#it lets you reframe specific events in the story using the metanarrative | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tachvintlogic · 11 months ago

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"It was all a dream" dark fan theories suck

The problem with "it was a dream" or "it was all a simulation" or "main character is in a coma and it was all a dying dream" fan theories is that they have this potentially interesting metanarrative but give you nothing to latch onto to learn about it. What in the story is based on the character's real life and what's completely made up? We have no threads to pull, so it goes nowhere.

Imagining the story as a D&D or roleplaying game, however, is way more interesting because the metanarrative with the players and the DM has a lot more meat to chew on than "it was all a dream."

What moments in the story were a lucky or unlucky roll? Where did the DM have to improvise because the players did something they didn't expect? Which characters have players that are new to the game? Do character relationships parallel player ones? Events in the metanarrative retroactively affect events in the narrative and give us more to work with.

#tropes #what's the point of considering that a story was all a coma dream?#does this tell us anything about the character in the coma?#what does this do to the story's themes?#there's so little substance framing it as a coma dream #framing it as a roleplaying session gives you new characters creating and reacting to the story in real time #it lets you reframe specific events in the story using the metanarrative #it's a reframing that actually cares about the story

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