re: Protagonist-Nemesis-Attractor-Mentor-Trickster

This is definitely an interesting way to look at the characters of the stories. Have you come across any books that might go into these ideas more (other than the Jung that I know you've been reading)?

Or will this be the book you finally write yourself!?

j

James: I'm in the process of writing it.

Sounds like a great book. I'm curious to learn more.

Hey Scott,

Enjoy all your posts, but especially the ones dealing with the craft of screenwriting. They help reinforce the lessons learned from books, reading screenplays, and writing pages. Very helpful.

Thanks...

Could you please explain the role of the Trickster a little further?

Scott, I absolutely LOVE your website! My screenwriter buddy Kurt Djemal said he had lunch with you. Speaks very highly of you. I posted a few links to your website from my site: writerwrench.com. I should direct more traffic your way. Cheers!

@beingbrad: Briefly the core of the Trickster’s narrative function is to use their guile and smarts to test the Protagonist. They do this by shifting back and forth between enemy and ally, ally and enemy. If you think of most movies as a journey to a critical point toward the end where the Protagonist engages in a Final Struggle, a last Big Test, then the Trickster's tests leading up to that point help to prepare the P for the end battle.

Examples of Tricksters in movies: Han Solo in Star Wars: A New Hope and Gollum in Lord of the Rings. In less ‘mythic’ movies, there’s Leo Getz in Lethal Weapon, Major Strosser in Casablanca, Uncle Billy in It’s a Wonderful Life, Jack in Sideways, and “Nuke” Laloosh in Bull Durham. And possibly the best one in recent memory is Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Scott, can characters fulfill two narrative functions? For example, can a character be both an attractor and a trickster?

@Gregaria: I don't look at archetypes as being rules so much as principles, so there isn't a solid "no" or "yes" answer. But in my experience of working with this material, I would say that generally, a character has one primary character type. There is value in choosing to think that way in that it forces the writer to drill down to the core essence of each character.

Beyond that -- and this is one of the beauties with working with these archetypes -- there is the nuance provided by masks. That is just like you or I in our everyday lives, we act differently with our spouse than we do with a cop, with our dog than we do with a bank teller. In other words, we wear masks.

Same thing with characters. From one scene to the next, one interrelationship to the next, any character can wear a mask per their nature and the ebb-and-flow of the plot.

So an Attractor can be very much in type in Scene A as an Attractor, but in Scene B wear the mask of a nemesis, in Scene C the mask of a trickster. And so on. However I would argue that their primary character archetype stays the same: They do not change fundamentally only in terms of their behavior / masks.

The beauty of this is not only that it replicates the real world and how humans act in social circumstances, it also allows a writer to create truly multidimensional characters. A Nemesis is a lot more interesting if they can don the mask of a mentor, then an attractor, then a co-protagonist, and so on.

This character archetype material is really so much fun and such a revelation. I love working with it in my own stories. And every time I've taught including this current course at UNC, the students just flip for the ideas.

Interesting taxonomy. Intersects with Chris Vogler's archetypes: hero, shadow, mentor, herald, threshold guardian, shapeshifter, trickster and ally. I personally have used threshold guardian to good effect; not sure if/where it fits in your taxonomy.

@77kart: I think what Vogler has done is fantastic as he's adapted the work and ideas of Joseph Campbell for storytelling in Hollywood. I differ with his take on character archetypes in a couple of ways. First, in "The Writer's Journey," he details at least 8 archetypes. I focus on just 5 as primary archetypes because they are, I believe, present in most stories and central to the story-crafting process. Some of the others such as Herald are secondary and oftentimes their function is fulfilled by one of the primary archetype characters.

Second Vogler asserts that characters can switch archetypes from one scene to the next. I think this can be confusing to writers, especially in the prep-writing phase where you're trying to wrangle the story. Moreover I think if you really get down to the core essence of your major characters, they do not switch types, rather their macro function always stays the same. I prefer to look at it this way: Characters can wear 'masks' of other types [see previous comment]. It's the same effect as what Vogler suggests, but looks at characters and their narrative functions differently.

These differences aren't just arbitrary, but based on years of reading Carl Jung [who was a big influence on Campbell] as well as my own experiences as a screenwriter and student of movies.

But on the whole, what Vogler has accomplished is remarkable and I recommend his book highly.

Thanks, Scott.

Where does Me, Myself and Irene land in this? :)