Creating a Fake-Opponent Ally (or) Fake-Ally Opponent

theory
#6

Since everything in Dramatica is from the Author’s point of view, the “fake” part of a “fake opponent” or “fake ally” character is not directly represented in Dramatica. However, the motivation for the character to pretend to be an opponent (or pretend to be an ally) probably involves some sort of conflict, so that part would definitely be important to Dramatica.

The conflict behind such a pretense could be represented by any number of story points, depending on the story and its storyform. It might be a Story Prerequisites of Playing a Role, for example, or an IC Issue of Falsehood, or indeed as @Khodu suggests, the Contagonist character elements of Temptation and Hinder playing out in the overall story. These are just some of examples of the literally thousands of possibilities though.

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#7

Truby has a very deep appreciation of how the audience could feel. So you can combine the two with certain ideas that fit. But I find that the more I use dramatica, the clearer things Truby says are and then some. For example he says the Self revelation may happen in the character and is the single most important step for the characters growth. Which is our typical Change character. The leap of faith or reflection moment where the start/stop part comes in. Then Truby now says a much more advanced form is when the self revelation isn’t seen when the character keeps going for the goal. He says the character may not have that moment but the audience does. Seems to me like a Steadfast character. But you see he focuses on audience appreciation of meaning not how an author should see it. So like I said earlier, pick what works for the work.

#8

This is exactly what I mean, that Truby pre-assembles some of the atomic bits. No question in my mind it’s a very good thing to know about the Fake Opponent Ally because it’s a common character in Hollywood. Dramatica reminds me of Smalltalk: everything is an object, even when maybe it makes more sense from a users point of view if the thing were a primitive. Dramatica gives you radical low level ability to assemble, and an algorithm that helps. Two fascimunating approaches.

Interesting project for someone: take the some of the Truby stuff and ‘translate it’ to Dramatica, even if its only a single case and there are a hundred gazillion context/type/element variations in Dramatica .

Doesn’t Dramatica also deal in Reaction theory? Taking the audience into account? I’m still a newbie so (Scooby voice) I ron’t roh.

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#9

There is a lot of misconceptions about the Hero Journey floating around. But, this archetype is a combination of the loyal ally and the shapeshifter from that system. You can have them together in one player or not and they are definied by which team they play for. So, you can have them restoring equity or preventing that–it depends on where their loyalty lies. The shape-shiting element depends on which side they pick in the end. It seems like Truby does not acknowledge that a Shape-shifter like Han Solo plays for niether of the two mentioned sides and shifts to the restoring force in the end. Remember that, most of the attempts to use the Hero Journey in Hollywood are audience appreciations when the Hero Journey is actually an objective perspective that is orthogonal to Dramatica in some regard and then subjective in other regards.

Dramatica doesn’t make either of these decisions. But, it does respect them. Think of these choices as world building for Dramatica. Who is on what team and why. Then how does each player emody an element.

#10

Dramatica does. In fact Dramatica genres are just that! If you know how to fiddle with the genres on the scale Melanie teaches about, you can fiddle with audience emotions and reactions the way you like. Dramatica is just so complete. Truby gives you his wealth of experience and its still subjective. But Dramatica helps you customize the audience’s experience to your taste.

#11

Sort of, but no.

I understand the instinct to say this, but a key understanding is missing and it’s leading you astray.

The Contagonist is a set of characteristics and has a structural, objective purpose.
The fake-ally, fake-opponent, shape-shifter is a storytelling device, and is subjective.

They don’t operate on the same playing fields, and that needs to be taken into account when comparing them.

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#12

Could they be structural in any instance? Psychology domain contains the dynamic pair of Responsibility/Commitment. I could see the fake ally/enemy scenario emerging from those issues in an objective character.

#13

A very astute point. Thank you for teaching us. That’s great.

MAN I am glad this forum exists. At this point, I feel like I am not even sure how to ask the right questions…but give it time :slight_smile:

#14

A post was split to a new topic: Dramatica Compared to Truby

#15

I’m not sure I understand your question.

#16

Mike, I think @SeanLester was asking about this:

I think he meant, can the manipulation involved in these storytelling devices sometimes be part of the structure, for example when the OS Domain is Psychology. I certainly think it can – there are probably thousands of different ways that such a character might be tied to the structural appreciations. While in other cases it might not be tied to structure at all.

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#17

I have two answers to this.

The first is that the beauty of all well-told stories is that they emerge as a whole – so the story-telling and the meaning seem to be intertwined. That in certain ways is why we refer to things as “one story” – it seems like one thing. So, sure, any objective aspect of the meaning is tied to some subjective story-telling construct.

The second answer is, no. Let’s just say that Snape embodies “Help” in the Harry Potter series. When he is presented as trying to kill Potter by knocking him off his broom at a Quiddich match, and then is later revealed to have been helping him all along (by holding at bay the thing that was actually trying to kill him) – there is in this instance a reversal. He’s bad, whoops no, he’s good!

But that is entirely subjective. In fact, objectively he was helping the entire time. Our perspective as a reader is not relevant to this: JK Rowling knew he was helping.

Let me try to look at a specific example: Four Weddings and a Funeral
(I haven’t seen this movie in a while, so apologies if I screw this up.)

Charles is in love with Carrie. (Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell.) She is potentially called a false-ally: they sleep together, she leaves; next time around she’s with Hamish, and then after that she shows up to scuttle Charles’s wedding after he’s decided to bite the bullet.

In terms of the storyform, she certainly forces Charles to think about Commitment. And she forces Charles to think about Choice: her Issue as the IC. So she embodies these objective things. Subjectively, the author makes us think of these things by having Carrie show up directly before Charles’s wedding, when Choice is the last thing he wants, and the stakes are insanely high.

Likewise, the IC Problem is Oppose. But we only know this because she shows up in opposition to his wedding. The key subjective story-telling thing here is that the writer puts her at the wedding. A poor story-telling choice would have been to have her call Charles a couple of months earlier and say, “Hamish and I didn’t work out.” Notice, though, that still would have been oppose. He was engaged at that point, and here is a major hurdle.

The blending of the objective (Oppose) and the subjective (at the wedding) is what allows the movie to have several awesome moments: Charles swears over and over as the priest walks in, and then in the chapel, Charles’s deaf brother makes him translate out loud as he asks, “Do you love someone else?” and Charles says, “I do,” which is an amazing payoff to a throw-away line earlier (“Whenever anyone asks you a question, just say ‘I do.’”)

None of those scenes are forced by the storyform or the OS of Psychology. Which is why I say “no” is the truer answer to your question. However, I also think that the first answer is the better answer, because if you’re going to give one of your characters an objective trait, then use the hell out of it.

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Additional examples of Characteristics
#18

So awesome. Thanks for the clarification on the subjective and objective perspectives. Need to be more careful going forward. Especially with storytelling tricks. Just Leveled up. 1000EXP.

#19

But that is entirely subjective. In fact, objectively he was helping the entire time.

That makes a lot of sense — as Dramatica deals with the objective view of events as they are, not the subjective view as we present them or observe them.

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#20

Thanks Mike. Not being familiar with Truby, I misunderstood what a fake-ally opponent etc. actually was … I thought the fake-ally character was purposely trying to trick the protagonist character, within the story. But I see now from your examples (and re-reading the initial post) that it’s the author tricking the reader – definitely a storytelling device.

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#21

I broke up with a perfectly nice woman because of 4WAAF. Apropos of nothing. Suddenly thrown into a panic because she wasn’t my true love. Can a movie be TOO effective :anguished:

#22

I don’t know. How did it work out in the long run?

#23

:thumbsdown: A lot of mistakes and couple of real nightmares. Perfect for a writer :wink:

She was a lifetime ago. 1992 or 3.

Lest we leave on a gloomy note, I ran into my actual True Love in London last summer after 32 years, and we had a lovely couple of nights out. Pure serendipity. I’d just returned from walking on Christo’s Floating Piers in Sulzano, Italy. It was quite a trip.

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#24

This is related to the Fake-Opponent Ally and Fake-Ally Opponent: Truby’s concept of the Four-Corner Opposition.

I recently watched this video about Batman Begins. Ignoring the guy’s comments about Acts and Perfect Structure, I found his application of Truby’s Four-Corner Opposition concept interesting. Especially if you take the protagonist-antagonist opposition and main-influence-character “opposition” into consideration. According to @jhull, Bruce Wayne/Batman is the MC, while Ra’s al Ghul is the IC. Presumably they are also protagonist and antagonist, respectively. In the video, Batman represents “Scaring Criminals for Altruistic Reasons” while Ra’s al Ghul represents “Scaring Innocents for Altruistic Reasons”. But then there are the other two corners: “Scaring Criminals for Selfish Reasons” and “Scaring Innocents for Selfish Reasons.”

I suppose the potential questions are:

  1. Ignoring Dramatica for a moment, do you agree that this is the theme (or Moral Argument) of the film, and that these particular characters represent these positions?
  2. Is this idea of four-corner opposition also ‘just’ story telling or is it also part of the story structure?

The Four-Corner Opposition fits rather nicely into Dramatica’s obsession with quads ;).

Another film/play that has both a Dramatica Analysis and Truby’s Character Web Analysis is A Streetcar named Desire. Here a summary of Truby’s thoughts (mostly direct quotes from his book Anatomy of Story):

Central Moral Problem: Is someone ever justified in using lies and illusion to get love?

Variations and Justifications:

Blanche (MC, Hero): Blanche lies to herself and to others in order to get love. (…) Blanche feels that her lies have not hurt anyone and that this is her only chance at happiness.

Stanley (IC, Main Opponent): Stanley is so brutally honest when it comes to exposing the lies of others that he actually tears people apart. His belief that the world is harsh, competitive, and underhanded makes it more so than it really is. His aggressive, self-righteous view of the truth is far more destructive than Blanche’s lies. (…) He thinks Blanche is a lying whore who has swindled him. He believes he is just looking out for his friend when he tells Mitch about Blanche’s past.

Stella (Fake-ally opponent): Stella is guilty of a sin of omission. She allows her sister to have her little delusions, but she cannot see the lies her own husband tells after he brutally attacks her sister. (…) Stella is not smart enough to see that she is part of a process that is destroying her sister.

Mitch (Fake-ally opponents): Mitch is taken in by Blanche’s superficial lies and is therefore unable to see the deeper beauty that she possesses. (…) Mitch feels that a woman who has acted as a prostitute can be treated like one.

Thoughts?

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#25

Something I love about Truby is his method works best for storyweaving. The Four corner Opposition isn’t quite new. Dramatica has the Dramatic Triangle and the Dramatic quad even. Truby is still subjective in his approach. Dramatica is still best for both views. Objective and Subjective.