OS Characteristics and the Story Goal

questions
#1

It seems like we’ve reached a lot of clarity on the OS Characteristics (the Build Characters window in Dramatica) and how they’re best understood in light of the Story Goal. The Protagonist Pursues the Goal and gets others to Consider its value, etc.

However, I’m still unclear on what direction the elements can take in relation to the Goal. Examples:

  • Does the Hinder character always hinder progress toward the Goal? Or can he use Hindering in service of the Goal, perhaps hampering the Antagonist’s efforts? (In Star Wars Darth Vader seems to do both.)
  • Can the Temptation character tempt people toward the Goal?
  • Can the Oppose character oppose those trying to prevent the Goal?
  • etc.

In the Emperor’s New Clothes story, you can see how the Skeptic’s characteristics, especially Disbelief, would be used in service of the Goal. (So maybe the OS Solution might affect how characteristics get used?)

My current understanding is that elements can be used in either direction (toward or away from the Goal). Except this doesn’t seem to work with the Protagonist and Antagonist, so I’m questioning my understanding!

#2

Hmm.

It seems like there’s two main ways to interpret these characteristics.

Either they’re always defined in relation to the story goal, or they’re just permanent features of the character. I.e. A character with the element of disbelief will disbelieve EVERYTHING he hears, regardless of whether it’s coming from the protagonist or not.

With that said, I’m partial towards the first understanding, b/c it seems to better connect with the idea that stories are about trying to solve problems. These characters only exist to illustrate a human mind trying to resolve a particular problem, right? Independent of a problem, none of these assignments really matter. They only matter (and reveal themselves) in the face of conflict.

But I agree that sometimes certain characters seem to wield their characteristics pretty indiscriminately; i.e. Han Solo doubting literally EVERY decision made in his presence.

1 Like
#3

I think they’re defined in relation to the Story Goal, this is what matters structurally (storyform level) anyway.

However, for storytelling it will often work well to have those traits always apply to the character, make it part of their personality. But I don’t think you always have to do this.

In the story I’m working on, after writing a few scenes with this one character, I realized he’s definitely the Skeptic – always opposing and skeptical of any effort toward the Story Goal. HOWEVER, he’s also very supportive, helpful and loyal to the MC-Protagonist when it comes to the MC’s personal problems in the main character throughline (he’s an old buddy of the MC). When I first noticed that I thought he might not be the Skeptic, until I realized his different behavior wasn’t in the OS throughline, and wasn’t related to the Story Goal.

EDIT: The cool thing about that was realizing it is possible to motivate my Skeptic character (really player) to help out the effort toward the Story Goal – if I align that effort to also be helping out the MC with his personal problems. He’ll bitch about it the whole way (“this is stupid! you don’t really buy this crap do you?”) but still go along with it. I was actually planning a blog post about that “How to motivate the Skeptic”! :slight_smile:

#4

This is my best guess and it’s probably not right, but it was fun to speculate. I’m going to say that it’s all about relativity.

Picture a story about a bomb set in the middle of a crowded area. The Story Goal is to have everyone live. The solution is to not be near the bomb when it goes off. So is the solution to Avoid the bomb, or to Pursue safety? I’d argue that the answer is “yes”.

The place I’m coming from with this is that Melanie has described Dramatica as the internal, or mental, equivalent to the way we see the external world, and has gone as far as to suggest that K/T=AD within Dramatica is the mental equivalent of E=MC2 (sorry, not sure how to notate “squared” when typing).

Basically, there is no direction of “up” in space. You have to set “up”. Once you do, you know where down is and you restrict “left” and “right” to a plane perpendicular to “up and down”, but “left” and “right” still have a 360 degree range of possibility. But once you set “left” you know where “right” is.

I’m wondering if ,similarly, there is no direction of “Pursuit” until you set it. By defining the Protagonist as being in Pursuit of the Story Goal, you force the Protagonist in the example above to pursue safety, even while avoiding the bomb (can you pursue “avoidance of the explosion”?), and thus set a frame of reference for the rest of the elements.

In the same way, perhaps you could theoretically define the Protagonist as the one Opposed to the Story Goal and set an entirely different frame of reference for the rest of the elements and free up Pursuit and Avoid to be used toward or away from the Goal.

Anyway, there’s also this:

The true Archetypal Protagonist pursues the solution against the Antagonist. In other stories a close cousin of the Protagonist shares all the same elements except he tries to avoid the Antagonist’s plan. For the Pursuing Protagonist the goal is to cause something. For the Avoiding “Protagonist” the goal is to prevent something.

3 Likes
#5

I feel like the roots are:

  1. “Each archetype illustrates how a different specific aspect of ourselves fares when trying to solve the problem at the heart of the story.” http://storymindmedia.com/wsk/ebooks/Archetypes.pdf

  2. The story goal has to have a pursuer and a preventer, the pro- and antagonist, for and against the story goal. The other 2 drivers (guardian & contagonist) at least help the protagonist (objectively–not necessarily with awareness) & hinder the protagonist (objectively) but their helping & hindering don’t need to be limited to only the protagonist as the direct object. “Guardian and Contagonist may not be directly concerned with the goal itself or even each other.” “Darth, on the other hand, clearly represents the tempting “Dark side of the Force,” as well as hindering Luke’s progress, the Rebel’s progress, and even hindering progress by the Empire itself!” http://dramatica.com/theory/book/characters

  3. The 4 passengers have no restrictions or requirements regarding the direct object of their archetypal function verb. “Sidekick is forever faithful while Skeptic is forever doubting; Reason acts on the basis of logic and Emotion responds from feelings. Of course, each of these Characters also has its own motivations, but seen Objectively as part of the Story Mind they represent different approaches and attitudes toward solving the problem.” ibid

1 Like
#6

I actually have a question related to this that I’ve been wondering about for the past few weeks. How do the elements outside of the motivation quad work in relation to the story goal? Does the protagonist use Knowledge and Proven in relation to the story goal? Does the guardian use Reduction and Ending in relation to the goal? How about the reason character using Inaction and Aware or a complex character using Induction and Speculation? This seems like an overlooked aspect of the Characteristics page.

If that’s true, then how do the other elements that are held by the passenger characters apply?