Interesting and illuminating alchemy of Aristotle's ideas written from the pov of a spectator-critic-philosopher to the pov of a writer putting words on the page. About the the alchemy of Song to screenwriting: "the balance between... action scenes and interaction scenes, between night and day, outside and inside, the harmonies we create through the interplay of our scenes and sequences..." I would add the balance of opposing characters, and the "harmony" of the conflict. By balance of opposing characters, I mean an protagonist who is a worthy match to a formidable antagonist. Maybe not at the start of the plot, but he/she has the potential for a strong, growth character arc. [See Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader] Ditto with the antagonist in relation to the protagonist. The antagonist is more than a convenient foil, a plot sock puppet; he/she is a serious threat to the protagonist goal and even the protagonist's very life. By harmony of conflict, I have in mind what Charles Hampden-Turner points out in his excellent chapter on Greek drama in "Maps of the Mind", "Greek drama... were celebrations of harmonia (harmony) and symphronasis (reconciliation and symphony)... Harmony was not some persistent harping on a single mean, but the play of the instrument around the mean. Similarly Greek tragedy shows scant respect for ... temperaments... The ideal is both the attainment of heroic extremes and the realization that harmony requires one extreme to yield to its opposite, in the rhythm of verse, plot and music."

pgronk, oh yes. Balance between characters. So true. Reminds me I should do my semi-annual character archetypes posts because there is a visual paradigm that is mindblowing, at least to me, in terms of its symmetry, not the least of which is because it resembles some of Jung's mandalas... which I didn't realize until after I'd come up with the paradigm. Long story. Anyhow if we look at a story as the journey of a Protagonist or Protagonists, responding to the Call To Adventure created by their unique Story Universe, then in a way everything that happens and all character relationships are grounded in that narrative pulse. Nemesis: The projection of the Protagonist's shadow. Attractor: The character most distinctly tied to the Protagonist's emotional growth. Mentor: The character most distinctly tied to the Protagonist's intellectual growth. Trickster: Sometimes enemy, sometimes ally, tests the Protagonist's will. The Protagonist-Nemesis relationship (imagine a vertical axis with P at the top and N at the bottom) is tied to the existential question posed by the story: Who is the Protagonist? The fundamental question of their self-identity. The Protagonist-Attractor-Mentor relationships (imagine a horizontal axis with A at the left and M at the right, bisecting the vertical P-N axis) is most directed connected to a behavioral question: How will the Protagonist act? Now imagine a circle around the two axes where the Trickster exists, donning whatever archetype mask s/he chooses to fit their own ego-needs, but in terms of the narrative tests the P again and again. What you get is something like this, taken from Jung's "Red Book," one of his many mandalas: North = P, South = N, West = Attractor, East = Mentor, Perimeter = Trickster. And that circle in the center? That's where the narrative inevitably leads, where all of the characters converge leading to a confluence of interactions and events resulting in The Ending. Didn't mean to blurt all that out, but to me, this represents a wholly different way of approaching screenwriting, a character-based process where the plot emerges FROM the characters, and... per your original comment... there is a balance between the characters and their interrelationships. I'll try to carve out some time in the next few weeks to do a series of posts on the five primary character archetypes.

Oh, yes, I love this idea you & Pgronk just addressed about balancing the characters as necessary for the harmony of the conflict, and also, Scott, what you said, with regard to screenwriting, about how we always must think first of the visual narrative, what the viewer will see. And when I first read this section, Aristotle's phrase, "Two of the parts constitute the medium of imitation" (in reference to plot & character, I think), I was reminded of Marshall McLuhan's famous line, "The medium is the message." I think plot and character, the two mediums of imitation, also must balance for the harmony of the narrative.

Attractor & Mentor: They are not just cheerleaders and sidekicks; they balance and support the protagonist by providing something the protagonist really, really, really, really needs. The protagonist will fail without them, fail if what they bring to the story is rejected. Protagonist-Shadow relationship: I think it is useful to point out that Jung did not define the shadow as intrinsically evil. The shadow is merely the repressed, inferior, underdeveloped aspects of the personality (for better or worse). Applied to dramatic relationships means, it means there can be a secret symmetry between protagonist and antagonist such that not only is the antagonist the projection of the protagonist's shadow, but conversely, the protagonist is the projection of the antagonist's shadow. One of the clearest dramatizations of this is in the "Star Wars" epic. In "Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back", as part of his training under Yoda, Luke Skywalker confronts his shadow: Darth Vader -- what Luke could become if he chooses the dark side of the Force. But it is equally the case that onto Luke can be projected Darth Vader's shadow -- the inferior, undeveloped constructive, noble aspects of Darth's personality -- the hero Anakin Skywalker could have become if he hadn't chosen the dark side.

Re shadow: Absolutely. I look at the Nemesis primarily from the perspective of their narrative function and that is to provide opposition to the Protagonist. So not necessarily evil, but rather - again - a projection of that which the Protagonist 'opposes' psychologically within him/herself through repression, suppression, avoidance, etc. Approaching a Nemesis this way is much more interesting and less apt to result in a caricature, one more intimately tied in an interesting way to the P. Re Empire Strikes Back: I use that scene all the time in exploring the shadow as it is straight out of Jung. Re Mentor and Attractor: Absolutely, which is why I much prefer these designations to Allies because there is a specificity to each's purpose in a story. Head and Heart as metaphors. Character archetypes are such valuable tools that can lead to much richer, more textured characters.