Characters

In a dramatic story, there are several competing roles that are generally embodied in one character each. The roles are:

Antagonist vs. Protagonist
Guardian vs. Contagonist
Sidekick vs. Skeptic
Reason vs. Emotion

These characters enable the story to unfold both physically and philosophically. You might think of the story as a debate between two opposing points of view about your central theme.

Those points of view are debated point-by-point, on different levels. Pros and cons are explored by the actions of the characters and the consequences of those actions. There is a logical thread that makes arguments about fact, and there is an emotional thread that makes arguments about feelings. There’s a supportive thread that articulates one position, and an opposing thread that articulates the other.

The idea is that each of these character pairs argues about the same topic, but in different ways, such that at the end of the story, we feel that the argument has been resolved.

Antagonist vs. Protagonist

Antagonist and Protagonist are the most well known. The protagonist tries to achieve the story goal, while the antagonist tries to stop her. The story goal either literally or metaphorically embodies the central theme.

Guardian vs. Contagonist

The Guardian is the character that offers guideance and conscience to the protagonist. He normally offers advice and perspective both on how to proceed, or how the protagonist should feel about proceeding.

The Contagonist is the opposite: this character is always deflecting or distracting the protagonist from the story goal. Whereas the antagonist tries specifically to prevent progress, the contagonist has their own agenda only incidentally distracts from the story goal.

An example is a love story in which the protagonist is trying to win the heart of a girl.

• The antagonist is the girl’s brother who hates the protagonist, so he’s always trying to make the protagonist look bad.
• The guardian is the protagonist’s mother who offers good advice on how to romance the girl.
• The contagonist might be is the protagonist’s neighbor who is in love with the protagonist, and who represents a plausible romantic alternative — she is distracting the protagonist from the girl by being attractive herself. Alternatively, the contagonist might be the protagonist’s friend who doesn’t like the girl and is always trying to talk him out of pursuing her.

Both the neighbor and the friend aren’t specifically opposed to the protagonist being in love with the girl; they just have their own agenda that interferes.

Star Wars features Darth Vader as the contagonist to Luke — he tries to tempt Luke with the benefits of the dark side, which would deflect Luke from bringing down the empire. He also causes confusion by revealing that he’s Luke’s father (oh crap, a spoiler, darn), which also potentially deflects Luke from his goal. Note that Vader also represents a deflection in Luke’s character arc of going from a whiny adolescent to a good, disciplined Jedi Knight.

Sidekick vs. Skeptic

The Sidekick is always there to support the protagonist, no matter what. He supports the protagonist’s decisions, and helps her achieve the story goal. The Skeptic never thinks the protagonist is on the right track. Whatever she decides or does, the skeptic thinks is stupid.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the skeptic isn’t on the protagonist’s side; just that he’s maybe cynical. One example of a skeptical good guy is Han Solo from Star Wars. He never thinks any of Luke’s plans will work, and he always predicts failure.

Reason vs. Emotion

Reason always approaches the story problem logically and in sequence. He is often cold, and although he might be “correct” in his assessments, he fails to account for sentiment so he often develops a logical plan that he can’t get anyone to follow.

Emotion doesn’t care about probabilities or logic — he just acts on his gut impulses.

If the runaway train dilemma were dramatized, you might find the Reason character coolly arguing that the “greatest utility” is served by diverting the train toward the one person, instead of the group. Meanwhile the emotion character would be in turmoil, saying “But he’s a person! We’re talking about a person, how can we decide to just kill him?”

Going back to Star Wars, Leia is always reasonable and thinks through her plan rationally, while Chewbacca always growls and does whatever he has the impulse to do.