (or at least to fans of genre fiction like that) but it was frustrating for sure. Speaking of Lost, I re-watched it with my SO last year because she had never seen it. It's weird how so much of the format has become the standard for network TV drama/adventure/mystery/scifi shows. There were multiple points where she just didn't see the big deal and I had to point out how there just weren't many shows that did things like this back then. I checked TVTropes but it's not on the list of "Seinfeld is unfunny" examples. Same concept though.

aazaa 6y ago

This has ruined many movies for me. But here's a thread that talks about movies/TV shows in which the gun was never fired: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/64x53j/whats_the_most_disappointing_unfired_chekhovs_gun/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/64x53j/whats_the... Funny quote: > Lost was a Chekhov's Gatling gun

Strilanc 6y ago

I wonder if there's an analogy between a schizophrenic looking at reality and a savy movie goer looking at a movie. There's certainly something a bit deranged to "movie logic". This random object can't be for nothing, it will be the linchpin later! Why would that street sign keep showing up if it wasn't incredibly important? Maybe the killer lives on that street!

dsego 6y ago
You are describing ideas and delusions of reference.
elihu 6y ago
I think that's actually something that movies and video games have in common. If you find a random key in real life, it's very unlikely to be useful. If you find a key in game while exploring a dungeon, you can be pretty sure there's a locked door you'll want it for somewhere later on. (I remember an old blog post Eskil Steenberg I read years ago about game design and procedural generation that talked about this; specifically, about the difference in the feel of the game between making sure there's only one solution to every problem, or allowing for some degree of flexibility so that the player is sometimes able to achieve their goals in unexpected ways.)

hpoe 6y ago

So one of the best books I ever read about storytelling is Orson Scot Card's Characters & Viewpoints. He points out that there are 4 types of stories. - Milieu: Stories about a setting. - Character: Stories about a person. - Event: Stories about an event. - Idea: Stories that explore an idea. Each one has a different point and appeals to a different set of people. What he stresses is focus on what type of story you are trying to tell and stick with that, revolve around that. I think that Chekhov's Gun falls under the similar idea. One of my favorite authors Brandon Sanderson has a books series that is a character story; however he often talks about seemingly insignificant world building details that don't seem relevant to the story, but he always manages to tie them back to how it effects the characters or what impact it has on their personality. Thus even though some people would consider random religious observances in the story Checkhov's gun they instead add to the story because they flesh out the characters and help make them more real.

jeffdavis 6y ago

Interesting point about a style, but it sounds like the kind of rule that's meant to be broken. The specific point about a gun seems even worse. It's cliche to show a gun early on that leads to some tragedy later, and bothers me when I see that done in a TV show/movie. It ties too much into an inanimate object when they could be developing a character. And in a lot of settings, guns are all around and have little to do with the actual story.

copperx 6y ago

This annoys me greatly in commercial movies because often it makes the plot predictable. Most of the things that you see are consequential to the plot, so there are no surprises.

ColanR 6y ago
This is exactly the comment I was about to make. It becomes a relatively simple mental exercise to guess the possible effects of each item in the scene on the plot. I think many of the better movies out there are known for adding details that do not play into the plot, but which are there more for art's sake. It's something that is usually appreciated where it occurs, and it definitely improves the quality of the movie.
- petervm 6y ago
  But it's pretty satisfying when details are still relevant but simply misleading or difficult to put together. In my opinion, that's the ideal scenario. It's ok for superfluous details to be there for the sake of texture but depending on how it's done, it may cause the script to lose its "tightness". Westworld is one of my favorite shows because I think it accomplishes this very well (S01 and S02, not S03). There are a myriad of details, you get the feeling they'll be important but there's simply so much to keep track of that it's very difficult for it to become predictable and boring.
  - ColanR 6y ago
    Westworld is one of my favorite shows as well. (Have you seen Person of Interest? Same director, similar themes later on around S3-4) I think you're right, that westworld doesn't have a lot of superfluous details - but the degree of plot complexity required to make use of all the details it contains has led some critics to call it convoluted. On the other hand, the Lord of the Rings trilogy - the movies are full to bursting with strange details that never make any difference to the story. Bilbo's birthday party is one immediate example - there's a bare minimum needed to establish some characters, and then on top of that are details just there for the sake of themselves.

_peeley 6y ago

Learning about this trope has, to some effect, ruined some movies for me. The most recent example I can think of is (spoilers?) Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. As soon as I saw DiCaprio's character putting a flamethrower away into his shed, I just knew that there would be some ridiculous climax featuring the flamethrower being used in some way, which kind of ruined the surprise and spectacle of the scene.

salamanderman 6y ago

In the Harry Potter series, Rowling makes a conspicuous mention of the diadem in book 5 and it never pays off in the book. It seemed so strange to me. When it returned in the 7th book I literally yelped with joy.

aaron695 6y ago

Cheap lazy writing would be another way to look at it. Does any one actually think this is good? Do any good writers defend it? I'd put it up there with canned laughter. A cheap hack. I'd prefer a world it wasn't needed because writers were good at their art.

thedanbob 6y ago

This was one of the reasons I didn’t like the book A Canticle for Leibowitz. (Minor spoilers) There’s one character that keeps reappearing throughout the hundreds of years spanned by the story, and you get the impression that this guy is going to be really important at the end. And then no payoff whatsoever. I’m sure that was deliberate as it fits in well with the overall theme of the book, but it was still infuriating.