[Mister Underhill]

Sorry to be a fly in the ointment again, but isn't it the sudden and unexpected nature of a DEM that helps define it as such?

“You got fly in my ointment!”
“You got ointment on my fly!”
“Hey, it tastes great!”

Ahem. My answer to your question (and its implication that foreshadowing always spoils the surprise, addressed in a moment) is a definitive “Maybe”. I guess it depends on what definition of DEM you’re working off of. If DEM to you means by definition a narrative cheat, then I guess any setup or foreshadowing lifts the event out of the muck where the other unforeshadowed DEMs dwell, waiting for their chance to spring on unsuspecting climaxes and flip the metaphorical bird to the audience.

In the context within which I frequently encounter the term, though, the definition is more complex, in ways that I’ve tried to capture in my posts above. I’m sticking with Raiders as my most instructive example. The climactic events are sudden, unexpected, don’t leave you feeling cheated, and are foreshadowed from the first moment when Indy cracks open that fat tome with a picture of the Ark and Spielberg cues the creepy Williams music.

If an event is foreshadowed, it is not unexpected when it occurs, or at least we are not surprised when it occurs.

As you can guess, I have to respectfully disagree with you here, SPM. Maintaining a tension between foreshadowing and surprise is the Holy Grail of storytelling, or if not the Grail, at least one of the holy implements – the Holy Fork, maybe. Storytellers who strike a successful balance in this area have success, those who are unable to manage it don’t. A prime example of this principle is The Sixth Sense. Having the answer in front of your face the whole time and still being surprised by an unexpected climax is a rare and wonderful experience.

Some stories and some storytellers rely on this tension more than others, but it’s present in all good fiction. It’s meat and drink to mystery writers. If a climactic resolution occurs in a way that we haven’t been set up for in some way, we feel cheated.

So, insofar as this relates to our discussion of DEM, I’d say that a good DEM moment can be foreshadowed and still surprise the audience.

And in terms of Gandalf's resurrection: Tolkien had laid the foundation for the return of dead Elves, the Halls of Mandos and their reincarnation, long before he wrote the Lord of the Rings. The story of Feanor's mum, who dies and refuses to return to her hubby, proves that. Feanor was ancient history for Gandalf. So the resurrection/reappearance/whatever you choose to call it is, once again, consistent with Tolkien's world-- not a mechanical contrivance.

Hi, Helen! Good to see you chipping in your always articulate comments, but I suggest that your justification here is stretching it a bit. Taking LotR on its own terms as a story, you’ll have to agree that most audiences (and certainly all audiences prior to the publication of The Silmarillion) had no access to all that stuff about the Halls of Mandos and Elvish reincarnation and whatnot. Even if they did, Gandalf isn’t an Elf and he isn’t reincarnated – he’s directly resurrected by Eru, the head honcho, the big cheese. I can't think of a plainer example of "divine intervention".

But I think we’re just stuck on semantics here. You’re working off of a definition that inherently frames the DEM as a dissatisfying cheat, a “breaking of the rules”. I happen to think that definition is too restrictive.

Back to the eagles: if we criticise the eagles for showing up 'every' time somebody good needs air power (and there were plenty of times they didn't show up when they would have been handy) then don't we also have to criticise the Ringwraiths for showing up 'every' time somebody needs a good scare or a dose of the Black Breath? Fair's fair...

Some writers say that audiences will always forgive a coincidence that gets your heroes into trouble, but won't buy ones that get them out of it. Must be some sort of manifestation of Murphy's Law. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[ March 01, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]