#and while obviously this fireside chat is promotion of a sort

[roguedemonwatcher]

I’m normally wary of “surprise your audience” rhetoric as someone who thinks surprise for surprise’s sake can lead to pretty hollow storytelling (side eyeing Jonathan “I rewrote parts of Westworld because reddit guessed the ending” Nolan) but I feel the way Travis spoke about it on the fireside and their general approach with TLOVM has been solid. Specifically, I think it is less about zagging on the campaign fans and more about trying to recreate similar feelings of surprise and “goosebumps” (as Travis puts it). It’s also clear that they are not stalking the fanbases’ expectations and responding to them (I think they gauge reactions, obviously, but I don’t think they are rewriting things around them) - their approach feels more about finding changes that work in a similar spirit, that fit for this story, and trusting the audience will agree. And they might not! Even Travis acknowledged that in a refreshingly non-defensive way. But you can’t live by the whims of a fanbase that is so large and filled with contradictory expectations- you just need to go with what excites you as a creator and hope it works for a majority of your audience.