A-Z Characters & Transformation: The Surprise Reveal or What the Audience Truly Wants

In one of his discussions on horror, Stephen King points out that the human brain can imagine greater horrors within a text than a film can capture. Granted, there are exceptions. I watched the black & white French Les Diaboliques as a student. All of us in the theater gasped-as-one at the great reveal. 

So often, however, these moments run the risk of falling somewhat flat. The "man behind the curtain" turns out to be...

The Wizard of Oz. A conman (or a couple of Ferengi) who is not what everyone thought, just a rather ordinary guy pulling wires. 

With Baum's Oz, the almost random, dreamlike ordinariness of "O" is rather the point: "A little old man with a bald head and a wrinkled face." He readily admits to being a "humbug" though he argues, "I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit."  

Seeing as the book is, possibly, a dream of Dorothy's, the random non-surprise here makes sense. It may also explain why I don't care for the book. I have a hard enough time with the dreamlike sequences in Miyazaki's work--but they at least seem to capture a feeling of transcendence. The Wizard of Oz comes across as a very long in-joke, which I find unsettling. 

But again, Baum is a good-enough writer to take the "reveal" where it goes. The "thing" behind the curtain may not live up to expectations, so why not simply go to those disappointed expectations. 

Another solution, interestingly, seems to be to give away the reveal. In Heaven's Official Blessing, Xie Lian--and the reader--are fairly sure of the true identity of San Lang. It isn't exactly a secret--it simply isn't addressed until necessary. Likewise, the audience knows the twins in Twelfth Night are alive, even if they do not.

Which suggests that the reveal isn't for the characters' sake. Rather, it is artistically satisfying for the audience to watch the confrontation, the reveal, the ripped-off disguise. We know it is coming: we still want to see it happen.   

(Regarding the placement of Oz on this list, Characters Who Transform: the character doesn't transform, but his transformation or reveal alters the main characters' understanding: as with the audience, the impact of the reveal is greater on others than on the character.)