What's a "Moral Compass Cricket Thingy"?

[Maniakkid25]

...Chronicles of Narnia is across 7 books. The .hack video game was in 4 parts. Legend of Dragoon is 4 chapters, each one disk long. Those are the ones that immediately come to mind. However, there is a caveat. A small note I'd like to add: In my opinion, a story should be a self-contained unit that tells all it's information in that one tale alone, without me needed to have outside knowledge to understand what's happening. Now, what do I mean by "outside knowledge"? Marvel is a good way to illustrate this: Knowing who the characters are is not enough "outside knowledge" to lose sight of the story, but glossing over plot details that happened in earlier entries IS! So, the Avengers, and knowing who the various members are isn't directly explained in the movie, BUT the details you need to understand the plot that's happening (What happened to Loki and Thor, Bruce Banner's anger issues, stuff like that) is kept within the singular movie so that you understand exactly what's happening.

Put another way: The Original Modern Warfare 2. Knowing what happened in the first game helps set up the scenario, but "outside knowledge" would be if they skipped over the entire Gulag sequence and put that in a 200 page book explaining what happened. Given that the Gulag sequence has a direct link to the plot happening in America because it's the reason they get EMP'd, skipping over that part would be confusing!