Stories where Change character bolsters wavering Steadfast character

analysis
#1

Just wondering if anyone can think of any stories where something like the following happens. I’ll break it out step by step to make it more clear:

  1. Towards the end, with the Change character adopting the Steadfast character’s perspective…
  2. the Steadfast character wavers toward the Change character’s original perspective.
  3. And then the Change character, demonstrating their new perspective, actually nudges the Steadfast character back towards his/her original perspective.

(I think this can happen regardless of which is MC and which IC.)

One Example

I noticed this in Supergirl season 2 episode 19 “Alex”, which had a decent story (noticeable as the writing seemed to suffer after season 1). With her sister Alex kidnapped, Supergirl takes a “rush in, don’t stop to ask questions” Do-er approach. While Alex’s girlfriend Maggie comes from a Be-er perspective of “other people love Alex too” and tries to take a more cautious, talk and feel things out first approach.

Near the end, after Supergirl rushes in and makes things worse (Alex has only hours to live), Maggie changes her approach and breaks the kidnapper’s father out of prison, to meet the kidnapper’s demands. But Supergirl admits she was wrong and stops Maggie from going through with the breakout. Then Supergirl talks to the father, appealing to his love for his son, and convinces him to give up Alex’s location.

Anyway, I thought it worked really well and it was an interesting variation on the usual structure. (Or maybe it’s more common than I think?)

#2

I don’t remember the details but I feel like Crazy Stupid Love might be kind of like this, and also a great example of a Steadfast character “arc” in which the character grows into his resolve. The way it’s set up, all of the characters (and the audience) kind of feel like MC Cal is the one who has the problem, including Cal. It’s only by the end when Jacob says (not exact quote) you had the right idea all along that we all see that Cal was right to be Steadfast.

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#3

Is it about the kind of “forms” of character arc?

I think Melanie wrote an article about the topic: Paths of Character Growth | Dramaticapedia

(In the past I tried to make some illustrations based on these article.
If someone interested, I posted about this here: Shapes of character arcs *)

*I don’t know the Storyforms of these movies, so I worked it more from a storytelling perspective.

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#4

Yes it’s definitely related to Melanie’s article although seems to be separate from anything she covered. It’s more about the interplay between the two character arcs, than either one on its own.

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#5

I’m wondering if Lord of the a Flies fits this.

Ralph has essentially given up. He has not converted to the opposing ideology, but then if forces to run & hide to save his life, which prevents him from joining Jack.

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