Not Every Story Needs a Mystery

Yesterday was my mother’s birthday! Hooray!

I have one episode left in Death and Other Details, and it’s… eh, I guess. I feel like it goes too much for ‘conspiracy thriller’ instead of ‘murder mystery’ and so it goes way larger than I was hoping for when I started it. 

There’s a bit of a break in book reviews until I finish a couple books that aren’t going to be reviewed for the public because I don’t feel like it.

Not Every Story Needs a Mystery

I’ve written about the Mystery Box in the Saturday Notes before; the idea popularized by J.J. Abrams of making a mystery in a story to get people interested, but not actually having a resolution in mind when writing it because wondering is better than actually having answers. This approach led to the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, which opened with a bunch of questions that were answered terribly, or not at all, because the questions didn’t have answers to begin with. A lot of people copied this approach, or something like it, because it got people talking, even if they hated the story by the end by how anti-climactic or stupid it got. I would like to think that the Sequel Trilogy has turned people in Hollywood off from Mystery Boxes entirely.

My question is: do there need to be mysteries at all?

Let me elaborate: there are a ton of stories that aren’t in a genre like murdery mystery that nonetheless try to make their story a mystery. They rely on the heroes finding out who the real villain is, what the evil plan is, which character is the traitor, where characters really came from, or who they’re secretly related to, or something like that. When these work, they’re fine, or even brilliant. But they have to work.

I recently went through a couple of podcasts of Brandon Sanderson talking about Rings of Power, and he said that he correctly guessed which character was secretly Sauron in the third episode, and how it felt very obvious and annoying that they were trying to hide it until the end of the season. I’ve heard this complaint before: that the “Who is Sauron?” storyline was annoying and didn’t need to be a mystery.

Here’s the thing: the original Lord of the Rings doesn’t have a mystery! If you’re wondering about anything, it’s what’s going to happen next. There are some twists, to be sure: Gandalf’s return comes to mind. The entire story isn’t built around those twists, though, and the story still works if you guess about those things.

The original Star Wars doesn’t have a mystery, either. There are some twists in the story, but not big ones, at least until we get to Empire Strikes Back. Even then, Vader’s identity as Luke’s father isn’t a mystery, the twist works because we don’t know that there’s a twist here to begin with.

I don’t think the Prequel Trilogy has a big mystery either, other than “How will this play out?” I recently saw someone claim that the identity of Darth Sidious/the Emperor was a mystery, because his name was never said in the Original Trilogy. This doesn’t work, though, because I had an action figure of the Emperor that clearly said on the packaging, “Emperor Palpatine,” long before we got to Revenge of the Sith. His name was out there.

Heck, one of my favorite animated films is Batman: Under the Red Hood. In that movie, it’s obvious to both the viewer and to Batman fairly early on that the Red Hood is Jason Todd. The emotional impact of the story isn’t that it’s a mystery who is under that helmet, it’s that it’s Jason, the guy who used to be Robin, who definitely was dead, and what that means for Batman to confront that he couldn’t save his adopted son and that son is now furious that he wasn’t avenged properly because he thinks it means that he wasn’t loved.

And also, Jason’s killing people. Can’t forget that. I mean, they’re criminals and all, but you know how Batman is.

I blame Harry Potter for this. In just about every Harry Potter novel, there’s a central mystery that drives the Plot further. And that’s fine, especially because it wasn’t just fantasy, but also a story about kids at a boarding school. Boarding school mysteries are definitely A Thing. However, because Harry Potter was so darn popular, a ton of writers were either unconsciously influenced by it growing up, or saw its success and decided that they needed to copy that Plot structure to tell a successful story.

Mysteries can be really good for stories! They’re not the only way to tell compelling stories, though, and if you put all of your work into building a mystery for the audience, well, they’re going to be disappointed when they figure it out earlier, or they find the answer to be stupid, or something like that. A good mystery is difficult to do well, especially in the types of story like epic fantasy that don’t lend themselves to the characters sitting around for long periods of time and working out clues. Many writers try to get around those limitations and skip some steps, creating answers that don’t make much sense or that no one could reasonably figure out in-universe.

The original Star Wars. Lord of the Rings. Avatar: The Last Airbender. These are stories that don’t rely on a mystery to drive the main Plot. And they’re fantastic. 

You don’t need a mystery to get people invested in a story if you tell a good story. You can have things like epic actions, well-written characters, and a solid Plot. Again, a good mystery isn’t bad, especially in genres that are suited for it like crime stories. They just don’t need to be everywhere.

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