Plot, Point, and Artistic Beauty in Media

Introduction

When I was playing through Goldeneye 007 for N64 (if you want to play it for yourself, I highly recommend the following emulator), I really liked this game and truth be told, I was hooked by the story after the Statue level. After finishing the game, however, I pondered at it and thought about what message it was trying to convey. After a bit of thinking, I found that the game didn't really have any message to deliver. Perhaps, the message was that betraying friends and creating weapons of mass destruction is bad, but this is a rather shallow message. Either way, I was dissatisfied and a bit surprised. How could such an acclaimed title underdeliver so heavily? What was all the dense, well-written plot for if there was no point in it? The gameplay sure was good, and so has been the narrative, but what about the meaning? That's when I understood that the denseness of the plot wasn't equal to the size of the point.

Definitions

So let's define what plot and point is and what they aren't. Webster's 1828 dictionary defines "plot" as the following:

"Plot - The knot or intrigue; the story of a play, comprising a complication of incidents which are at last unfolded by unexpected means".

So, basically, it is a sequence of events that has a conclusion, and an unexpected one at that.

The same dictionary says:

"Point - single thing or subject. In what point do we differ? All points of controversy between the parties are adjusted. We say, in point of antiquity, in point of fact, in point of excellence. The letter in every point is admirable. The treaty is executed in every point".

That is, the message that the author of a work tries to relay, or a question that he tries asking; a real stance or investigation on people, morality, philosophy, nature, or something else of fundamental importance. This applies to all forms of art because any form of expression can convey some message or question.

I will also provide the definition of beauty from the same dictionary, for reasons we'll see later:

"Beauty - [...] whatever pleases the eye of the beholder, whether in the human body, in a tree, in a landscape, or in any other object.
[...] By any easy transition, the word beauty is used to express what is pleasing to the other senses, or to the understanding. Thus we say, the beauty of a thought, of a remark, of sound, etc.
So beauty armed with virtue, bows the soul
With a commanding, but a sweet control."

In this article, I will mean just that by "artistic beauty" - whatever is pleasing on a surface or a structural level, very appealing.

Now let's see some examples.

Literature

Around the World in 80 Days is a book that has dense plot, but makes little, if any point. There is no lesson to be had from this book, yet it's written really tightly with many interesting situations and a twist ending. That would have a lot of plot, but little point.

Something opposite would be a book with a lot of point, but very little plot. Quite a few scientific or philosophic works are written in a format of a story, where the characters and actions exist, but are only an excuse to write about the topic of the book. For example, Plato's books are all about Socrates walking and talking to various people. There is a bit of plot - the characters have their lives, stories, relationships, families, occupations; there are events, both global political ones and local. Yet all of that is little and secondary to the point. Plato would score high on point, but little on plot.

And some books would score high both on plot and point. Fyodor Dostoevsky's books do exactly that - in this case, the plot of the story often conveys the point by itself. The plot drives the characters to question the topic of the book and come to answer it through their actions. The plot itself is very dense and intriguing and well-written, while the point is heavy and layered, answering the questions that it first asked. Dostoevsky is a true master, perfecting both of those areas of writing. He would place high on both plot and point.

Worth mentioning is that besides plot and point, there are other aspects of a book - good humour, well-written characters, lack of awkward phrasing are certainly artistic merits in their own right, and could be considered artistic beauty of a book.

Other media

I do find interesting how various pieces of media fit into this narrative. I do believe that a similar thing can be observed for all types of media and art, however some forms of art lack a traditional plot. Further sections cover this and certain unique things can be noted about every form of media down below.

Note: I didn't give movies a separate subsection because they are mostly like books, and I don't watch many movies at all.

Paintings

A painting does not or generally cannot have a plot. Yet to say that paintings lack a point would be an entirely different claim. The painting can say a message or make a point or raise some questions. But paintings do have a varying level of how beautiful they are. While majorly a subjective factor, I will list my opinions here. Picasso's "Guernica" is chaotic and hard to call pretty for me - yet it does make a clear statement on war and the suffering it causes, so while I would place it lower on artistic beauty, it does have a very clear point. Some paintings are artistically beautiful made by talented people, but are made for beauty's sake, without having a clear point. A lot of landscape and still art paintings fall into this category. Here is one of the more recent ones - The Shining, 2009, by Adriana Varejao - visually stunning, but lacking a message beyond its beauty. Finally, the most ambitious paintings made by the best of artists have both - the artistic beauty and a point to make. The Last Day of Pompeii would be an example of such a masterpiece of a work.

Music

Music can at times have a plot - a singer can vividly describe a story with events and their consequences. However, a good song has a good poem inside of it, and poem is the part that has the plot. Music itself only supports this plot. Nonetheless, music alone can convey a sense of plot as well - music can express multiple events that at last unfold by unexpected means. One can listen to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons to see a progression of arcs, ending in an unexpected manner.

Some music is more static however. Tchaikovsky's Waltz of Flowers describes, at most, a waltz of flowers. While there is musical progression, there is no plot, as the event is singular. There is a point however - after all, this event is described. But both of those songs are very complex. Yet even a simple tune can have meaning - no matter how primitive "Humoresque of a Little Dog" is, it still points at a shop or a cute little puppy. Yet it has no plot at all.

A simple tune can have a plot however - "Faint Courage" by Toby Fox is not the most complex composition, but it certainly has a sense of progression and events you can imagine - a person first lost and discouraged, but then gaining faint courage to continue their journey. Multilayered complex songs can have little or negative point, such as most popular music today, but let's use Rock God as an example - neither the music, nor the poem has any positive message or a point. So overall, music can have point, but also has artistic beauty as an entirely separate area just like painting.

Videogames

Now videogames do oftentimes have a plot and also has the artistic beauty in terms of how well the game is designed and of its gameplay qualities - just like music has both artistic beauty and a point. Some games are a thriller, but lack a clear narrative plot or philosophical point, such as Devil Daggers - you spawn, figh, and die; and that is the entire plot while the game depends on its gameplay and atmosphere. Other games have deep plot, but little point or gameplay like some cheap dating sim or a mobile gacha game - those games may have long intertwining plots or piles of "lore", but they have little gameplay or point to offer. Some games have some plot and good gameplay, such as Quake 1 (or 2 for more plot and arguably worse gameplay) - here, you move and shoot and have a storyline to keep you hooked, but the games don't have anything important to say. Some games have decent gameplay and some sort of a point - mainly simulators that can teach you what they simulate and provide a gameplay, and maybe even some story, but simulators usually have to compromise on one point to gain back the other. Some masterpieces have plot, point, and gameplay very high up, like UNDERTALE and use one thing to drive the other, rather than compromising certain aspects for the sake of others.

What is interesting about videogames and different from music is that I can't seem to find an example of a videogame with great point, but little plot, outside of edutainment videogames or simulators. For music, Fly Me To The Moon has a point that it's trying to make and is well-written (not sure about the poetry, but music is and the interconnection of poetry and music is also good). Yet there is no videogame that lacks a plot or has it at minimum, but makes a deep point. Perhaps, it is because a videogame requires the player to make action and take initiative to be considered a videogame. But taking action creates a sequence of events, and that sequence will be resolved in an unknown manner. Perhaps, one could try to make such a game. Some videogames also specialize in coercion, which could be considered artistic. I've seen videogames specialize on art or music. But all of them have some plot, point, or gameplay, even in a light form.

Point of the article

What I am trying to do is to make a distinction between plot, point, and artistic beauty across all media. Some media can seem intriguing, important, or high-value just because it achieves a great depth of plot, point, or artistic beauty. A work of art can be beautiful and be good for it is pleasing and points to more beauty. It can make a deep point and be good for it makes one question the environment and his own thoughts and arrive at conclusions that make a person more virtuous - in that sense, a point of the work can also be considered its virtuousness. Yet a deep plot by itself is not a merit and does not make a work good, as it does nothing, but makes you more invested in a work that provides no or mostly no value. A cheesy novel or a superhero movie feels important because it has deep plot and one is invested in the characters. This deep plot is a lot of action that can be mistaken for intellectual depth or thematic richness, when the work has not made a real point or observation. The work can be shallow even when its plot is intricate and budget is big. When you try to summarize a point, or a central theme of such art, you either can't give a message that the author was trying to relate or end up with a shallow one, just like I ended up with after Goldeneye 007. Critics may reward intertwining timelines while ignoring the surface-level messaging. Most often, the deepest plots are full of retcons anyways.

In other words, don't mistake or excuse plot for point and beauty. And be careful about what kind of art you consume - good point should always be welcomed; high artistic beauty and great plot should be enjoyed, but also examined; and just the plot with shallow messaging is, in my view, of limited value beyond momentary entertainment.