Trilogy Manifesto

Trilogy Manifesto

One of the things that have been bothering me lately is the idea of the trilogy. Trilogys are a cornerstone of storytelling (at least of modern storytelling). There may be many reasons for this. It could be because purely because of the number three, which shows up in many major places like the holy trinity, the three sons of Kronos, etc, etc. But that's not the thing which bothers me, though that is an interesting idea to begin with. What really is bothering me of late is the fact that some trilogys just aren't ending; and yes, I'm looking at you Halo. While this is all well and good, endings are a major driving force of any story. Agent Smith said it best when he said "everything that has a beginning has an end." Not to sound melodramatic, but this is true. Everything will end, even this world; whether by natural forces such as the sun exploding, by supernatural forces such as the Christian Rapture, or even just by the natural law of entropy itself. Everything ends. Also, when you think about it the ending of something is one of the most satisfying parts of something. If the knight never saved the princess, if the world was never saved from the invaders, if the one ring was never destroyed and the fight continued forever how would you feel? My guess is you would feel unsatisfied. Why is that? I believe we need resolution, we need to see how it all turns out. I will argue that half the reason we read a book for example is not to see how many hi-jinks some wizard will get into but how he will get out of said hi-jinks alive. The journey is interesting, yes, but if the journey continued forever the exciting would become mundane due to over abundance.

So, back to why I feel unsettled. Halo Reach is out soon, and boy that's exciting; but to be honest, I'm tired of fighting the fight. You've all probably heard the joke, where Halo 3's tag line was 'Finish the fight,' so ODST would be something like 'Keep fighting' and Reach's tag line would be something like 'Start the fight again, just earlier.' Halo was all good and fine, but I had my fun. It's cool what they are doing with the series in Reach, I am going to play it, but I have to wonder if those innovation would or would not have been better in a different, newer series. I finished the fight, and I feel that I am being sort of robbed of getting to learn and explore a new story. What is wrong with just letting something end, what's wrong with stopping? Nothing; endings are important, endings are complete. I believe that Halo should have ended, instead of dragging on for who know how long.

Is anyone with me on this, or am I all alone?

PS. I'm not against series. The Silent Hill series has interesting game mechanics that make Silent Hill something like a sub-sub genre in the horror genre, but each story is different and separate from each other. My beef stems from people who set out to make a trilogy, tell a story arc, but just keep going.