The Curse Of The "Unexpected Twist" 

"would have been too obvious to have Jon kill the night king" That sentence is the biggest problem i have with modern writing. They have turned "subverting expectation" into its own genre of writing, rather than keeping it as a writing tool. We were watching a story play out, of course there was going to be some obvious scenes written. It's how they are performed, and edited that should be a surprise. "Wow. I knew 'this person' was going to die. I didn't expect to be so moved by the scene, though". Now it's a case of, "it would be too obvious for the thing that we are writing to occur...let's have the whitewalkers be werewolves from the future and zelda appears to defeat them. NO ONE will see that coming". We won't see it coming because it is stupid. Not because our expectations were subverted.

Thanks to TLJ, I wince just from hearing the words “subverted expectations.”

The reason they like to throw in "unexpected twists" and in particular the case of Westworld rewriting theirs because viewers guessed it ahead of time is that the writers like to think they are more intelligent than the viewers, it's an ego salve.

I don't remember where i've heard it, but it's very true. After a bad twist: "I didn't see that coming." After a good twist: "I should've seen that coming."

The most important lesson I was taught about twist endings is that a bad twist ending makes you go "Wait... WHAT???" while a good twist ending makes you go "OF COURSE! It all makes sense now!" It's kind of mind blowing how many movies and TV shows get this wrong.

Heck, even George Martin himself said in an interview that because of the internet there'll always be someone that will guess something, but that a writer has to ignore it because making up something else last minute would derail the story.

This problem stems from the modernist idea that everything must be new and nothing should be cliche. The problem is that GoT isn't a modernist work, nor are these writers anywhere near as skilled enough to make it so - this is pop television FFS. It's a case of people not understanding genre conventions (GoT being fantasy genre fiction) and wanting to appear smart, when in fact they are dancing to the wrong song entirely.

Better ending. Jon charges the night king and the zombie dragon burns him mid stride. The night king turns away, but still hears Jon so turns back around. Jon charges out of the flames, fully nude with his sword ablaze and strikes him down.

It would have been so much in the spirit of the show, that when Cercei decided not to help at Winterfell, the army of the dead should have won and killed everyone and then the dead would have marched on to King's Landing and suddenly we'd root for Cercei. Now that's a true subversion of expectations. And then Cercei would be killed and they'd march on and lay waste to Dorne and the last shot from the series would be the night king standing at the southern most tip of Westerous with his army behind him... The end!

The position that Az is sitting in through most of this clip lines up perfectly with the desktop background artwork of MauLer at the bar. That is fucking brilliant.

Breaking Bad is a pinnacle of storytelling because it wasn’t obsessed with subverting expectations. The twists were used sparingly but in an effective way to move the plot forward and when it’s a thing that everyone knows will happen, it played with the consequences and made it overboard EXCEEDING our expectations. That’s why the fans feel satisfied with how the show ends and still talking about it in a positive light until these days.

The Drinker has said more than once that the end of the battle with the Night King should have been the end of GoT. I totally disagree, because if it had been, we might have missed the scenes with the committee meeting to decide the future of the Seven Kingdoms. And if you want gripping drama and heart-pounding suspense, nothing beats politicians having a committee meeting! I was on the edge of my seat the entire time!

The problem is that I expect the ending to be quality storytelling, and that's the expectation they wind up subverting. They're doing nothing that elevates the story. Their "surprise" ending is always expected because it reaffirms some political agenda of the writing staff.

The jump the shark moment for me was when they didn't have the courage to kill Tormund when they were north of the wall. They even set it up, then chickened out.

A twist in writing should be poignant, rare, and requires proper buildup. Writers today treat it as if being surprised for no reason is supposed to be dramatic or funny.

I don't even think these people think they're being clever when they attempt to "subvert expectations" I think they're genuinely just incapable, and subverting expectations makes for a pretty convenient excuse for incompetence.

The set up for John was sweet. The battle of the Basterds his first encounter with the night king at that fishing village and just how fast shit goes side ways with undead rising up with everyone you lose. Trying to get allies can get you murdered at the wall cause of ideologs. Its a wasted chance.

If you watch the show carefully, all those subverting expectations moments with Ned, Rob, Tyrion, etc. always were consequences for their actions, ALWAYS. Jon Snow getting slaughtered was also because of the consequences of his actions, but just because GRRM built their stories and characters so well, we never expected they suffered because of the choices they made. We rooted for them. Then Dumb and Dumber took over and suddenly anything goes and reward Arya because yas qween slay! and good old Hollywood p3d0s. I'm still in shock about this series. It was as shocking and tragic as the red wedding to watch this series die of a slow death and a scream. I think is a perfect example how woke entertainers ruin everything so badly.

On the "Happy Ending" of Game of Thrones. I've said this in other comment sections, and I'll repeat it here. Game Of Thrones is NOT realistic fantasy. It's just gritty fantasy. The ending of this show should have been that the armies could not hole back the White Walker army. Anyone on the front lines should have been slaughtered, and a siege of the Wall should have taken a few episodes, if not a whole season of time, before the Wall came crumbling down. The last season should have been everyone running to the far reaches of the continent, desperately retreating from the oncoming death. Have the characters alive at this point deal with all the pain, all the schemes, all the death, all the loss, EVERYTHING was for nothing in the face of Death itself. Maybe make it that humanity survives, but only in mountains where the passages are too treacherous for the White Walkers to pass through, or in the DEEP desert where the White Walkers can't stand the heat, and are severely weakened. That would have been an incredibly Game Of Thrones ending, I feel. Almost Watchmen-esq, now that I think of it, only without the hope afterwards. Hell. Have have the Night King sit on the Iron Throne in victory. A ruler with full control of a completely obedient and unified Westeros is finally ruling.

What I never get is why does it bother creators so much if spoilers get out? People who don't care if the twist is spoiled will read up and watch anyways, and those that don't won't be looking up spoilers so won't hear and enjoy the twist. Like I was surprised by who died in No Way Home because I didn't bother watching reviews of the film, so I didn't see the spoiler on it.

The ideal twist is when people didn't know it was coming at all, but when they see it, say, "Oh my God! I should have known. It was all right there!" Brandon Sanderson does this amazingly in book 3 of Mistborn.

There was a "leak" that came out about 8 or 10 weeks before GoT returned, and they were soooo good! Especially when compared to what we got ... short run down. Dead win at Winterfell (Brienne dies with Jamie) Living retreat to King's Landing. Dead murder everyone from Winterfell to King's Landing and lay siege to the city. Cersei is VERY pregnant and goes into labor in the Red Keep. Clegane Bowl... The dead breach the city (many characters die) Jon Snow and Daenerys retreat to the throne room and are confronted by the Night King. Night King and Jon fight but Jon is overpowered and knocked away next too his "Queen". They confess their love, and embrace. Jon, crying, plunges Longfang into her heart. Upon withdrawing it the sword (and Jon) erupt into flames. Jon has completed Melisendre's prophecy to become the Prince Who Was Promised; Azor Ahai and defeats the Night King. Tyrion finds Cersei died has in child birth, giving birth to a dwarf boy. That's what I can remember off top of my head. All of which was 1000% better than what we got imo ...

I'm so sick of "subverted writing"...because they ALWAYS pull that "subversion" BS in order to excuse piss-poor writing. We all expected the Night King to die, but they still killed him off. If subverting expectations was the goal, then why not have the Night King not only live but also conquer King's landing? Nah, its a stupid excuse to explain stupid (woke) writing.

Drinker-Senpai is right about all the fan theories. It happened with Gravity Falls- there were so many fan theories about what who wrote the journals, and someone eventually predicted that Grunkle Stan had a twin brother who wrote the journals. The writers for the show handled it really well though. Instead of changing the ending, they leaked a picture on Reddit of the show’s resident homeless hillbilly writing the journals to throw people off.

It's an interesting point about _Game of Thrones_ - it subverted our expectations by setting up Ned Stark as a conventional hero and then killing him in the first season... but then it has to reinforce our expectations by having Jon Snow become a conventional hero and save the day, and that's why everyone hated the actual ending

Yes that's the point of foreshadowing and a complicated story threads coming together is the satisfactions of seeing the threads pull together. Babylon 5 season 3 and 4 were so satisfying watching all the setup from seasons 1-3 come together in a way that made since. For example in season 1 we know two main characters would end at each others throat, but the surprise was that they were friend at the end and it was a mercy killing not the enemy's that started as. It sad in 5 mins the group spit balled several different ideas that were better than what was on HBO.

"Planet of the Apes" defines the apex quality of a twist ending. Until that moment, the story is already great. Then the final scene re-frames the entire story and leaves the viewer breathless. A cherry on an already delicious sundae. The screenwriter, Rod Serling, was a master. Bottom line: great films don't need a twist ending. Just great storytelling.

The Ozark takes the cake. That show doesn't have a story, it just has a setting in which shocking 'twists' happen. A character becomes too complicated or too much of a threat? Unexpected death! Badabing Badaboom!

In The Return of the Jedi, Vader turning against the Emperor was a good twist.

Classic example: I guessed the end of Shutter Island in the first like 20 minutes of the movie. For me that took a lot of the tension out of the film. Scorsese fans, however, will argue it's not about the twist or the ending but just about the construction and execution of the story from start to finish.

GoT Seasons 1-4: "My expectations have been subverted by great writing." GoT Seasons 5-8: "My expectations of great writing have been subverted."

Thank God for this whole group. I feel less insane knowing I'm not alone

Okay, but D&D are plain wrong about how "subverting expectations" *technically* works. Subverting the expectations means to hide the *setup* of your twist in plain sight by using your audiences' familiarity with well-established tropes to divert the attention away from what is actually happening. In the terms of the red wedding, the story intentionally laid itself out like the classic fairy tale romance of true love winning against all odds - and that made us temporarily forget about the fact that "The Late" Walder Frey had, from the start, been introduced as an uncaring and opportunistic sociopath, a dangerous man that should not be underestimated in neither his ambition, nor his willingness to screw people over. *Subverting Expectations* means to subvert the expectations the audience has from *other works.* *IT DOES NOT MEAN SUBVERTING YOUR OWN FUCKING SETUP.*

Unexpected twists can work very well, if they're well-written and make sense within the story. Rod Serling was a master of that sort of writing.

I like these to the point clips from the long discussions. While rambling with co-creators and friends might be some peoples thing some of us watch for specific things, (subjects or topics of concern) and don't have the time or patience to sit through a 3 hour video with 10 minutes of commentary relevant to the headline. By the way something needs to be done to keep commentary on the panels to be more organized in a way that allows everyone to have their say. Just as an example, AZ too often likes to talk over others and comes across as rude. Probably cause of time and distance messing with the way things get presented but just my impression.

The mark of a good plot twist is "rewatchability." If you can still enjoy the story just as much (or more) a second time, then it was a good plot twist. It made sense and rewatching reveals bits of plot that seemed unimportant but were really setting up the twist. (E.g. The Shawshank Redemption, The Sixth Sense, Mission: Impossible, Upgrade) If a second viewing is worse because the ending is not foreshadowed or doesn't justify itself with regard to the rest of the story, then it's a bad plot twist. GOT lost its rewatchability because the characters don't get the conclusions the previous 7 seasons had been setting up, and the twists were made in spite of the foreshadowing of other conclusions, which makes watching again feel like a journey to nowhere.

Regarding Shyamalan, his surprises don't "come out of nowhere." That's why they work. His best executions are heavily foreshadowed. The trick is that you don't see it until repeat viewing. That's the difference. Rewatching GoT isn't going to make Arya killing the Night King make sense, because they never built up to it. It was obviously never intended. And that makes it truly "out of nowhere."

"Curse of the Unespected Twist" If knowing how something is going to end is inherently bad, then people would have no reason to re-watch anything

AZ is perfectly lined up with the animation in the background. I can't stop looking at it.

Every time people talk about bad writing in big budget stuff, I feel better about myself. Writers nowadays just don't know how to write stories that are intriguing from beginning to end anymore; it's all either so predictable that the emotional payoff is nonexistent, or it's the complete opposite where surprise twists with exactly zero (subtle) forshadowing are commonplace. They've gotten so swept up in introducing curveballs that they've forgotten what makes them good in the first place.

I started having a bad feeling when Ygritte died in Jon Snow's arms during the battle at The Wall. The "Uh-oh... Things are not happening because of characters executing plausible cause-and-effect, or rational/self-interested actors carrying out their goals within the moment, but because of what the showrunners think makes for emotional drama" feeling. Sadly, the rest of the show executed that wrong-headed mission to the letter.

If the ending of a story is figured out, you could argue that the story has been well written. I’ve always felt that way, and that it’s about how you get to that ending, about what twists and turns the story takes along the way, that is the most important part.

Well I was confused when the main big bad boss, who is basically magic and considered the ultimate evil that could only be defeated by all the armies to ever exist, was offed by one girl all by herself It offed all the hype behind Games of Thrones too. The Night King was the hype of that show. It was incredibly shortsighted to cash that in on nothing but "OOOO LOOK A STRONG woMAN, I WISH THAT WAS ME IRL"

A friend and I talked about this very thing when we heard of a manga artist changing the ending to their story. Can't remember what story, but it's a popular one. We came to the conclusion that if your fans predict the ending, then you did something right as a writer. Not that you were predictable, but that your clues leading to that ending made enough since to lead people there. In a sense, you're rewarding your audience by giving them that ending that they predicted. It makes them feel smarter for getting it correct.

One rule of story writing I learned is that "when ever something is mentioned it should have purpose" For example if your story puts emphasis on a hatchet mounted on a wall then that hatchet should be used. What was the point on putting so much emphasis on John Snow and the Night King if that leads to nothing. Stories are fiction in the end strung along by considents that context a entire story.

GoT season 8 can be summed up by that scene of John Snow helplessly screaming at the dragon.

When I heard what happened to the Night King I thought it was a joke; however, the moment I realized it was real. Well I couldn’t watch the show any longer! Killing the Night King like that was a massive failure. There should have been an epic battle and sword fight next to the iron throne. Instead some girl pulled out a tricky knife trick and ruined years of anticipation.

People try to do the unexpected twist so often that it no longer has any meaning to it, and then the unexpected twist ends up falling flat and making the movie/book terrible, or at least not as good as it could have been. Few are capable of pulling it off. That is why I like Brandon Sanderson.

Nowadays, they would've had Rosie appear at the last minute to destroy the ring. She was that hobbit woman that Sam liked but was too shy to actually speak to, so Frodo forced him to dance with her. The only reason I remember her is that I recently rewatched the series

Yea, the "proper" way to subvert expectations is by creating something unexpected, not by destroying what is expected. But... "evil cannot create, only corrupt".

No one expected a happy ending. They just wanted a satisfying ending.

Galadriel teleports into Mount Doom. Throws Gollum into the fire while Frodo and Sam do nothing. “Now that we won the Great War against Sauron, it’s time for the Last War, against Saruman”. Galadriel snaps and scourge the whole Shire as colateral damage. Saruman dies in hobbit hole. Aragorn stabs Galadriel in the heart to stop her madness. Aragorn is banished, never to become king. (The elfs leave middle earth without seeking revenge). There: expectations subverted. What a timeless classic.

The Departed had a great subversion of expectations. I definitely didn't see Leo getting killed, and my jaw hit the floor when he did.

To be completely fair, we had numerous "unexpected twists" earlier in GOT which had occurred in the books but were so well done in the earlier iterations of the TV show - the Red Wedding, Joffre's poisoning (the purple wedding), Little Finger turning on Ned Stark, the Mountain vs the Viper. ALL of these twists were superb stories that were woven carefully in advance (sometimes over the course of multiple series) so when the twist shock occurred you were INVESTED in it and were genuinely shocked by it. I feel the biggest loss was Bran's story, because the Three Eyed Raven (Brynden Rivers) is a hugely important element of the long term story of Westeros and he essentially absorbs the consciousness of the heir of Winterfell under the guise of "passing on his knowledge" for multiple seasons. We KNOW he has changed history with his powers (think the Mad King ranting about burning everything with wildfyre for example, caused by Bran going back and trying to warn people about the Walkers) and what they chose to do with such a colossal character is so maddeningly pathetic, yet we spend all this time complaining about the trashing of Daenarys who is ultimately a sacrificial character anyway in the grand scheme of the plot. They screwed up on multiple monumental levels and as a result of that I just see people moaning about the nonsense we got from about season 5 onwards when there are far more shoddy writing losses in character than what people THINK we have had. That Bran storyline and by extension the audience deserved SO much more than what they spent ages hyping up essentially all for absolutely nothing. Maybe Rivers did want to be the King in the end, but this would never have been the way it would have happened by his character arc.

Thing is, "subverting expectations" has pretty much come full-circle. Nowadays, all you have to do is ask yourself: "What do they think we won't expect?" and it becomes utterly predictable. The whole subverting expectations bit is only a "cheat" anyways. Do you want a car salesman subverting your expectations? An investment counselor? A dentist?

You forgot the little girl charging at a literal zombie giant and taking it out. 🤣

Another problem with big twist endings is that I never have any inclination to watch the movie again. I loved the 6th sense, and I never went back to watch it again.

Unless your story is a mystery or a detective story, the unexpected twist should be a vanishing rarity. Now it’s a LAW. This is great video. The unexpected twist needs to be overturned.

I think that modern writers seem to think that a 'twist' needs to be a major event that changes the whole universe or perspective of the film. What about the 'micro twist' such as in 'Indy and the lost ark'? There is a huge chase sequence in the bazaar where Indy mostly uses hand to hand, when he is suddenly pulled up by a huge guy wielding a sword, the crowd pulls back to give them some room, and Indy pulls out a gun and shoots the guy. Brilliant, and gives us an insight into Indy's less the heroic side :-) Or the 'macro twist' such in ET when the whole film is about human/extraterrestrial contact, and no one is the bad guy! Revolutionary.

If you watch the behind the scenes, Arya jumps from a trampoline. So Winterfell had a trampoline confirmed

MauLer: "Fuck surprise twists that come out of nowhere in general. I hate them. Just throw them in the bin." Also MauLer: "The show originally started spreading through word of mouth because of how shocking it was that one of the best, most altruistic characters was killed at the end of Season 1. Main character, classic hero, just executed. It was like, geez, you should watch this show! It's pretty interesting!" 🤷‍♂️

I was expecting The Battle of Winterfell to be an absolute loss too, but with the result of them retreating down South and getting absolutely sandwiched between The Lannister Army and the Army of the Dead

To be honest, you'd have to be an idiot to think that they were going to lose at Winterfell. It was established that it takes a month on horseback to get from there to King's Landing. Nobody could escape an enemy that doesn't need to sleep.

I always appreciate when people talk about subverting expectations and take a moment to throw m night shyamalan under the bus. A person known for throwing in twists whether they made sense or not simply because that was his whole schtick.

The only unexpected twist a studio can come up with at this point is no unexpected twist. It's so overdone now and it's so obvious. The attempt to mislead the audience is so telegraphed and cliché that the audience expects to be mislead. The irony.

A good way to make season 8 emotionally satisfying while still keeping the spirit of the story is to have Jon kill the NK, but also dying in the process. No Melisandre revival. This leads to the North not supporting the Targaryens anymore since Sansa has no obligation while pushing Dany closer to the event horizon of the King's Landing burning. A twist shouldn't be "It was actually..." rather "Yes, but...".

In Star Trek Voyager, there's an episode where a holodeck program designed to train security officers to respond to a mutiny is mistaken for a holonovel about the crew. When Tuvok, who created the program, says he's not interested in continuing the 'story', Tom Paris takes over. He decides that after the mutiny, he's going to have the captain decide to execute all the mutineers. To justify this, he says: "...I do know what makes an interesting story - and that's unexpected plot twists." I get the feeling that a lot of modern writers missed the joke.

Arya having the gift of flight really subverted my expectations of the laws of physics existing in Westeros

My wife and I were watching the Netflix series "Sweet Magnolias". I kept waiting for some plot twist or snarky sarcastic characters. To my surprise it never happened. Just an story about 3 friends and their life in a small town. It was refreshing actually.

Of course, one course these companies could take is to use the fans' predictions for the direction of the storyline as inspiration. If you're worried about running out of ideas, just remember there is an almost infinite pool of talent out there from which you can draw the best ideas.

GOT thrones came so close to LOTR perfection and it fell at the final hurdle... Cannot believe the biggest franchise and fanbase in the world is dead in the water!

There's a difference between unexpected twist and suspense is the same as the bomb suddenly go off compare to seeing the bomb being planted early and waiting for it to go off.

When it came to game of thrones I was out around when Tyrion killed his dad because I was able to predict the plot constantly by asking myself "what is the stupidest thing this character could do right now?" Never failed

The whole of season 8 almost gave me Cancer, but that scene inperticular of Snow just screaming at a Dragon, and the dragon just looking at him like 'that is the guy I have been trying to kill for the past few minutes... Well I'll just look at him till my boss dies. His character was ruined before that with 'my queen' but was really the nail in the coffin.

This is why writers need to stay off social media. 🤣

Arya killing the Night King was ridiculous and stupid

An issue that I have noticed with more modern media is that there is a conflation between mystery and twist. A mystery is setup for the audience to potentially solve. Mysteries call attention to themselves over the course of the story and the story should provide ample evidence for the correct answer so that an attentive reader/watcher could figure it out. Twists are just when something unexpected happens. While the best answers to mysteries come with a twist (e.g. The Sixth Sense), not every mystery has to be solved with a big twist (e.g. almost every murder mystery novel ever). While twists are at their best when at the end of mysteries, they really don't need all that much setup (e.g. "No, I am your father.") Not every mystery/question needs a twist ending and not every twist needs a ton of setup. Just be logical and satisfying.

Happy to see you tear GRR Martin apart after his involvement in the latest Fromsoft game made its story and characters significantly worse.

Even before social media, leaks would lead to this kind of thinking. DC's Armageddon 2001 is a prime example. They stupidly changed the ending because the identity of the hero who would become Monarch was leaked and they pretty much picked the one guy it couldn't be. Then they spent several decades unsuccessfully trying to bring back the original ending in one way or another.

I watched Old last night with my friend and we spent the whole time just laughing at how stupid the shit was that just constantly came out of nowhere.

First, hail drinker

This is it...I hate the new trend of "subverting expectations." This came into play a lot surrounding Game of Thrones. They were praised initially for constantly subverting expectations. However, we all see how that played out in the final season where they "subverted expectations" so much that it made no sense. That's the thing...people are SUPPOSED to be able to know where a show is going and not often be shocked. Why? Because good writers foreshadow things so that what comes to pass makes sense. Subverting expectations mostly involves throwing a twist in that makes absolutely no sense just to try to shock audiences. It's almost always poorly done and almost always makes the entire story seem pointless because the twist makes no sense. Yet, all over social media we constantly see people bitching that stories are too predictable. Have they never read a book in their lives? Are they dumb? A story is supposed to be predictable. That's also why we have class tropes....because they WORK. They make sense within a story narrative. However, now we are in a time of subverting expectations and going against tropes and I'm so tired of it. It's making movies and shows terrible because they are doing it by either: 1. leaving out important foreshadowing altogether which makes the show feel empty and soulless 2. throwing in a random twist that goes completely against foreshadowing so it makes no sense. I just don't see a way out of this because it seems that 99% of social media think these new trends are just fantastic. Honestly, I think our society is just getting dumber and lazier.

The problem with Game of Thrones is that the books ran out beforehand. The first seasons were great, then the writers of the show had nothing to base their work on

Wow! Theon and Jon in the penultimate battle against the Night King would have been superb. This would've hit especially hard for Jon after learning the truth about is father's bout with Ser Arthur Dayne.

Trying to avoid clichés by subverting expectations just gave birth to a cliché of subverting expecations that has become arguably the worst cliché... and it's not really that old

"Wow, you sure subverted my expectations of the story being good"

I think Mr Robot did alright with the unexpected twist thing in the later seasons, and very re-watchable I find, cause with the new added context you the nods to it are more noticeable

The amazing thing is, if they had just fulfilled our expectations, we would have all cheered. All of us would have said this was the greatest show ever made. "Did you see how John killed the Night King? That was awesome!!!" Instead, they had the completely misguided notion that they needed to subvert expectations. And now this show that had so much potential is remembered as one of the greatest failures of all time.

We all know Frodo's long lost cousin, Scroto Saggins should have shown up to save the day.

The most common expectation I have subverted by modern films is quality.

Gandalf foreshadows Gollum's arch. "a part to play in all this"

The one highlight from the Battle of Winterfell when (I think) John Snow is on a dragon and it hits the Night King with a full blast of Dragon fire and it does... nothing (and THAT smirk). THAT was a good attempt at subversion. We've built up the power of dragon fire and the entire plan is to get the Night King into a position where they can hit him with fire and in that moment I had the same "oh shit! How many characters are going to die here!?" moment that made the early seasons so good.

The GoT rewrite of LOTR: The hobbit bar wench appears at Mt Doom, takes the ring from Frodo, kicks over Saurons tower, picks up Sam and carries him back to the Shire to raise their children while she runs Middle Earth.

The Shaymalan shake. What a twist!

Better than a neck break catch would have been her instantly freezing from his touch. Brand got frost burn from being "touched" in a fucking dream state.

I watched Spike Lee's Oldboy for the first time a couple months ago without knowing what it would be about except in the loosest sense. While I thought what was the penultimate twist could have been when first introduced to a character at the mid point of the movie. When that penultimate twist of the movie happened it was still a surprise because of how well the script and acting did of making that outcome unthinkable, and thus when it did happen it was a twist.

I will always prefer a sensible twist I can see coming from a mile away over a surprising twist that makes little to no sense.

Ned Stark's death set up the whole things Rob Stark's death was the perfect set up for the future Jon Snow's rise to defeat the Night King would've been the ultimate victory against evil.

"No one expected us to shit the bed, so we did that"

Not having an unexpected twist would subvert expectations, in a positive sense.