I think you are right about Conceptualizing, et al.
And Marta Past-ing being the thing she did with Harlan.
Also Harlan suppressing: forcibly putting an end to… keeping the inheritance away from his family, not telling them the details until he’s gone, the publishing business, Joni’s money supply, the secret of the affair (if you don’t tell her I will), telling Marta to suppress information, etc.
This seems like the only element of understanding that creates conflict in their relationship. The misunderstanding.
We might already be past this, but I find the first quad more on point for her.
Sorry to be difficult and flip-flopping though, but other than the fact that her mother is undocumented, I am still finding it easier to see Marta in Mind. So if we look at the Issues under MIND/MEMORY we have:
Meanwhile, for Harlan:
I could probably flip these but it’s not as immediately obvious to me.
Not sure if this is right, but I try to think of the RS storypoints as either causing conflict or as the way for the relationship to grow. So this kind of secret mutual understanding they have – she knows things about him that not even his family does, he understands her family problems – basically, the fact that they understand each other in a way that none of the other characters do is the basis of their relationship, and, we can surmise, the reason that he leaves everything to her.
Sorry if that’s too vague. I could try to find better examples.
Maybe someone can still convince me why Marta is more of a Do-er than a Be-er?
The whole scene after she thinks Harlan is poisoned, she is panicked, frozen, while Harlan has to convince her to take action in order to save her family, and what action to take, though of course some of this is OS. But he’s not asking her her to adapt herself to her environment. He’s asking her to take action when her inclination is not to.
Why does it feel like such a change when she decides to accept the money? Because she has gone from being a doormat who is more than willing to go along to get along to someone who is taking charge of her life (e.g. who realizes that with enough money she can hire her own lawyers). That sound a lot more like Be-er to Do-er than Do-er to Be-er to me.
I am filled with Uncertainty… haha.
I can definitely see how Understanding is the force driving their relationship.
I could see Marta in Truth also because she can’t tell the truth about what she did.
I also like seeing perception vs. actuality under that…
Hmmmmmm…
No — I’m glad you questioned it. I agree those issues and the illustrations make more sense the way you laid them out with Marta in Mind and Harlan in Universe.
I realized I was thinking of Marta as a Do-er more in her role in the OS, rather than with her personal issues. I’m convinced now she is a be-er. She has to endure the family’s racist comments to keep her job. That last shot of her with the mug standing over the family is a great illustration of a new status — “My house, my rules.” Definitely more of a universe thing than a new attitude, like I was suggesting earlier.
I’m having a hard time seeing this as Be-er.
As the Dramatica definition puts it:
Every Main Character will have a preference to deal with problems by either physical effort [Do-er] or by mental/emotional effort [Be-er]. When a Main Character prefers working in the external environment, he is a Do-er
Marta’s immediate preference is to take the physical road:
Harlan puts forth a mental/emotional effort. Thinking through the problem internally… arriving at a solution by thinking, not doing.
With regard to the Relationship Story… I found this excerpt from the script in support of the idea that the Activity driving the relationships is in learning to play Harlan/Ransom’s game.
The way I’m looking at it, the relationship between Marta and Harlan/Ransom is Learning to play the “game” by their rules. That’s the thing that truly enables Marta to win in the end. It’s more of a prerequisite of hers to be able to stifle the puke…
But the fact that she starts placing the pieces herself, fakes a response to the phone call, then holds out puking enough for Ransom to admit to murder… is playing their game. It’s what Linda mentioned earlier on in the film.
And at the end, she is literally holding his cup. His rules.
Though, looking at this again… it could be Marta Understanding how to play the game.
That’s not necessarily a preference, though. The first example is her job (it would be like saying a plumber MUST be a Do-er because his first instinct when everything goes wrong with the plumbing is to look at the pipes to find the problem), and the second is definitely not a preference. I may be wrong, and I hope someone will correct me if so, but I’m pretty sure that if you put a Be-er in a burning building, they’re not going to just stand around and do nothing. It doesn’t necessarily make them a do-er in the way that, say, punching someone as a form of stress relief does. You might be looking at an OS player, instead of the MC.
I could make an argument for this either way, but I ultimately think Harlan is a Do-er. He sets the game up without asking if she wants to play; he knocks the game board over so she can’t win; he writes down the method of death so he can use it in future work. All of that is outside of the OS and, while it’s not that interesting, it’s all his own choice. There’s no external circumstance making him write down the method of death.
There’s also the moment just after he tells her to do this where she steps outside of the attic, and just sits there for a moment – thinking it through whether or not she can do it before she goes back inside and witnesses his death. That feels very be-er. Her instinct is not to do what he says, she just… stops and thinks it through.
That’s a good example of Be-er. And even though she is doing a ton of stuff, I think it could be argued that it’s part of the OS (which is why I originally pegged her as a Do-er). Also, I remembered that Jason Bourne is a Be-er despite being the action hero in Bourne Identity. So that helps me wrap my head around how Marta can be very active while still being a Be-er.
That’s what I was thinking too. And I forgot about this:
But I agree that feels very be-er to me.
This is one of the things that always trips me up. Also though, I find the definitions a bit slippery, at least in isolation.
From Melanie:
A Do-er would build a business by the sweat of his brow.
A Be-er would build a business by attention to the needs of his clients.
“Attention to the needs of his clients” sounds like Marta. It still might manifest in external actions, but it’s emotional work.
This sounds a little more OS to me than RS? I would think RS would be about playing the game together.
I do think you’re onto something though:
We had our own secret way of communicating. You had to find that with dad.
In other words, a way of communicating that no one else Understands.
EDIT: The more I think about it, the more I think it depends on your point of view.
“Learning how to play the game” from the OS POV = learning how to scheme with the rest of them
“Learning how to play the game” from the RS POV = haveing a secret language together that no one else Understands
But in this case… is not Harlan attending to the needs of Marta?
His reasoning is that he must kill himself because of her and her family’s situation.
But that’s exactly it, right? It is their preference, not their “job.” The way they choose to go first, until pressed. They can definitely, and often do both. But it’s the order, right?
Just because it’s their job doesn’t mean they have to do it, right? A plumber could just as easily sit in your living room and think over the problem in his head and THEN go act on it, rather than immediately going into the crawl space and looking at the pipes.
From my understanding, that’s exactly the difference between Do-er and Be-er. They can and will do both. It’s the order that matters. Which do they prefer to do first?
This movie is proving just as hard to figure out than the murder in the movie itself! Donuts inside Donuts!!!
But, Harlan setting up the game or knocking off the board is not in the face of a genuine problem. The Do-er/Be-er aspect surfaces when they ARE in the face of a problem, right?
Like when he finds out he’s poisoned and that she doesn’t have the antidote, that’s the point of conflict.
If Harlan were a Do-er, wouldn’t he have reached for the phone himself, calling 911? Or gotten up and called out to his family for help? Looked through her bag a second time? Told Joni what happened and asked her for help? Any sort of attempt to affect his environment to solve the problem.
Instead, he sat patiently by, forming a plan in his head… turning his attention to the bigger picture, mulling over the possibilities until he finally came up with a solution that involved writing himself out of the equation.
Maybe if we look at the other moments where Marta faces problems:
Waiting to be interviewed for the crime she thinks she committed, Marta overhears the detectives talking and she creeps closer to spy on their conversation.
Confronted about her gag reflex, she doesn’t just say nothing, internalizing… she tries to lie and ends up puking.
When she’s in the car with Ransom, facing Benoit noticing them… Ransom starts talking his way through the problem. But Marta guns it, speeding away from the fire.
Something Melanie said before is:
A Be-er can seem like a victim in a story where actions precede decisions. In a story influenced by decisions, however, Be-ers are often the mastermind or supervisor behind the scenes, putting restraints on characters who are Do-ers
So, which drives which in this story? Decisions drive Actions, right?
Not sure exactly which of these are the drivers, but a few examples of the order (i think):
Hmm… this is often a blind spot for me, but I thought this was an Action driven story.
Not sure if this is a driver, but the way this is written, it sounds like an Action (written out of the will) that forces a Decision (decides to switch the meds). But I’m not sure that’s a driver.
A clearer one is: Marta (thinks she) has accidentally poisoned Harlan (Action), which forces them to decide to hide the murder (Decision).
EDIT: I guess the point is that we both feel Marta is “overwhelmed” in this story?
Another scene just popped into my mind. The moment when Marta is home after Harlan’s death. Her sister is watching CSI:
MOM
Now please just turn it off.
Turn it off. Now.
Alice. Off.
They’re talking about murder
on it, your sister just had
a friend she loves slit his
throat open she doesn’t need
to be hearing that right now
let’s be sensitive!
Mom standing yelling, Alice slams the iPad cover closed.
Marta puts her head in her hand. Looks at her mom, who
looks back at her with protective sympathy. Marta starts
laughing at the absurdity of it, but the laugh turns into
crying.
MARTA
Alice you can keep watching your show
it’s alright.
This is pretty clear Be-er behavior, isn’t it? And I think it’s clearer because we’re almost 100 percent in the MC throughline at that point…
She definitely feels overwhelmed, yes.
Man… it’s so easy to see things both ways.
This is how I understand it, but my point was that in both of those examples, she’s pressed. She’s just maybe poisoned a guy, so her options are limited to: let him die or do something about it. She doesn’t have the luxury of choosing how to handle it in that moment – she has to save him with her medical knowledge or let him die.
Theoretically, yes. But my point was more: if a character has a specific job (e.g. an assassin), it doesn’t necessarily mean that what they do relating to that job is a preference. You could (and probably do in some story) have a be-er assassin who would rather NOT shoot people and burn the evidence and all of that, but who does it because he has to. It’s not a preference, in that case, it’s just part of the job.
That’s a fair point. To be honest, I found it VERY hard to find anything in that scene that WASN’T related to the Overall Story, so I also thought they were a little ‘eh’ in examples.
That’s how I see it too. Opening drivers depend entirely on where you believe the story begins (does it start with the discovery of the murder, or does it start with Ransom finding the will, or Harlan’s actual death, etc.?), but the closing one is Ransom’s confession and attempt to murder Marta.
@MWollaeger Care to weigh in on any of this 
?
I feel like we’re pretty solid and in agreement on a few things, but I’m not sure how to move past this Do-er/Be-er impasse.
@JohnDusenberry maybe setting aside the Do-er/Be-er argument, can you make a case for Marta’s Issues in Universe (either under Past or something else that you think makes sense?)
So what’s the thing that if it didn’t happen, nothing else would happen?
It’s gotta be Harlan changing the will, right?
And to that, I can totally see this as Action --> Decision now.
Harlan changes the will, prompting Ransom to drive off and plan how to kill him.
If that didn’t happen, nothing else would’ve transpired… the attempted coverup, switching the meds around, hiring LeBlanc, etc.
Maybe I’ve been conflating the OS with MC too much.
But, assuming Harlan is the IC in Universe, I can’t seem to zero in on how he’s in Universe either.
Most Mystery stories have the MC in Universe with the OS in Psychology…
And most of them have Universe, Past…
Looking at what’s on Subtext, for instance:
Flightplan, X-Files, Dark City, Manchurian Candidate, Klute, Rear Window…
With rare exception, the IC in Past (Memento)…
Not that majority rules here, but if Harlan is in Universe (likely Past), I’m having a hard time seeing that. We may have covered that, but what would that look like?
Using @MWollaeger’s approach of looking at the IC through the eyes of MC…
Harlan in Universe would look like… what exactly?
Having a hard time seeing any situation from him that affects Marta.
It’s still a lot easier for me to see him in Mind…
Looking at what he says to Marta, et al his impact seems to come from a place of having a fixed attitude:
“They’re not our books, son. They’re my books… I’ve done you a grave disservice all these years… you’re not going to run the publishing house anymore… my mind’s made up.”
“I know my daughter. She’d want to know. I’ve put it all in this letter to her, tomorrow she gets it. You tell her or I will.”
“I’m writing this tuition check, then that is the last money you or Meg will get from me. I know it’ll hurt but it’s for the best… my mind’s made up.”
“If you’re going to put that vile shit in me you will have to earn it.”
“Ugh, Walt’s smoking a cigar on the porch. Nasty things.”
“I should have what… ecouraged Walt… Been a father, not just a provider… I should have been kinder to Linda. And Ransom.”
“I don’t fear death. But god I’d like to fix some of this before I go. Close the book with a flourish.”
They look at each other for a second. She’s panicked. He’s thinking.
“If what you said is true I am gone, there’s no saving me, we have six minutes… only you can help me do it. But you need to trust me and do everything I say.”
“Get you out of this [situation]. Think of your mom – please trust me, we have to make this look ironclad…”
Can someone explain how he is in Universe?
