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Chekhov's gun treatment can remove an element of surprise, or worse, reveal whole plot-line. It's a convention that is an art in itself, too much and too littl

Chekhov's gun treatment can remove an element of surprise, or worse, reveal whole plot-line. It's a convention that is an art in itself, too much and too little can ruin the experience.

nicbou 5y ago
Properly blending it in is a form of art, and a surprise in itself. For example, [spoilers] the rock hammer in The Shawshank Redemption, or more literally, the rifle on the wall in Shaun Of The Dead. A good gun makes you go "oooooh!" On the other hand, building up readers' expectations with details that turn out to be irrelevant is just deception. See the last season of Game of Thrones, for instance. All those characters that were carefully built over the last seasons get discarded without any explanation. There's sometimes stuff like that in Tarantino movie, like the outlaw lady in Django.
- Ieghaehia9 5y ago
  Discarding with explanation can sometimes be used to effect too. For example, suppose a character sends a spy to accomplish an objective. Meanwhile, another group of people are also trying to do this, which will benefit the main character, although the main character is unaware of this. The second group gets there first, and even though there was considerable buildup to the spy's mission, in the end, his presence doesn't matter (much). If you want as lean a story as possible, you would cut out the spy's mission altogether, but its presence gives a sense of realism, because the character in the story doesn't know ahead of time that sending the spy would be redundant.
- SilasX 5y ago
  I'm pretty much alone in the world in thinking this, but I consider the rock hammer in Shawshank to be a bad execution of Chekhov's Gun, albeit for reasons unrelated to the core logic of that rule. Basically, Shawshank clearly establishes itself as having a gritty, realistic tone, where shit happens for reasons that have no cosmic significance or relation to your epic hero arc. Specifically, when that prisoner turns out to be a witness who can clear Andy, and just suddenly gets shot by avaricious guards who don't care about the injustice. (If it hadn't been already, Red's final parole speech cements that tone.) It's a huge betrayal of that when you turn around and say "oh man, if you just belieeeeeeeve in yourself hard enough you can somehow make a figurine carving tool last 100x longer than is realistically possible and accomplish major excavation work, it's all about your force of will". (Similar complaint about Interstellar, which commits to hard sci-fi enough to include an expensive, photo-realistic black hole, and doubles back and resolve the plot with "ah man we just have to tap into the mysterious fifth-dimensional power of love!")

Chekhov's gun treatment can remove an element of surprise, or worse, reveal whole plot-line. It's a convention that is an art in itself, too much and too little can ruin the experience.

nicbou 5y ago

Properly blending it in is a form of art, and a surprise in itself. For example, [spoilers] the rock hammer in The Shawshank Redemption, or more literally, the rifle on the wall in Shaun Of The Dead. A good gun makes you go "oooooh!" On the other hand, building up readers' expectations with details that turn out to be irrelevant is just deception. See the last season of Game of Thrones, for instance. All those characters that were carefully built over the last seasons get discarded without any explanation. There's sometimes stuff like that in Tarantino movie, like the outlaw lady in Django.

Ieghaehia9 5y ago
Discarding with explanation can sometimes be used to effect too. For example, suppose a character sends a spy to accomplish an objective. Meanwhile, another group of people are also trying to do this, which will benefit the main character, although the main character is unaware of this. The second group gets there first, and even though there was considerable buildup to the spy's mission, in the end, his presence doesn't matter (much). If you want as lean a story as possible, you would cut out the spy's mission altogether, but its presence gives a sense of realism, because the character in the story doesn't know ahead of time that sending the spy would be redundant.
SilasX 5y ago
I'm pretty much alone in the world in thinking this, but I consider the rock hammer in Shawshank to be a bad execution of Chekhov's Gun, albeit for reasons unrelated to the core logic of that rule. Basically, Shawshank clearly establishes itself as having a gritty, realistic tone, where shit happens for reasons that have no cosmic significance or relation to your epic hero arc. Specifically, when that prisoner turns out to be a witness who can clear Andy, and just suddenly gets shot by avaricious guards who don't care about the injustice. (If it hadn't been already, Red's final parole speech cements that tone.) It's a huge betrayal of that when you turn around and say "oh man, if you just belieeeeeeeve in yourself hard enough you can somehow make a figurine carving tool last 100x longer than is realistically possible and accomplish major excavation work, it's all about your force of will". (Similar complaint about Interstellar, which commits to hard sci-fi enough to include an expensive, photo-realistic black hole, and doubles back and resolve the plot with "ah man we just have to tap into the mysterious fifth-dimensional power of love!")