Forum:WT:Main characters

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Star Wars is special. I'm sure we all recognize this.

This time around, I'm going to focus on one of the ways Star Wars is special, which happens to be one of the most important things an author should think about when planning a story. Since you've probably noticed the title of this forum, it is likely that you've figured out that I'm talking about main characters.

First, let's define a main character. In this tip, I will use the word "main character" to refer to the character whose decisions matter the most. Why do I choose this definition? Because stories are about choices. It is only natural that a story should focus on the character whose choices are most important to that story.

Main characters are not...
Before we go into detail about main characters, there are a few things you should get out of your head. First and foremost, a main character is not the same thing as a protagonist. A protagonist is a character who has a goal, a goal that is most relevant to the story. However, the decisions of the protagonists may not be the most important. Most of the time, the protagonist is the same person as the main character, as the most important choices are usually made in an effort to reach the most important goals. Literature is filled with main characters who are also protagonists. It's so common, in fact, it's practically a rule.

Then why do I put so much emphasis on the distinction on Star Wars Fanon? Because this is Star Wars, which is one of the most notable exceptions to the "main character = protagonist" idea. Take a look at the Original Trilogy. We know who the protagonists are, right? Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, et al. Their goal, more or less, is the destruction of the Empire and the restoration of the Republic. Yes, the story is actually much more nuanced, but you get the idea. It's very clear that these people are the "good guys," the ones the audience is supposed to root for.

Yet who is the most memorable character in Star Wars? I'll give you a hint. What was voted the coolest thing in Star Wars on Wookieepedia? That's it. Darth Vader. The Sith apprentice is the real main character of the Original Trilogy because it is his decisions that mean the most. Everything the protagonists do is in response to Darth Vader's actions. Why did the Rebels attack the Death Star? They didn't have any choice, it was because Darth Vader led the Death Star to the Rebel base. Why did the Rebels evacuate Hoth? Because Darth Vader found them. Even the revelation that Vader is Luke's father drives the plot of the conclusion of The Empire Strikes Back and the most dramatic subplot in Return of the Jedi. And in the end, when Vader is redeemed, the saga is finished, not because the evil in the galaxy has been destroyed or the Rebels have finally met their ultimate goal, but because the main character's story is over.

The same idea applies to the Thrawn Trilogy. Ultimately, the Grand Admiral is the most important character in the series, which is the reason the trilogy is named after the character. Even though Mara, Kaarde, and the classic trio from the Original Trilogy are the protagonists, Thrawn is the main character whose decisions matter the most.

This is not to say that main characters are the most powerful. It is quite clear that the Emperor is more powerful than Vader, for instance. But though the Emperor's decisions have repercussions all over the galaxy, they are not as important to the story as those of Darth Vader. Even though the Emperor is clearly the master, it is Darth Vader's suggestions that most closely involve Luke Skywalker's fate: "If he could be turned, he'd make a powerful ally." Don't mistake power for importance of decisions.

Villains and power
You don't usually want to choose the most powerful character to be your main character because characters with the most power, whether that power be supernatural or otherwise, tend to be the most secure. Generals don't stand alongside their troops on the front lines, they sit in their comfortable quarters and give orders as intelligence flows in. How interesting is that? The story is much more exciting when it focuses on the men at the front, whose decisions may not mean the immediate fate of a country, but certainly seem more urgent because a person's life is at stake.

Star Wars gets away with having Generals and and other high-ranking personnel become the focus of the story because they always get personally caught up in the fight. Even though Obi-Wan Kenobi is a General in the Clone Wars, he's not spending much time directing his troops as opposed to slicing the Battle Droids himself. In addition, the Jedi Generals are very often cut off from the resources that they command, and often only command a small platoon of troopers during the times of greatest crisis. Though this is not a very accurate depiction of military structure, it makes the story much more appealing because there is more room for the audience to become emotionally attached to the main character.

To extend this point, let me bring up the opening scene in Revenge of the Sith. Surely you remember it. Big space battle, dozens, if not hundreds, of giant warships duking it out, explosions that make fireworks look cheap. But there's not much screen time devoted to this giant battle, even though it clearly seems exciting. Even though the outcome of the battle itself is more in the hands of Grievous or some other commander, it's the two Jedi who are most present in the opening sequence. Though the cinematic evidence suggests that they only command a single squadron of ARC-170s &mdash; and only use that particular resource when they finally get to the Invisible Hand &mdash; Anakin and Obi-Wan are the center of attention because they are the ones who must rescue the Chancellor. We don't see anything of the officers aboard the Republic ships because they don't matter to the story, even if they matter to the world the story takes place in.

This is one of the many reasons the Legacy of the Force novels fail. Even though Jacen Solo, i.e. Darth Caedus, is supposed to be the main character, his choices ultimately mean very little to the story when he's sitting on the command bridge doing his Battle Meditation thing. And the pet characters of the respective authors, i.e. Wedge/Syal Antilles, Boba Fett, et cetera, mean very little to the story! All the talk about how great the Mandalorian starfighter is is just a sidetrack from the story of Legacy of the Force.

Now, how would I do it differently? I'd have most, if not all, of the story told from a single point of view, either Darth Caedus's, one of the Solo clan, or perhaps Ben Skywalker's. Even Alema Rar could have narrated the entire story, though I'm sure her insanity would bug the audience a bit too much after a while. Anyway, with a focus on the characters who matter most, it leaves the audience much more room to appreciate the main character.

Now, I'll shift gears. It's rather a common thing on Star Wars Fanon to have a villain-focused story. (When I say "villain," I mean an antagonist who is somehow un-heroic.) If you don't believe me, just search for "Darth" or look in Category:Sith Lords. Many of these "Darths" take one of two forms: They are either yet another challenge for a hero to overcome, much in the way the Sith Assassins function in KOTOR II, or they are the center of a story which encompasses their rise to power and their final defeat. I strongly recommend one not use a Darth for the first form, though minor challenges leading up to a climax is crucial in virtually every form of storytelling. Sith Lords are serious business; they should not be treated like yet another Goomba for Mario to step on.

The latter archetype these Sith tend to take is more appropriate for a Sith, but it is not necessary that the story be told from the point of view of this type of character. In fact, it's probably preferable that you avoid telling the story from the bad guy's point of view (don't look at me like that, Sith are bad guys. Get over it). Main characters are the ones who leave the most profound impression on the audience, but the audience still roots for the protagonist. Telling the saga of a bad guy main character from the perspective of a good guy protagonist is what I call second-person storytelling.

Points of view
No, I know "second person" means addressing someone directly, i.e. using the word "you" as the subject of virtually every sentence. I call it "second-person storytelling" because there are two central characters to most written stories, the protagonist, the antagonist, and the narrator. When the narrator is omniscient, or else an unnamed entity who does not play a direct role in the universe, it's called "third-person." When the narrator is the same as the protagonist, it's called "first-person." But when the narrator is the guy on the opposite side of the conflict as the main character, this creates the idea of two people facing one another, with the non-main character as the speaker and the main character as the subject, making it directly parallel the idea of grammatical "second-person."

Try to limit the number of perspectives to juggle in your stories. Though each character has his own background and personal story, you should only be revealing them as they apply to the central story, the one of your main character. This is where the otherwise good author Michael Reaves, who wrote the novel Death Star and the Coruscant Nights trilogy, fails. Though the books are clever and thoughtful, Michael Reaves makes the mistake of inserting too many points of view and forcing the readers to keep track of too many stories at once. Though it makes the conclusion, which wraps everything together, more satisfying, it makes the journey, which is the true essence of a story, more painful. This is simply because it's hard to tell who the main character is. Though it casts more light on the story to expose multiple points of view, it is more natural to tell a story from a limited viewpoint because that's how a human witnesses the story of his own reality.

This is not to say you should exclusively stick to one point of view, always. Some of the best books in the Expanded Universe, such as the Thrawn Trilogy and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, juggle as many as half a dozen points of view. But their respective authors, Timothy Zahn and Matthew Stover, carefully choose who should narrate any given scene. Only the scenes that matter to the story are shown. Timothy Zahn tends to choose a single character to narrate his own respective story arc, for example, Mara narrates most of the scenes with Karrde, Pellaeon narrates the scenes with Thrawn, and Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker narrate most of the rest.

That said, if the story covers or include many characters, a way to keep your narration from becoming confusing is by choosing select characters to be the narrators. These not be the same people as the main characters; though Thrawn is clearly the main character of the Thrawn Trilogy, all of his scenes are narrated by Pellaeon. Sometimes, when your main character is extremely special, especially when that character is a villain, it makes the character more mysterious or alluring to have his actions witnessed through the second person (not the grammatical form).

Conclusion
Stories are about choices. Therefore, the characters that matter most are the ones whose choices affect the story. These characters are called "main characters," not because they're the good guys of the ones the audience roots for, but because they leave the most impact on the audience.

In a previous tip, Heroes, it was suggested that the character who leaves the most impact in The Dark Knight is the Joker. This may be true; I have yet to see the film. I have written this mostly to clear up the confusion about heroes and main characters. Heroes are the ones whose goals are most noble, but main characters are the ones whose choices affect the story and the audience.

Discussion
I'd like to hear from everyone how they've approached writing about their own main characters. Is your main character a hero, like in most stories, or a villain, like in the Original Star Wars Trilogy? What points of view do you choose to write in? Do you think you can have more than one main character? --C3PO the Dragon Slayer 6,000,000 forms of communication 14:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)