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let's struggle: 'recommended work orders' for newcomers to a continuity are nonsensical. (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by WhyEssEff@hexbear.net to c/chat@hexbear.net

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Release order on first experience is the only way guaranteed to not create unnecessary confusion. Works in a continuity that are released after each other tend rely upon prior knowledge of the work to accentuate the experience. Inventing a new angle to experience them through may be valuable as an artistic exercise, but it is very clearly a bad idea to recommend that angle to newcomers. Release order is specifically reliable because it tracks either the creative process/development of ideas in cases of straightforward serialization, or in case of intentionality in release order follows author intent.

The only time a bespoke work order is even debatable is in cases of an adaptation of a work that is not adapted in release order of the original work. Even then, that adaptation may work around that in a way where it makes it, too, confusing to experience outside of its own release order.

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[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I think the partner to this is also the idea that "it's ok to be confused and not know everything that is going on at all times. Sometimes a work can mean more when there is an unexpected or surprising moment that puts previous information into a new light." And a lot of these "recommended read orders" tend to focus on comprehension against this idea so the audience is never "in the dark" but it also makes twists or reframing devices from earlier works in a series lose all their impact.

It is also related to the "wikification" of media, where people focus on the plot and the plot alone, and not on how a story made them feel or made them think.