IS THERE A GREATER MAN THAN KEANU REEVES? STATS SEEM TO POINT THE ANSWER TO ‘NO’!!! Some stories of how wholesome Keanu reeves is!!!
He is a very good man. Very talented.
Claire Keane

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IS THERE A GREATER MAN THAN KEANU REEVES? STATS SEEM TO POINT THE ANSWER TO ‘NO’!!! Some stories of how wholesome Keanu reeves is!!!
He is a very good man. Very talented.
When a special effects dad stays home❤️
New fav video on tumblr
Why is this higher quality than the effects in the Sharknado movies
This is adorable.
This is Sarah Grimké.
She was born to a rich plantation family in the American South during the time of slavery. She owned a slave, Hetty, a girl her parents gave her when she was a child. She was absolutely the sort of person whose racism you could justify as being ‘of her time’ and ‘just the way she was raised’.
And she cited the injustices she saw growing up on the plantation as the motivation for her becoming an abolitionist as an adult.
When she was a kid, she tried to give bible lessons to the slaves on her Dad’s plantation, and taught her own slave to read and write. As an adult, she and her sister campaigned for the end of slavery. When she found out that one of her brothers had raped one of his own slaves and gotten her pregnant three times, she welcomed her nephews into the family and paid for education for the two that wanted it.
This was a woman who was raised in a culture of slavery, looked around her as a child and said “hey, wait a minute, we’re all assholes!” and spent the rest of her life trying to put things right.
It absolutely was a choice.
This is something I’ve been forced to learn in the past two years. The world around me is turning into something I was raised to believe could only happen in history books, or maybe in other parts of the world that sort of belonged in history books.
The more I see this happening–and the more I learn about the past and how hard people did fight to stop Hitler from initially rising to power, or to point out the humanity of slaves–the more apparent it becomes that we have always had these choices, and they’ve always been the same.
And we’re always going to have genuinely appealing opportunities to make the worst possible choices again, no matter how much more modern the world appears.
George Washington owned slaves right? Most of the founding fathers did, and in grade school, to smooth over that abuse of humanity by an American hero, we as children were told “Yes, George Washington did own slaves but he freed them when he died.” And you infer that he didn’t like slavery but it was an economic necessity.
And then you’re in your mid twenties watching a food show on Netflix and you learn that because Pennsylvania was a Quaker colony, they led the nation in emancipation and if an enslaved person was in Philadelphia for more than six months, they automatically became freed. And the young nation’s early capital was in Philadelphia, where Washington brought his household of enslaved people with him. And he took them back to Virginia every five months for a time so as to start that clock over and keep them enslaved.
There’s a trend with historians to want so badly to maintain the prestige of George Washington and an exceptional and morally pristine figure. And true, there are many instances in his writing where he sounds like his opinion on slavery as an institution is turning and that he knew slavery was wrong. But his actions. He literally had to do absolutely nothing to free his household staff, and took great pains to keep them enslaved.
It’s important to remember that too. That there were people in positions of enormous power, who know what they’re doing is wrong, and choose to do it anyway.
Do not let anyone tell you his teeth were made of wood.
Hey American voters! 🇺🇸
Guess what?!!
🚨 It’s time to start worrying about the 2022 and 2024 elections. 🚨
(Yeah. We really gotta do this. It's... not looking great.)
Long story short:
Republicans have been working hard since the 2020 election to enact voter suppression laws, overturn election results, and set themselves up to steal the 2024 presidential election if necessary.
You’ve probably heard about the Georgia voter suppression law. But did you know that “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorist Republicans are running to be election officials like Secretary of State in several swing states, setting themselves up to overturn future elections? They are dismantling democracy before our eyes.
So what’s the worst case scenario?
...Well, let’s start with the realistic scenario.
Republicans are likely to take back the House in 2022. They are possibly capable of doing it through gerrymandering alone. Is it possible for Democrats to keep the House? Yes, but it will take a huge effort.
Republicans could also win back the Senate since it's currently 50-50 and Democrats only have a narrow majority because we won the presidency.
Even if Republicans only win back the House, the Biden administration would legislatively accomplish very little from 2022-2024. Republicans would have the power to impeach Biden for no reason and cause another constitutional crisis, enable gerrymandering and voter suppression laws, and block any Democratic priorities from becoming law (gun control, climate change, and healthcare are just a few things that would be off the table entirely).
Then comes 2024.
Donald Trump is the most likely Republican candidate to run and win in 2024. In a recent poll (May 2021), 66% of Republicans indicated that they would vote for Trump again.
Yes, Trump can run even if he’s indicted on criminal charges. He can run even if he’s in prison!
Remember, although Biden won by 7 million votes, it was really a difference of about 44,000 votes in three swing states that prevented Trump from winning the Electoral College and becoming president again. That is a frighteningly small margin.
Even if the candidate isn’t Trump, this is still going to be a close election. 85% of Republicans say they would vote for a Trump-aligned candidate (same poll as above).
If Republicans win back or maintain control of Congress in 2024, this could set up an even more dangerous scenario:
The House has the power to choose the president if Congress does not award 270 electoral votes to either candidate.
How could that happen? Well, those "Stop the Steal" Republican election officials in swing states could refuse to certify the election, claiming fraud, and a close election could end up with neither candidate getting enough electoral votes. House Republicans could literally choose the next president without any input from voters and effectively end American democracy as we know it.
Because you know that Republicans will never let go of that power once they have it.
This is not far-fetched.
This is a realistic, highly likely scenario that will happen if we don’t do something to prevent it. Journalists and election experts are trying to sound the alarm, and we should listen:
New York Times - How Republicans Could Steal the 2024 Election
Washington Post - American democracy is in even worse shape than you think
Pod Save America - Stop the 2024 Steal (Discussion at 29:00)
LA Times - Trump’s allies are prepping to steal 2024 election
The only way to prevent this from becoming reality is to fight like hell against it. And I know we just did that in 2018 and 2020. But this fight isn't over until we restore and protect our democracy.
This isn’t about how much you like Biden & Harris, or even if you’re a Democrat in general. It’s about saving democracy in America.
What can we do about it?
Unfortunately, it’s going to be an uphill battle. But if we all engage in this fight, then we can make a difference.
TLDR, we need to raise awareness about the threat to democracy, encourage Democrats to end the filibuster and pass H.R.1 immediately, and organize, organize, organize to get voters back out there in 2022 and 2024.
Specific ways to help & additional resources below the cut.
This is what a real, qualified OBGYN will tell you about what women feel when they get an abortion
Dr. Willie Parker, who is trained as a gynecologist and OBGYN, is a hero for the pro-choice movement because he’s honest about the undiscussed aspects of getting (or not getting) an abortion. Watch how he gives a consultation.
That last statement about regret is so important, because so many people don’t understand what it is or what causes it. Anti-choicers exploit this by manipulating pregnant people and creating doubt, which only increases the likelihood of regret, no matter what decision the pregnant person makes. You know what is best for you, even if it takes some time to figure it out.
More posts on Dr. Willie Parker
Willie Parker is a HERO among common people!
Dr. Parker is one of the few things I like about Alabama and we are so fortunate to have him here.
Dr. Parker is a TRUE HERO
you can’t support autistic people and support the police. No amount of paint jobs or sensitivity training can stop police from killing with impunity
BOOST!
Aid Access supports women who cannot otherwise access an abortion or miscarriage treatment and protects their human rights.
thinking again about TvTropes and how it’s genuinely such an amazing resource for learning the mechanics of storytelling, honestly more so than a lot of formally taught literature classes
reasons for this:
basically TvTropes breaks down stories mechanically, using a perspective that’s not…ABOUT mechanics. Another way I like to put it, is that it’s an inductive, instead of deductive, approach to analyzing storytelling.
like in a literature or writing class you’re learning the elements that are part of the basic functioning of a story, so, character, plot, setting, et cetera. You’re learning the things that make a story a story, and why. Like, you learn what setting is, what defines it, and work from there to what makes it effective, and the range of ways it can be effective.
here’s the thing, though: everyone has some intuitive understanding of how stories work. if we didn’t, we couldn’t…understand stories.
TvTropes’s approach is bottom-up instead of top-down: instead of trying to exhaustively explore the broad, general elements of story, it identifies very small, specific elements, and explores the absolute shit out of how they fit, what they do, where they go, how they work.
Every TvTropes article is basically, “Here is a piece of a story that is part of many different stories. You have probably seen it before, but if not, here is a list of stories that use it, where it is, and what it’s doing in those stories. Here are some things it does. Here is why it is functionally different than other, similar story pieces. Here is some background on its origins and how audiences respond to it.”
all of this is BRILLIANT for a lot of reasons. one of the major ones is that the site has long lists of media that utilizes any given trope, ranging from classic literature to cartoons to video games to advertisements. the Iliad and Adventure Time ARE different things, but they are MADE OF the same stuff. And being able to study dozens of examples of a trope in action teaches you to see the common thread in what the trope does and why its specific characteristics let it do that
I love TvTropes because a great, renowned work of literature and a shitty, derivative YA novel will appear on the same list, because they’re Made Of The Same Stuff. And breaking down that mental barrier between them is good on its own for developing a mechanical understanding of storytelling.
But also? I think one of the biggest blessings of TvTropes’s commitment to cataloguing examples of tropes regardless of their “merit” or literary value or whatever…is that we get to see the full range of effectiveness or ineffectiveness of storytelling tools. Like, this is how you see what makes one book good and another book crappy. Tropes are Tools, and when you observe how a master craftsman uses a tool vs. a novice, you can break down not only what the tool is most effective for but how it is best used.
In fact? There are trope pages devoted to what happens when storytelling tools just unilaterally fail. e.g. Narm is when creators intend something to be frightening, but audiences find it hilarious instead.
On that note, TvTropes is also great in that its analysis of stories is very grounded in authors, audiences, and culture; it’s not solely focused on in-story elements. A lot of the trope pages are categories for audience responses to tropes, or for real-world occurrences that affected the storytelling, or just the human failings that creep into storytelling and affect it, like Early Installment Weirdness. There are categories for censorship-driven storytelling decisions. There are “lineages” of tropes that show how storytelling has changed over time, and how audience responses change as culture changes. Tropes like Draco in Leather Pants or Narm are catalogued because the audience reaction to a story is as much a part of that story—the story of that story?—as the “canon.”
like, storytelling is inextricable from context. it’s inextricable from how big the writers’ budget was, and how accepting of homophobia the audience was, and what was acceptable to be shown on film at the time. Tropes beget other tropes, one trope is exchanged for another, they are all linked. A Dead Horse Trope becomes an Undead Horse Trope, and sometimes it was a Dead Unicorn Trope all along. What was this work responding to? And all works are responding to something, whether they know it or not
An incomplete list of really useful or interesting reads from TvTropes.
please note that yes many of these are concepts that exist elsewhere and a few are even taught in fiction writing classes but TvTropes just does an amazing job at displaying the range of things that can be done with them
legitimately so much of the terminology I use to talk about storytelling, and even think about it in my own head, i learned about from TvTropes
Willing Suspension of Disbelief
Watsonian vs. Doylist
Trope Tropes, for all the ways tropes are used, deconstructed, subverted, and played with.
The Oldest Ones in the Book, which is basically my favorite thing on the entire Internet
Punk Punk, for -punk subgenres
Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness, Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism
The Weird Al Effect is a fun one
Chekhov’s Gun, Chekhov’s Boomerang, Chekhov’s Skill, and further variations
Law of Conservation of Detail
Law of Conservation of Normality
Anthropic Principle
Word of God, Death of the Author
Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness
Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness
Genre Savvy
Flashbacks and Chronology breaks down all the ways you can handle chronology in storytelling
Show, Don’t Tell is a very good breakdown of what is showing, what is telling, and how both can be used effectively.
Lampshade Hanging
Noodle Incident is just fun imo
Genre Title Grab Bag
Fridge Horror
Rule of Cool, and also Cool of Rule
The Smurfette Principle
The Hays Code - not a trope but a very good breakdown of how the Hays Code affected storytelling in film
this is just a really short list of examples I encourage people who write or otherwise create stories to browse around on this site it’s so useful
This may cause a bunch of English majors who consider liking Shakespeare a personality trait to come for me but I really wish English (or any literature) classes would give at least as much times to the trope lens to analyse fiction as the “why are the curtains blue” close reading lens.
I think both have their merits but the reason why “why are the curtains blue” is such a contentious thing to talk about is that you are often presented the question in class and tasked to come up with the answer - which is great if you care about the question or the answer but sucks if you don’t. And often people don’t care, or they aren’t predisposed to engage with fiction that way at all (which is fine).
Tropes on the other hand are fundamentally about what is engaging to someone in fiction and how and why. Or what isn’t. If you make students read, say, The Great Gatsby and they don’t like it, you can still employ tropes to empower them to talk about which parts of it made them dislike it and why. And that’s analysis and criticism! As conversely it is very hard to make students care about the thematic analysis of a story they do not care about or actively dislike.
AND (imo) it gives people more useful tools to engage with fiction in their actual lives. You can articulate what about a thing makes you like it (or dislike it) in ways that you couldn’t do before. I’m a big believer in the idea of giving things names to allow people to think clearly about them. Take Adults Are Useless for example, which as a kid drove me nuts when stories employed it. It literally made me feel uneasy. But I had no name for it and could not even think of it to myself as A Thing until I saw it framed as a trope with a name.
Tropes allowed me to navigate fiction and identify things that I liked and use that to discover new fiction with these things in it! (Sometimes using TvTropes itself which is the reason I know about many cool things that don’t see the light of day in everyday conversations, both irl and online.) That’s really good and useful. And guess what, nobody had to force me to do deep thematic readings of those things because I wanted to do them on my own.
#and it also helps make people understand what genres are#all of literature is borrowing from each other and actively referencing each other#and/or developing similar structures and tropes independent from each other#what are genres but vaguely defined clusters of tropes and references?
yeah! the issue with genre is the lack of definition and specificity. like take the worst offender “romance” which can mean the trite middle aged woman goes on vacation in Cornwall to meet a hot dude who rides horses and REALLY gets her trope or it can be your assortment of online fandom fic tropes which are VERY different things.
It often allows you to look past a thing you dislike about the popular understanding of a genre and let you zero in on specific things you like.
Also genre often has been corrupted by marketing to the point of being useless to the audience. Why does young adult HAVE TO imply a forced love triangle romance subplot?
Flat Characters vs. Round Characters (Definitions, Differences, Purposes, and Examples)
Lately, I’ve been talking a lot about flat-arc (also known as “steadfast”) characters, but these are not to be confused with flat characters. A flat character is a simple, two-dimensional character. In contrast, a round character is a complex, three-dimensional character.
“Flat” and “round” are not technically, strictly tied to character arc–though there are some common combinations. For example, a flat character is more likely to be a flat-arc character. Today, let’s define each character type in depth and explain how and when to use which. At the end, I’ll relate it to character arcs.
Flat Characters
Flat characters are straightforward and uncomplicated. What you see is what you get. A flat character may have only a couple of traits or character tags within the story, which makes them appear simple and two-dimensional. They are often rather predictable.
In Harry Potter, Crabbe and Goyle are flat characters. The audience gets an impression of them as soon as they are introduced, and they never really learn more about them. Crabbe and Goyle are unintelligent, but strong, and follow Malfoy’s bidding. Through the series, neither ever really stray from that. What we thought of them initially, is pretty much the same as what we think of them at the end.
Likewise, in The Office, Kevin is a flat character. Viewers get an impression of him that never really changes. We don’t get some heartfelt, tragic backstory to explain his motivations, and we don’t ever see him do something totally contradictory to our early impressions of him. He’s perhaps the simplest, most straightforward character in the series.
Flat characters aren’t “bad characters.” Pretty much every story needs flat characters. It’s not necessarily a matter of “poor character development.”
When to Use Flat Characters
Flat characters fit best in minor roles, and can be great at fulfilling a simple function in a story. Crabbe and Goyle are Malfoy’s muscle, which makes Malfoy more intimidating and threatening. That’s it. Flat characters are often “stock characters.” Their characterization may be summed up with their simple role. In Back to the Future, Biff is pretty much summed up by his role as a “bully.” There isn’t much depth to him. One scene, and the audience pretty much knows who he is. Flat characters can be great when you need to make a quick impression and move the plot forward–they allow the audience to instantly fill in the blanks and keep reading (or watching).
Not every character that appears in a story needs to be deep and complex. In fact, trying to make every character deep and complex is often a disaster. Imagine the protagonist takes a taxi to a hotel–if we make the taxi driver a round character, it will usually be problematic; she’s probably not important enough to be round, and making her round draws attention away from more important things. If we make her a round character, the audience will probably expect her to play a more important role than simply dropping the protagonist off at The Hilton. The less important the character, the more likely he or she should be flat. If he or she is round, then he or she may “steal the show.”
However, this is not to say that flat characters can never take on critical roles. In most parables and fables, the characters are flat. This keeps the focus on the plot and moral of the story. Even in longer stories, you may have key characters who are flat, particularly if the story is very plot-driven. Flat characters will keep the focus on the plot, because they, themselves, don’t require much attention. Flat characters are also often used in humor. The fact that Kevin in The Office is so flat, is part of what makes him so funny.
Often writers who are writing in “unrealities” or exaggerated realities use flat characters to create such an effect. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, each child is a flat character that highlights a different problematic trait: one is spoiled, another gluttonous, another violent and desensitized, and another too competitive. In Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, nearly all the characters are flat and repeatedly tagged with a few traits–Olaf has a unibrow and shiny eyes, one of his henchmen has two hooks for hands, Violet always puts her hair in a ribbon when she invents, and Poe is constantly coughing.
However, if the wrong characters are unintentionally flat, that can be a sign of poor character development. For example, a story that focuses largely on the internal journey needs a round protagonist. Otherwise, it’s basically impossible to follow an internal journey. So if the protagonist is flat, it’s likely from poor character development. If you aren’t writing a parable, fable, comedy, plot-driven, or “unreality” story, and all the key characters are flat, it’s probably because the characters aren’t properly developed.
In most stories, the key characters will be round and the minor characters will be flat. If you think about it, this actually mimics real life. To me, I am the protagonist of my own story. Those nearest to me and who have the most impact on me appear round to me, while people who play minor roles, like say the dog groomer, appear flat to me. It’s not that the dog groomer is a flat person, it’s just that in my story, I don’t know her very well. Only a few key traits about her stand out. So of course, no person is actually flat, but within a given story, they appear flat. That’s usually the effect we are going for.
In The Office, the major characters–like Jim, Pam, Michael, and Dwight–are round, while the minor characters are flat–like Kevin, Toby, Phyllis, and Meredith.
Round Characters
Round characters are layered and complex. They are more than what meets the eye. They may struggle with conflicting belief systems or embody a seeming contradiction. They can have complex motivations and are nuanced. All these things make them three-dimensional. They are often less predictable.
In Harry Potter, Hermione is a round character. She usually voices and professes the rules, but in certain situations, she breaks them. Beyond her know-it-all persona, she feels somewhat insecure for being muggleborn–which is what motivates her to try to make up for her ignorance by being a know-it-all.
In The Office, Michael is a round character. In one of his famous lines, he professes he doesn’t need to be liked. But follows up right after by saying he needs to be praised. So he yearns to be liked, loved, and validated, but is often blind or in denial about that yearning. He pretends not to need it.
If your character has an internal conflict, then she’s probably a round character.
If your character is haunted by a “ghost” or “wound” in his backstory, then he’s probably a round character.
How to Make a Character Round
What makes a character round and complex is dichotomy. It’s boundaries. It’s layers of identity. I talk about this in my free booklet “Core Principles of Crafting Protagonists.” But I’ll review briefly.
Complex characters are most easily created when we smash together seeming contradictions.
- An outlaw who is law-abiding
- A soldier who refuses to hurt anyone
- A vampire who doesn’t like drinking blood
… for example.
Once you’ve smashed together contrasting features within the character, the gray area can be explored to find complexity. Why would an outlaw be law-abiding? How can someone be a vampire and not like blood? (These are more obvious examples, but they prove the point.)
Complexity can also be created by considering the character’s personal boundaries–what it takes for him to consider doing something he wouldn’t ordinarily do. We all have thresholds when it comes to our values. For example, I may have a character who proclaims that he never lies. But when the pressure gets high, I may show him lying to save the life of a loved one. This will reveal that he cares more about his loved one’s life than about always being honest. In other words, he’s not as simple as he first appeared. This is essentially what happens with Hermione. She is a rule-stickler … except when people are in danger. She ultimately values people more than rules. She even values knowledge and education more than rules.
Finally, a character can be made complex by differentiating layers of identity. Identity gets down to how someone is defined, and no one is defined the same way from all angles. For example, who the character thinks he is, and who he actually is, will likely be different in some way. Who he believes he is and who society believes he is may be, in fact, opposite concepts. In The Office, Michael often wavers in identity–wanting to be a close friend in one situation, but a respected boss in another. His employees see him as a boss, but he tries to wedge himself into their lives as if he were a family member. He often views himself as a funny, generous, liked employer, but his employees often view him as childish and annoying.
Round characters are less predictable than flat characters. However, this is not to say we should have round characters randomly start acting out of character. When it comes to great round characters, we generally aren’t completely blindsided by their actions–we just aren’t totally sure which action they will take. Will Hermione stick to the rules this time? Or does she feel justified to break them? We aren’t always sure exactly where her boundaries are. When pitted between needing to be a boss and wanting to be a friend, we aren’t always sure in a given situation, which approach Michael will take (though he does usually prefer to be a friend).
Flat Characters Who Become Round Characters
Keep reading
(via Saturday Morning Cartoons: Baopu #15) by Yao Xiao
words to remember
Salt of the Earth (1954), dir. Herbert J. Biberman
Damn, son.
EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH SALT OF THE EARTH
Salt of the Earth actually has a crazy interesting history- OP already said it was made in 1954, but that was in the middle of the Red Scare (communism scary cold war hysteria)
Congress’s anti-communism target fell hard on Hollywood, and those in the industry who were suspected of communism at all were blacklisted from all jobs, because studio’s didn’t want to face backlash from Congress
Salt of the Earth was made nearly 100% with blacklisted crew members from Hollywood, and had such difficulty finding actors that they hired local citizens and miners from the actual strike the plot is based on. There were only 5 trained actors involved, and one of them (Rosaura Revueltas, the woman in the gif) was deported to Mexico before they finished filming on accusations of communism, with no proof and no substance. The filming was plagued with police harassment and threats (according to my professor they were shot at more than once), and the local union hall was burned down.
The movie itself not only covers a real 1950′s labor strike demanding safer and more equal labor conditions for Mexican-American employees, but after the miners were facing arrest, their wives and children took up the strike in their place. The movie’s combination of blacklisted crew, civil rights and feminist message, and pro-union plot (during the red scare) got the movie blacklisted and only 12 theaters in the entire United States would show the movie- it was successful in Europe, but didn’t actually achieve viewership in the US until the 60′s
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/10/salt-of-the-earth-labour-workers-blacklisted-filmmakers
It is available on YouTube for free
This comic was a frikking epic to put together. Like my FB page for more! And share it to your FB buddies!
This article was posted on the 10th August 2021.
Heres a link to the crowd funding page for Rukhsana Media.
The Steadfast, Flat-Arc Protagonist in Story: The Beginning
A couple of times, I’ve been asked to explain how positive steadfast, flat-arc protagonists actually work in story structure (or “beat sheets,” if you prefer that term). Steadfast, flat-arc protagonist are protagonists who don’t really change their worldview–it’s more or less the same at the beginning and at the end.
Examples: Diana in Wonder Woman, Moana in Moana, Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke, James Barrie in Finding Neverland, Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Regan in The Quiet Place, Part II.
Luckily, as I mentioned in a previous post, the flat-arc protagonist story has pretty much all the same pieces as the change-arc protagonist story–many of them are just reversed.
This means, that frankly, a lot of the same moments happen, if a little differently.
Writing a steadfast protagonist is like being left-handed in a right-handed world. Same world. Different experience.
Since this can (like a lot of writing concepts) be a little difficult to “see,” I’m gonna go ahead and guide you through a positive steadfast protagonist story.
Well, three in fact.
And even if you never intend to write a flat-arc story, this may still be helpful to some degree, as most stories will feature a flat-arc character, even if they are not the protagonist. (However, I wouldn’t recommend getting hung up on trying to make a side flat-arc character hit all the same points as a protagonist one would.)
One of the most obvious differences in structure is that the positive, steadfast, flat-arc protagonist starts on an accurate worldview–sometimes referred to as the “truth.” This is almost always, more or less, the primary theme of the story. By the end of the story, this worldview will be proven true, so the protagonist ultimately doesn’t flip in his or her beliefs, making him or her “steadfast.” (In contrast, a positive change character will start with an inaccurate worldview–the “lie” or “misbelief” or “flaw”–this is basically the “anti-theme”–the opposing argument to the “truth.” The positive change character will change to the “truth,” the accurate worldview, the true thematic statement at the end.)
However, many stories have more than one theme. Many stories have secondary themes.
Because of this, it’s possible for the positive steadfast character to be steadfast in the primary theme, but be a change character in the secondary theme. A steadfast protagonist may or may not be steadfast for every theme. But by definition, they must be steadfast for the primary theme (obviously).
This is why you may see writers argue over whether a particular character has a change or flat arc, and why the same character may get categorized differently--it depends entirely on what thematic thread the person is pulling.
For example, in The Lion King, Simba is ultimately a steadfast protagonist in the primary theme–he believes in the Circle of Life at the beginning, and even though he temporarily loses sight of that, he ultimately holds true to it at the end. However, he’s a change character in the secondary theme of responsibility–he starts out believing in irresponsibility but flips into embracing responsibility at the end. Because of this, different people may get in arguments about how he arcs.
Someday I will write a post specifically on secondary themes and secondary arcs. For now, I do want to illustrate how secondary themes and arcs play out for steadfast protagonists, as I feel they can be particularly important in understanding them (Simba’s structure being just one example).
Why 3 Steadfast Story Examples?
To say I’m going to dissect three steadfast stories may seem a bit overkill, but there is a method to my madness.
1. This will show you how a protagonist may or may not be steadfast for both primary and secondary themes.
2. There are three categories of steadfast protagonists
- The Flat-arc Character Experiences Little to No Doubt (examples: Regan in The Quiet Place, Part II, Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2015))
- The Flat-arc Character Doubts Applying the Accurate Worldview (examples: Moana in Moana, Peter Parker in Spider-man 2) This doubt may manifest in one of these ways:
- She may question how to actually imbue the environment with the accurate worldview. (How does she actually do what she needs to do with the truth?)
- She may question her wherewithal (Does she have what it takes to do this?)
- She may question her worthiness (Is she the right person to be doing this?)
- The Flat-arc Protagonist Doubts the Accurate Worldview (examples: Simba in The Lion King, Diana in Wonder Woman)
Having three full examples will allow us to cover each of these things. Of course, as with everything I post, don’t feel like you have to read every example if you don’t want to! It’s just that having and studying all three will for sure give you a more comprehensive look at how this plays out–and help us all write better steadfast stories (which is the point).
Setting up 3 Examples of Flat-arc Stories
I’ve decided to dissect Finding Neverland, Princess Mononoke, and Wonder Woman as examples for the above reasons. Each of these examples has a clear, accessible secondary theme. (For now, think of a secondary theme as a “lesser” theme, worldview, or truth that usually feeds into the primary theme.) Each film features a different category of protagonist.
Finally, I’ve chosen them because I recently rewatched each of these films, so they are fresh on my mind. 🙃😉
Let’s break their components down, shall we?
Finding Neverland
Protagonist: James Barrie
Primary Theme (Accurate Worldview): Playfulness empowers us and helps us cope by getting us to believe in something bigger.
Primary Anti-theme (Inaccurate Worldview): We should go through life seriously. Playfulness is inappropriate.
Primary Arc: James Barrie is a positive steadfast protagonist who doesn’t doubt the primary theme at all.
Secondary Theme (Accurate Worldview): Sincere friendship is more important than reputation.
Secondary Anti-theme (Inaccurate Worldview): Reputation is more important than friendship.
Secondary Arc: James Barrie is a positive steadfast protagonist who entertains some doubt through the middle concerning friendship being more important than reputation.
Princess Mononoke
Protagonist: Ashitaka
Primary Theme (Accurate Worldview): We should strive to live in peace with others, by not giving into hate.
Primary Anti-theme (Inaccurate Worldview): We should use hate as fuel to defeat our enemies and get what we want.
Primary Arc: Ashitaka is a positive steadfast protagonist who is unsure how to apply the theme to the wider world.
Secondary Theme (Accurate Worldview): We should face death calmly and humbly. It’s okay to seek healing and life, but we should not rage or try to cheat the inevitable.
Secondary Anti-theme (Inaccurate Worldview): We should seek the death of our enemies, and when confronted with our own, rage onward arrogantly and destructively.
Secondary Arc: Ashitaka is a positive steadfast protagonist who never seems to doubt the secondary theme.
Wonder Woman
Protagonist: Diana
Primary Theme (Accurate Worldview): We should fight for the world we believe (which comes from choosing love/mercy)
Primary Anti-theme (Inaccurate Worldview): We should allow humans to suffer the world they deserve (which comes from choosing punishment/justice)
Primary Arc: Diana is a positive steadfast protagonist in the primary theme who doubts her accurate worldview.
Secondary Theme (Accurate Worldview): People have both good and bad in them. They are gray.
Secondary Anti-theme (Inaccurate Worldview): People are black or white (innately good or innately evil)
Secondary Arc: Diana is a positive change character in the secondary theme. She moves from having a black and white view, to seeing the gray (the truth).
Ooooh–look at those juicy thematic arguments and strong protagonists just waiting for their plots!
Of course, since character arc, theme, and plot, all intertwine, you probably won’t see these things so clearly in your drafts–you may not figure out the theme until you’ve already gotten deep into the character arc and plot, for example. The creative process is messy, and it often feels like a chicken vs. egg conundrum.
But certainly understanding what the end product is meant to look like, will help you get there.
Just to clear something up, in case you are new around here, the “anti-theme” or “inaccurate worldview” is, to put simply, the opposing argument. You may have heard this same basic concept called a “misbelief” (if you like Lisa Cron’s Story Genius), a “lie” (if you like K. M. Weiland’s methods), or sometimes it is even considered a “flaw” when within a character. These different terms may arguably have slightly different meanings, but they largely tap into the same idea: an opposing, inaccurate worldview.
Anti-theme = Inaccurate Worldview = Lie = Misbelief = Flaw (to some degree)
Likewise:
Theme = Accurate Worldview = Truth (I have also sometimes heard this called the “Central Idea”)
Really, I could feed any of these story examples through any of the popular structures in the creative writing world: The Hero’s Journey (Vogler’s version), Save the Cat!, or 7 Point Story Structure. This is because (in my opinion), these all say similar things, just from different angles, with different emphases–basically, most well-structured stories will fit any one of them, believe it or not (believe it!).
So I’m going to just use a general hybrid version to dissect these examples.
Never forget that the following are just principles and guidelines–you don’t have to have everything exact, and I will be talking about some variations along the way. You’ll also see how some beats overlap. This is meant to help, not hinder.
Continua a leggere
The Hunger Games, Actual Teen style!
On the left, 15-year-old Josh Hutcherson.
On the right, 16-year-old Jennifer Lawrence.
Think how much creepier it would be to see them killing other kids when they look so squishy-cheeked and little.
“Think how much creepier it would be to see them killing other kids when they look so squishy-cheeked and little.”
THAT’S THE POINT SUZANNE COLLINS WAS TRYING TO MAKE
Think about these cute squishy kids being forced into a romance in order to survive
And the threat of these cute squishy kids being forced into prostitution after the games are over.
REBLOGGING THIS AGAIN WITH A REMINDER THAT FINNICK WAS 14 WHEN HE WAS REAPED/WON THE GAMES AND WAS FORCED INTO PROSTITUTION SOON AFTERWARD
wait the kids were forced into prostitution after they won???
Some of the Victors were, especially if they were attractive to lots of rich people during the games. How do you think you pay off the parachute things people send you to help you win the game? Those books were so fucked up
That’s why I feel like actual teens should have been cast in the movie. It would have hammered in the message of the books so much more.
And if they had cast actual teenages, I’m sure they wouldn’t have focus so much on romance in the films. They would have focus on the horror of the hunger games, like they damn well should have.
The hunger game movies are the exact thing the hunger game books was trying to warn us about
Just going to add in a few other things that a lot of people seem to miss because it was either de-emphasized or cut entirely from the movies:
-Haymitch Abernathy was 16 when he won the Hunger Games, and the Capitol attempted to force him into prostitution as they did with Finnick and many other popular victors. He refused, and in retaliation, they gradually killed off everyone he loved one by one—his friends from home, his family, his girlfriend. He began drinking heavily at a young age to deal with the trauma of the Games, the loss of everyone he’d ever cared about, and subsequently having to continually relive the trauma of the Games in mentoring roughly 50 children, two each year, whom he’d then have to send to their deaths in the Arena.
-The Capitol also attempted to force Joanna Mason into prostitution. She, too, refused, and like with Haymitch, the Capitol retaliated by killing off everyone she loved one by one. She alludes to this in both the book and the movie version of Catching Fire, not flinching when she enters the Jabberjay area of the arena because there’s “no one left” that she loves. The movies don’t really explore this, though, while the books do more exploration both with everything the Capitol has taken from her and the lingering effects of her PTSD from her imprisonment by the Capitol.
-The only reason Peeta and Katniss weren’t forced into prostitution was because the Capitol was too invested in the “Star-Crossed Lovers from District 12″ narrative.
-Also, Katniss spent the latter half of her first Hunger Games deaf in one ear and had to have her middle and inner ear reconstructed after the Games—the explosion at the Cornucopia permanently fucked up her hearing in that ear. She’s able to hear again after the surgeries but never quite the same.
-And Peeta had a prosthetic leg! He was severely injured while fleeing the “Mutts” at the end of the Games and was bleeding out from his leg by the time he and Katniss reached the Cornucopia. Katniss gave him a tourniquet using one of her last two arrows to tighten it. Doing so saved his life, but by the time the Capitol doctors took them out of the arena, the leg was beyond saving and had to be amputated. Katniss finds this out in their “post-Games” interview with Cesar Flickerman.
-Just generally the movies glossed over or completely cut a lot of characters whose experiences in the games left them physically disabled (Katniss’s partial deafness and Peeta’s lost leg being cut entirely, Beetee’s spinal damage from the forcefield leaving him wheelchair-bound being largely kinda glossed over) or with PTSD (Katniss and Peeta’s PTSD isn’t really explored that much, Joanna’s PTSD is pretty much skipped over entirely, Annie’s barely in the movies at all, Haymitch’s entire backstory is cut, the fact that Finnick is basically just constantly putting on a show and barely holding it together under the surface isn’t ever really explored, pretty much all of the addiction subplots including Haymitch attempting to quit drinking and Katniss starting to drink at one point and everything related to morphling are cut…).
-Basically as “rough” as the movies are they sanitized the FUCK out of the Hunger Games and the world surrounding them, and that’s…not a good thing.
TL;DR: @isashi-nigami is completely correct, The hunger game movies are the exact thing the hunger game books was trying to warn us about.
Two things:
The only reason Katniss and Peeta were saved from prostitution was timing. After their own Games, the rumblings of rebellion had really started to gain traction. All victors have to do a celebratory circuit of all the Districts, but Peeta and Katniss’s celebration circuit was being used by Snow as a “everything’s fine, please don’t rebel, we’re just a pair of teenagers in live” prop tool for Snow to try and supress the rebellion. Peeta and Katniss were much more useful to him as teens in love than they were as prostitutes. Then we went straight from there to the 75th Games, in which Peeta and Katniss were fighters. Between being used to quell a revolution and having the Quarter Quell go the way it did, there was no time for Snow to loan them out to people. But had the timing been different – had there been no rebellion or had Peeta and Katniss not been central to it or had it all been delayed long enough for the post-games celebrations to die out, then yeah, they would have been sold to the highest bidder just like Finnick was.
I actually thibk that the fact that the film’s focussed on the romance and the glitz and glamour and etc was… accidentally clever, on Hollywood’s part. They certainly didn’t mean to do this, but they 100% replicated the Capitol’s attitude to the Games. They made it all about the entertainment, all about the story and the romance and the drama. So many people would have watched those movies and been taken in by the romance plot, and the revolutionary plot would have been secondary. The social commentary wouldn’t have even registered. Even the fact that they used older actors for the teens – in the books, Katniss and Peeta are never seen in public without a full face of make up once they’re Reaped. Katniss undergoes a full beauty treatment and not only is she wearing make up that makes her look older and more mature, but so is Peeta. The Capitol didn’t want them looking like fresh faced babies, and neither did Hollywood. If you watch those films merely for the entertainment they provide, then congrats. You’re the canon target audience of the Hunger Games. Hollywood was never going to make a movie that focuses on the true horrors of such a story, the way it should. Especially when the social commentary in the Hunger Games is terrifyingly similar to a social commentary on our society as a whole. No, no - they were always going to focus on the romance and the glitz and the glamour and the heroism. Which is……. kind of poetic, really. That they went and did the exact same thing that the villains did.
THIS MAN ^^^ I wrote an essay about the lack of humanity in this book and man I should’ve read this first
The whole youthful and innocent vs older and sexy thing actually gets brought up at the end of the first book.
Cinna puts Katniss in a dress that is consciously designed to make her look much younger than she actually is, so as to play up the ‘teens in love’ angle they’re trying to sell the Capitol.
But the dress also has padding, so as to make her breasts and hips seem larger than they are, since she’s been literally on the verge of starvation for weeks, and wasn’t eating that much before that, and as a result she isn’t that curvy. Katniss is shocked by this, but Cinna explains that the dress was actually a compromise, because the original Capitol plan had been to give her plastic surgery.
Katniss then realises that none of the male tributes grew facial hair in the arena, even though several of them were old enough (note: she doesn’t say that all of them were old enough. Though Rue was the youngest, this suggests that there were other tributes who were young teenagers) and that something must have been done to them to prevent that from happening.
Also, it’s worth considering that Katniss and Peeta probably looked even younger than your typical sixteen year olds.
Katniss makes a big deal about how much they both get to eat at home, but if you read between the lines, Peeta lives off stale bread from the bakery and the odd bit of meat, and Katniss is essentially living the hunter gatherer lifestyle, supplemented by what they can buy from the baker and what they can get from Prim’s goat.
They’re much more well-nourished than the bulk of District Twelve, but Katniss can still easily spot the Career Tributes, because they’re the ones who have always had enough to eat. She’s one of the older (and therefore almost certainly heavier) tributes, but she still gets to hide in trees to get away from the Careers, because she’s significantly lighter than all of them.
Malnutrition tends to push back puberty. Katniss would probably be less well-developed than a modern teenager of the same age.
Notably, we don’t hear about her getting her period— or even wondering about that like she does with the facial hair— in the arena. Which, yeah, could be because of our culture’s habit of viewing menstruation as less kid-friendly than graphic child murder and mentions of prostitution, but it’s worth considering that in real life she might well have not started it yet.
While wearing the final interview dress, even with the padding to give her bigger breasts and wider hips, she says she looks about “fourteen at most”, which even accounting for Cinna’s borderline magical design skills, suggests that she probably tends to look like a younger teen even without it.
The Hunger Games would have been almost unbearably disturbing, if they hadn’t decided to cast almost all the characters as incredibly fit twenty somethings.
…wow
Video transcript:
Person 1: Did you know that employees are quitting instead of giving up work from home?
Person 2: So, as someone who was not able to work from home–um, I’m in a manufacturing facility, I, that’s not an option for me. I’m in this bitch right now on a Saturday. So, really not an option.
But. I wanna be really clear that we support y'all. The people that can work from home fucking should. Cause it’s better for us too. There’s less traffic, parking’s easier, uh, there’s just, there’s less stress in the whole world which benefits everybody.
People in this plant can work from home. And when they do, I can park outside easier. And I can still get up with them by calling their phones, emailing them or whatever.
This should be normal now. This should be normal. We were told it was the new normal and they tried to take us back. Fuck that shit. Work from if you can and quit if they won’t let you.