Part 1: Writing Unique Character Arcs
- Andrew Harmon
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- Andrew Harmon
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Everybody has their favorite Star Wars moment. You know the one I’m talking about. That one moment for you in a Star Wars movie, where your pulse starts to pump, your eyes light up and you think, “This is why I love these movies!” Maybe it’s the famous Death Star trench run or the Duel of the Fates. Perhaps your favorite moment is quieter, like when Yoda lifts an X-wing from the swamp or when Han suavely mumbles, “I know.” You might even be the one person on the planet who just adores Anakin’s classic monologue about sand. Who am I to judge?
No seriously, I won’t judge. Because my favorite moment in the Star Wars canon has got to be the reveal of Rey’s parents—in The Last Jedi. That’s right. One of the most maligned moments in one of the most controversial Star Wars films, is the one that lights me up the most. This sequence not only finds me leaning forward in my chair, but also mouthing the dialogue right along with it.
For me, this scene is perfect.
Setting the Scene
Now I will be the first to admit that this is, at best, an unpopular opinion. For some it is down right heresy. Or at least it was. For two years, legions of Star Wars fans bemoaned the “wasted, anti-climatic” parent reveal. They penned many an article and tweeted many a tweet about how it should be ret-con’ed.
And then… it was.
The Rise of Skywalker rose, and with it came a new tale of Rey’s place in the universe. And yet, the legions of fans did not rejoice. Not really. Because the new epic reveal felt hallow.
The reason for this unexpected “let down” is really two fold. For starters, the new reveal arose in a way that was disconnected from the established narrative of the previous films. As we talked about last week, without the consequences of “cause and effect” the resulting story became weightless.
But the deeper reason that I believe that fans of Rey were disappointed about the surprising reboot to her lineage, is because it led her to complete a character arc that was not wholly hers.
So for the next few posts, I’d like to explore how writing unique character arcs leave a deeper impression than writing epic ones. And perhaps along the way, we’ll discover why The Last Jedi’s “anti-climatic reveal” still has the power to set my heart a flutter.
Building Character Arcs
This week, let’s start by taking a look at the basic building blocks of a strong character arc. Every one of these blocks strive toward a single purpose: CHANGE. At the top of a story, a protagonist rarely resembles the hero that they are at the end. They must change. In fact, change is the essential ingredient that makes a story a story—and not simply an “account of events.”
Needs and Wants
To propel the protagonist into their journey of transformation, every character starts with a Want. This is a desire that they feel so strongly, that it compels them into the plot of the story. Ariel wants to be human. Neo wants to know what the Matrix is. This Want powers their decisions and drives them into conflict.
As they progress towards their goal and the challenges increase, however, they begin to discover that they are not fully equipped to complete the journey. Slowly light begins to shine on their Need. The Need is the linchpin in the character arc, and is a point of deep internal growth. Shrek wants to get the villagers out of his swamp, but he discovers that he needs relationship. Joy wants to make Riley happy in her new life, but learns that she needs to embrace Sadness.
The Need defines the kind of hero that the protagonist must become.
Lies and Antagonism
Initially though, the Need is masked by the character’s flaw or the Lie that they believe. The sole purpose of the conflict in a story is to chip away at this lie until the character is face to face with it, and has no choice but to embrace their true Need. In many stories, if the audience strongly identifies with the protagonist we can believe this lie, too. This leads to a truly emotional experience when we are forced to embrace the truth in real time with the hero.
And in every story, no character should be better at chipping away at this flaw in the protagonist than the antagonist. In his book The Anatomy of Story, John Truby describes the best antagonist as someone who is “exceptionally good at attacking your hero’s greatest weakness.”
This means that the best villains in some stories could be terrible villains in others. The root of a villain’s strength is not their objective “level of evil,” but their ability to land proverbial punches on the protagonist’s flaw.
Strong forces of antagonism ensures that your hero must struggle to accomplish their journey. The greater the struggle, the greater the eventual triumph.
The Mid-Point Collision
In classic 3-Act story structure, all of these elements intersect, often violently, at the Mid-Point Collision. The hero’s Want drives them to a moment when the Lie and their true Need are thrust unavoidably out into the open, often by the Antagonist.
George Lucas’ favorite literary scholar, Joseph Campbell, refers to this moment as the “Crisis” or the “Inmost Cave.” Similarly, Blake Snyder’s famous “Save the Cat” beat-sheet refers to it as the “All is Lost” moment. Regardless of what it is called, this is the moment when the character must commit to a course of change. They embrace their Need and decide how they will proceed in their journey because of it.
Structurally, this collision always occurs towards the middle or the end of a story’s second act. This allows enough plot for the protagonist’s internal and external conflict to sufficiently build and then a full final act for them to take action based on the change they’ve acquired. In the case of the original Star Wars Trilogy, this structure forces the mid-point collision upon Luke at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
For Rey, this collision of Want, Need, Lie and Antagonism occurs in the same place. It all comes to head at the end of her second film… in my favorite scene.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll take a look at how these story elements steer Luke and Rey’s journeys across their perspective trilogies.
We’ll unpack their collisions and their resolutions. And perhaps along the way, we’ll uncover why I love this character reveal that the fan boys love to hate.