Have you ever wondered why you love a twist? That big reveal in a novel or movie, where suddenly everything changes? All at once you realise that the sweet old man is the murderer, and you could kick yourself for not realising sooner. Or those flashbacks turn out to be visions of the future, not the past, and everything falls into place with a sense of fatality. Or the trusted leader turns out to be a manipulative dictator who is using the heroine for her own gain?
Just good story telling, you might say … but why?
I have a theory: that our satisfaction reflects the real-life experience where we suddenly see everything differently. When you have an unexpected realization about yourself, your situation, your partner, or friend – or just life – and it changes the way you think from that moment on.
And that moment feels good – even if the new knowledge is that something is not right in your world. It still has that “aha” feeling, where reality shifts around you, and you see your world in a new way.
Oh! You think to yourself. That’s it! Why didn’t I see that before?
I love those moments. I believe they are inherently rewarding: that our brain seeks insight and blesses that experience with a dopamine rush, or endorphins, or something that feels good. It is how humans have evolved to seek truth and question, urged on by that thrill of realising something new.
Or maybe it is something more inexplicable, who knows?
So that’s my theory as to why we love a plot twist. It mimics the real-life thrill of insight. It gives us that moment where suddenly everything is different, and our brain has the fun of connecting the dots in a new pattern. And that joy is deeply, innately human.
Patented R. Oaks, 2020. You’re welcome!
Edit: Since posting this, I’ve learned that (surprisingly) I’m not the only person to have come up with this sort of theory. In fact, there is even a book about something similar: Vera Tobin’s Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot.