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Freezer
Since: Jan, 2001
Micah
Since: Jan, 2001
Chariset
Since: Jan, 2001
2011-09-20 12:47:03
Seconding Spoiled by the Format.
Not so Fast, Bucko! (TV/Film) and Disc-One Final Dungeon (Video Games) are related.
Edited by Chariset

You find a cliffhanger in the first 100 pages of a book but given the Doorstop nature of the work you can predict that this is something that will be overcome by the protagonist(s). By the same token you could estimate the severity of the outcome of a challenge to the latter by how deep it is into the story. My own guess is that it's some weird mix of Genre Savvy, Medium Awareness, and Paratext, exercised by the audience instead of the protagonists. Someone I've discussed this with likens it to the Status Quo Is God nature of some series such as Star Trek. Looking at it in another perspective it may simply be a property of narratives themselves in that the stakes for the protagonists only get higher as the story progresses.
Edited by Dracontes