Many stories follow the rule that the protagonist should be a strong, powerful, and relatable character who ends up successfully completing his task in the end. This week’s second reading was an extract from Robert Mckee’s Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting (1997). It was mainly about the role of the protagonist, what what type of characteristics they should have. For example, the viewer must feel some form of empathy towards them throughout the film/novel, and he must have the will and ability to achieve his main goal. While I was reading this chapter, I thought it would be interesting to write a blog post about what I look for in a protagonist.

[THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR MOVIES/GAMES SUCH AS:

• SE7EN
• L.A Noire

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED]

 

So, first of all, I actually prefer the protagonist to have the will, but not the ability to achieve his main goal. I noticed this after reflecting on the fact that I tend to like movies in which the protagonist doesn’t exactly achieve the most positive outcome. For example, in Se7en, after a long battle with antagonist John Doe, David Mills’ ends up finding out that Doe has always had the upper hand after discovering his wife’s head in the box.

Second of all, I find protagonists more relatable when they’re kind of awkward, and maybe even a little socially anxious. A lot of Jesse Eisenberg’s characters come to mind. I know some may not be a fan of him, but I actually find his acting style very natural. The main character that comes to mind is his character, Mike Howell from American Ultra (I do enjoy simple action comedy movies as well). He is constantly anxious, and always ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, Toby Maguire’s Spiderman over Andrew Garfield’s any day (but Garfield was good too).

Thirdly, I like it when the protagonist has an extremely dark side too. It just adds depth to him/her. This example is actually from the game L.A Noire, where the main character appears to be the typical patriotic detective who is smart and charming, but it turns out that he isn’t exactly the hero we originally believed him to be. For starters, he’d been cheating on his wife, and on a completely different note, he had ordered a member of his squad to burn down a hospital during the Vietnam War.

That’s basically it. Looking back at it, it seems that I prefer my protagonists to also be the antagonist in a way, but also relatable in some sense. I guess that’s why I liked Macbeth so much.