Release order on first experience is the only way guaranteed to not create unnecessary confusion. Works in a continuity that are released after each other tend rely upon prior knowledge of the work to accentuate the experience. Inventing a new angle to experience them through may be valuable as an artistic exercise, but it is very clearly a bad idea to recommend that angle to newcomers. Release order is specifically reliable because it tracks either the creative process/development of ideas in cases of straightforward serialization, or in case of intentionality in release order follows author intent.

The only time a bespoke work order is even debatable is in cases of an adaptation of a work that is not adapted in release order of the original work. Even then, that adaptation may work around that in a way where it makes it, too, confusing to experience outside of its own release order.

  • Are_Euclidding_Me [e/em/eir]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    I can’t agree. Sure, release order is how I’d almost always choose to engage with a series, but that’s because I don’t trust hardly anyone to tell me which order to experience stuff in!

    If I do trust someone who’s well-versed in a series and they tell me to experience works in a certain order, yeah, I’d do that. But everything is so subjective, you really have to trust the person who is telling you which order you should engage with the works in the series, and on the internet, that trust is hard to build.

    But still, I definitely think there are frequently arguments for skipping a certain title in a series, or reading a series in some order other than publication order. Not every work in a series is going to be as easy to get into as every other, and often earlier entries are clunkier than later ones.

    For some concreteness:

    In The Elder Scrolls, I started with Oblivion (IV) and I’m glad I did. I went back to Morrowind (III) later and I think I enjoyed it more because I sort of knew what an Elder Scrolls title is like.

    I played Pathologic 2 before Pathologic 1 and would never suggest anyone start with Pathologic 1.

    The first Dark Souls game I beat is Dark Souls 3, after bouncing off Dark Souls 1 pretty hard.

    We’ve been watching the Predator movies recently, and I’d suggest skipping the original Predator and jumping straight to Predator 2, unless you really like Arnold Schwarzenegger or you’re really, really into the series. The original Predator is just boring, in a way the later ones aren’t. (It’s also, arguably, the best of them in terms of cinematography, themes, the overall craft, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a large contingent of people who hate the Predator movies other than the first. Which kind of complicates my argument, but I stand by it!)

    I’m sure there are other relevant examples, but I sure can’t think of them at the moment!