“the writers didn’t listen to what the fans wanted!”
yeah that’s typically how it goes, writers tend to write what they want and not specifically what you want
Okay but they should take what the fanbase wants to see into consideration and lean into some of those things occasionally, especially if your show has aired for 5+ seasons. Writers do owe something to their fanbase who have contributed to their paycheck, if you say otherwise you’re wrong.
Writers probably should lean into some light things the fandom wants on occasion, but the keywords are ‘light’ and ‘occasion.’ And honestly even when writers do that, most of the time the fandom grows more and more entitled until they ask for something the writer can’t give (or the studio wont let them give) and everything explodes.
Writers owe many thanks to their fanbase for supporting and loving their work, thanks that can be shown in tons of ways outside of the actual content. They do not owe you creative control. In the words of Neil Gaiman, writers are not your bitch. Unless you sat down at the very beginning and commissioned a writer to create a story according to your specifications, creative control belongs to the writer (shitty network execs aside).
Imagine creating something, people loving it, and then one day the people go ‘now give us this thing or we’ll put you out of a job.’ That is not a healthy creator/fan relationship. An audience agrees to go along for a ride, not take the wheel. You may not like everything you see during the ride, you may wish some things looked a bit different, but that’s just how it goes when you’re not the writer.
And none of this has anything to do with the fundamental writing task of creating a satisfying story, which tends to get confused a lot of the time. ‘Satisfying’ in writing terms means it makes sense, it delivers on the writer’s intended narrative promises, it packs an appropriate emotional punch, all necessary questions are answered, the central dramatic questions are definitely answered, and so on. It does not mean personal (and therefore impossibly subjective) satisfaction, and that’s not the writer’s job because you literally cannot please everyone. All you can do is tell the story you want to tell and hope people like it.
The times when a writer could feasibly change something major to please the fanbase that would still more or less fall in line with the story they’re trying to tell are rare. And yes, that second part does, in fact, matter. They are telling you a story. Their job is to speak, yours is to listen. There are many ways this agreement can be broken on the writer’s side of things, to be sure. Just like fandom can break the agreement by trying to gain creative control (among other things). But the fundamental agreement stands firm until and unless one side breaks it.
Being a fan of someone’s work should mean that you respect their creative judgment. If they start creating things you don’t like, then you disagree with their judgment and that’s fine. Sometimes you even stop consuming their art. But you have to have enough respect for them as a creator to simply leave, instead of sticking around and yelling at them until they somehow become a different creator.
And no, being a fan of something does not magically turn you into a writer or collaborator, regardless of how long you’ve been a fan. Fans don’t turn into writers with time unless they’re hired onto the writing staff. If you’re a fan who wants creative control, read and/or write fanfiction. That’s a space literally created for you to do whatever you want with someone else’s work.
Also, let’s not forget that half the time whatever idea fandom has gotten into its head is bad. Just bad. We’ve all seen fanon character interpretations bear no resemblance to the canon character in question, and then they start complaining when the canon character does something they consider OOC. (Don’t me ask how that even works because I do not know.) How do we determine which fandom ideas are good and which are bad? Find some experienced writers somewhere and ask them, probably.
TL;DR I guess: You can ask writers to work something you’d like to see into their story, but they are under no obligation to do it because they are the writers and you are the audience.
