PT Essay: Lucas' ingenuity & the true PT protagonist

Your user name wasn't taken yet???

Also, good post fam.

 

I was also surprised it wasn't taken.

 

Speaking of protagonist there is a podcast that went over who the protagonist and antagonist of ANH alone is.

The answer is not monumental but it's a nice chain of reasoning that you don't hear that often:

http://storywonk.com/story-and-star-wars-1-a-new-hope/

 

Brilliant Essay! This Essay with The Ring Theory make a cohesive and strong argument about what Lucas often says about "Rhyming"

 

Um... yea, sorry, can't get on board with this.


Vader drives the plot of ESB - is he the protagonist?
Emperor in ROTJ - is he the protagonist there?

Jacob and MiB in Lost, they're the protagonists?
Victor Drazen / Marwan in 24? Or hey, 2nd season, it's all revealed to be "Max" who sits on a boat - and he only shows up for a minute! Has 24 used the novel approach of an off-stage protagonist who only shows up in the last minute and then disappears forever?

And yes, just like in those, you don't know the villainous endgame for the first several acts and chase after the more trivial set-ups.
TDK does that, too.




"Antagonists" often drive the plot - conventional wisdom has it that "the antagonist always starts the plot, and often drives it", even though of course that is only sometimes true.
Main characters trying to keep up with a shadowy conspiracy driven by someone is a staple in fiction.

Who's the protagonist of Se7en, Brad Pitt or Kevin Spacey?



I think you're making a complicated avantgarde issue out of something simple and classical, but that's just my 2 cents.

 

I'm going off of Lucas' own comments here and story structure 101 stuff (often forgotten in this day and age). You are free to believe or disbelieve it at your discretion.

No, they do not drive the plot in those films, nor are they the protagonists. This would be an incorrect reading of the plot. Included in this essay is the plot protagonist/antagonist structure for all the films. A story isn't simply what happens -- it's how you tell it and it's connected deeply to motivation and cause and effect. And in the original trilogy, along with an understanding of storycraft, there can be no doubt about who is protagonist and who is antagonist, who is driving the story and who is not.

Haven't seen them.

In The Dark Knight, Joker is indeed the catalyst of the story. Without the Joker, there is no story. This necessitates that he is the story protagonist. However, we view the story from the main character of Batman, who is the antagonist. Batman is defending the status quo -- does he really want any change? No, he wants things to stay the same, he wants to stop the Joker. The preserver of the status quo is the antagonist. In the original trilogy, that would be Vader and Palpatine. For The Dark Knight, that is Batman. Most popular "understandings" of character motivation and protagonist/antagonist structure which equate protagonist=main character are wrong-headed. That is the case in a simple story, like the original trilogy. It is not the case in a more complex story, like The Dark Knight or the prequels.

The difference between the prequels and The Dark Knight is that Batman is aware of the presence of the protagonist trying to get what he wants. The same is true for the originals. In the prequels, the main characters do not realize Palpatine is the protagonist with a desire he is aiming for each film, driving every avenue of our story. As such, they do not realize they are antagonists and must stop them. They simply respond to smaller conflicts while missing the bigger picture. They get out-foxed, because unconventionally, the prequels not only flip the pro/antagonist roles around, but it's telling a tragedy, so even though our main characters are the antagonists attempting to preserve order, they fail.

For further reading:

By definition, the antagonist does not drive the plot. What would he be opposing if there was nothing at first opposing him? The catalyst for action is what drives the plot, and that is always the protagonist. The protagonist has the desire, the aim for transformation (which is what stories are about), and is connected to every major plot point in the story. Without that, there'd be no story, and hence no antagonist to oppose the change.

Yes, it sometimes happens for us to follow a main character who is simply reactive and preventative to what's happening around them. That would cast them as the antagonist. Though, stories with the main character attempting to unravel the mystery, with obstacles opposing them discovering the truth, is traditional structured stuff which casts the main character as the protagonist. Think: Indiana Jones.


For more information, read: The Confusion Between Main Character and Protagonist & Defining Protagonist and Main Character.

You may think so, but given everything I know about Lucas' own views of his work, the kind of experimental nature of storytelling he prefers, along with my knowledge of the craft of storytelling, I believe my comments here are actually astute, and I'm not the first one to make them.

 

So when Sauron is trying to take over and plunge Middle Earth into darkness, he's the protagonist while Frodo and Gandalf are the antagonists?


K, you know what, this is simply a terminology disconnect, and the one I'm using appears to be the one commonly used.

I don't see how anything in EpI-III is experimental or complex, btw, it's the same conventional storytelling as elsewhere.

 

The interesting thing about LOTR is that it could very easily be a story where Sauron is the protagonist, but the way it is told, it is not. If the story goal was to prevent the Ring from reaching its master and it consisted mostly of the main characters trying to hide the ring from Sauron, then yes, Sauron would be the protagonist and the main characters would be the antagonists.

However, the story downplays that story point strongly in favor of another: we must go to Mount Doom to destroy the ring. Everything in the plot then becomes connected to the Fellowship's attempt to destroy the ring. In this way, because of how the story is told, the Fellowship are our protagonists. In this way, the story is told as if the Fellowship is not reactive, but is instead proactive agents trying to outwit another proactive agent. If Sauron had constantly put the Fellowship on the defensive, or had played the strings in his favor so no one knew who was who (like the prequels), then that would be more evidence for the notion he is the protagonist. It would also connect him to major plot points in a way that connects more to the story goal. But that's not what happens, and even Sauron does not jump-start the story -- Bilbo does by disappearing with his ring, and Gandalf does it by finding the truth. The Fellowship further does it by banding together with both the protagonist and story goal: destroy the ring (and hopefully stay together in the process). This is why the Frodo/Sam story is narratively the most interesting, because it is the most connected to the heart of the story the way it is told.

It may be commonly used, but in the same way that widespread illusions can be believed as truth, it is not correct or accurate. If a person were to try to construct a story using the 'commonly used' terminology, it would only allow a certain range of stories to be told, and anything told outside that range would lack narrative power.

Much of us here disagree. But you are free to hold your own opinions about them. I personally would say that many elements, perhaps most, are told in a manner which is not conventional by today's standards. The basic elements are the same -- there are characters and a plot we follow -- but beyond that, there's some really interesting creative decisions taking place.

 

Lol - language isn't like some "fact", if a term becomes widely used it eventually becomes the correct one - or the common one, as opposed to "academic jargon", whichever way it happens.

The idea that a different terminology of character types is gonna limit the range of stories sounds absurd to me.

The "conventional aspects" go way beyond "plot we follow", but not sure how on-topic that is, so...

 

I guess I don't know where to begin here. It seems like you've missed the point of most of what I said. The fact that you simply see this as a terminology issue means you did not grasp what is being said. But, it's futile arguing my points if they aren't going to properly understood even when I try to re-explain them. You are right, this is not going anywhere and it's not contributing to the thread so, carry on elsewhere.

 

Well, I mean if you're gonna write in detail about how Palpatine is the mastermind behind the PloT, there's not even that much area of disagreement there... right?

I was just confused about your use of "protagonist" and thought you were engaging in sophistry - now I get that you're using a different definition and it mostly makes sense now.