Ooh, this is actually kinda a neat thing, because you can think of it as a checklist:
Who: Main character(s)
Why: Character goal or desire (stated)
Why: Character need (implied)
When: Inciting Incident
What: Means (that achieves the goal/need)
Where: Place A >> Place B
How: The Plan
Obstacle(s): antagonist or challenge
For example:
Who: Bilbo Baggins, a respectable hobbit of Hobbiton
Why: Treasure, wealth (stated)
Why: Adventure, self-respect (implied)
When: After supper
What: Quest
Where: Hobbiton >> The Lonely Mountain
How: A company of dwarves, a wizard, and an ancient map and key
Main antagonist(s): a dragon
Thus, in less than 100 words:
Bilbo Baggins is a respectable hobbit in Hobbiton, never making any trouble or having any adventures. But when a wizard and a company of dwarves invite themselves to dinner, Bilbo finds himself joining their quest from the shires of Hobbiton to the legendary Lonely Mountain, the home of a long lost treasure, and quite, possibly, a dragon.
~~~~
The Anatomy of Story by John Truby is a really good book by the by, if anyone’s interested in this sort of thing.
I see a lot of writing advice, particularly about giving characters flaws. The main advice is “everyone has flaws! make sure to give your character flaws or else it’s not realistic!” And after thinking about it… I would like to challenge this.
It essentially posits a view of human nature that there are good and bad traits, and that these traits can be neatly diagrammed into separate columns, one set of which can and should be eliminated. It tends to go along with a view that posits character development should be about scrubbing away of “flawed” traits until the character achieves more a higher level of goodness, or else the character doesn’t and falls into tragedy. This is not untrue, necessarily. There are definitely some “flaws” that are 100% bad and sometimes a good arc is about slowly losing them. However, I could call this advice incomplete.
Consider thinking about it this way. Characters have traits and often whether or not that trait is a flaw is purely circumstantial.
For instance, fairy tales I read as a child. In some, when an old beggar asked for money on the road, it was a secret test of character. The prince who gave the old man money or food would be rewarded. But in other folktales I read, the old beggar would be malevolent, and any prince who stooped to help him would be beaten, punished for letting his guard down. Now, in a story as well as in real life, either of these scenarios can occur–a stranger who asks for help can be benevolent or malevolent. So which is the flaw? Is it a “flaw” to be compassionate? or is it a “flaw” to be guarded?
Trick question–it’s purely conditional. Both traits are simultaneously a strength and a weakness. Either has an advantage, but either comes with a price as well. And whether the price is greater than the advantage depends on circumstance. The same can be said for most character traits, in fact!
An agreeable character who gets along with everyone will be pressured into agreeing with something atrocious because it’s a commonly held viewpoint. A character who’s principled and holds firm even under great pressure will take much, much longer to change their mind when they are actually in the wrong. A character who loves animals and loves to shower them with affection will get bitten if they try the same on every animal. As the circumstances change, flaws become strengths, and strengths become weaknesses. And even a trait that’s wholly virtuous, such as compassion, comes with a price and can be turned for the worst.
You don’t have to think about inserting flaws into your character. Your character, even the most perfect “Mary Sue,” is already flawed the moment you give her any traits at all. The problem with Mary Sue isn’t a lack of flaws, it’s a lack of circumstances to challenge her properly, to show her paying the natural price. Your job as an author is to create circumstances in the narrative that 1) justify why these traits exist in your character 2) show what your character gains from these traits and then 3) change the circumstances to challenge her.
Make your character pay the price for their traits, for their choices. And then, when challenged, you can make a hell of a story by showing us how they adapt, or why they stick to their guns anyway.
this is well said. there is no such thing as a mary sue character, really, only a mary sue story. when every other character and circumstance revolves completely around the protagonist, that protagonist becomes a mary sue, no matter how ‘flawed’ they are. when the story is true to its own momentum and consequences, and the other characters are complex and have their own motivation, even the most perfect character can’t be a mary sue.
a mary sue isn’t a ‘perfect’ character, it’s a black hole that eats the story.
The Traveler: It's always "why did you climb to the top of the Opera Epiclese?" and "do you understand that this is a major security issue?" and "ma'am are you aware you are breaking three different laws?" No one ever asks "Was it fun climbing to the top of the Opera Epiclese? It looked fun."
The Steambird: That's too bad! So, did you have fun?
The Traveler: It was so much fun. There was a Hydroculus up there. :)
The most annoying outstanding plot thread in genshin is that there’s apparently no more mora being minted. Like, that represents a genuine economic catastrophe! Why isn’t everyone in teyvat talking about this??
10% because the Qixing are covering up the destabilising news, and 90% because the Traveller's Ley Line farming somehow creates Mora out of nothing and Pantalone and Ningguang are racing to figure out how to exploit this.
Very brave of me to make a set of illustrations that's 90% hands
Anyway. This is about my personal theories/headcanons about the vision requirements
EDIT: I made a post elaborating on my theories/headcanons! Check it out if you wanna know a bit more :D
EDIT (again): Just so you know (bc ppl keep mentioning it in the tags), I am well aware Archons don't personally give out visions😅 The Archons' hands are supposed to be more symbolic, since it IS heavily implied they have a subconcious affect on who gets one, even if they don't actually have any active say in it
Most medieval-style fiction: career options? uhhh. sketchy merchant. sketchy noble. naive young man with a Destiny. baker. blacksmith…? why are you looking at me like there’s more??
Genshin Impact: winery owner. funeral parlor director and exorcist. architect. disgraced nobility turned pirate-poet. the child-student of an immortal. the child literally raised by wolves. international courier. university scribe. human successfully masquerading as a god. temporary head of military who’s also temporary head of state. nun who moonlights as an assassin. homeless gang leader. deliberately homeless college grad who’s certified in Everything. police officer possessed by an ancient god. church healer and disillusioned idol—no don’t stop me I’m not done yet—
There is something really satisfying to me about the Story Quests in Genshin. I know that many people hate that the quests about the playable characters center around NPCs, but honestly? I fucking love that.
(this is more babbling than I thought it would be, but I was thinking about this before taking a nap, so now I'll put it here to stop walking in circles anymore)
They are people of this world. They live there with neighbors and fellow citizens; they work and have colleagues with whom they communicate with (or not); they have duties and hobbies and dreams, just like everyone else. The playable characters we meet and get to know are complex, but they feel more alive and well rounded, because the people around also have depth.
There are NPCs with conflict, complex histories shared among them. There is loyalty and love. There are dreams, and there is despair. The characters we are interested in are designed to be interesting, but they do live outside the Traveler's orbit too. They wake up and have a full day before them, they have plans and whims, deadlines and duties, they talk with people close to them, with people we don't even know exist.
And these story quests are a great way to show how these characters we latch onto, and want to know more about, how they interact with the world around them. How the world interacts back. What these characters think about others. How others think about them.
I loved Yoimiya's first quest a lot, because it was mainly about the NPCs. We saw what fireworks meant for them, how precious it was. We had two story lines paralleling each other at the same time, with the overall message being "this is what connects us and only us" and we get to know what Yoimiya gets out of bringing this to people. We didn't need to go in-depth through her childhood to know that this is fulfilling to her, that she loves bringing people a spark of happiness only they can truly understand, and we see people love and appreciate her back. We don't need NPCs shout how amazing she is, because she is their friend, their neighbor, a daughter, a role model. We get to see how they talk to her, what they say, what she says and how she says it.
Kokomi is still my favorite Inazuma character and her story quest made me love her more, because we see her care for Watatsumi, her relentless pursuit for the better future that hangs just out of reach now. We see how she's loved, revered, idolized and cared for. We see people needing her do her duty, but also caring for her wellbeing, because she's human like them. And we see she made a space just for herself when she's exhausted, when she needs to recharge and be Kokomi, not the Divine Priestess Sangonomiya Kokomi. We read her diary! We get to know she has a very limited social battery she needs to push daily to do her duties. She is anxious, tired, and so in love with her home and her people, she will go through this endless exhaustion with pride and care.
I even liked Ayato's quest, because it underlined his whole character nicely. He is important to the commissions, he has a good enough pull in matters. He is polite, and he worked his way up from not knowing how to lead to be at the place he is now. And meanwhile we are trying to solve the whole wedding fiasco, he is...quiet. He observes and comments, and observes some more. He pushed people to think for themselves in ways that benefited everyone, so he doesn't have to clean up more messes later. He is calm and pretty neutral overall, and the lack of interest from his side says way more than if he spilled his guts to us or we had an emotional conversation with him, when he is not the type of person to do that.
And that's another thing I like: the spaces between what is said. The insinuations, the lack of elaboration, the glossing over and switching of topics that were trying to get somewhere. Sometimes we get to know more about people by the things they don't say or that they avoid. And I like that it's portrayed in characters that aren't really open about themselves, be it through emotional distance, their work-life balance, or just them being really liking privacy. And it's not just the silent types that do that like Ayato or Alhaitham. Yae Miko doesn't really spill anything either, with her being so seemingly light hearted with a sharp edge, she directs the conversations masterfully away from places that are vulnerable.
I just love that we can see different facets of the characters through them talking, people talking, the silence and omission, the hints and jokes. The world is alive, the characters are alive, the NPCs are alive, and they all coexist. It's just the Traveler that gets roped into the shenanigans of the few powerful ones that have visions and those are the characters we follow.
There are so many characters I love, that make my day, that give me new train of thoughts to evaluate and settle my own mess of a life. Some are frustrating to the point of intrigue. Some I don't vibe with and I love them for that more, because that makes me wanna understand more.
I just really love the way the game handles the characters, even the ones I don't like. There is care put into them, and yes, there are obviously some that are more fleshed out by a lot more details and are brought back over and over in events, but all these playable characters have depth, even if it's sometimes overlooked or overshadowed by someone else. Sometimes the depth is hidden by frost to not get deep, sometimes the characters themselves put stones in the way so no one tries to dive deeper.
My love just simply overrides the weaker moments, and my mind fills in the blank spaces left behind, and I don't mind that at all.
“How deep into Star Wars lore are you?” absolutely no one asked me.
“Glad you asked! I’m compiling a list of canon-based Jedi swearing for when shit goes sideways and I need to know what kind of muttering Obi-Wan Kenobi would do,” I answer.
Most of us know “kark” or “dank farrik” as common sayings in the Star Wars universe, but what kind of expletives would a Jedi use? WELL, A FANCY ONE, FOR STARTERS.
I only very recently started compiling these, so it’s a small sample selection but a) they’re all very funny and b) if you have another one you can think of, give me a shout with the book/comic number and I’ll add it to the list.
IN THE MEANTIME, [lease understand that I could hear Obi-Wan Kenobi saying EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE.
I love it when pre Original Trilogy era shows how much effort went into making the Death Star. It took decades, literal decades, and it took so much money and so many people and it was such a secretive thing and it’s staffed by millions because it’s the size of a small moon.
I cannot express how much all of the added information makes it so much funnier that Luke blew it up.
Luke destroys literally everything Palpatine built. He blows up the Death Star, which was referenced in universe as early as the second movie. He blew up the weapon of mass destruction twenty years in the making. And he blew it up pretty much directly after it’s first and only successful attack. It was operational for fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes that Palpatine had the thing he’d been building for longer than Luke has been alive, and Luke blows it up. First day retirement, but first hour retirement.
Luke convinces Darth Vader to turn back to the light side, a feat thought literally impossible by literally everybody. Sidious clearly doesn’t see Vader’s betrayal coming. Vader’s betrayal was not in his plans, nor was it something he was prepared for. Sidious is a powerful Force user with all four limbs while Vader is a man in the tin can Palpatine put him in. If Palpatine had seen Vader turning coming, he would not have allowed it to happen.
Luke literally should not even be alive. Palpatine almost definitely got Padme out of the way on purpose, and he almost certainly was trying for her unborn child as well (there was way too big of a risk that a cute liddol bebe would bring some humanity back to Anakin, and Palpatine did not want Anakin to have any humanity) Luke living is literally the first step in Palpatine’s ultimate downfall, especially once Vader finds out that Luke is his son. His very alive son. His son that is not dead, despite Palpatine claiming Anakin killed Padme. Implying that Anakin killed Padme and she posthumously gave birth. But, she didn’t give birth on Mustafar, which was the last place Anakin interacted with her. And once the mother dies, you have to get those fuckers out fast or they die too.
I imagine Darth Vader piecing all of this together is that meme with all the math floating around his head, because how could Padme have died by his hand and then given birth like two hours later?
Luke killing Palpatine is what ultimately leads to the dissolution of the Empire as an omnipotent entity. Luke killed the Empire. Luke spends a good amount of his adult life killing Empire remnants. We see that in the Mandalorian, since he’s so recognizable that Gideon immediately knows he’s fucked just by seeing an X-wing. We read it in Legends’ continuity, where Luke terrifies Imperials because he can walk into their changing room and stand in their for a minute and they don’t even notice.
Luke destroyed Palpatine’s life’s work. Everything Palpatine spent his whole life working towards, and Luke kills all of it. He blows up not one, but two Death Stars (he may not have pulled the trigger on the second Death Star, but without him, it never would have been destroyed). He convinces not one, but multiple Sith and Dark Jedi to return from the Dark Side. He is the only reason that Obi-Wan Kenobi, the biggest pain in Palpatine’s ass ever born, lives long enough to make it to the Death Star.
Palpatine went through so much effort. And just when he had finally won, when he finally had a weapon capable of destroying entire planets with a single blast, making it impossible for any planets or peoples to go against him, Luke shows up nineteen years late to the Jedi party with space Starbucks and a droid twice his age and almost singlehandedly destroys everything Palpatine ever had a hand in creating.
Luke manages to become even worse than Obi-Wan Kenobi, the ultimate thorn in the side of politicians, and Luke doesn’t even understand any politics. He wasn’t trained in diplomacy like Obi-Wan and Leia, no, he’s a farmboy who left home for the first time in his entire life, just this morning. And he is the one to destroy the Empire.
If they rewrote Star Wars and had it entirely from Palpatine’s perspective, Luke Skywalker would be his greatest foe. Luke Skywalker would be the final boss. Luke Skywalker is the antithesis of everything Palpatine believes in and he is the one character that Palpatine cannot predict. He isn’t as moldable as Anakin, he doesn’t respond to threats very well, he’s apparently impossible to kill via Force lightning (still the funniest scene of all times, the progression of Palpatine’s face falling and him looking like “what the fuck??? Is this kid rubber??? I’ve electrocuted him eight times???”), his unwavering faith in his father’s goodness makes Darth Vader want to be a better person, Luke Skywalker is the big bad of Palpatine’s story and—
There is nothing in this world that is funnier than someone’s biggest antagonist being Luke fucking Skywalker. Luke Skywalker, who saved the galaxy with the power of love and who shouldn’t exist, by Jedi rules and by Palpatine’s own attempts, and whose best friends are literally droids, which Palpatine canonically hates!
Everything about this is hilarious, this is the funniest thing in all of media, Palpatine loses absolutely everything to some backwater farmboy who fucking likes droids.
"the jedi should have done more! they should have refused to follow orders that weren't right, they should have realized palpatine was corrupt, they should have -"
in revenge of the sith, after just 3 years of a war specifically designed to keep the jedi too busy putting out fires to look at what was going on in palpatine's office, the jedi were so suspicious of palpatine they sent one of their own to spy on him. on the chancellor of the republic that their order served for thousands of years. the republic they serve because they are not dictators, and cannot seek power lest the dark side consume them, so they trust the democratically elected senate to send them where they need to go. but things have gotten so bad that the second their spy says that palpatine is manipulating the war, they go to arrest him, with absolutely no hard evidence other than the word of one of their own. a group of space monks with magical abilities go to arrest the leader of the republic with no hard evidence. it borders on a coup, which is in fact how palpatine manipulates the events of rots to justify order 66 to the galaxy.
imagine, for a second, that palpatine didn't think the time was right to turn anakin and so he let himself be arrested and continued to play as "sweet old decent politician". do you seriously think he wouldn't have gotten out of it scot-free? do you seriously think he wouldn't have manipulated the situation in the exact same way, to make out the jedi to be power-hungry magicians trying to overthrow democracy? that, along with the war keeping them run ragged, along with how they have to be certain that they're doing the right thing and not just taking power because the dark side is whispering to them, is exactly why they don't, idk, go and execute palpatine extra-judicially after they get a bad vibe from him.
idk it just seems like a bad faith reading to say they did nothing about the corruption of the republic when it is a major plot point in rots that they are trying to do something about it, and also when there are several obvious reasons why they approach it the way they do.
I would say its a major plot point that Jedi are stuck between the rock and hard place and all the choices they have at their disposal at this point are bad or worse choices.
And its not like their way of life led them there - the events were specifically manipulated so they would be in such a place, by a person who was specifically out to get them genocided. The person who was part of the group of people thought to be myth at this point of timeline (certainly by galaxy at large).
Refused to follow orders? The moment they do so, they will lose legitimacy in the eyes of the Republic. Their whole shtick is that they serve the Republic and if they say "nope, we not doing this", what does that mean, politically? Especially considering Palpatine is in charge, they would be called traitors to the cause that much sooner.
Realized Palpatine was off? Palpatine's whole thing was how good he was at subterfuge and politics. *Nobody* suspected him (only viewers who were given menacing music when he was on screen, lol). He came to his powers legitimately - he was voted in. They did start to suspect him when he stars going towards dictartorship (which again, is approved by republic, the body they are supposed to serve).
Its like... Republic is a structure which is falling apart under its own weight and size and Jedi are trying to keep it standing but can't do any changes to architecture, only stand as support pillars. And then a guy comes and starts deliberately pushing and pulling the pieces so it falls on them...
i think the reason that i find the tragedy of the prequels so compelling is that anakin is such a good tragic hero. he's shown to be an intelligent man with a mature understanding of the world, who made catastrophic choices on purpose because they were easier and more personally satisfying to him. when fans deny him that agency, i believe they misunderstand the story in important ways. one can say that he was manipulated and deceived, one can diagnose him with every mental illness in the DSM (and people in my notes often do), but one cannot say that he wasn't fast to toss aside his moral values to lash out and to get what he wanted.
the fact of the narrative is that anakin knew better, and he chose the easy option (with full knowledge that it was 'wrong'), because he refused to accept core limitations of reality, namely the inevitability of death. he thought that having special powers meant the rules didn't apply to him and those he loved, and that's how he ended up killing kids and serving as a fascist enforcer for decades. one can contort themselves into knots to try to excuse that, and there were indeed many contextual forces that gave him so much power in the first place, but there is no real excuse for what he chose to do with that power.
without anakin being that kind of moral agent, there is no tragedy. tragedy in an aristotelean sense is a narrative designed to elicit feelings of pity and fear, because we the audience know that we too are doomed to suffer and all too readily make easy, bad choices to avoid pain. none of us want to accept that some parts of life include losing, and require sacrifice. anakin's greed was his undoing, as it is all to often our own. refusing to accept that the tragedy of the prequels, explaining away and excusing the fall of the hero, means protecting ourselves from accepting the painful truth that we are just like him, and can and do make the same kind of mistakes.
On the Jedi code: it frustrates me a bit how much the line “there is no emotion, there is peace” is misconstrued by people who have a superficial understanding of what the code is and what it is for. If you read that and think “how dare they invalidate my feelings, I have lots of important emotions, ignoring them is unhealthy and cruel!” you are not placing the words in the proper context. Think of the final line, “there is no death, there is the Force.” Death is obviously real, everybody dies, we know that to be true. To deny that would be to deny a fundamental part of reality.
So what does the line even mean? As I understand it, the code is about shifting perspective from the personal to the larger picture, stepping away and reorienting oneself with a clearer picture of objective reality. It’s a meditation tool to be able to remember you exist within a larger context and regain perspective about where you are inside that context. There are emotions inside each individual, yes, but in the Force as a whole, there is harmony and peace.
It’s not that your emotions aren’t valid, it’s just that they are a private, subjective, internal experience, and it can be helpful to remember that our reactions and feelings aren’t facts, they aren’t objectively true. If you remember the code when you are upset, it helps you process those emotions by comparing them with reality, and prevents you from acting irrationally. If you remember that the Force is always there and always peaceful, you can always find that peace when you look beyond yourself.
Again, death is real, everyone dies, but each individual death is a private experience. Taking a step back and remembering that the Force is eternal and undying, you can release the ego and find peace in the underlying stability and embrace of the Force. So yes, there ARE emotions, but internally. Externally, there is peace, and the Jedi code is a tool to help meditation, not an invalidation of anyone’s feelings.
The inability to see beyond yourself, denying the importance of objective reality in favor of your own feelings (“peace is a lie, there is only passion”) is a meditation that turns someone inward instead of outward, and strengthens the ego and encourages selfishness. It gives you permission to live in a world parallel to reality, where your story of grievance is fact, and not just a narrative in your mind. It gives you permission to hurt people in service of that narrative. It is the mentality of a Sith, and it is not something to be proud of.
I’m not saying that the Jedi Code is like space Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), but I am saying that there’s a lot of people around me (sample size at this time: 30) who did full courses of DBT then rewatched the Star Wars movies and got some very different things out of them.
This!
In all honesty, I also misunderstood the code when I first read it, and made negative parallels as a result, but now, after lots of introspection, several life experiences and exploration of philosophy (and especially the ones to do with my own culture and religious beliefs), I very much agree with this take. While I understand it as it is, sometimes I like to imagine a re-wording of the code that carries the same message, but may perhaps be easier to interpret at first glance:
Where there is Emotion, let there be Peace.
Where there is Ignorance, let there be Knowledge.
Where there is Passion, let there be Serenity.
Where there is Chaos, let there be Harmony.
Where there is Death, let there be the force.
(Again, not that I find anything wrong with the original, but when I re-framed the words in my mind in this form, I felt like I understood it's true meaning, and so could look at the original words with a new perspective.)
A good friend of mine said something along the lines of 'You may feel your emotions, but you are not them. They are separate from our core being. Your soul, as it were. True mastery of your mind means realizing that feelings are fleeting. You, however, the essence of your being, is what is truly in control, and that is what you should base your actions upon.' (not as eloquently, but very wise words anyway)
a twitter post I saw a while ago comes to mind (I don't remember the source):
“Think of your mind like a pond full of fish and each fish is a feeling. Try to be the pond, not the fish.”
Anyway, a very long winded way of saying that I totally agree with OP and the Jedi will always hold a special place in my heart for many reasons, this being one of them.
it's interesting that in the star wars: propaganda book, the jedi are described as being "hurriedly brevetted" into being military commanders, which technically means that they were promoted to the rank without increase in pay, but it can also mean that the title is given honorarily or as a reward, rather than having the full authority and privileges. tbh giving the jedi flashy and public titles like "high general" was yet another subtle and clever move (god there are so many) from palpatine in order to make the order seem more culpable for all the suffering of the war, anything to tarnish their reputation and make them more unpopular, despite the fact that they had no real choice and were doing their utmost to save lives. he's such a clever bastard you can't help but respect it
see i dont think obi-wan ever knew abt the anidala marriage, like yeah he figured they were in a relationship but i dont think he even entertained the idea of the two of them having the sheer AUDACITY to make their illegal relationship lawfully binding. like, leaving 0 wiggle room there, straight to the "whats the most attachment to another person that i can profess without donating both my kidneys and how do i make sure it leaves documented proof". but if he did learn abt it, i think stages of grief there would range from "he was 19!!! thats too young!!" to "i didnt know about it!!" to "they didnt even invite me" to "i wish i could have been there for him in this important life step" to "i should have been the best man" to "wait who WAS the best man" to "ARTOO??? you let artoo be the best man???" and itd hurt more than mustafar precisely bc how do you even begin to cope with the fact that your best friend might like his war criminal ps5 more than you. its one thing to take that L to padme. sure u raised that kid but he cant help his terminal heterosexuality. its very much a whole nother thing when the second L hits the kenobi in the form of a sentient trashcan
i love that anakin skywalker as a character essentially acts as a microcosm of the fate of the entire galaxy. his life is coextensive with the rise and fall of an empire. he's the chosen one because the entire galaxy's fate is carried inside him, encapsulated in miniature. his choices are both deeply personal and also the quintessence of the mood of the entire republic. the force made him and the force used him, just like george did, to be the bearer of the narrative for luke to strive against. like is he even human or is he something else? he's the galaxy made flesh
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