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Cons of Breaking the Fourth Wall

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superboy313 Since: May, 2015
#1: Jun 2nd 2019 at 9:48:51 PM

While many people enjoy watching fictional characters interact with the audience even in more dramatic works, what are some potential problems that Breaking the Fourth Wall could provide from a storytelling perspective?

CrystalGlacia from at least we're not detroit (Living Relic)
#2: Jun 2nd 2019 at 10:34:54 PM

In my personal opinion as a reader and writer who once thought Breaking the Fourth Wall was the coolest thing ever, it can be a bit off-putting and over-the-top if laid on too thick and/or used inappropriately, and it's commonly associated with comedy as it is. It's one of those things that you don't throw around lightly- it can be used to great effect in some situations, but there's not a whole lot of them, and if it's used in one of those many wrong ones, it can easily be really, really bad.

Narrators can get away with this more easily. Mr. Robot uses it to good effect because the protagonist is established early on to be mentally ill, to the point of the Framing Device for his narration being that he's talking to someone he made up. So when he has a breakdown and looks right into the camera to demand if we, the person he made up, knew all along, and he starts shaking the camera, it's very powerful. And some works of literature might do it to evoke older styles that had the narrator as a sort of character in their own right, or in first-person narrated stories to evoke a diary or personal narrative sort of deal.

But having non-narrator characters directly violate the fourth wall can be very fraught if one isn't aiming for a more comedic or surrealist tone.

Just think about what it adds to the story, okay?

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
Lymantria Tyrannoraptoran Reptiliomorph from Toronto Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Tyrannoraptoran Reptiliomorph
#3: Jun 16th 2019 at 10:33:08 AM

It can be confusing as to what the character is thinking in-universe, unless you don't care about such things, like if the work has No Fourth Wall and the characters constantly acknowledge that they're in a movie/book/whatever. But in works where This Is Reality, on the other hand, it does't make sense when you think about it.

Edited by Lymantria on Jun 16th 2019 at 1:37:05 PM

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sabrina_diamond iSanity! from Australia Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: LET'S HAVE A ZILLION BABIES
#4: Jun 22nd 2019 at 4:46:54 AM

My comedic character, Olapen, breaks the fourth-wall regularily, on the basis that she's slightly a Loon with a Heart of Gold and rather ditzy in nature. So you can have your character break the fourth wall if they had that quality of being The Ditz.

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!
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