Hi, this is Mr. Sato. I'm going
to explain characterization. First, here's a definition: characterization
is everything a writer does to create, reveal and develop characters. So let me ask a question: Who are you? Are
you a hero or heroine, villain, comic relief, center of attention, wallflower, supporting cast? Do people
instantly like or dislike you? Are you deep? Superficial? Stuck in your
ways, or constantly changing? What do you look like? How do you dress? Do you wear a silk top hat and go
dancing around the school singing songs from the 1930s? (I so hope someone watching this says
yes. Wouldn't that be funny?) But I wonder. What do people say
about you? Hm? There are a lot of ways to describe
different kinds of people. In the same way, there are
a bunch of words to describe the different kinds of
characters in a story and the different qualities they can have.
Here are some of them. We'll talk about these terms in this video. First up: protagonist. You probably know
what a main character is. He or she is the character the story is about, and whom we are most interested in seeing if he or she is successful.
Some main characters, but not all, are called protagonists.
The protagonist is the "good guy." Luke Skywalker in Star Wars
is a protagonist. We root for him and want him
to defeat the Evil Empire. Simba is a protagonist.
Iron Man is a protagonist. The opposite of the protagonist is the
antagonist. The antagonist is the "bad guy." He or she is what we might
call the villain. Darth Vader is an antagonist;
Cruella deVille, in 101 Dalmatians? She's definitely an antagonist. Protagonists and antagonists are
generally a matching pair, so you would say that Darth Vader is Luke
Skywalker's antagonist. That guy with the electric tentacles is Iron Man's
antagonist. One of them. Get the concept? Protagonist: good guy.
Antagonist: bad guy. By the way, when you like a character, or
want him or her to be successful, we say that character is sympathetic. So, a protagonist is generally sympathetic.
Characters we don't like or would love to see blown up in a huge
fireball at the story's end, like in the case of an antagonist, we say
that character is unsympathetic. But, here's the thing, not all main
characters are protagonists. A lot of fiction tries to reflect a more realistic portrayal of people,
and -- really -- people are never all good or all evil. Real people are more complex
than that. So in that case, you might have one or more main characters and then
several minor characters, but no protagonists or antagonists at all. Then, there's the foil. This term comes
from the practice of putting shiny foil on the
bottom sides of gems, so they reflect the light more
and get all sparkly and pretty. So, in terms of characterization, a foil is
a character that contrasts with the main character is such a way that it makes us more aware of some
important quality of the main character. This could include the antagonist; I've seen
people describe Darth Vader as Luke's foil because they're such opposites, but I'm
more inclined to think of his friend, Han Solo, as his foil. Han's world-weary
experience makes us more aware of how eager and inexperienced Luke is. Han's primary interest in money contrasts
with Luke's idealism. Han makes us understand Luke better because
they contrast with one another. That's what a foil does for the main character. The anti-hero is a weird hybrid. This is a
sort of villain that we root for. This character represents values
we don't believe in -- like the way the Dark Knight version of
Batman is a really brutal vigilante who takes the law into his own hands,
but we still root for him. Or there was that movie about the
guy who invented Facebook; he's horrible, he's cold and conniving and walks over
people who thought they were his friends, but we're still
interested in seeing him climb towards the incredible success
we know he'll attain. We even want him to succeed,
for Pete's sake, which is the twisted part about anti-heroes. And it's the fun part as well. Now let's talk about dynamic characters
versus static characters. This one's easy. Dynamic characters change over the
course of the story. Luke is not the same person at
the end of Star Wars as he was at the beginning. Simba's
personality has matured over the course of the Lion King; remember, in the beginning
he just wanted to play and have fun, but at the end he's willing to do the
hard things he needs to do to live up to his responsibilities. A lot of those stories are actually about
the main characters' evolution from one step to the next. They're about growing up,
because all of us are dynamic characters when you
stop to think about it. Static characters, on the other hand,
are ones who don't change over the course
of the story. Easy. Scar starts out bad in Lion King and he
stays bad. In the Harry Potter series, Hagrid is just as gentle and big-hearted
when the series ends as he was when we met him. Those are static characters. Unlike dynamic
characters, they don't change. Flat characters are not very complicated.
Luke Skywalker is a flat character. He's morally good but impulsive.
That's about it. And there's nothing wrong
with that if that's what you need for the story. Pretty much all of the
Disney characters are flat as a cardboard cut-out. We know about what they say, do,
and look like -- all that's called external reality -- but what's going on inside? -
we don't know that much. Flatness or roundness depends on how simple or complicated a character is, and because they're written for kids,
Disney characters are pretty simple. Round characters, then, are complicated.
They may be a little good and a little bad. They might have conflicting motives. We know more about their thoughts and
feelings, what's called internal reality, so they're more realistic. Like the person
who's quiet and shy in class, but outrageous and funny outside school
with her friends and family. In Louis Sachar's novel, Holes, the main character, Stanley, is a round character. In the beginning of the book, we learn that he's overweight, quiet, and gets
bullied at school. But, if the author had stopped there,
Stanley wouldn't be a round character; he'd be a flat one. But he didn't stop
there --the author added more depth and internal reality; we learn that Stanley is kind of passive because
he thinks his family has been cursed and there's nothing he can do about it. His self-esteem is in the toilet. But he's
protective of his mom so when he writes her a letter, he lies about how awful
camp is so she doesn't worry. He's smart and strategic enough to figure
out how to spin things to his advantage, like when he finds something
the warden wants. See how that's way more complicated than
just the quiet kid who gets bullied? That-- the extra depth and detail -- makes
Stanley a round character. And a round character is a more realistic one. OK, one quick comment on stereotypes. If you're a student in middle or high school, you already know about sterotypes; the brain, the jock, the computer nerd
the dumb blonde, the immigrant, the loner, the bully, the mean girl, the weird
kid. These are offensive diminishments of the full complexity of real people. Even if
a stereotype is a positive one -- like this racial group is always good at that sort of
activity -- that stereotype is still obnoxious and insulting. They're an excuse not to really see
somebody, who they really are as individuals. Avoid stereotypes at all costs. But in writing, many writers find it
convenient to use stereotypes to describe flat, minor characters: you might have the
town drunk, the motorcycle riding boyfriend, the humorless bureaucrat,
the nagging mother. Sometimes, they're called
stock characters. The best writers don't resort to this kind of unoriginal
shortcut, or if they do, they start with the stereotype, but then fill in the character
with more detail and dimension than is usual, like the bully in Bridge to Terabithia. But
there's a word for it, and that word is: stereotype. Lastly, there's direct and indirect
characterization. This one's easy too. If the author straight out tells you
what a character is like, it's direct characterization. So if the author tells you that Scrooge is a miserable old
miser, then that's direct characterization. He has directly told you. But if the author reveals what the character
is like by what that character says, does, and how others react to him or her, that's
indirect characterization. We can see that he's a miserable old miser by seeing how
he treats others, his appearance, and how everyone reacts when
they see him coming. So direct is when the author tells you directly Indirect is when you figure out what the
character is like indirectly, using your powers of observation. There are lots of other words to describe
characters but they're the same ones we use to describe real people: funny,
shy, conflicted, principled, obsessed, angry, a leader, a follower, and so on. Characterization is one of the most
important elements of fiction, because a story can have all the dramatic events in
the world, the most interesting setting, but no one will pay attention if they don't care about the
character to whom those events are happening. So, when reading a story, look closely at the people in it.
Using these characterization terms, you now have the words to describe
what they are like. With these terms, you now have the tools to make important
distinctions between characters. This one's dynamic; that one's a protagonist; this other one has a lot of internal reality. And in real life, look closely at
the people you meet. There's always, always more than
meets the eye; there's always another layer
below the one you see at first. And just because a person acts
one way now, it doesn't mean he or she can't
change in the future. And if your friend describes you as his
wingman or her sidekick, you might decide you aren't
interested in being the foil in somebody else's narrative. You
don't exist to make someone else look good. You're a main character too. If you learn how to figure out characters
in a story, you can figure them out in the story you're in, the one you're
living, as well. So, have fun getting to know your characters
-- and each other.