Do you read books and watch movies for the destination or the journey?

It’s a serious question. Some people love M. Night Shamalamadingdong’s movies. Some people love Harry Potter. In both cases it seems that they put the plot, the twists, above the getting there.

I value the journey above everything else, personally. It’s why spoilers don’t bother me much, if at all. Knowing that the boat sinks doesn’t … bad example, didn’t like that movie. Uhm. Knowing that at the end of the book or movie something happens, knowing what that something is, how the story ends doesn’t ruin a story for me. The story, for me, is how they get there, what happens and where it all goes.

Some things seem to be nothing but the twist at the end though. Nothing but the plot and they getting there isn’t as important. I’ve seen it recently with a lot of people reading Harry Potter. “The writing isn’t what’s important” I saw someone say. Which means the plot twists and turns must be all that is. I’ve seen a bunch of people say they are not written really well but… and that “but” kills me. It seems to wrap up a lot of things. People who only read a series of bad books to see what happens, because even though they don’t enjoy the story, they want to know how it ends. Why does it matter? If it’s bad and you don’t like it, why do you care?

Sure, I’ll have conversations about climax and anti-climax and structure and twists and plot points: these things are needed in storytelling, I am not saying they are all rubbish. Just that they are ways to tell the story – not the story itself. And that seems to be missing for a lot of people.