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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43950
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43950
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Here's something important: if I am invested in a character, I would feel cheated if that character suddenly changes off-screen, and I am supposed to just accept that change as their new "characteristic". It's not enough that one could theoretically get there from here, as @Jedediah states. I would want to be there watching it happen.

Alternatively, if we encounter a character following a time-skip, and he is suddenly different, I would expect someone to be there, asking my question "what happened to you? What made you change?" A drastic change would pique my interest, it would be something I'd want to explore.

This is not to say that no change can be just skipped over, ever. In some cases, it is acceptable for a character to "grow up" and outgrow certain traits. In other cases, "what happened to you" is easily understood: a man coming home from war is not the same boy who went out, no additional explanation required. And it could be that you start a character on a path, and then pick up the story a while later, when they have gone some distance along that path.

All the same, character growth is one of the things one is looking for in a story. If you hide it all "off-screen", and just skip from result to result, even if you manage to justify it all, you're still waving candy before your reader without letting them eat it. Not nice.

Original score: 2