Captain America Civil War Analysis - Main Character Question

[decastell]

@jhull

Instead of Psychology—or Manipulation, which is less accurate and leads to all kinds of misattribution as you can see, it can be easier to think of the Concerns underneath the Domain. In other words what is problematic about developing a plan, playing a role, changing one’s nature, and conceiving an idea, that everyone contends with throughout the entire story?

So I won’t belabour the points because I think if I were looking at this correctly you’d probably have already indicated you saw a way in which an OS of Manipulation might be valid, but to answer your question:

I could see several of those being viable concerns: the plans people develop to prevent civilian casualties are all inherently flawed and create conflict between the characters, the conflicting ways people think of how a superhero should behave or the role they play in society, . . . I’d have to go deeper in the other throughlines as well to identify the concerns across all four. But on its face I’m not having trouble seeing how people think being the source of the conflicts.

@jhull

One man manipulating is not an Overall Story Throughline of Manipulation.

I was being needlessly reductive in my effort to be direct. I figured saying, But one can see the way people approach the problems of civilian casualties: jumping to conclusions, allowing fear, guilt and self-doubt to lead them to draconian solutions, being pig-headed like Steve. There are so many points in the movie where if people would just stop and think instead of rushing to judgments about what to do that they could develop a better plan.

@jhull

for an Overall Story Throughline to be concerned with Manipulations that would mean everyone in the story is going through some kind of psychological dysfunction.

To me it looks as if they are: they continuously arrive at the wrong answers and that makes a mess of things. I’d draw a parallel with Tootsie (that famous superhero film ;)) in the Dramatica analysis that describes:

Michael thinks that holding to his exacting standards and never compromising is the key to being a successful actor; Jeff thinks that writing issue oriented, quirky plays are the only type worth writing, but his plays are commercial flops; Sandy thinks once she has sex with her men friends they’ll leave her; John Van Horn thinks as the leading man on “Southwest General” he should kiss all of the actresses, and makes sure to manipulate every situation to accomplish this; Julie thinks by not demanding more from her relationships she won’t risk being lonely; Ron thinks he can charm any woman he meets.

Steve thinks that holding to his extreme sense of personal accountability and independence are necessary to fulfilling his duty as a hero; Ross thinks that superheroes have to be reined in and operate like soldiers; Tony’s guilt leads him to think that anything is better than what they’ve been doing and, as a result, accepts orders he has trouble with just because he’s so determined to go along with the accords, T’Challa thinks that Bucky running means he must be guilty…etc.

Am I incorrectly applying the analysis of Tootsie here?

@jhull

This would mean that Captain America: Civil War is all about Steve Rogers trying to get back in time. Like Marty in Back to the Future.

As a Do-er, this would mean Steve specifically tries to resolve this personal problem by taking external action. What does Steve do to try and get back in time?

You make an excellent point, but could it be then that in regards to the MC throughline that Steve is a be-er – trying to adapt himself internally to this new time rather than running around trying to find a way to use technology, magic, or one of those tesseracts to find a way back to his own time?

Even if I’m wrong about that, I’m interested in whether you think it’s viable that a character like Steve, who in almost every other way is a do-er who tries to go out and solve problems externally, could be a be-er in terms of his own personal problems?

[jhull]

@decastell

I’m interested in whether you think it’s viable that a character like Steve, who in almost every other way is a do-er who tries to go out and solve problems externally, could be a be-er in terms of his own personal problems?

Oh, for sure.

Consider Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) in the first movie, The Bourne Identity. As Protagonist he certainly goes to out to directly solve problems externally, but his personal problems center around his failing memories and evidence that he’s quite capable of doing horrible things.

I’ll explain the problem with seeing the OS in Manipulations later, but in short–“inherently flawed plans” do not describe an OS Concern of Conceptualizing (Developing a Plan). There needs to be conflict in the actual planning in the conceptualizing or in the envisioning. The actual process of how they think needs to be inequitable - not the plans themselves.

As with Impulsive Reponses and the Preconscious, I think this is a matter of the new “easier” terminology furthering a misunderstanding over what these terms actually mean. Developing a Plan sounds like the plan is faulty and causes conflict–but that’s not a Concern of Conceptualizing.

Same with “conflicting ways people think of how a superhero should behave or the role they play in society“–its not how they think people should behave or the role they play, it’s the actual process of behaving that needs to create conflict. Being probably communicates this better than Playing a Role.

The new and improved “easier” terminology moves one step closer to Gists and therefore one step closer to storytelling–which is, I think, where a lot of the confusion here is coming into play.

If nothing else, this is definitely motivating me to return to the original terminology.

[decastell]

@jhull

As with Impulsive Reponses and the Preconscious, I think this is a matter of the new “easier” terminology furthering a misunderstanding over what these terms actually mean. Developing a Plan sounds like the plan is faulty and causes conflict–but that’s not a Concern of Conceptualizing.

I tend to agree in that “Developing a plan” has a pretty specific meaning and yet it’s only one possible example (or aspect) of “Conceptualizing”. I’m not sure about preconscious because it kind of goes in the other direction: introducing a word that has almost no generally understood meaning but refers to a psychoanalytic term (and probably doesn’t quite reflect that meaning either.)

@jhull

The new and improved “easier” terminology moves one step closer to Gists and therefore one step closer to storytelling–which is, I think, where a lot of the confusion here is coming into play.

One of the things I’ve taken away from this is that I really don’t have a handle on the difference between storyforming and storytelling. In my mind, it was about defining the broad categories of sources of conflicts, but, as with the term “inequity”, I think it refers to things that are actually quite difficult to describe as statements.

I’m also constantly finding myself experiencing cognitive dissonance with the idea of the storyform having a kind of primacy and being seen as concrete or objective compared with the storytelling – the latter feels infinitely more real, concrete, and objective to me. A similar issue I know affects certain literary authors, for whom the individual line of prose – the specific word choices, ordering, and punctuation, is as concrete and integral to what gets called “the story” as any character or plot.

So, back to the fundamentals of Dramatica for me, I think!

[mlucas]

Hey guys,
I finally took the time to watch Captain America: Civil War. I’m a “virgin” viewer for this series, since I’ve never seen any of the Avenger or Iron Man or Captain America films before.

I hope I’m not confusing things here, but I actually agree with Sebastien that Cap is the Main Character. Here is my reasoning:

• I went into it expecting Tony Stark to be the MC, since I figured Jim would be right
• Yet I couldn’t find a single moment in the film where I felt like I was seeing things from Tony’s perspective. I felt like I was always looking at him – the You perspective.
• The holographic thing about his parents at the beginning did not feel personal at all. I felt like I was one of the MIT audience members, looking at Tony.
• Even at the end when Tony saw the 1991 video with Bucky killing his parents, it did not feel personal. At first I was confused, it seemed to come out of nowhere because I’d forgotten Tony had lost his parents (since it hadn’t been mentioned since that forgettable MIT scene). Then I was afraid of his reaction, but it felt like “crap, what are You going to do now?”.
• I felt like I shared Cap’s perspective throughout the film, especially at the funeral and in regards to Bucky. I always saw Bucky with Cap’s eyes. Whenever Bucky was fighting Cap, I was scared of him. Whenever Cap was trying to protect Bucky, I was afraid for him.
  I think “protecting an old friend” describes Cap’s throughline pretty well. Other characters helped him out in this, but none of them did it out of a personal connection to Bucky.
• I don’t think “not telling Tony that Bucky killed your parents” was a secret kept from the viewers at all, because that “not telling” wasn’t a part of this story, it was part of the backstory. Cap could have told him that years ago, couldn’t he? Unless I misunderstood, nothing actually occurred during this story that was kept from viewers…

I don’t think the dead parents were part of Tony Stark’s issues/perspective at all. That was part of the OS, the thing that Zemo’s plot hinged on.

That said, I definitely agree 100% that OS is Activity/Obtaining.

[Alex_Maven]

@mlucas @decastell @jhull

I know its got to be incredibly frustrating at times and might seem like this discussion is going in circles but its highlighting things for me that are still very hard to pin down in dramatica and even if things sometimes seem they are just being told in a slightly different way its giving me a lot to chew on.

@mlucas I appreciate you going out to watch the film, I’m planning on rewatching it shortly as its been too long. I do see where you’re coming from.

[Khodu]

@mlucas Nice. Exactly what I said earlier in the thread. Not exactly point by point but I was of the same opinion as you.

Captain America Civil War Analysis - Main Character Question

OK so I'll get to it. I think Cap is the MC. Tony is the IC. Starting from the beginning, I feel the roles need to be flipped. Cap is still Fixed Attitude and Tony Situation. Cap isn't actively trying to get anyone to do anything. He just cares about his friend. Tony on the other hand shows the team a digital dossier on the murdered boy I Sokovia. To influence their decision. Widow see's the sense in his argument and immediately takes sides. And with the theory, the IC is usually bother…

[mlucas]

I re-read some of the older posts and can see that how I described Cap’s MC Throughline (my previous post) is basically the same as Sebastien’s description, which Jim argued against as not being separate enough from the OS.

@jhull

The Main Character Throughline describes those issues unique to the Main Character that exist separate from the Overall Story throughline perspective. Steve is not the only one fighting, running, or dealing with Bucky, etc.

It may be that I suffer from the same misunderstanding of Dramatica as Sebastien, but I still think this “protecting his oldest friend” works for the MC Throughline. (Not as MC Activity, but as a general concept for the throughline.) To me, it’s all in the story-weaving:

• You as author create an MC throughline “Cap’s need to protect his oldest friend and relative, Buck Rogers”
• Then you create an OS that among other things involves, “everyone is trying to find the supposed bomber, the Winter Soldier”

Then when you go to weave the throughlines together you realize the story would be a lot cooler if Cap’s oldest friend was actually the Winter Soldier, and toss out the Buck Rogers idea (but keep Buck(y) as a nickname for the Winter Soldier just to remind you ).

The MC Throughline in this story thus ends up very tightly woven into the OS, but it can still feel like a separate “I” perspective.

---

I’m certainly willing to believe I’m wrong here… But if Cap is the IC and Tony the MC, that means the film utterly failed to communicate those throughlines properly, since I felt the opposite even when I was trying to see Tony as “I” and Cap as “You”. And that’s strange, because the story felt pretty solid for a superhero flick.

The only thing I can think of is that, because the story’s message was essentially that Cap was right (the Accords were “bad” or misguided), certain viewers like @decastell, @khodu and myself sensed that from the beginning and naturally aligned ourselves with Cap’s perspective. While @jhull was able to remain impartial.

I think it would be great for the Dramatica community to see this film analyzed at a user’s group meeting!

[Khodu]

@mlucas I definitely second that Idea. A Dramatica users group analysis is in order. The story is full of really good lessons.

[jhull]

Oh no…

LOL.

@mlucas

It may be that I suffer from the same misunderstanding of Dramatica as Sebastien, but I still think this “protecting his oldest friend” works for the MC Throughline.

How is protecting his oldest friend separate from his function as Antagonist in the Overall Story of Activities?

How do those issues tie in with the secret information he withholds from us the Audience?

If he is in Fixed Attitude, explain the Concerns from a Main Character point-of-view?

If I’m incorrect, I’m more than willing to adjust—I’m just still waiting for strong arguments to answer these questions beyond “feelings”.

[decastell]

Without wanting to reignite this whole thing . . .

My sense is still that there are two throughlines, but I’ve laid those out before so if they aren’t warranted then they just aren’t.

Assuming one storyform, then to me the simple fact that we see the story unfold primarily through Cap’s eyes to me makes him the main character. Again, though, I think there are enough important moments that we’re being forced to see things through Tony’s eyes that it keeps feeling like a second storyform in the same way as Jerry McGuire (to me, anyway.)

Given the whole thing about initial driver having primacy over defining the storyform, I understand why the OS has to be in Activities and why under that principle Zemo is the protagonist.

My sense now is that Cap is the MC and in Situation (“A man out of time”). His personal problems don’t stem from the things he believes (which are how he connects to the OS), but rather of the fact that he was pulled from his own time. He loses Peggy Carter - the one person he still had when he found himself in this time, and then is at risk of losing Bucky. There’s pretty much nothing for him in this time period except his best friend and the Avengers, and both are at risk of being taken away. In terms of his attitudes, they all worked perfectly fine in his own time. The emphasis made in the movie is that this isn’t World War II anymore. Steve’s living in the future now, and the future is too complicated for him.

Tony’s problems don’t stem from his situation of his parents being dead – they come from his attitude about the kid who got killed because of him in Sokovia. Furthermore, he’s a total be-er to me. He tries as hard as possible not to have to take action in the movie. He just wants to adapt to the new regime set out in the Accords and do what he’s told. He only takes action because Cap’s do-er actions (running off to help Bucky, chasing after Zemo…etc.) force him to.

To Jim’s questions:

@jhull

How is protecting his oldest friend separate from his function as Antagonist in the Overall Story of Activities?

Because him protecting Bucky has nothing to do with trying to stop everyone from ending the Avengers. The initial driver as you identified it is the Scarlet Witch incident. The story solution is to break up the Avengers. Capturing Bucky really doesn’t move that one way or another. They could have shot him dead in act 1 and you’d still have the conflict over the Accords.

@jhull

How do those issues tie in with the secret information he withholds from us the Audience?

Part of protecting Bucky is not admitting that Bucky killed Tony’s parents. This is a lousy situation for Cap to be in: his oldest friend is responsible for the deaths of his best friend in this time.

@jhull

If he is in Fixed Attitude, explain the Concerns from a Main Character point-of-view?

As I said above, I don’t think he’s in Fixed Attitude. He’s been pulled out of his own time and is stuck in the future. Send him back to the 1940’s and he’d be fine.

@jhull

If I’m incorrect, I’m more than willing to adjust—I’m just still waiting for strong arguments to answer these questions beyond “feelings”

I just want to emphasize again that I think the decisions the filmmakers made to force the audience to see both sides (in effect, to make it sometimes feel like “I” is Steve and other times that “I” is Tony), creates cognitive dissonance between the objective storyform of the script and the subjective experience of watching the movie. If they’d made Whiplash with the intent that we see things from the teacher’s perspective half the time, we might still have the same storyform but would, I think, be confused as hell.

[jhull]

@decastell

Because him protecting Bucky has nothing to do with trying to stop everyone from ending the Avengers.

But it does—he’s protecting Bucky because Zemo is setting him up to took like the guy that set off the bomb. That would be part of the misunderstanding and disinformation of the first half of the storyform—with the OS in Activity.

Tony’s problems don’t stem from his situation of his parents being dead – they come from his attitude about the kid who got killed because of him in Sokovia

How is his attitude about the kid being killed problematic? If he was flippant about it and didn’t care I could maybe see that as being an influence character problem, but I’m not sure that was what was going on.

[decastell]

@jhull

But it does—he’s protecting Bucky because Zemo is setting him up to took like the guy that set off the bomb. That would be part of the misunderstanding and disinformation of the first half of the storyform—with the OS in Activity.

Except what does setting up Bucky as the one who set up the bomb really have to do with the story goal of ending the Avengers in order to end the inequity introduced by Scarlet Witch? If they’d caught Bucky right away, it wouldn’t have moved us closer or farther from the story goal. I can understand why you’d say the Scarlet Witch event sets up the inequity, but then that has to follow through. Bucky could have been shot dead, captured and tried, set free, or turned into a jelly bean and none of that would’ve affected whether the Avengers split up. This is what I mean when I say the Accords are critical to the story of how to resolve the inequity introduced by the initial driver.

[jhull]

@decastell

Except what does setting up Bucky as the one who set up the bomb really have to do with the story goal of ending the Avengers in order to end the inequity introduced by Scarlet Witch?

Did Zeno have anything to do with Buckys original assignment in killing Tony’s parents? When do we see him first in the film? (I don’t remember…)

[decastell]

@jhull

How is his attitude about the kid being killed problematic? If he was flippant about it and didn’t care I could maybe see that as being an influence character problem, but I’m not sure that was what was going on.

Forgot to answer this earlier: it’s not that he’s flippant, it’s that he’s overreacting. One kid dying when you were literally saving the whole planet (remember that dropping Sokovia from high altitude was going to destroy all life on earth) is tragic, but it’s not a reason to say, “Okay, I clearly screwed up and must never do that again.”

@jhull

Did Zeno have anything to do with Buckys original assignment in killing Tony’s parents? When do we see him first in the film? (I don’t remember…)

No, that all happens decades ago when Zemo would have been a little kid, if he’d even been born yet.

And this is the thing about Civil War to me: all the good parts of this movie are kind of independent of it being a satisfying story.

I love the way the Russo brothers give every character an arc, no matter how small, because that’s incredibly hard to with so many superheroes on the screen. The action is brilliant in how it makes use of those very different superpowers, and the characters all have relationships to one another that, however briefly shown, are believable.

But on the level of the story structure, it’s not just needlessly convoluted, the convolutions don’t make sense. Was the most efficient or effective way for Zemo to destroy the Avengers really to 1. Frame Bucky, 2. Make sure Bucky escapes, 3. Run away himself while killing a bunch of Russian and US operatives who had nothing to do with his family’s death, 4. Find the secret base with the other Winter Soldiers, 5. Kill the Winter Soldiers, 6. Sit there and wait in hopes that the only three people who would arrive would miraculously be Cap, Bucky (both viable) and Tony (who only because of a fortuitous discovery figures out Bucky was framed and decides to come alone), and 7. Figures showing Tony a video of his parents being killed by Bucky will immediately result in a fight that won’t end with anyone dead but rather with Cap and Steve no longer friends.

It’s insane.

[jhull]

@decastell

Was the most efficient or effective way for Zemo to destroy the Avengers really to …

Hah! Funny list.

That’s the funny thing though — I don’t think, objectively speaking, that efficiency or effectiveness factors into narrative structure. I can see from an Audience Reception context it might be important, but Storyforming not so much.

The reason I asked about Zemo’s connection was because I wondering if I missed something the first time I watched it and he was somehow involved in it, which would mean you might have a valid point with this:

Except what does setting up Bucky as the one who set up the bomb really have to do with the story goal of ending the Avengers in order to end the inequity introduced by Scarlet Witch?

As you mentioned in your other thread Zemo is just taking advantage of the situation. It’s like Luke in Star Wars, he’s not taking over for Leia as Protagonist in the Overall Story to fight the Empire so he can specifically stop them from illegally boarding ships. It’s just that there is an Inequity, a Goal for resolving it, and Luke focuses on the Goal—not really thinking of the Inciting Incident/first Story Driver.

It’s not that the Goal solves the first Story Driver—it solves the inequity creates by the first Story Driver.

[mlucas]

Hi Jim @jhull,
I think I was seeing things along the same lines as Sebastien, with Tony as a Be-er (using the force of his personality) and Cap as a Do-er. For me Cap’s Situation was simply “my friend is in trouble”, a stuck external state. Sebastien’s “man out of time” is probably better but that wasn’t super-clear to me, not having seen the other films.

@jhull

How is his attitude about the kid being killed problematic? If he was flippant about it and didn’t care I could maybe see that as being an influence character problem, but I’m not sure that was what was going on.

His attitude about the kid being killed was problematic because he did care about it–enough to support the Accords and to convince others to support them. It’s the source of his influence.

---

HOWEVER something very odd has been happening to me as the film fades a bit. My feelings about the “I” and “You” perspectives are shifting. If I could put numbers on them:

• right after watching the film I felt 100% that Cap was MC.
• now, several days later, I feel more like 70% for Cap and 30% for Tony. I don’t know why, but I’m coming more around to seeing Tony’s part of the story through his eyes (which when watching the film I couldn’t at all!), and Cap’s personal issues about Bucky are fading a bit. I still see Cap as MC, but not as strongly.

Has anyone else who saw Cap as the MC (@decastell, @khodu, @Alex_Maven?) experienced this at all? It may point to a difference, as Sebastien suggests, between the underlying story and the way the filmmakers presented it.

My experience with other stories is that the true storyform becomes more clear with some distance (since your story-mind remembers the structure better than the storytelling). I’ve never had this happen with MC vs. IC, but Civil War is a tough nut!

[decastell]

@jhull

It’s not that the Goal solves the first Story Driver—it solves the inequity creates by the first Story Driver.

That’s my point, though: the inequity has to do with innocents dying as a result of super heroic activities in general. In this sense, Zemo has every reason to be motivated by this, but of course character motivations aren’t what we’re talking about here. The attempt to frame Bucky doesn’t have any logical connection to breaking up the Avengers (or solving the inequity in some other way) as it’s at least as likely to produce the opposite result even if everything went according to plan. They are functionally distinct from one another, linked solely by Zemo saying, “Well, I’m pissed about my dead family so I decided to do this completely other thing and bust up a nice friendship between Steve and Tony.”

Now, your other point: [quote=“jhull, post:159, topic:719”]
I don’t think, objectively speaking, that efficiency or effectiveness factors into narrative structure. I can see from an Audience Reception context it might be important, but Storyforming not so much.
[/quote]

I totally get it – what it says to me, though, is that the plot of Captain America: Civil War, on carefully examination, makes no real sense. The underlying structure isn’t supported by the way the story gets told. This was, coincidentally, a criticism from a lot of comic fans when the film came out: it does lots of stuff well, is very entertaining, and the entire Zemo plot line makes no sense in the context of the movie. This is a problem that crops up with other Marvel films occasionally (i.e. the “why in the world would the villain have taken that approach?” problem) and in a lot of James Bond films where the evil plot is just . . . evil.

So, my real dispute with you now, Jim, is that you give Civil War 4/5 for structure!