#passive protagonist

[novella-november]

What is a Passive Protagonist, and why do readers love *Active Protagonists*?

An Active Protagonist, as the name implies, is an *Active Participant* in the plot; they make conscious decisions to move the plot forward, as opposed to:

Passive Protagonists, who don't participate in the plot hardly ever or at all, and exist simply to be dragged along by everyone around them and the plot itself.

Some examples of passive versus active:

Character sees a group of rebels moving through town, and impulsively sneaks off in the middle of the night to join them VS Character sees a group of rebels moving through town, and their parent, employer, friend etc drags them into joining them

another example:

Character gains some supernatural powers, and decides to make their small town a better place, one helped neighbor at a time, slowly building a group of seven super-friends as they work together to rebuild their town by seeing needs and addressing them VS Character gains some supernatural powers, and get forced into a super hero boarding school and are assigned a team as the seventh member, and the protagonist make *zero* attempt to do anything different, and just decides to go along with everything everyone else says.

" You can't have a passive protagonist for very long, without it being an encouragement to your reader to put the book down" "Yeah, If your character if you are expecting people to be attached to your character enough that they want to read or watch your entire story they have to want something for your character they have to want something your your audience has to be invested in what that character is trying to achieve with their life... if they're just bumbling along around and other people are active.... but, you can have a passive protagonist, but everybody else around them is interesting, because they're all doing things that your character has to react, to I'm like "well why aren't I piggybacking on *that* character?"

If you have multiple pages and pages *and pages* of your characters sitting around *discussing* the plot instead of moving it forward *in any way*, your protagonist is probably too passive, and you have a lot of editing to do to remove these sections.

[klywrites]

THIS THREAD. (link)

text:

"I want to talk about how western editors and readers often mistake protags written by BIPOC as "inactive protagonists." It's too common an issue that's happened to every BIPOC author I know.

Often, our protags are just trying to survive overwhelming odds. Survival is an active choice, you know. Survival is a story. Choosing to be strong in the face of the world ending, even if you can't blast a wall down to do it, is a choice.

It's how we live these days.

Western editors, readers, and writers are too married to the three-act structure, to the type of storytelling that is driven by conflict, to that go-getter individualism. Please read more widely out of your comfort zone. A lot of great non-western stories do not hinge on these.

Sometimes I wonder if you're all so hopped up on the conflict-driven story because that's exactly how your colonizer ancestors dealt with people different from them. Oops, I said it, sorry not sorry. Yes, even this mindset has roots in colonialism, deal with it.

If you want examples of non-conflict-driven storytelling google the following: kishoutenketsu, johakyu, daisy chain storytelling/wheel spoke storytelling. There was another one whose name I forgot but I will tweet it when I recall it.

Anyway, I think there is a space in literature and beyond for stories about radical acceptance or that have a radical acceptance aesthetic. Accepting the things you cannot change but dealing with them in your own way. No pyrotechnics but plenty of potential for drama.

What you want in a story is drama. Conflict does not necessarily equate to drama. Conflict is driven by two or more forces colliding. If a protagonist decides to let the force wash over them instead, that does not mean the protagonist is inactive.

Once again, I repeat: SURVIVING IS A DECISION. BIPOC based in Western countries do it all the time. Us third worlders do it all the time. But of course if you grew up white in a Western country, being mired in hopeless systems will be hard for you to grasp.

And if you're a BIPOC author, listen: you may be already as good, if not better, than most of the competition out there. You keep getting rejected not because your story sucks but because white editors do not know how to read your work. Keep trying.

Last but not least, we don't just need diverse demographics for everything, WE NEED DIVERSE STORIES. Get your colonizer heads out of your asses and seek out other traditions. End rant."

(laviecestmoi on twitter)

[the960writers]

We Are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist - Fantasy Magazine

Let me take you through the anatomy of an active protagonist, one that everyone can relate to. We’ll make our protagonist—we’ll call him Joh

We Are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist

by VIDA CRUZ

Now let’s flip the script. Let me take you through the anatomy of characters who are commonly labelled “inactive protagonist.”

They are marginalized in some way, via race or class or gender or sex or ability. They will most certainly have suffered some kind of trauma (or three, or more), whether physical, emotional, psychological, or sexual. These two things have inevitably and inextricably colored not only how they perceive and navigate the world they live in, but how gods, natural or supernatural phenomena, technology, society, or other people react to them.

The latter, especially, is not something they can control. Not when you live in a world that wasn’t made for you. Not when you have no choice but to live in a world that wasn’t made for you.

[sleepyowlwrites]

Sleepy's Rants: Why Jyn Erso is an Awesome Character

So. I have no idea where this came from (okay, I have some idea, but it's convoluted so I'm not gonna try to explain) but I'm just gonna run with it.

The first thing you have to understand about Jyn is that she's a passive protagonist. She's not supposed to be leading the charge, exuding fierce emotions or have a determination to really go anywhere. Instead of moving through the plot and taking charge, Jyn lets the plot happen around her and weaves her way through the falling debris as best she can. She appears indecisive and unsure because she is - she has no real identity besides being that girl that people are interested in for the fact that she can help further their agenda.

Jyn doesn't have an agenda. She's wandering around, searching for a purpose, full of angst but at the same time, empty and emotionally naive. She's fierce in that she wants to be independent, but it's only because that's all she's ever been. She's been on her own for a long time and is afraid to trust anyone because everyone she's trusted has let her down some way or another.

She's not grown up completely. She's on the fence about where she stands in terms of looking out just for herself or being willing to care about something greater that may not actually pay her back if she gives of herself to it. It's scary, and she's a lost little girl who puts on a brave face.

It's unfair to expect things of her that are out of character. She has some crazy turn arounds, but considering how changeable her personality is, these don't come as too much of a surprise when you think about it. She never had anything to care about until she hears her father's charge and finally feels some sense of purpose. So she gives everything to that, while still being mostly in it for herself. Her ability to trust - like anyone's - comes slowly and shouldn't be expected to suddenly develop. She's an emotional character, but shows it in more passive ways.

She was never a selfless character, but was also one without purpose. After gaining one, putting her life on the line doesn't scare her as much. She wants to do something with meaning, especially after witnessing her father die.

Her speeches aren't grand. They're from the heart. Jyn isn't a hero, she's a little girl that's finally growing up. She has no immense resolve from the beginning, instead growing into it. There is truth growth in this character, even if it's a little jarring at times and barely noticeable at others. She's a complex character in her own right and should be respected as a solid protagonist. She doesn't have to be your cup of tea, but she is a good character.

Jyn Erso is not the savior type, and those she bands with aren't either. They're all a bit broken, a bit desperate, and willing to go to the ultimate end of things because they've got nowhere else to go. They will give their all because they never did before and maybe this time it's worth it. Is it worth it? It's worth it. We will do it. Because it needs to be done.

It's easy to get annoyed by the passive protagonist. I myself get annoyed. I love character stories, where the plot is the bones and the characters fill in everything else. But there's plenty to be gained from a story where the plot has a bigger role and the characters are floundering a bit, searching for the right way in the maze of story.

Jyn is an awesome character.

Accept it.

[aspirininducer]

Don’t fall down

Hey guess who just figured out how to answer asks

[painted-starlight]

Disney Protagonist Necessities: Not Being Passive

Never attempt to circumvent your protagonist kicking off the plot by using forces of nature, ignorance, or sheer coincidence. 

One of the reasons why I criticize a lot of the white disney princesses for being passive is because the writers tend to make them “innocent” of the circumstances of their story.It’s not that they can’t be ignorant as a character flaw, it’s just that one of the best things about a compelling protagonist is that they know full well the consequences of their goal, but they do it anyway and it turns out to be much graver than they anticipated. 

Here are the four modern white Disney Princesses that bug me the most in terms of passiveness (well, three. The last one just did the absolute bare minimum). 

Anna

Anna is passive because she almost completely ignorant about EVERYTHING. She gets into a fight with her sister and technically kicks off the winter because of her engagement, but there are no consequences for her if she does so. She doesn’t know that her sister wouldn’t approve of it because she is deemed “too innocent” and sheltered to know any better. There is a difference between not knowing, but Anna is just closed out of the loop and it’s frustrating watching her make decisions because the writers say so.

Elsa

Nothing is ever Elsa’s fault according to the story. Even as the older sister and instigator of the winter, she can’t be held accountable for the damage she caused because she was too “innocent” to know that she caused an eternal winter. The previous drafts had her knowing full well that she caused the problems, but she was willing to accept the consequences because like Anna, she was selfish. But considering the rewriting of her character, they surgically removed this necessary element to make her more tragic. But in the end, it just made her come off as ignorant. 

She might have ice powers but she and Anna seem to be specifically designed to be as ignorant of the world around them as possible. From a storytelling standpoint, that’s pretty much the fault of their parents and the vague warnings of the elder troll. But on a meta standpoint, there are ways of working with this so that Elsa and Anna don’t come off as passive or victims of circumstance. The only reason Elsa is portrayed much differently than previous white disney princesses (and therefore seen as a new sort of character) is because she was previously written as the villain and given slightly more depth in her struggles.

Rapunzel

Rapunzel is incredibly passive in my opinion because she is a tool. We are so concentrated on what she is and not WHO she is to care about her. Her identity is completely centered around her being a princesses, being pretty and not a person. We need to care about her because she’s secretly royalty, she has magic hair, she’d prettier than Mother Gothel. But her personality is as interesting as a wet paper towel. 

She doesn’t even think about leaving the tower because she needs Flynn Rider to do it for her. The main reason being that she is so emotionally abused that she doesn’t think to do it. But on a meta writing level, a protagonist should know the consequences of kicking off the plot, but do it anyway.  

The whole her battling within herself scene after leaving the tower should have been without Flynn being there. It could’ve happened by her own volition of leaving the tower because she desperately wants to know why the lanterns are appearing on her birthday. He didn’t need to be there. But Flynn acts as a tool too for her progression at the expense of her requirements as a protagonist. 

The main kickoff of the plot is the stolen crown, which she doesn’t steal because that was given to Flynn Rider, who Disney insisted on being a co-protagonist. You could technically say that leaving the tower is a plot kicker, but here’s the thing: she didn’t decide to do it herself because of some inner force willing her to get out of the tower. She needed Flynn Rider to come so she could make him take her. 

And the fact that he has to essentially babysit her throughout the movie is just a swing to the kneecaps in terms of character development. It makes her feel weaker as a character.

Merida (the exception, but that’s not saying much) 

One of the few characters to break this passivity is Merida, but she isn’t very popular or well liked. She knows the consequences of what she does, and does it anyway. 

But even then, she’s the protagonist she’s supposed to do that anyway. It’s not a marker of success when she does the bare minimum while Disney princesses of color aren’t passive in the slightest and fulfill their protagonist duties with flying colors. Her fulfilling the most basic requirements of a compelling protagonist doesn’t change the fact that a majority of the white Disney princesses seem fail at the basic necessities for a compelling protagonist.