Doubts on doing Denounment.

[Widdershins 9,960]

   Got to thinking recently. Story is one of, if not the most important thing to me.

   There is two, equally viable directions to take a story. A storyteller can give their audience all or most of the details up front then let things take their course as the characters find new ways to deal with things as their trials progress.

  The second, which I feel seems to happen notably more often, is to hide facts from from the reader or experiencer until the major drama, the big boss fight, the majority of the denounment's disentanglement is already over with. While that leaves more revelations & entertainment for the final act to go out on, I feel that somehow cheapens the investment in the story.

  For example, what got me down this thought-alleyway was my experience so far playing the newest installment of the Pokemon franchise. Yes, I'll keep the spoilers as bare minium as I can. The thing is, if you have a villain that has clearly at some point has a drastic change in character in order for them to be the threat they are, but you never tell us why they do all they evil they do until the aftermath is through, does that not just cheapen the investment? Why should we bother fighting some boss if all we know of them is that they have a history of being mean to others. If their turn to evil wasn't tragic mishaps or part of fault on the protagonists actions, then wouldn't it mean to imply that evil people are just evil & anyone can just decide to stab you in the back one day for no good reason? Which is a depressing notion to be sure.

  

  Is there equal merit to both storytelling options? Am I wrong in assuming the latter is just another cheap & hackneyed ploy for the audiences' attention? Hiding anything from the audience for reasons other then the characters we're following having not experienced it yet just seems dishonest in my opinion.