# Storytelling — Philosophical Stakes

Source: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2024/04/07/storytelling-philosophical-stakes
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Storytelling-Philosophical-Stakes?index=0x6612dfaa727b327ad6f4570a12638cad1dfc9475e668f227f0f4722bab2e741db1fb8cc8
Submitted by misha on 2024-04-07 UTC, 1 upvote, 0 comments

## Summary

Michael Arndt argues that a story's philosophical stakes, the moral or metaphysical question it turns on, are what separate good endings from great ones and constitute the story's meaning. The author applies this to Jurassic Park, arguing it is about dinosaurs rather than Alan Grant's relationship with children, as Matthew Dicks's stakes-based model would suggest. The author's example is that the series finale, Jurassic World: Dominion, treats a world with wild dinosaurs as normal and makes saving that world the philosophical stake. The article also argues that most personal stories have few philosophical stakes.

## Article

Via the latest issue of Simon de la Rouviere’s excellent Scenes with Simon newsletter, I found a video on good endings by Michael Arndt, screenwriter of Little Miss Sunshine, that basically answers the question I explored in Just Add Dinosaurs, where I argued that Matthew Dicks’ approach to analyzing stories in terms of stakes falls short because it leads to obviously ridiculous (to me) conclusions like “Jurassic Park is about Alan Grant’s relationship with children rather than dinosaurs.” In Dicks’ model, the dinosaurs are “just” stakes. In a treatment that’s in other ways very similar to Dicks’, Arndt unbundles the idea of stakes into three kinds: internal, external, and philosophical. He argues that the difference between good and great endings lies in some sort of moral inversion around the philosophical stakes (which not all stories have), and that these stakes in fact constitute the meaning of the story. Without these philosophical stakes, other bits feel mechanical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWHfsEJ5JJo

In these terms, it’s easy to see what is actually going on with Jurassic Park:

Internal stakes: Alan Grant’s relationship with children is flipped

External stakes: Hammond’s dangerous scheme of starting a dinosaur theme park is thwarted

Philosophical stakes: A world with live dinosaurs is shown to be cooler than one with just fossils

This point is subtly made in the original, with the climactic battle being raptors vs T-Rex, rather than humans vs. T-Rex, and with the ominous shot of the Barbasol can. But it’s in your face with the series arc finale. By Jurassic World: Dominion, we’re just living in a world where dinosaurs in the wild is normal, and the theme park villain is trying to weaponize them. The philosophical stakes are now trying to save the cool world.

So yes, my first naive instinct was correct. Jurassic Park is about dinosaurs. Why does an accomplished, champion storyteller miss this point that’s obvious to any narrative-illiterate 8-year-old?

I think it’s because Dicks specializes in telling personal stories from his own real life. In fact it’s a rule of his that’s the only kind you’re allowed to tell in the oral tradition his book is about. You’re not even allowed to tell someone else’s story. So while his theories may be sound for that narrow scope, Jurassic Park doesn’t actually belong in the reference set.

Personal stories are of course very meaningful to those who live them, but let’s be honest: Most have zero philosophical stakes. They may be entertaining yarns with fun external stakes and modest internal stakes, but the nature of reality and the moral dimension of the universe aren’t involved.

This also explains why personal stories mostly bore me. Even my own. If there are no philosophical stakes, I’m not interested. If there are good philosophical stakes, I’m actually fine without either internal or external stakes.

Philosophical stakes are a neat lens. They explain many puzzles. For example the original Toby Maguire Spider-Man worked much better than the Amazing Spider-Man because the philosophical stakes (“with great power comes great responsibility”) are front and center in the former and basically missing in the latter. They‘re front-and-center again in the Tom Holland reboot (“be friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, not Avengers member with all the status and perks and famous friends”). You know it’s the right decision because Tony Stark gives him the fancy suit anyway. The Friendly Neighborhood stakes are apparent in the sequels as well. Even if Holland Spider-Man is fighting cosmic battles in the multiverse, he’s always fighting for friendly neighborhood stakes over Nick Fury stakes. He’s never going to want to be a god even if he has the required abilities (in contrast to Hawkeye who plays cosmic god hero without quite having what it takes, often neglecting his friendly-neighborhood scale life to do so).