Fan Theories: How Show Writers Use Them Against Audiences
Whether you love or hate fan theories, they’re a part of the modern TV viewing experience, and if show writers want to keep audiences interested, they better listen up.
Fan theories present themselves as both an opportunity and a challenge for creators. On the one hand, writers can encourage theories and generate buzz with intentional cliffhangers and tricky non-sequiturs. On the other hand, fans are now guessing major plot points online, which means writers have to be on their toes.
Creators can no longer deny or ignore the existence of popular fan theories. A good storyteller should allow viewers the space to play with fan theories and pivot wherever possible.
Let’s compare two very different story worlds, both of which have some of the most prolific fan-theory subreddits happening right now: Game of Thrones and Rick and Morty. Both series abound with fan theories, but where one has become painfully predictable, the other keeps audiences guessing… and guessing and guessing.
Unlike Game of Thrones — with its deeply important backstory and a nominally pre-existing plot to unpack — the Rick and Morty universe (or should I say, infinite universes) has endless possibilities. Even if a fan theory hits on a provisional plot point, the writers can take the show in virtually any other direction.
Its writers pay close attention to fan theories online and are proud of the fact that they thwart them on purpose.
“The fastest way to make sure your Rick & Morty fan theory is wrong is to tell me about it, because then I’ll make sure it never happens,” writer and producer Mike McMahan tweeted. “I can’t guarantee that I’ll have the sway to 100 percent keep it from happening, but I’ll try. I’ll try until I’m dead.”
So far, McMahan has been true to his word. One of the best examples is the Evil Morty subplot. In season 1, episode 10 (“Close Encounters of the Rick Kind”), fans were introduced to Evil Morty, who — in a twist ending that left fan theorists salivating (spoiler alert) — disguised himself in a sea of Mortys to potentially wreak havoc on the multiverse.
Finally returning in season 3, episode 7 (“The Ricklantis Mixup”), Evil Morty becomes President of the Citadel of Ricks, starting a revolution that upends the existing class structure. Fittingly, it also subverted the dominant fan theories that had proliferated online.
Creator Dan Harmon is very good at leaving narrative breadcrumbs for viewers, while not allowing any one of them to have too much importance on what could happen next. Evil Morty was a fun subplot, designed to spawn theories and titillate fans. But even if he had never returned, it wouldn’t have really mattered. There were other subplots to explore, other adventures to be had.
Compare this to the most recent season of Game of Thrones. In the earliest seasons, viewers got a rush out of not knowing what was going to happen next or who was going to die and when. Any character was fair game, every episode another possibility that your whole world was about to be turned upside down.
As the series plodded on, things changed. Creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss perhaps too heavily foreshadowed how everything was going to pan out. Viewers rushed to fill glaring holes. And now, with one season to go, there aren’t a lot of subplots left. In this respect, Game of Thrones falters where Rick and Morty succeeds.
As audiences become more engaged with their favourite shows, producers and creators are becoming more knowledgeable about the importance of fan engagement. Some, like Game of Thrones, forge dutifully on, determined to see their tidy narratives realized to the bitter end. Others, like Rick and Morty, watch gleefully as audiences struggle to play the guessing game, refusing to hand over the storytelling baton without a fight.
I’m still hoping for a life-shattering plot twist from Game of Thrones, season 8 that will remind me of its season 1 and 2 glory days — one that even the most clever redditors failed to see coming. In the meantime, I’ll keep tweeting my Rick and Morty theories. I know it’s one of the few places on television left where delightful surprises are, well, inevitable.
