“perceiving that not as care, as a positive offering, but as the opening of intellectual combat.”
That is a great way of phrasing things. I feel like a lot of the spoiler/nonsense-twist problems are coming from a belief that writers are somehow in competition with their audience - like they have to prove themselves better or smarter by creating a plot that can only be followed or predicted if you’re the author.
Now maybe I’m biased because of my personal preferences. I love mysteries and police procedurals. I’m the kind of dork who used to religiously watch Air Crash Investigations. My favourite RPG puzzles are ones where you’re rewarded for observing and forming strategies based on details and in-game information. I love re-reading books for all the little things I missed on the first pass.
The end result is that I’m a firm believer in the idea of The Fair Mystery approach to storytelling. Basically the idea that (with the exception of worlds that intentionally run on whimsy, randomness and/or coincidence) an attentive reader/viewer should theoretically be able to predict part or all of the coming plot.Â
An Unfair Mystery is one that the audience has no hope of solving; because essential information is completely withheld, because they’re being deliberately fed incorrect information without any way to distinguish it from the truth in order to keep them off-track, because the ending/ twist/ reveal has no real connection to the preceding events/ information - because there is no way to reasonably infer or deduce what will happen based on the material provided.
With an unfair mystery all you can really do is sit back and watch passively as the writers flex how “clever” they or their characters are. (Hbomberguy’s Sherlock video-essay gives some nice analysis of how this ended up hurting the BBC adaptation).
With a Fair Mystery the audience has the possibility of working out the plot for themselves. It doesn’t mean that it has to be easy, or even probable, just that it’s possible. (JustWrite made a good video about this.)
The ironic thing is that it actually takes a lot more effort and intelligence to write a Fair Mystery; to ensure details are consistent and cohesive, conceal clues and foreshadowing within the dialogue and setting/ background descriptions, maintain a sense of internal logic in how things connect/ flow on from each other, and so on.  Unfair Mysteries are often talked about as though they’re “outsmarting” the audience, but it takes a lot less work to throw in an unsupported, contrived plot point and exclaim “ha! bet you didn’t see that coming” than it does to carefully set up a story that completely supports its conclusion throughout while still keeping the audience guessing.
You can think of it in terms of making a jigsaw puzzle. The image can be extremely complex and composed of a large number of pieces. Quite a few people will be happy to just enjoy the final product and let someone else assemble it for them. More people will enjoy trying but will only be able to solve it after looking at the box (i.e. a spoiler) for reference. A good number of people would probably be able to work through it slowly, but couldn’t do so in a short time frame. And there will be some who are innately skilled or practised enough at puzzle-solving to work it out quickly. The point is that the audience was invited to solve it.
If your jigsaw can only be assembled by you, you’ve created a bad puzzle.
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