Ladies and gentlemen! Let's try something interesting before we start this next video. Well that sounds really really interesting, it's actually fantastically boring. Have a think of some of your favourite characters across all the movies you watch. Here are some of mine.
Tomorrow you will have your heads cut off. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol. Guns or knives? Neither. It feels like there's an infinite number of diverse characters now more than ever, doesn't it?
But what if I told you, no matter how many hundreds of characters you may name, when you look beyond their age, gender, race, personality, there are only eight types of character. It sounds pretty unlikely doesn't it? But that's exactly the premise of Vladimir Prop's character archetypes, which we're looking at today.
Before we get started, I just wanted to signpost you to my newly launched Patreon. I'm really proud of this and it's a big step for me, so I'll tell you more about that at the end of this video. Now you're probably already familiar with the three-act narrative structure which dominates Western storytelling. Beginning, middle and end, or as Todorov would put it, equilibrium, disruption, new equilibrium. If you need to brush up, I've got a video on that just here.
Well, the big question today is, how do we get from one of these narrative states to another? That's exactly the question that Vladimir Prop had when he analyzed thousands of traditional folk fairy tales, looking for patterns. He found that they are all triggered by the actions of just eight character types, who all serve a narrative purpose.
Underneath their personalities and their characteristics, these characters progress a narrative from one state to another. So... Let's get started. First up we have the hero, who's easy to identify because they're usually the protagonist in any story. Their job is to achieve something, hence they're usually the ones have to repair something after the disruption.
They don't necessarily have to look like a hero like this. They're simply the person trying to fix whatever has gone wrong. We're gonna have to work at this every day but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you forever. On the flip side of that we usually have a villain.
The character whose purpose is usually to cause the disruption that the hero is trying to fix or at very least just trying to stop them from achieving their goal. Again they may look like this. Then you will die. But they're just as likely to be a jealous boyfriend. This congregation really doesn't care about how depressing your life is, John.
Okay? Or even an asteroid hurling towards Earth that needs stopping. Either way, their narrative purpose is to be a block for the hero. Next up is the donor, who provides the hero with something essential, perhaps magical, to achieve their goal.
Without it the balance of power between the hero and the villain is completely out of balance. Your father's lightsaber this is the weapon of a jedi knight not as clumsy or random as a blaster. The next character is the one that sets the hero off on their journey, the dispatcher. A character whose purpose is literally to send the hero off on a quest. It may be that the disruption has gone by unnoticed by the hero, well, the dispatcher is the one who makes sure it becomes their problem.
As a bushwhacking guerrilla army, we're going to be doing one thing, and one thing only. Killing Nazis. Next, there's always the sidekick, or as Vladimir Propp would put it, the helper, who not only assists the hero, but will be their saviour later in the narrative when it appears they're going to perish. Come on, Mr Frodo.
I can't carry it for you. But I can't carry you! Come on! The helper will have a unique set of skills, but will likely act as a counterpart to the hero to illustrate just how exceptionally heroic they are. Then there's the false hero, who may appear as a good character aligned with the hero, but actually disrupts their progress.
They may be a red herring, or simply cause setbacks. You three should just nip the rest of them back into their cage. What are we doing now? Next up we have the princess archetype, who doesn't necessarily have to be a princess. Their purpose is to act as a reward for the hero once they save the day, but it might also be part of the hero's quest if they need saving.
which will often go hand in hand with the dispatcher who sets the hero off on their quest. And finally we have the princess's father, the person who actually looks to reward the hero once they achieve their goal, assuming there is a happy ending. I just want to make sure you're taken care of. So broadly speaking those are the eight character types, don't worry about what they look like or who the character actually is, think about what their actual purpose in the story is. If you think back to your characters at the start of this video, Can you place them into one of these categories already?
Now, narratives have obviously evolved and become far more sophisticated since Vladimir Prop's work in the 1920s. So we need to consider a little bit of context if we're going to apply Prop in a contemporary setting. Firstly, don't go thinking that all eight of these characters need to appear in a narrative. It might just be that there's one or two of them.
Technically, you could have a functional narrative with just a hero and a villain, like this. Well, I'll get your stupid paper, but you just better start showing me a little more appreciation around here, Mr. Man. Well, we could even just have a single hero with narrative plots coming through via car phone.
I won't be back for the match. I'll have to listen to it on the radio. Dad, you said you'd be back.
It's rubbish on the radio. Secondly, as I alluded to while we were going through the characters, is they don't need to match their description. I'm sure Prop found lots of actual princesses whilst he was studying fairy tales.
But actually the narrative functions are simply a character who acts as a reward or needs saving. So in this case, Will from Stranger Things is a princess. You tell him to tell him I'm coming mom. Mom is coming.
Mom, she's coming for you. A princess doesn't even have to be a person. It can be a thing. More modern film critics would probably identify them as a MacGuffin.
It's always called the thing that the characters on the screen worry about, but the audience don't care. Another consideration you might have is these days you might find that one character serves multiple purposes. They can have numerous roles.
So, for example, in Star Wars, Obi-Wan is both the donor. father's lightsaber and the quest giver. I need your help Luke. She needs your help.
I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. So it's fairly straightforward but how do you go about identifying these character types? Well you'll get better at it with time but when you look at a narrative ask yourself what is the purpose of this character or rather what wouldn't happen if they were removed? How would it impact the narrative?
You might be very good at identifying the disruption. Who instigates the disruption? That's probably your villain.
Now listen to me. The only thing that matters is that that man gets up on that stage tonight. The key here is to start separating characterization from narrative purpose.
The characterization may tell you a bit more about the character and make them feel more real, but they are ultimately there to help move the narrative from one plot beat to another. You know a great example of this is Iron Man who in the Avengers saga was quite clearly the hero. They were trying to repair the disruption.
Whereas in Spider-Man he plays the part of the donor by giving Peter Parker his famous suit. Yeah give that a look. He's the exact same character with the same attributes, but he has a different narrative purpose in each. So there you have it guys, narrative as defined by the characters.
Now as I mentioned earlier, I've just started up on Patreon. There's a link down in the description, but I just want to explain kind of why I'm doing this. I'm really committed to making more of these videos more regularly, and also providing more revision resources and trying to build on this amazing community of teachers and students. who seem to find value in these videos. So if you're in a position to support these videos, if you find them useful, please go and check out my Patreon and I'm always very grateful for you watching.
I'll see you down in the comments and see you next time.