# Creating a Fake-Opponent Ally (or) Fake-Ally Opponent **URL:** https://discuss.dramatica.com/t/creating-a-fake-opponent-ally-or-fake-ally-opponent/1026 **Category:** Dramatica Theory **Created:** [May 21, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://discuss.dramatica.com/t/creating-a-fake-opponent-ally-or-fake-ally-opponent/1026 "2017-05-21T19:38:00Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 17
### Author: ![MWollaeger](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex010/user_avatar/discuss.dramatica.com/mwollaeger/32/82_2.png) [@MWollaeger](https://discuss.dramatica.com/u/MWollaeger) #### Post date: [May 23, 2017, 4:41am UTC](https://discuss.dramatica.com/t/creating-a-fake-opponent-ally-or-fake-ally-opponent/1026/17 "2017-05-23T04:41:25Z")
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. --- _[View the full topic](https://discuss.dramatica.com/t/creating-a-fake-opponent-ally-or-fake-ally-opponent/1026)._