why is plot movement dependent on the unexpected?

[Don]

I've noticed a lot of story elements in anything that has a story seem to be very dependent on throwing unexpected stuff as the sole reason to drive the story forward. I was talking to some friends over the plot of some random TV shows and it's always like: "Yeah soandso gets betrayed here" or "Something totally unexpected happens." In the Chinese manga community there's a saying if your story gets stale just add (unexpected) blood and now you got drama. Is this a trend or just poor story telling? You know Captain Ahab wasn't going to live in Moby Dick but him dying to Moby Dick was still meaningful. Anyone could've picked up Thrawn was going to get betrayed by the Noghri in the Thrawn Trilogy and that doesn't make his death any less impactful.

Sometimes I get the feeling that whoever is writing whatever stuff I'm reading is just trying to surprise me, and yet if that's the only goal of the author it actually makes the stuff very unsurprising. You pretty much just have to guess the least likely outcome and that'll always be right. Not everything needs to be 100% predictable but plot twist for the sake of only plot twist serves no purpose to advance the story.

[Julius Seeker]

It's usually a cheap literary tactic on the level of trashy romance stuff, and cheap violence/torture scenes. Something that authors stick in to get around the fact that they can't really come up with a story that's very good or interesting.

Some times it is a good choice, like in suspense/mystery novels; but often those aren't the core reasons why people enjoy those books (for the top written ones), since the element is more in place for the characters rather than just the reader.

[Zeus]

Because the expected is boring and not entertaining. If you already know what's going to happen, why continue to watch/read/play/engage?

[Don]

Because the expected is boring and not entertaining. If you already know what's going to happen, why continue to watch/read/play/engage?

By that token you'd never read/play anything more than once.

Besides if you were expecting some unexpected stuff that in itself becomes expected. For example I was talking to a friend about the story of 24 and it's like everyone betrays Jack Bauer. Well if everyone unexpectedly betrays Jack Bauer, it actually becomes expected.

[Zeus]

Because the expected is boring and not entertaining. If you already know what's going to happen, why continue to watch/read/play/engage?

By that token you'd never read/play anything more than once.

Besides if you were expecting some unexpected stuff that in itself becomes expected. For example I was talking to a friend about the story of 24 and it's like everyone betrays Jack Bauer. Well if everyone unexpectedly betrays Jack Bauer, it actually becomes expected.

You don't know the details of the unexpected so you watch to find out. Just like 24 where you expect someone to betray Jack but you don't know who, so you watch to find out. If you already knew, then you may watch it again 'cause a) you like it so much you wanna see it again or b) you wanna see if there are some clues or other things you missed along the way.

This is not an if-then-else statement here. We're talking about human enjoyment/behaviour, there are some other non-tangible variables involved