We discuss the plots of novels or films, from Javier Marías’s The Face Tomorrow to Hitchcock’s On the Heels of Death, and even broader traces like March of March, The Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot, or Gürtel.
Just as a fiction writer crafts a story by arranging characters, timelines, settings, and the bonds between them, often starting from the ending rather than waiting for events to unfold, conspiracy theories tend to crystallize in a similar way. They elevate plots into grand schemes where a single, all‑powerful force pulls the strings while ordinary people and fictional figures appear as unwitting puppets. Mercy, power, and the illusion of a self‑driven engine all play roles in this perception.
Poster for the movie North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock, 1959.
But the symmetry is not exact: it is easier to imagine conspiracies as stories than to see stories as conspiracies. Yet, as a Great Narrator, the conspirator figure looms behind assassinations, attacks, election outcomes, epidemics, wars, and economic crises. Those behind the curtain could be real powers or imagined ones. Many names—ranging from Masons and Jesuits to secret clubs, governments, or influential elites—are cited in debates about hidden influence. Writers across time, from Flaubert to Dostoyevsky, Proust, Pérez Galdós, Clarín, Cortázar, and Javier Marías, sometimes cast characters like Emma, Raskólnikov, Marcel, Gabriel de Araceli, Ana Ozores, or Jaime Deza as if they authored their own destinies.
“Meme” playing with the middle panel of the Saint Columba triptych by Rogier van der Weyden
Likewise, faith narratives shape belief through competing stories about mighty figures who inhabit Olympus or sacred realms. A divine autocrat in a vast, contested universe appears in conflict with others, yet even God can be seen as part of a scenario that transcends any single being.
A scene from Titanic (James Cameron, 1997).
Conspiracies can be a wellspring of inspiration as well as a catalyst for endings. They often propel plots forward, inciting fear or sympathy, sometimes pushing audiences to consider drastic acts in the name of a cause. The idea that a single act or decision can ripple outward—fueling conspiracy and shaping terror—feels almost natural, tied to the way language itself links endings and beginnings. In biblical storytelling, for instance, divine figures set events in motion with freedom and constraints that generate dramatic tension, including tests of faith, moral dilemmas, and moments of apparent deus ex machina that reframe what comes next.
There is a painting that captures this celestial plot in a single frame: the middle panel of the Saint Columba triptych by Rogier van der Weyden, housed in Munich. In it, a cross hangs over a Bethlehem portal where Mary and the child dwell, a visual spoiler hinting at the story’s outcome. We sense the ending even as we follow the path. Each tale thus becomes a source of comfort and envy, offering both reassurance and a mirror to our own lives.
Frozen life, warm story
Walter Benjamin offered a cautious reading: the value of a novel lies not in depicting a distant fate, but in inviting readers to feel a shared warmth that dissolves their own chill of fate. Lives in fiction reach a clear, legible end, while real life remains exposed to chance, missteps, and the aftermath of uncertainty. Readers inhabit the characters, finding a kind of shelter in stories that seem to reveal a larger plan even as the real world remains unfinished and unpredictable.
Hannah Arendt pursued a middle ground between personal experience and the narratives others offer us. She noted that every story seems to imitate the unpredictability and contingency of human existence, yet without shaping our own lives into a narrative, we miss understanding and acceptance. If we do not weave our own story, sorrow multiplies. The task is to find a channel that makes sense of what happens, to connect personal meaning with the larger tapestry of events. The moment when the world around us assumes a sense of order or fate can feel like a small, internal triumph—even if it is imperfect.
Accounting of the story
Stories vary in their power and purpose. What makes a narrative compelling, and who holds responsibility for its tellability? The scholar William Labov weighs in on tellability—the quality that makes some stories worth telling, beyond mere narration. Tellability embodies what a tale carries inside it, the intrinsic something that invites an audience to listen. In the end, certain stories survive because they hold a truth that resonates with listeners, much like Scheherazade’s choices that kept a kingdom hungry for more. Some narratives become life preservers, saving listeners from despair or monotony.
There seems to be a universal thread here, adaptable across cultures. Labov recounts a French example of a best-selling recipe story, suggesting that mystery, romance, status, and belief can set the stage for memorable beginnings. Think of Dangerous Liaisons reimagined with contemporary social dynamics, where wealth, power, and desire collide—and where cinema, theater, and television often remix these themes. The idea of “heart programs” captures how emotional and social coordinates drive engagement and memory.
Some stories offer richer avenues for imagination than others because they mirror the recipient’s inner landscape. They invite different possible futures and alternate endings, provoking the imagination rather than closing it. The certainty of an ending can be both a lure and a trap, and readers or viewers may feel drawn to explore outcomes beyond what is handed to them. Yet the ultimate closure, dictated by others or by chance, remains a surprise—or perhaps a prompt for further exploration.
Buyer as producer
When Titanic captivated audiences, millions cried at Jack’s fate. Some later creators used cinematic moments from Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s bodies of work to craft speculative trailers and alternate endings. They wove new storylines, added voiceovers, or inserted captions that reimagined the fate of protagonists. In one imagined thread, Jack survives, Rose rebuilds a life, and the narrative branches into a hopeful family arc. In another, survival hinges on a post–Titanic future where DNA repair or cloning reshapes the tale. These fan edits underscore how audiences are not passive; they remix, reconstruct, and prolong stories in ways that feel personal and urgent.
There is a longing for more when a story ends abruptly or remains incomplete. People crave the agency to extend or alter what is known, to move beyond the boundaries of imagination into a sense of limitless possibility. That impulse—to demand more, to test boundaries, to rewrite endings—drives culture forward and keeps the conversation alive.
In the end, storytelling is a shared act of meaning-making, a dance between fate and freedom, between what is written and what we choose to rewrite. The enduring question remains: how do we live with the stories we inherit, and how do we craft our own paths within them?
[Citation: The ideas above reflect literary and film theory discussions on narrative, conspiracy, and storytelling as explored in various scholarly and cultural contexts.]