The Case AGAINST Character Arcs

I've always felt the arc could be internal to a character IN the story or internal to the reader/viewer. Either or both is good. This is almost always the case in serial or episodic story telling. The main character rarely changes, but takes the viewer on a journey and the VIEWER experiences the change.

I think there needs to be an arc/change experienced or the story is boring. On WHOM the arc is imposed seems to be the area of interest in this article. For the most part, I'm in agreement.

And for the record, technically the Samurai DO change. They are all mercenaries - in it for the money. In the rice eating scene, where they see that the villagers are going hungry while they take the best of the food, they have a moment when they give up their mercenary, 'selfish' ways. The scene is played out the same in "The Magnificent Seven".

you can find some really good information in this discussion from a few months back

Thanks for the link krano. I'm new to this board. That thread certainly beats the dead horse into submission! Just about every aspect of the debate seems covered, thanks.

Thanks for the great thought provoking link, Jst.

I have always struggled with what I felt is the intellectualizing of writing. I understand it is important to learn the varied facets of it but sometimes I feel we can get too pedantic in our observation of it.

In my mind a good story reveals the nature of a character not that they change. Perhaps the story takes us as the reader through the choices they make and in the end should a "bad" person make the right choice, I feel it is often because it was instinctively in their nature to do so.

I suppose that comes from the part of me that believes we all have innate goodness to start out with and maybe we just forget that. But I digress.

I think that even a "good" protagonist can make bad choices. Does this mean they have changed? No, not necessarily. It could just be life and choices.

I don't know if I am making any sense but to me, the telling of a good story will show you the what your characters are made of. If they happen to have a change of heart during the story well okay then but it must be important to the story not just for the sake of some arc.

Boy I hope I made sense.

Cassiopeia said:

Thanks for the great thought provoking link, Jst.

I have always struggled with what I felt is the intellectualizing of writing. I understand it is important to learn the varied facets of it but sometimes I feel we can get too pedantic in our observation of it.

In my mind a good story reveals the nature of a character not that they change. Perhaps the story takes us as the reader through the choices they make and in the end should a "bad" person make the right choice, I feel it is often because it was instinctively in their nature to do so.

I suppose that comes from the part of me that believes we all have innate goodness to start out with and maybe we just forget that. But I digress.

I think that even a "good" protagonist can make bad choices. Does this mean they have changed? No, not necessarily. It could just be life and choices.

I don't know if I am making any sense but to me, the telling of a good story will show you the what your characters are made of. If they happen to have a change of heart during the story well okay then but it must be important to the story not just for the sake of some arc.

Boy I hope I made sense.

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No Cass you made no sense at all! Sorry!

Just kidding

I agree that character is very important and that's something I am putting a lot of thought into in my screenplay. This is a good thread.

NYBrit said:

No Cass you made no sense at all! Sorry!

Just kidding

I agree that character is very important and that's something I am putting a lot of thought into in my screenplay. This is a good thread.

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You know, I still know how to hurt you.

quote=Cassiopeia;2172487]You know, I still know how to hurt you.

[/quote]

Chicken.

But I think what I'm trying to say is, that I think this whole "your character has to change" is really nonsense. Mostly because as an evolving person as we grow we do mature but I don't think people really change their personality that much as they do learn to make better choices. This is the stuff life is made of. It's the plot for me that drives the story not some character arc.

The Seven Samurai – One of the most influential films of all time, and my question to you is how did the Samurai change? All they did was accept the task at hand of protecting the village. They did their jobs living by their codes, and they either survived the battle or didn’t. The villagers certainly changed in that they became stronger individuals due to the influence of the Samurai.

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Seriously, is the author trying to tell me the surviving samurai weren't emotionally affected and changed by their experiences?

-Derek

dpaterso said:

Seriously, is the author trying to tell me the surviving samurai weren't emotionally affected and changed by their experiences?

-Derek

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But how did they change if they did? Obviously they were emotionally affected but did their character change?



btw...your avatar isn't nearly as fun as the other ones...when I thought you were a girl

I see Cass is in full on brat mode today

NYBrit said:

I see Cass is in full on brat mode today

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HEY! I resemble that remark!

Again, referring only to Seven Samurai, they DID change. The dinner scene was a very subtle shift. These guys are hired blades (or in the case of Magnificent Seven, hired guns,). They care for NO ONE but themselves, and will kill for the highest bidder. During the dinner scene, they come to understand that their shelfishness is not much better than that of their opponents, because they see that their selfishness is causing suffering amoung the villagers. So at this point, they start to change.

Ultimately, most of them die, NOT for the money but for a higher ideal. So yeah - I think there's an arc in the Samurai's characters. There's also an arc in the villagers characters as they come to learn self reliance and stand up for themselves.

But overall, I'm okay with the notion that the MC doesn't need to undergo a particularly sweeping character arc. Sometimes the MC is the catalyst for the arc of the other characters, the world, the society and in turn the AUDIENCE to react to. Thats the dynamic at work most often in serial storylines such as BOND.

Cassiopeia said:

HEY! I resemble that remark!

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Yes you sure DO!!!!!

Cassiopeia said:

But how did they change if they did? Obviously they were emotionally affected but did their character change?

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"This is the story of seven samurai who fought, not for ambitions, but to protect the helpless farmers."

Remember these guys were samurai, the ruling class in a strictly feudal society.

When they discovered the peasants had been murdering passing samurai and stealing their money, armor and weapons, the samurai would have been perfectly within their rights to put everyone in that village to the sword.

They didn't.

Because they'd seen what the peasants had to endure, the constant fear they lived under. To them there was no difference between samurai and bandits. Both took what they wanted and did as they wanted. The peasants were downtrodden victims who did what they did to survive.

A young samurai, consorting with a peasant girl, shattering unbreakable class rules! They should both have been executed -- but weren't.

A blustering samurai revealed as a peasant! But the others still let him fight as one of them and honored him along with their fallen samurai comrades, who gave their lives for peasants they could easily have left to suffer at the hands of the bandits -- but didn't.

I submit that their worldview had changed considerably when they left the village -- that they took with them a new-found and lasting appreciation of their former employers... while the peasants, one would hope, were left with a new-found appreciation of at least some of the ruling class. They certainly had a reminder, every time they looked up at the hills above the village.

btw...your avatar isn't nearly as fun as the other ones...when I thought you were a girl

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Know that Princess Yuki shall return after Chocolate Egg Day to say: pffttt! to insolent gai-jin peasant-woman!

-Derek

dpaterso said:

"This is the story of seven samurai who fought, not for ambitions, but to protect the helpless farmers."

Remember these guys were samurai, the ruling class in a strictly feudal society.

When they discovered the peasants had been murdering passing samurai and stealing their money, armor and weapons, the samurai would have been perfectly within their rights to put everyone in that village to the sword.

They didn't.

Because they'd seen what the peasants had to endure, the constant fear they lived under. To them there was no difference between samurai and bandits. Both took what they wanted and did as they wanted. The peasants were downtrodden victims who did what they did to survive.

A young samurai, consorting with a peasant girl, shattering unbreakable class rules! They should both have been executed -- but weren't.

A blustering samurai revealed as a peasant! But the others still let him fight as one of them and honored him along with their fallen samurai comrades, who gave their lives for peasants they could easily have left to suffer at the hands of the bandits -- but didn't.

I submit that their worldview had changed considerably when they left the village -- that they took with them a new-found and lasting appreciation of their former employers... while the peasants, one would hope, were left with a new-found appreciation of at least some of the ruling class. They certainly had a reminder, every time they looked up at the hills above the village.

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Okay so it always comes to my mind, and I think it's worth pondering, where their character's changed or were they just more experienced. Boy, I am struggling to express my question. I always wonder if someone who seems to change and grow has really changed or have they simply expanded their view and act accordingly but given another circumstance would they revert to their original behaviours.

dereksweetie said:

Know that Princess Yuki shall return after Chocolate Egg Day to say: pffttt! to insolent gai-jin peasant-woman!

-Derek

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awww....look...he still loves me!

The Seven Samurai were actually Ronin - Leaderless, masterless samurai... Knights without lords if you will. This is an intolerable state for a person of their position. Interestingly, it places them on almost exactly the same position as the Bandits terrorizing the village. Yes, by the time its all over, they have changed their nature, they have found their higher 'inner' call above the money - serving a master that has no class - honor, and society itself.

Yeah, they changed a lot.

Some people say that experience without change is the basis for comedy. "Here we go again..." The fool is forever repeating his mistakes, never able to learn the lesson.

I can agree with that WriteKnight but does that mean they've changed their basic personality or a set of ethical codes?

jst5150 said:

Not a bad piece, really. Some good examples:

http://www.triggerstreet.com/gyrobase/TriggerDigest?oid=1480573

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This is a position that I've defended for years -- and sometimes gotten into heated arguments about (once with some network execs during a discussion of notes on a project that they had commissioned me to write -- always a bad idea).

The idea that either -- every story has to have a character arc or --

the even more pernicious idea that every *good* story has to have a character arc, is just a bunch of bull.

This is how I look at it.

You can have a central character that undergoes some significant change. We all know lots of movies like that.

Or you can have a central character that stays the same and a secondary character or characters change (think of something like Rio Bravo).

Or you can have a movie where nobody changes -- like, for instance, The Maltese Falcon.

It has nothing to do with inferior or superior movies or story-telling. There's no hierarchy, with the "no-change-at-all" movies at the bottom, and the "secondary character-change" ones in the middle and the "protagonist change" ones at the top (or even better -- I love the note where the execs want everybody to have their own special little character arc -- the more the merrier).

In every story, the protagonist embodies a certain idea -- he is the living representation of whatever the theme of the story is. And by the actions he takes and the decisions he makes you, the writer, are going to explore that theme, through him.

Maybe your protagonist is a pacifist, and you're going to explore whether that "idea" -- the idea of pacifism will work.

So you test that idea, in the living form of your protagonist.

Start off with him as a pacifist -- or maybe not. Maybe he's violent at the beginning and he becomes a pacifist. Then test that idea through the events of the story. Does he stick to his pacifism, or do you put him in some situation that makes him conclude -- no, sometimes you have to set it aside in favor of something more important.

If you're telling one kind of story - if you want to tell the story of a pacifist that sticks to it -- if that's your theme -- then you're telling "Gandhi" -- and he doesn't change. He starts off committed to this idea and he remains committed to it. Others are violent and become non-violent. THEY change around him. He -- because he embodies this theme -- that pacifism is the correct path -- he stays the same.

But maybe you want to tell a different story. Maybe you want to show that, under some circumstances, you have to abandon your pacifism.

Then you're telling "Sergeant York" -- and then you're telling the story of a violent person, who finds God, becomes a pacifist, goes to war, refuses to fight -- only to realize, at a critical moment, that sometimes you can save more lives by fighting than by refraining from fighting.

Gandhi, embodying a particular theme, stays the same.

York, embodying a different theme, must change.

Now, obviously, both of these movies are based on real people, so you're stuck, to some degree with their real lives -- but the point would be the same if they were wholly imaginary -- if the events of those movies were happening in Middle Earth.

Whether a character changes or fails to change depends upon the theme that you are exploring.

A character may embody a change *toward* -- that is, he embodies, at the beginning, an incorrect view of the world, which must change in order for him to achieve whatever it is that he needs to achieve.

Or, a character may embody a correct view of the world, a view that the events of the movie will challenge -- will tempt him to discard, and that character must hold on to that view of the world in the face of those challenges, in order to achieve whatever it is that he needs to achieve.

Both are equally fine.

Both can yield stories that are equally deep, equally moving, comparable works of art.

NMS

Doesn't every MC change via personal growth, some regret, an insight, adding a scar internal or external? This may be more pronounced in a series but the small changes could be more earth-shattering than saving the world, etc.

I am 100% on board with nmstevens assesment. I think the ARC is important to a good story, but who it's imposed upon, the main character, other characters or the audience - is a stylistic choice.

To answer Cassiopiea - I've known many people who make major changes in their life philosophies - they become vegetarian or not, become republican or democrat, become atheists or christians - and their personality pretty much remains the same. (Not always, but generally). The changes are mostly reflected in their ACTIONS. Which suits screenwriting just fine!

Ghandi is actually a poor example of a static character. He doesn't start off poor, humble, and a pacifist; he starts rich, arrogant, and extremely aggressive. As the movie progresses, he becomes more symbolic of those traits. Even in the Maltese Falcon, you have some character development: A jaded character actually falls in love by the end of it.

Some of the new arthouse movies are better examples; Elephant, for example, you have the surviving boy being amoral, and he's just as amoral by the end of the movie. How about kids, where no one really learns from their mistakes, and continue to be self-deluded. In fact, if there is any character development, it tends to be downward (the boys becoming even more jaded in My Own Private Idaho, for example).

It's not that you need character development; rather, it's something you should desire. It shows that your script, and the events in it, have some meaning and are capable of of instituting some of sort of effect on others. Also, it's a sign that the movie has its own life, evolving as the movie progresses.


For what it's worth...

FR

Heh; just read the rest of the examples. Besides Chance the Gardner (who is a bad example by virtue that Being There is satirical, and comedy characters shouldn't change. especially when it's change that they are satirizing), almost everyone on his list changes to some degree (even Hawkeye becomes a bit more tolerant of others by the end of the movie MASH, but that particular character is a poor choice because of his television history). There are a number of characters that decide that there are things worth dying for, even when they start the movie rather jaded. Even Scarlett O'Hara has some interesting character development, as she changes from spoiled brat to serious businesswoman at the end.


Sorry; just not buying it...


FR

WriteKnight said:

I am 100% on board with nmstevens assesment. I think the ARC is important to a good story, but who it's imposed upon, the main character, other characters or the audience - is a stylistic choice.

To answer Cassiopiea - I've known many people who make major changes in their life philosophies - they become vegetarian or not, become republican or democrat, become atheists or christians - and their personality pretty much remains the same. (Not always, but generally). The changes are mostly reflected in their ACTIONS. Which suits screenwriting just fine!

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Hmmm...this might be why some are telling me to go into screenwriting. Evidently my stories are action and dialog driven. Then again, they could just be being nice.