Tag Archives: characters

Protagonist, Antagonist and Just Plain Gonist: Part 2

My last post explored seasons 1-5 of Supernatural and which characters represented the protagonist in each season.  As discussed last time the protagonist is the person with the most to lose in the story line. The one we, the audience, are expected to most identify with on an emotional level.   I’d like to also discuss who the antagonist is this time.

The antagonist isn’t just the villain, they can be anyone who impedes the protagonist from reaching their goal.  Their goal can be the same or the complete opposite.  They may not even be aware of the protagonist’s existence, yet they prevent them from easily getting what they want.  The antagonist doesn’t even have to be another person, it could be nature or the protagonist themself (man vs. nature; man vs. self).  As I said, anything that keeps the antagonist from potentially reaching their goal.

So who has which roles when we start season 6?

We start with Dean, having taken Sam‘s advice and given up the hunting life.  He is our protagonist.  He thinks he is acclimating well to his new life and family.  Yet he is going to be faced with the choice he once gave Sam and for him it, as it was for Sam, is really no choice at all.  He knows what he was truly meant to do and he leaves his pseudo-family to once again become a hunter. He remains a protagonist for the entirety of the season as they look for ways to get Sam’s soul back and keep one step ahead of Crowley.  Crowley is the main antagonist this season with Castiel once again a mirror protagonist to Dean.  Both are looking for more power and ways to get that power and both are played by Crowley.  At the end of Season 6 it seems as though Castiel has made the jump from protagonist to antagonist, having gained more power than he’s capable of safely wielding and declaring himself the New God.

Season 7 rolls around with our sexy New God in full on cleansing mode.  He is the new antagonist that Sam and Dean must find a way to stop.  It turns out that Castiel belatedly realizes he’s compromised himself and goes to them to set things right before he loses complete control.  Sam and Dean as the protagonists are forced to watch someone they care for and call family implode.  After this they must combat the real antagonists, the Leviathan that had been controlling Castiel.  They both remain the protagonists for the rest of the season as they each are proactive and aggressive in their hunting.  Once Castiel is returned to them he becomes a protagonist once again.  As Emmanuel he has to confront what he was and accepts what he did and tries to make amends.  Dean and Sam remain protagonists throughout the rest of the season.  Castiel for his part ceases to be a protagonist once he takes on Sam’s mental illness.  He is no longer proactive, but reactive, a victim as Sam had struggled with previously.  It’s not until the last two episodes that Castiel once again becomes a protagonist taking an active, if somewhat reluctant role in combating the Leviathan.

The next season is a bit more complicated.  We will break this season down a bit more thoroughly.

Dean is back from Purgatory and pissed as hell (pun intended). Sam is torn between helping his brother and wanting to continue his life with Amelia.  Both brothers are protagonists as they are each forced to confront truths about themselves and their relationships.  Both have left people they love behind. Sam leaving Amelia and Dean (believing) he left Castiel in Purgatory.  Both are trying to come back to an understanding with each other and at times act as each other’s antagonist.  We are also introduced to Kevin Tran who will be the primary protagonist in the first several episodes as he is forced to leave his old life behind and become a prophet.  He at first may seem like a victim, but his character quickly shows that he is too smart and resourceful to allow this to happen.  Crowley remains the main antagonist for the season.

Once Castiel does reappear he is not a protagonist, in fact due to Naomi’s interference he is delicately balanced between simply being a secondary supporting character and becoming an antagonist.   He is reactive and unable to make decisions for himself.  He goes from helping to hindering the brothers based on how Naomi wishes things to go in the interim.  However, from episode 17 on Castiel is once again a protagonist along with Sam, Dean and Kevin, Dean having helped break the mind control.  He is proactive and working to keep Dean, Sam and Kevin safe.  His decision to trust Metatron is based on Metatron’s status as an angel and the fact that Dean and Sam were prepared to trust him as well.

Sam is a clear protagonist in that he makes the decision to leave behind his life and complete the trials outlined on the Demon Tablet in an attempt to redeem himself for his past sins.  Dean remains a protagonist in that he must help Sam and keep him safe while at the same time dealing with what seems to be yet another betrayal by Castiel.  He is proactive, finding ways to help Sam complete the trials and also trying to figure out what is wrong with Castiel.

By the last two episodes it’s clear that all three have reached their individual ‘darkest hour’ in the season arc. Sam is dying from the effects of the trials. Castiel is betrayed and loses his most precious possession and Dean is faced with the prospect of losing the two most important people in his life.

So, who will be the protagonist come season 9?  It’s a pretty good bet that Castiel will once again join Dean and Sam as the  primary protagonists.  The changes wrought on him in the season 8 finale demand nothing less.  Dean and Sam will have their own major struggles and the new antagonist could be one of several characters.  I’m looking forward to seeing how it all works out.  Or doesn’t.  This show has a pretty good track record of breaking hearts and stomping on feelings.

Oh and in case you didn’t get the ‘gonist’ in the title:

Urban Dictionary: gonist

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gonist

 1. one who thoroughly completes every task with the utmost confidence and aggressiveness.
Sounds a bit like Dean or maybe Castiel or could it be Crowley?  No, its Naomi or-or Abaddon.  Fuck it, I’m done.

Beginnings Always End Something

Or why character backstory is vital to your story.

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”
Maya Angelou

In preparation for NaNoWriMo, I read numerous blogs about plot and structure and how to do both.  What I’ve not seen many writers mention is the need for well thought out characters.  Plot is after all character driven.  Without meaningful characters there will be no plot.

So how do you go about creating a character that is compelling?

My advice; start at the beginning.  No wait, let me explain.  Start with where you see your character now.  Their beginning in your story.  Now go back.  What lead them up to this point?  What decisions did they make?  What people influenced them?  What outside actions took their toll?  How does their upbringing influence their current thinking and actions?

That’s a lot to think about.

Maybe you aren’t sure how your character’s history has influenced them, or maybe you aren’t convinced it matters.   Let’s explore a couple of examples to see how this could work.  (A note before we continue:  writing a character’s backstory is for your information, when writing the actual story you want to keep as much of it as possible hidden from the reader, only revealing what is absolutely necessary.  We’ll discuss why later in the post.)

Once Upon a Time . . .

There was a young gladiator.  He risked his life for the amusement of others on a regular basis.  He trained, he grew and became mighty, fearless and feared.  His ambitions did not stop at the arena walls.  He wanted to foment change, to start a revolution.

There was a young scholar.  He read, cataloged and reported on the goings on of the empire.  He learned and within him grew a sense of what is just, what is right and respect for the sanctity of life.  He dreamed of a world without corruption, without oppression of the weak and less fortunate.

And one day they met.

“From the greatest love comes the most vicious hate.”

This meeting took place quietly, no grand fanfare, no one really took much notice till later when events started to happen and the revolution was well under way.  They fought for the same ideals yet their methods were as different as night and day.  Understandably the gladiator turned to force, using his great charisma to sway the masses to his side, and using his sword when words failed.  The scholar knowing little to nothing of fighting opened the debate with their ruling council, using his intellect and many years of study to try and persuade them.  The gladiator was impatient and took matters into his own hands much to the horror of the scholar.  Their friendship shattered as the council bestowed the scholar with the most important title their civilization had to offer.  The gladiator, frustrated and feeling impotent now turned his attention from overthrowing the caste system to destroying his onetime friend.

In their current iteration we rarely hear anything about how these two met or why.  We only know that they were once friends and are now bitter enemies.  Yet their back story is critical to where they are now.

Some of you may recognize the characters I’m speaking of here.  I have not named them because I want the focus to be on their back story, not on who they are.

In my novel Sorrow’s Fall little is said of my protagonist’s upbringing outside of a few comments on his training and a random memory or two that is relevant to what is currently happening.  He does not dwell on it, yet is shapes his actions, defines him.  Without his past he would be a radically different person.

There are many times when a character seems to just appear out of a fog with no back history or explanation of why or how they came to where they are.  Sometimes the reader is willing to put aside this in favor of learning about the character.  Wolverine comes to mind.  He himself did not know his past and it haunted him.  His lack of a past drove him forward, dictated his actions and even his friendships and alliances.  He was unwilling to trust anyone.

Then there are characters who we are introduced to just as they reach a defining moment in their lives.  Peter Parker/Spider Man for example.

In each of these examples, the writer knows exactly where these characters are coming from.  Or should.  Knowing where your character has been makes determining where they are going much easier.  Why is that so?

We are the sum of our experiences.  Your character should be too.  This might take some in depth research and hard soul searching.  But, that is what writing is about, finding those hidden truths about ourselves that others can relate to, those hidden gems are what make outstanding characters.

Happily Ever After . . .

So even though pretty much 98% of your character’s back story won’t end up in your actual prose, it is still a huge part of the story.  Without it the characters have nowhere to go and no drive to get there.

Lets look back at my first example of the gladiator and the scholar.  Without their past they would have no reason to fight each other now.  There would be no sense of betrayal on either side.  No one but the two of them truly know the depth of their emotion over what happened, except their writer.  You should know these types of details about your character as well.  Knowing when to use them in your story is a different beast altogether.

The Battle is Joined

If you would like more help with creating a character check out these helpful books:

Kill Me Softly


This is how I remember first meeting Boba Fett.  He was mysterious, dangerous and didn’t back down from one of the meanest villains in any genre.  It was love at first sight.  Then came the prequels.  The utter horror and dismay on my part as one of my all time favorite characters was reduced to a mere clone has stuck with me for years now.  I used to collect anything and everything Fett.  No longer.  His image and his very essence had been tainted.  By the  man who created him.  And why?  To satisfy fans.

I’m a fan and I did not ask for this travesty.  Yet over and over I see characters get slaughtered by their own writers.   The comic book industry is rife with examples.  (Deadpool being one of the foremost, more on that in a few.) Literature doesn’t escape it either.  I recently finished the Hunger Games series.  I was severely disappointed by how Katniss changed over the three books.  She went from being a total badass to basically reinstating the very regime she’d fought to take down.  How is that character progression?  Is it meant to be an ironic statement by the author?

Then there is the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton.  I loved the first book.  Anita was a total kick ass woman who knew who she was and who she didn’t want to be.  I was appalled and disgusted by the end of the series.   Anita was no longer kick ass and amazing, she was a whore.  She had gone from untouchable to just another bimbo sleeping with vampires.  Is it no wonder I rarely read books with a female protagonist?

So what happened?  Fans.  Fans happened.  Fans are awesome.  I wish I had fans.  But just like the electric kind they can be refreshing or they can blow shit all over the place.  Letting your character get caught by fans reduces them to a bloody splatter on the wall, unrecognizable as the person you brought into existence.  I’m a fan myself.  I’m a huge fan of certain series and characters as you’ve probably noticed.  I’m also a writer.  (Another fact that I hope hasn’t escaped your notice.)  As a writer watching another writer as they let fans dictate how a character evolves puzzles me.

I’m all for fan input, commentary, discussion and whathaveyou, but when it starts to affect how I view my own character it’s time to step back.  I know my characters more intimately than I probably know myself.  Does that mean I need to let you, my dear, dear reader know all those facts?  No.  Does that mean I don’t listen when people remark on certain attributes of my characters?  No.  Does that mean I write to please my readers?  No.  I write to please myself.  If you like it awesome, great, fantastic we’ve got something in common.  If not, no big.

So why do some writers get caught up in trying to please fans?  Maybe they are afraid of what people will say if they don’t.  Maybe they think that appealing to the lowest common denominator will gain them more sales.  Which, while sometimes true, I think betrays the core reason for writing.  Writers write to entertain, to educate and illuminate.  Few single works do all three.  Some can barely manage one.

It is my firm belief that writers have a duty to their story and their characters first, readers second.  If the story and characters are sound, well crafted and compelling the readers will come.  Being consistent when writing a character is paramount.  And that point brings me to Deadpool.

Sure there are other comic book characters who have been rewritten by various writers.  Each writer for a run has their own take on the character and the universe.  A lot like fanfiction really.  Look at Batman or Spider-Man.  Though they essentially stay the same type of character, their core personalities don’t change.  Deadpool aka Wade Wilson has no such luck.  In his first appearance nothing is known about him, his actions and his verbage speak for themselves.  We didn’t need to know his background at that point.  We got it.  He was a killer who enjoyed his job very much and also loved to talk.  He was quite menacing and very obviously a bad guy.

Deadpool’s first appearance in New Mutants #98 published Feb 1991.

After his first appearance he cropped up a few months later in X-Force #1 but only as a character profile.  Slowly but surely he built a fandom and starting getting more appearances.   Finally in 1993 he got to be a headliner in his own one-shot series Deadpool: The Circle Chase.   That series ended and he was back to making short appearances until 1997 when he got his own title.  This started off the Joe Kelly era of Deadpool which is considered by most fans to be the definitive version of the character.  Then we come down to 2008 and a new writer by the name of Daniel Way.  He’d worked on Wolverine: Origins and Ghost Rider, he’s legit.  So why has his take on Deadpool has seen the most virulent derision from the loyal fans who have followed Deadpool from the early 90’s?

Deadpool began as a wise cracking mercenary who shot first and never thought to ask questions and acted as if the fourth wall was merely a suggestion.  By the end of the Secret Invasion arc things are very clearly leaning in a different direction.   Then came Dark Reign and Monkey Business.  The wise cracking is still there but the wise is slipping.  Instead of real humor there are inane refrences to (then) current entertainment news/gossip.  And Deadpool has lost a whole bucket full of IQ points.  He seems to have traded in his quirky talent for being painfully obvious yet obscure for being painfully dimwitted and trite.  He’s still mouthy, but instead of being funny it comes across more as though a fourteen year old sat in his room dreaming up one liners and who then creates situations in which to use them.

The progression of Wade as a character has stalled.  There is no internal conflict that was present in the earlier series and all the external conflict feels contrived.  There is a fixation on being  a ‘hero,’ but no real motive for this fixation other than wanting to be liked and this isn’t even explored or exploited as well as it could be.  He tries to join the X-Men, of course that fails miserably, he’s not a ‘true’ mutant.  So he tries to follow Spider-Man around to learn how to be a hero.  He’s been a hero, multiple times in earlier incarnations, albeit never acknowledged by the Mavel Universe as one.  Current issues are episodic and have more of a sitcom feel to them with little or no character development.

Sure some issues are funny, most are juvenile and not suited to the more mature audience that Deadpool has garnered over the years.  While I am not a Way-nah-sayer, I do find his run to have been more puerile and much less fun than anticipated.

My main issue with him as the writer of Deadpool is that while he did introduce some interesting elements they were not used to their full advantage.  He chose flash over bang.  It looks like something happened but when the smoke clears, its just that.  Smoke.  Nothing really happened.

So what can we take from this example?  When writing a character, any character you have to fully understand where they come from and their motivations.  Once the action really gets going it can be easy to lose those motivations.  That’s why it helps to step back every now and then and look objectively at what you’ve written.  Is it really working?  Is your character staying true to themselves or are you dictating things to make the story work?  Author intrusion is going to be noticed by the reader and even those fans who have been begging for something to happen will know that you faked it.  Don’t be afraid to write your character as they truly are and definitely don’t listen to fans who blow shit.

Yes, my boy.  You are good.

The Victim and the Martyr

The victim is preyed upon, unawares until the deed doth fall.  The martyr marches on, head high, sword gleaming, until death wields it’s heavy hand.

The Victim

When I first started writing Sorrow’s Fall, I had a very clear idea who my protagonist would be, but not what that would mean for the other characters.  As I worked through different plot scenarios and wrote scenes, it became clear to me that my protagonist was not the ‘good guy’ neither was he the stereotypical ‘bad guy‘.  I’ve always quailed at such polarization’s.  In fact the first working title of the novel was Shades of Grey for years since nothing is ever truly black and white. (How glad I am I didn’t go with that!)

Now that I’m into writing the second novel I’m learning even more about him and how he relates to those around him.  In Sorrow’s Fall he was  more of a victim of his own upbringing.  Unable to break free of the burden placed on him.  Now he knows he has choices.  But the burden of freedom can be even greater than the burden of enslavement.  Now he has to fend for himself and that includes deciding who is friend and who is foe and what to do about it.

This brings up an interesting conundrum.  Is he an anti-hero or an anti-villain?  The two terms are not mutually exclusive and a definitive definition is hard to pin down.  Not even Wikipedia can decide.  I see them as basically same except for one point; motivation.

Sorrow is intrinsically flawed and has issues with morality.  His motives tend to be toward self preservation first and for others a distant third.  He knows little to nothing of love or kindness and as such has no idea how to show them.  Does this mean he’s a villain?  Too a lot of people, yes.  He’s a murderer and some people would say a sociopath.  To other’s he’s a hero who protects their lively hood and keeps them safe from the threat of war.

So who is right?

The Martyr

As any of you who’ve read my other posts know, I am a huge Loki fan.  I do not see him as villainous.  Misunderstood and reviled for his actions, yes.  But not evil.  His actions might be reprehensible but his intentions are based on his need for love and acceptance.  Even in the myths he’s the scapegoat, the one punished even when things are not entirely his fault.   Time and time again he sacrifices himself to right a perceived wrong on his part or a misunderstanding.   Though there are times when he is fully to blame yet he is never saved from the consequences of his actions.

Mommy, look at me! by jen-and-kris


And then there are times he does things fully knowing he’s going to suffer greatly for it.  Yet he goes ahead and sacrifices himself.  Much is made of his deviousness, yet little is said about the massive intelligence behind it.  He always knows what he’s doing and that makes him less of a victim and more of a martyr.

I find parallels between the two.  Both come from troubled backgrounds with contentious family members and deep seated problems.  Loki finds out he’s adopted.  Sorrow finds out he’s not.  Both have older siblings they hate.  Loki tried to commit suicide and Sorrow is- well I won’t spoil it for you.