The Story of Story, Part II: This is Your Brain on StoryJustin Morrow07.10.14 @ 9:00PM Tags : aristotle, breakingbad, davidchase, drama, screenwriting, sopranos, structure, vincegilligan, writing

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A few months ago, I wrote a post called The Story ofStory, which attempted to explain, in as simple a way asthe subject can bear, the roots of narrative structure,and specifically, how these roots were planted severalthousand years ago, in ancient Greece, and have beenpassed down through the works of Aristotle. Today, I’ll

begin with a sort of riddle: what do David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, and VinceGilligan, the mad genius behind Breaking Bad, have in common? That’s easy enough, yousay. Well, then, what if I asked how they differed? It’s not an impossible riddle, but itsanswer just might be the key to the next story hurdle you have to surmount. And it mightbe closer than you think.

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges observed, “artis fire plus algebra.” Borges understood that though it is the fire which provides the sparkwith which we can see the edifice of our narrative, it is only math which will get us to thetop of our story, so that we are firmly in command of the events on the page, lookingdown on the world we have made. But what, you may ask, does this have to do with DavidChase and Vince Gilligan? Well, it turns out, a good deal. Because as science is put to evermore novel purposes every day, it is now beginning to explore the roots of narrative, andjust what makes for a satisfying story in the brains of those engaged in the narrative.

Do you remember the series finale of The Sopranos? I do. And I can hazard a guess thatwhen the chugging, optimistic chords of Journey filled the soundtrack (and henceforth,every karaoke room, every night, forever) and the screen was filled with the familySoprano, finally reconciled over onion rings (if only for a moment), no one was expectingwhat seemed like a cable outage. Howls went up from the faithful, once at the blackout,and twice when they realized what had actually happened (which was? Bueller?) DavidChase, never one to explain himself, remained tightlipped, though did say, according toThe New Republic: “’Well — the idea was he would get killed in a diner, or not get killed,or somebody would try to kill him, or there’d be an attack.’ He added, “I’m not trying tobe coy about this. I really am not.’” Which is, just, wow. Chase: 1, Everyone Else: 0.

Most viewers came to the conclusion that the abrupt cut to black was symbolic of Tony’ssnuffed candle (which seems to suggest that in the 21st century, the best metaphor fordeath is a cable outage), and the quick cuts to men moving around the diner seemed toimply that Tony, looking up at Meadow, was dispatched in the same way he had orderedthe deaths of so many others, oblivious to the fate at the back of his head. So why did thisirk almost everyone? It provoked at least one 40,000 word essay, a considerable amountof grousing, and endless speculation which carried an unspoken implication that therewas something to speculate about, that the cut to nothing was not an terminus, but aclue. But Chase refused to do more than cryptically prevaricate (see above) and the senseof dissatisfaction among many viewers persisted.

The cause of this dissatisfaction can, perhaps, be located in one word (with severalsyllables): ambiguity. Like any creator of a fictional universe, Chase had played god foryears, and his god was capricious, ‘realistic,’ more true to life than the more manicheanforce behind other shows concerned with crime and its discontents. David Chase’suniverse was run by a disinterested deity, almost like chance, who was forever cuttingyour cable at the most inconvenient times. Life is messy. It ends in split seconds.Whaddya want? But this was the most influential show on TV in years, and for it to endas it did caused no small end of grief to those who wanted closure. People acted as thougha great injustice had been done. But why? I know the answer might seem obvious, butstick with me.

It can be approached, obliquely, by looking into the series finale of another monstroushit, this one a tale not of an unrepentant mobster, but a good man, a sick man

who discovers at the brink of death a power within himself that turns him into a figure ofShakespearean villainy, greed and evil, consumed with power for its own sake (the showmakes it plain that after a point, even mammon holds no interest for him, except as a wayof keeping score). If Tony Soprano was Sonny Corleone, then Walter White in the firstepisodes of Breaking Bad was Michael, fresh out of the army, innocent, naive to the evilsof the world. But like a comic book villain, he would discover his secret powers, and theywould turn him into a monster, rapacious and hungry for nothing but power for its ownsake. Tony Soprano was a depressive mobster, a blue collar guy and metaphor for thehelplessness of the working man. See, the show seemed to say? Even a mob boss can’t geta break. Walter White, on the other hand, was some kind of beast, a SouthwesternMacbeth.

Now look at the contrast between the two endings of the two biggest crime shows of theearly 21st century. The Sopranos finale is still an object of contention among somecritics, though, really, it’s nice outside, and these critics should probably go for a bikeride, while the BB finale was the antithesis of its East Coast counterpart and universallyhailed as a triumph of dramatic storytelling. Walter White returned home to settle thescore, and boy, he settled every score; not one loose end was left loosened. In a last, andpossibly redeeming gesture, he did save Jesse from the fate of neo-Nazi meth cook. (I saypossibly because Walter messed up a lot of lives, not to mention ending several for noreason, and that’s not including the thousands of poor souls who died at the hands of hisblue meth. So, I mean, redemptive is relative. I’m glad Jesse is cool, though.)

Even though the BB finale has holes you could drive a mobile home meth lab through(such as, say, how the most wanted man just sneaks back into town, making no effort todisguise himself, going where he pleases, meeting and poisoning people in public, etc.)before using his knowledge of physics and automated machine guns to dispatch a room ofneo-Nazis who happened to be right where they were supposed to be. And yet, the criticsand fans were almost beside themselves with rapture. “Who cares?! Did you see thatmachine gun?!” cried America (and verily, what a machine gun it was).

It doesn’t take a master of dramaturgy to elucidate the difference between the twofinales. Here, there was no ambiguity. There was anti-ambiguity. Now, it can be argued(has been argued) that ambiguity is a European dish, the onion rings in drama’sapp sampler; this assumes that European films are more inclined to accept ambiguity.And that what Gilligan gave us was a big ol’ USA finale, all fireworks and the fourth ofJuly. The bad guy dies, but we see him dead, and we know that the story is over. We know

how each of the main characters ended up, but what we don’t know is why this satisfiedeveryone so much?

Lisa Cron, author of Wired For Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hookthe Reader from the Very First Sentence, has done some research into this, and in thisTED talk, she delivers some of her findings:

According to Cron:

Fictional narratives supply us with a mental catalogue of the fatalconundrums we might face someday and the outcomes of strategies wecould deploy in them – Not only do we crave story, but we have veryspecific hardwired expectations for every story we read, even though — andhere’s the kicker — chances are next to nil that the average reader could tellyou what those expectations are.

Now, lest you accuse me of being more opaque than the Sopranos finale, let me sharewhat Cron defines as the functions of story:

“What happens” is the plot. “Someone” is the protagonist. The “goal”is what’s known as the story question. And “how he or she changes” iswhat the story itself is actually about — As counterintuitive as it maysound, a story is not about the plot or even what happens in it. Stories areabout how we, rather than the world around us, change. They grab us onlywhen they allow us to experience how it would feel to navigate the plot.

That is to say, in a certain kind of story (not all stories), the success or failure of thenarrative is in direct proportion to the narrative’s ability to bring the viewer into theshoes of the main character. By that logic, the Sopranos finale frustrated so manybecause it refused to capitulate to expectation. In point of fact, it actively thwarted it.Tony was a distant character, a cipher, much of the time, and the last scene of the showgave us no “breadcrumbs,” as she puts it, to follow. Chase was after the messiness of life,and Gilligan, it could be said, was after the cleanliness of death.

And yet, at the bottom of it all, underneath the seasons and reels of real and imaginedbloodshed, we can hear the voice of one man. It’s a familiar voice, and belongs to noneother than that Ancient Greek Aaron Spelling, Aristotle, who taught that by witnessing atragedy, the audience would undergo a salubrious reaction known as purging, or, in AtticGreek, katharsis. And in lab experiments, it was found that viewers experienced a positiveemotional response when the protagonist did well, even if they were doing, well,terrible things. So we’re all implicated. And that’s why we can’t have nice things, guys.

Furthermore, if we identify with the protagonist, and that protagonist happens to beWalt, then our moral judgments are suspended because, well, he’s us, isn’t he? MaryBeth Oliver, a professor of media studies at Pennsylvania State University, has in factresearched many eudaimonic rewards of watching depressing, stressful, or even horrifictelevision.

Eudaimonia is an experience that meaningfulness [sic], insight, andemotions that put us in touch with our own humanity. Eudaimonia mightnot make us happy, but it can enrich us, leave us feeling fulfilled, touched,and perhaps even teach us something about ourselves.

I’m afraid this post is more of a Sopranos ending than a Breaking Bad. I have no easyanswers, though I do know this: an audience will gladly sit down for two hours, twomonths, or two years, spending time in the company of the most repugnant characters,just so long as those characters allow us to feel more alive. And that’s what story does. Itteaches us how to live; when Walt dies, we can feel secure knowing that, as in OedipusRex, balance has been restored to the universe.

Kurton 07.11.14 @ 5:10PM

What was great, even genius, about Breaking Bad was the theme of how we trick ourselvesinto believing we’re doing something bad for good but in reality, we’re doing it for selfishreasons. This is Walt’s epiphany. At first, he believes he’s manufacturing meth to help his

Joe Dzikiewiczon 07.11.14 @ 9:30AM

Here’s the thing, though. I hated the “Breaking Bad” finale. It seemed to undercut everything that theshow was trying to say.

The show was all about how actions have consequences, and the weight of Walt’s actions grewheavier and heavier as the seasons went on. But the finale was all about escaping thoseconsequences. Walt managed to engineer a happy ending for everyone – he even got Hank’s bodyreturned to his family. And then he got to have a nice, pretty, satisfying end.

Compare that to Shakespeare. Shakespeare is full of villains that gain the audience’s empathy just asmuch as does Walt. Macbeth, Richard III, Iago – the list goes on and on. But those villains see theirmachinations come to nothing, see a final collapse of all their hopes in a way that is thematicallysatisfying. We don’t need to see the villain succeed in order to be enjoy an ending – and, in fact, seeinga villain, even one that we like, go down in flames is an important part of story­telling.

By contrast, I like the Soprano’s ending. It’s clever, takes some thought, and is in keeping with thetheme of the show.

But I’ll grant you that it is more cerebral, and probably doesn’t hit the emotions.

Not much has changed in all these thousands of years. We like to watch. Now it’s up toyou to give us something to root for. Or against.

Links:

How Vince Gilligan Used Science to Create the Perfect Ending for Breaking Bad —MotherboardTV So Good It Hurts: The Psychology of Breaking Bad — Scientific American

COMMENT POLICY

We’re all here for the same reason: to better ourselves as writers, directors, cinematographers, producers, photographers... whatever ourcreative pursuit. Criticism is valuable as long as it is constructive, but personal attacks are grounds for deletion; you don't have to agreewith us to learn something. We’re all here to help each other, so thank you for adding to the conversation!

12 COMMENTS

family. In the last time he sees Skylar, he shares his epiphany with Skylar when he says, “Idid it for me… I liked it. I was good at it”.

Great post on story and thanks for using Breaking Bad as one of the examples of a greatstory!

Justin Morrowon 07.11.14 @ 2:19PM

Thanks, Adam. Appreciate it!

Adamon 07.11.14 @ 10:37AM

Love this, I hope articles like this spark more conversation. This is filmmaking, not what camera you areusing.

Stathison 07.11.14 @ 10:40AM

Ambiguity demands that you fill in the gap(s), and you will fill them with ­what else­ your point of view.

A closed ending doesn’t let you go further than what the writer said.

To me personally, BB force­fed me some kind of naive morality, while the Sopranos ending (although Ihaven’t seen any episode of the series), thrilled me so much, I might even watch the whole series now.If I am to watch a closed ending, it better be good, otherwise it can destroy what was being built untilthen.BB was building a quite unique perspective on the “good guy­bad guy” theme, until it diminishedeverything to what you said in the article.“Whooow… Did you see that machine gun?”

Stathison 07.11.14 @ 3:23PM

Of course I’m interested. It’s a very interesting subject and you are approaching it in anequally interesting manner. I have to tell you that I am Greek and I’ve only been once to theUS, but I can really feel there is an ocean between us regarding what you mention in thearticle. Americans want to know whodunnit, while ambiguity is a European thing.Shakespeare might end up with piles of corpses, but there are still books written about himand contemporary adaptations of his playsj, because… there is no such thing as THEexplanation of Hamlet or King Lear or whatever. Aristoteles on the other hand, is in a way,the first American (sic) being super­methodical, working as hard as ten, effective,organising everything, constantly explaining everything he can get his hands on, frominsects to the soul itself. But when he was old he said “as I grow older, it is the myths thatmy heart wants to hear”. The myths! The very peak of ambiguity and personal perspective.I see that you are trying to keep a fair distance from both sides on the subject, but as youmight have guessed by now, I don’t. I’m a myth lover too and a myth is an open universe forme, or anyone else interested, to hop in as myself (ourselves).

Justin Morrowon 07.11.14 @ 2:17PM

Yeah, it’s not a value judgment, but they have done studies where people release more ‘pleasure’chemicals when they see a Breaking Bad style finale. If Tony Soprano had been shot on camera,this would be a moot point. It was Chase’s artistic decision that caused the problem; it’s fairlyobvious from the editing and the foreshadowing that he is dead. I thought the Breaking Bad finalewas a little much, but give the people what they want, I suppose. Even Shakespeare’s tragediesended in piles of bodies. I can’t imagine the audience at the Globe would have shrugged a suddenexeunt before the ultimate scene in Hamlet.

But this merely to spark discussion, guys. I take no position, one way or t’other. Glad you areinterested, though!

And I really agree with Adam. Let’s have more posts like this. The tech side of things isgreat and I enjoy reading it, but what about the essence?Cheers from Athens

Joe Dzikiewiczon 07.11.14 @ 7:06PM

Personally, I think the artist owes more to the work than to the audience.

Morganon 07.11.14 @ 9:30PM

In an odd way I feel a fade to black would have left more viewers satisfied because it is asofter ending. The abrupt cut to black is very, very sudden and has no ending. Both endingsare very interesting to study.

Justin Morrowon 07.11.14 @ 2:26PM

Here’s an interesting question: what, if anything, does someone like David Chase “owe” theiraudience, who have stuck with the show for all those years? Because clearly, to an extent, theywanted to see Tony cut down in a hail of bullets, maybe to expiate their own guilt for unconsciouslyidentifying with this thuggish creep, which, you know, he was. Part of me thinks that Chase recoiledfrom the idea of doing a traditional morality play ending; after all, as it was, things were not goingwell. But the people want retribution. This is America, after all. But he didn’t want to do Bonnie &Clyde or Dillinger outside the movie theater. He injected a (small) dose of ambiguity into a belovedfranchise and suddenly, everyone was denied their big hit and felt cheated. Which is sort of funny.Not haha funny. More like, man people are funny.

Chaseon 07.11.14 @ 3:32PM

I agree with all the commenters so far. I’m always more satisfied with an “open ending” left to theinterpretation of the viewer. One recent example I can think of is Prisoners. I happened to get to watchthe entire Sopranos series as it aired and I must say I find it’s ending to be satisfying.

To me it makes the viewers go back and say “Wait a minute. What?” and actually think about why theauthor ended it that way rather than like mentioned with the BB ending you’re spoon­fed everythingand you’re left with this cliched shot of Walt lying in a meth lab dying. To me the machine gun was kindof a “Deus Ex” element like you mentioned in the first article. “How can Walt possibly get out of thissituation?”…”He’s put a remote controlled .50 cal in his trunk”.

It just seemed a little lame to me. Granted I didn’t watch the entire series but I have no desire to now.Either way good article. Thanks for posting. I love the site and while I do value the technical informationit’s good to go back to the roots with an article on Story, which in my opinion is the reason we got intothis business in the first place.

DLDon 07.12.14 @ 1:21AM

But, within the retrospective of all grand series finales, nothing beats the final episode of “Seinfeld”.

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