Decorum

Perhaps you’ve heard the word “decorum” before. In rhetoric, it is the meeting and creating of expectations in speech. Figures of speech and thought can be found through decorum. When someone says something like “history repeats itself,” this is a figure of speech. It sets up the expectation that the speaker believes what this figure of speech states, and that they have an upcoming point to make. You won’t often hear a figure of speech like this in a professional setting, because figures of speech in particular tend to be more casual in nature. Decorum also involves tropes, a sort of categorization of common thought chains in language. Metaphors and similes are tropes, because they can be applied in certain circumstances and lead into specific thoughts. All these things can and must be used to hold the attention of the audience at just the right level. Decorum is using all of these expectation-crafting terms in tandem with each other.

Because decorum has to do with speech, it’s hard for me to choose an artifact that I can apply it to. Instead, I’ll look at a similar but different medium.

Podcasts are a rising form of entertainment today, as well as a new way to share information. They are an auditory medium, very similar to radio shows, which have been phasing out. Usually, one or more hosts produce and record episodes. These episodes can be about anything, from lectures to active discussions, from storytelling to reviewing any number of products, books, songs and artists, television shows, and more. Since podcasts don’t have a visual component, they’re good for listening to during car rides and while doing other activities.

How does decorum tie into podcasts? Long story short, the same way it ties into other forms of rhetoric. I’m not going to leave it at that, obviously. We need to look at least a little closer than that.

The Adventure Zone is a well-known podcast created by the McElroy family. Like most podcasts, its goal is entertainment. It is an episodic story told by three brothers and their father, through the medium of the tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons. It is quite a niche form of media, even among podcasts, but it accomplishes much more than simple entertainment.

The game Dungeons and Dragons is played by one player taking the position of the “Dungeon Master,” who controls and directs the story events, and therefore guides the players. The players take the roles of characters within the fictional setting, and help the Dungeon Master (or DM) tell a story while remaining as true as possible to their characters’ personalities. The Adventure Zone started in this very fashion, with Griffin McElroy acting as Dungeon Master for his brothers and dad. The podcast began as a simple, just-for-fun project, but ended as not only one of the family’s most popular podcasts, but also as a far greater story than what was expected at the beginning.

The expectation, in this case, was extremely simple: For the fans of the family’s other podcast, My Brother, My Brother, and Me, it would be a fun experience to listen to the brothers playing D&D together. Initially, the McElroys didn’t take themselves seriously, cementing the expectation of a pure comedy show. The first few episodes of The Adventure Zone are full of jokes and crude humor, and plenty of difficulty as the family learned to play the game.

There was a point, according to Griffin, where he decided he wanted to turn the podcast into something more. Very early on, he saw how much the fans enjoyed the show. At first, he was using a pre-made story that had come with the game set, but he decided he wanted to diverge from this as quickly as possible. He set upon crafting a larger world of his own. From here on, the show started to take a different direction, changing expectations. There was still plenty of comedy, but now there was something deeper, a continuity of characters and a consistent world that grew more every episode. Fans (the audience) began to think about what was happening during the story more. In terms of meeting expectations, the show had suddenly begun to not only exceed the previously set expectations, but change them.

During the chapter The Eleventh Hour, Griffin dropped a metaphorical bomb on the audience. (Warning: this article may contain spoilers.) He had established a series of powerful items in the world that were created by “red-robes,” a lost order of wizards who were dangerously strong. The players became enlisted to collect these powerful relics and destroy them, so no one would be endangered by their power. Up until this point, the audience and the players alike had been led to believe that the red-robes were dangerous and evil. However, right at the end of The Eleventh Hour, Griffin included an “epilogue” scene where one of the players’ characters, Magnus, discovered a blueprint. The blueprint was for a statue of one of the red-robes, whose face was obscured by a hood on the final statue. On the blueprint there was a preliminary design where the face was uncovered. Magnus was disturbed to find that it was his own face.

(End of storyline spoilers.)

This was a turning point in the show. All of a sudden, it seemed much more serious. There was a sudden shock among the listeners of the podcast, and it caused a flurry of activity and discussion of possibilities. The expectations were suddenly spiked upwards by this reveal, showing another way expectations can be dramatically changed. Though at this point the podcast had been going on for quite some time, nothing had happened that was even close to this shocking. In speech, a sudden and dramatic shift will often change expectations, for the better or worse. If not executed well, it can change the audience’s expectations so negatively that it can completely disconnect them from being interested, which ruins the purpose of everything prior that had kept them engaged.

Subverting the audience’s expectations is a tool that is, in my opinion, essential to a successful piece of media. It’s often good to take a common trope and flip it on its head just when the audience expects the trope to be completed normally. It will shock the audience and give them a feeling of intrigue and suspense. It can also be done badly, however, and sometimes the destruction of a trope can cause a reaction in a very negative way. If, for example, characters are killed off suddenly and for no reason other than to subvert a trope, it would be negative – there is no thought in this, no larger purpose. Subversion has to be done with purpose, and with thought. Subversion for its own sake is pointless.

It’s also important to know the expectations of the audience, as well as those collaborating with you. There is a point in the story of The Adventure Zone where Griffin presented his family with a choice to make. (Warning: spoilers ahead once more.) It takes place in a “flashback” to the past, and would directly affect events that, in terms of the podcast’s release, had already happened. During the arc The Stolen Century, Griffin gives his players a choice whether to destroy a collection of human consciousnesses trapped inside a large cybernetic mind, or to preserve them. The characters decide to save the minds. It was only later revealed that initially they had chosen to destroy the larger mind, which would have created continuity errors. However, they all felt so bad about their decision that they went back and re-recorded the event, changing their decision.

(No further story spoilers beyond this point.)

This is only one point that shows how well Griffin knew his family – he was able to include such elements in his story. He could accurately predict exactly what his brothers and dad would do. It also showed that he knew what the audience wanted, and that he could control their expectation levels extremely well. Griffin controlled these things to craft a beautiful story. This beauty derived from decorum is known as ornatus. More specifically, ornatus is described as “beautiful order to achieve distinction.” Griffin used his knowledge of his family to create this beautiful order, causing The Adventure Zone to be distinguished as a unique podcast and story that could scarcely be replicated anywhere else.

There is far more that could be said about this podcast, and how it changed from a simple, crude-humor comedy show into an unparalleled emotional tale. I think there is plenty to see how decorum comes into play in storytelling, though. Even though most rhetors do not consciously realize it, decorum is in everything they do, whether it is writing, speaking, or recording a podcast story.