CSM and writing Characters as sets of themes
I realised something while thinking about the characters in Chainsaw Man and their themes, which I think can be scaled quite easily to general narrative analysis. It's more of a way of looking at characters:
A character is a cohesive set of themes.
Obviously there are many more things that make up a character, but I'm going to make this generalisation because it makes the following analysis easier (especially when talking about character interaction). Since working with abstract things is tiresome and complicated, I'll use Chainsaw Man as an example throughout.
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Let's take Makima. The themes that represent Makima can basically be placed under a single heading: control. We can see this reflected in her role within the government, in the whole grooming thing, in the talk she gives to the Yakuza about necessary evils and even in her conversation with Kishibe, which has some pretty interesting traces of criticism to fascist historical revisionism (this blog discusses it extemeley well).
Denji's themes are way more chaotic, and difficult to place under a single heading. We have themes of abandonment, hypersexuality, grooming, dehumanisation - and many other things that we can hardly describe in a single word, such as his existential crisis at the banality of his "dream" once it is fulfilled at the beginning of the story.
The interesting thing about looking at the characters in this way comes when we see them interact. When Denji and Makima interact, the theme they both share is brought to the surface: grooming. To see two characters interact is to see the intersection between their themes. It seems very natural: obviously when Makima interacts with Aki, for example, their displays of control are going to be very different. It would feel out of character for both of them if Makima tried to control Aki with the same methods as Denji. These feelings can be understood very easily with this approach, because Aki's themes are related to revenge, family (both blood and found), loss; all of these play a role when you see how Makima tries to manipulate Aki.
This permeates every interaction between relevant characters. Again, it seems very natural, because it's obvious that we don't show the same faces or engage with everyone in the same way, and it's the same in fiction. But looking at it from this approach allows you to understand why that character shows that particular face to that other character. This is also useful from a writer's viewpoint! If you feel that the interaction between your characters is bland or too uniform, maybe stopping to analyse the characters from this perspective will help you find that missing spice.
Another interesting phenomenon is when character interaction is not just the intersection between themes but the birth of new themes (in the context of character evolution). Think of Denji and Power and how their themes are related at the beginning and end of the story. It is clear that Denji is given new themes by his interactions throughout Part 1. His learning about platonic relationships is a theme that he gets from interacting a lot with Power, but it clearly draws from both of their themes: it wouldn't feel as organic if he had learned it from Aki, and similarly it wouldn't have made sense for Aki to be the one to learn it from Power. This is because it's a theme that springs from the intersection between Denji's and Power's thematic sets, and could not come out of any other intersection.
Precisely because of this phenomenon, which generates a thematic evolution in the characters and narrative, the intersection between sets can change completely in different sections of the plot. Take Katana Man. In his fight against Denji in part 1, Katana is a character representing "traditional" family values, wanting to avenge his grandfather and refusing to accept what Denji says, but also fully accepting his role as a member of the Yakuza as something that does not clash with those values —it is in all of this that he clashes with Denji and the conflict arises not only phisically but also thematically.
In part 2, on the other hand, these "traditional" values are now entirely twisted (more than before) to show themes of misogyny, toxic masculinity, etc.... This is because the context in which Denji and Katana interact has changed, and their narrative and thematic roles are no longer the same. However, the set of themes Katana represents hasn't changed: he just showed different elements of it in different occasions, but the set remains cohesive as a whole (and you can analyze part 1 Katana with the acquired knowledge of part 2). We can see this more clearly if we treat the setting just as another character (with its own thematic set) with whom the cast is constantly interacting, bringing out some themes and keeping others buried.
Chainsaw Man is a particularly clear example because it has a particularly good variety of characters and their themes are very relevant to their characterisation, but you could do the same analysis of many other works.
Ultimately, I think it's a very good way to see how the themes of a work interact and intermingle through its characters to achieve good narrative cohesion (Chainsaw Man does this particularly well, and as a result is a very emotive work when exploting its themes). I also find this to be good advice when creating/understanding characters or writing interactions between. I can certainly say that it has helped me in particular.
