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As mentioned in an earlier lesson, the Hero includes two very different types of characters: the Protagonist and the Main Character. Protagonist is an Objective Character, identified by its dramatic function as the chief driver of the effort to achieve the Story Goal. In contrast, the Main Character is a Subjective Character, identified by its point of view as the reader or audience position in the story, and as the character that grapples with the story's central moral dilemma.
Similarly, the Villain includes both the Antagonist and the Influence Character (also called the Obstacle or Impact Character. The Antagonist is defined as the character who directly opposes the Protagonist's efforts to achieve the goal. The Influence Character is the one who most directly opposes the Main Character's moral position, and has the greatest impact on forcing the Main Character to consider changing his or her view.
In this lesson, we'll take an initial look at both the Main and Influence characters, learn something about what they do on their own and about how they affect one another.
Where Are You Coming From?
As described earlier, every story has a mind of its own - its own psychology and its own personality. The psychology is represented in the story's structure, and the personality is developed through the storytelling.
Every character in a story represents an aspect of our own human psychology. Protagonist, for example, represents our initiative. The Reason and Emotion Archetypes represent our intellect and our feelings. But the Main Character has a completely different connection to our own minds: it represents our sense of self.
We all awareness that we exist, as in "I think, therefore I am." No matter if we are being logical one moment and then emotional the next, our sense of self never falters - it just comes from a different place. That's why in stories we jump around and see things from the points of view of all the essential characters. For example, we might look through the eyes of the Reason archetype in one scene or passage, and then see what things look like standing in the Emotion archetype's shoes. In fact, that is the exact equivalent of being logical one moment and emotional the next.
But, just because we jump around to gather information from all the angles we can get on an issue, we always come back to our center - to the part of ourselves most affected by the situation or problem.
Stories are not about all the problems that we might have running around in our heads simultaneously in real life. Rather, they are about one particular problem that the Story Mind needs to resolve. So, although we bop around and experience the story through all of our characters, ultimately, the decision must be made by the character who is most affected by the problem. That character is the one who must grapple with the decision because it knows that its future happiness, and the outlook for all the other characters depends upon that choice.
In fact, it is often a large part of that inner turmoil that sometimes what is best for the character most affected by the problem may, be worst for all the other characters: a true moral dilemma.
Where Are You At?
Since our sense of self must reside somewhere, in stories the Main Character point of view will be attached to one of the Objective characters (like Protagonist, Reason, or Emotion). But which one should be the Main Character in your story? Actually, it is very simple, in a structural sense. If your story's moral issue deals with whether or not one should pursue something, then the Protagonist is the Main Character.
Such a situation exists in the motion picture, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Jones grapples with whether or not it is worth pursuing the Holy Grail. Although Jones, himself, has pursued many things (as evidenced even in the opening sequence as a teenager), he has a deep-seated hatred for his father, who so single-mindedly pursued the Grail that he had no time for his son.
Clearly this dichotomy has left Indiana both conflicted and confused. And when he is forced by circumstances to help his dad pursue the Grail, he has scenes where he literally comes to a crossroads, stops, and asks the elder Jones, "Which Way," hoping in his inner child that his dad will abandon the quest in favor of his son. He has a number of lines like, "I hope it was worth it." And yet, when he finally has a chance to obtain the Grail, which has fallen onto a ledge in a chasm, it is his father who says, "Let it go, Indiana..." The younger Jones must now ultimately decide to pursue or not to pursue. That is the crux of the moral message and the reason that Jones as Main Character is also appropriately the Protagonist.
Most of the films made in Hollywood associate the Main Character with the Protagonist, assembling the stereotypical Hero type. There is nothing wrong with this arrangement, but in your story, you can make any one of your characters the Main Character.
If your story is about struggling with faith, then why not make the Sidekick your Main Character, since he, she (or it) is the faithful supporter. If your story is about temptation, then the Contagonist would be your best choice for Main Character, and so on. Think about the moral dilemma you want to explore, and then use that as the basis of your nomination for the Main Character of your story.
Where Are You Going To?
The Main Character's decision doesn't happen by accident. It comes from a story-long series of experiences leading up to a moment of truth. Sometimes that moment of truth culminates in a Leap of Faith, wherein the Main Character must make a conscious choice to stick with his old views or adopt new ones. But other times, the Main Character may make a subconscious choice, simply by being changed by his or her experiences. In fact, the Main Character may not even realize it has changed, and this is fine, as long as your reader or audience knows whether it did. After all, the message of the story is only complete when the Main Character changes or remains steadfast in its views, and then the reader audience sees how things turn out for that character based on its disposition.
Now the road to that personal climax is not always a straight line. A Main Character might begin with very strong views on the story's central issue, then gradually erode in its conviction, and ultimately slip over the line to the other side. Or, he or she might just barely squeak through maintaining his or her original ideals by the skin of the teeth. On the other hand, the Main Character might hold fast right up to the very end and then flip to the other side with the straw that broke the camel's back. Or the character could start out weak, and grow in resolve to stay the course, and then flip over to the other side. In fact, a Main Character might waffle back and forth over the line until the very last second, leaving the reader and audience completely unsure of which way the character will go until the moment of truth has passed.
The Main Character's dilemma might be strongly on its mind, or very much in the background. It might be highly connected to the plot, or just peripherally involved. It might be a land-shaking decision of cosmic proportions, or a slight shift in perspective on a very gentle, personal subject. But large or small, intimately tied to events, or just meandering through them, paramount to the Main Character, or almost insignificant, the moral dilemma must exist in your story. It must be explored by the Main Character over the course of the story. And, it must be resolved at the end of your story. Other wise, you have no message.
In summary then, the most common arrangement is to make the Protagonist your Main Character and have the moral issue whether pursuit is worth the cost. But any of your Objective characters can be chosen as the Main Character, depending on the nature of your story's message or moral. In the end, the Main Character represents the reader or audience position in the story, and in the Story Mind represents our own sense of self. We will, and should, stand in the shoes of all the characters in the story to get all the angles on the issues we get in our own minds as we explore how a problem affects all aspects of ourselves. But in the end, the part of ourselves most affected by the problem will make the decision to keep doing things the old way or to try the new. And the Main Character will be the one upon whom that burden falls.
We'll have MUCH more to say about the Main Character and its personal dilemma in future lessons. But for now, we have established a broad overview of its nature, function, and importance in your story.
Study Exercises: Main Characters in Real Stories
1. Pick out the Main Characters from three of your favorite books or movies. (The Main Characters will be the one the story seems to be about, the one who represents the reader or audience position in the story, and the one who grapples with the moral dilemma pertaining to the story's message issue.)
2. Describe why each of these characters represents the reader/audience position.
3. Describe each Main Character's moral dilemma.
4. Describe how each Main Character grapples with the moral dilemma over the course of the story, perhaps becoming more or less steadfast as events unfold.
5. For each story, determine if it ends in a leap of faith or not.
6. Describe how the reader or audience is told by the author whether or not the Main Character has changed.
Writing Exercises: Creating Main Characters
For the following exercises refer to the archetypal characters you created in previous lessons.
1. Try making each of the archetypes you previously created into a Main Character as well.
2. For each of these characters, describe how they could be developed to come across as the reader or audience position in the scenario you had developed for them.
3. List each of these character's moral dilemmas (based on an appropriate issue to their archetypal function).
4. For each character, develop three dramatic moments or events that convey how this character is grappling with its moral dilemma, and in each instance indicate how its resolve to hold on to its original view either wavers or remains steadfast.
5. Create a moment of truth for each character and convey to your reader/audience whether that character ultimately changes or remains steadfast. (Be sure to experiment both with Leap of Faith and non-leap-of faith scenarios.
6. For each character, create a follow-up scenario after the moment of truth to show how it fared as a result of its moral decision.
Copyright 2003 Melanie Anne Phillips
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