The line between fan and creator is thinner now than ever before. Idiots like myself can pick apart episodes of TV series and movies to no end, and if creators are so inclined they can essentially receive a running critique on their works in real time. One of the eternal struggles that seems to be stronger with the Internet amassing thousands (if not millions) of angry nerd voice is what questions to explicitly answer in the story, and what to leave to speculation.
It’s a tough task for any writer. The storyteller is undoubtedly biased; he or she knows the story inside and out and has a definite idea of what is important and what is not. Fans . . . see it differently, to say the least. There are some who aren’t happy unless everything is tied up in a neat bow and every question is answered, which leads to writers pandering to them with awful stuff like the “Stranger in a Strange Land” episode of Lost, where the whole point was to see where Jack got his dumb tattoos. However, there are also legitimate gripes; what’s apparent to writers is not always apparent to fans, and there’s a constant tug of war between making what the writer wants to say obvious enough and too obvious.
