The guard dog -> loyalty has been ingrained into their bones, following their handler around like their shadow. No one dares stand against the organization because of the legendary dread surrounding this living weapon. They hardly say a word but every movement is calculated, eyes always darting, always watching. (“You always were their lapdog.”)
The loose cannon -> dangerous for both sides. Always talking back and never predictable, their value is dependent on their skill. If it wasn’t for that, they’d be dead a long time ago. Their loyalty is earned, not bought. No one wants to be on their bad side, walking on tip toe whenever they show up. And they enjoy it. (“What’s everyone looking at? Aren’t you happy to see me? I even brought my rifle!”)
The broken down -> most common type of whumpee I’ve seen. They’ve been overpowered and forced into the commission. They hate their handler more than anything else but see no way out. When they’re told to shoot, they don’t even blink. It’s always “yes, sir” this and “yes, sir” that. If they feel any sympathy, they don’t show it. They’ll do anything to avoid punishment and flinch at quick movements. Nothing they face on the field is worse than the cards they’ve been dealt. (“I understand, sir/ ma’am. I-I’m sorry.”)
The dissenter -> Usually recruited into the organization or joined as a last ditch option. Not necessarily against using their abilities or skill, they just hate being told what to do. As time goes on and their disobedience is punished over and over again, they grow reluctant. Bitter. With every order, they slip in a snarky comment. Roll their eyes. Anything to assert their own identity. Or what’s left of it. (“ah ah ah, you didn’t think i’d notice? The middle finger was a bit much. I’m afraid it will have to go.”)
The ghost in the machine -> known only by their codename by outsiders and by their number in the organization, they’ve been stripped of all humanity. They live, breathe, and think by their handlers orders. They’ve been told over and over again that they are just a weapon. And a weapon does what it’s told. Their anonymity is attached to the organization in the same way a gun is simply an extension of their arm. But at night they still stare up at the ceiling with a blank stare— did they ever a life before this? They can’t remember. (“It’s not like it’s a person. It doesn’t have feelings like that.”)
what do they like? what do they dislike? do they have friends, family, a love interest? why or why not? what's their morality?
are they a damsel because they want to be one? are they a damsel because they're brave, but don't know how to fight very well? are they a damsel because they like messing with people?
It's annoying enough that Harry can't make a decision without Ron and Hermione sitting on his shoulders giving either extreme on the matter. What makes it worse is that on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is too impulsive and 10 is too overthought, Harry's decisions are always around a 3, so Ron gets pushed all the way to a 1 and Hermione has to stay close to 5 to balance it out. What that means is that Hermione ends up always being right. This isn't how you play your know-it-all supporting character--like Donatello or Lisa Simpson, she's supposed to frequently miss the forest for the trees to illustrate that her counterpart (in this case Ron) is occasionally closer to the mark. So the trio is completely unbalanced, with the id being constantly useless and the superego being constantly correct. (Maybe this is why Harry/Hermione shippers are so damn puritan.)
via this contemporary review of Deathly Hallows, 2007; credit jim-smith.livejournal.com
After my video on Strong Female Characters, I got a couple requests to do one on male protagonists as a way to sort of “balance things out.” Initially I wasn’t too interested, but after taking a closer look, I started noticing some interesting patterns in what otherwise appeared to be a totally blank slate character archetype. So that’s what I’ve got here for you today! -Overly Sarcastic Productions
Writers can use these 12 Archetypes to create characters The 12 Common Archetypes by Carl Golden The twelve archetypes are divided into ego types, self types, and soul types. 1) The Four Ego...
With the holiday season come and going, going, gone, this felt like the perfect time to talk about one of my favorite literary archetypes: the Messiah.
A messiah is someone who changes the world. They may be delivering on a prophecy, working towards making a better world, or righting old wrongs. But, after everything else, they must be a fulcrum for change.
Not a catalyst. A messiah is not someone who arrives and causes the world to change incidentally. They are the driving force, they are the storm (to borrow a metaphor from Frank Herbert). Their actions change the world.
A messiah does not need to be a religious figure. A secular messiah may blur the edges of religion, but you can write a story about a non-mystical messianic character.
Any individual who causes great upheaval or change has the potential to be a messianic figure. Yes, that can include your villains, if you want.
The messiah is not an easy archetype to write. Actually, that’s not quite true: the messiah is a fairly straightforward archetype if you’re prepared to write one. If you didn’t expect a messiah in your own work, then you can easily find yourself out of your depth. As always, the best advice is, “plan ahead, and be careful.”
That said, messiahs excel at popping up in strange and poignant places. They are incredibly easy to create by accident but, simultaneously they can be very difficult to work with when you’re intentionally trying.
This is because, in part, messiahs overlap with our basic concept of who, and what, a hero is. The difference is how far a messiah will go. A hero may be content with small victories, but a messiah cannot be.
-Michi
When you try to intentionally create a messiah it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Just the thought of your character being a savior or deliverer can feel like a heavy burden. Save that feeling; it is exactly what your character will be experiencing when their realization hits.
How can my character be the Promised One? Divinely gifted? A messiah? Do gods even exist? Does my setting have a god? What were my metaphysics? They’re going to save everyone? How are they going to do that?
It is. It can be intimidating. Again, save that feeling; it will help.
Writing a messiah requires to getting at the heart of what being a messiah means. Not just to your character, but also to you. Every culture throughout history has had a different opinion on what a messiah is, much less what they mean to the people. The kind of messiah you have will depend on cultural context, on what the culture values are, on what they believe, and the one thing that binds them all together: Change.
A Messiah is all about change. Savior or destroyer, they have to tear down the world before building a new one. They change people, whether it’s on a personal or a world-wide scale. They are a force for change and, often, for character growth and narrative plot arcs.
They drive the narrative. They are not driven by it.
They can’t just accept the mantle. They must claim it.
This can be challenging and even intimidating. It could feel like they’re “insane” or overreaching, or overly pompous. If you feel that way then good, because they will face exactly that kind of opposition. To be a messiah requires faith. Faith in their god, their religion, their cause, and most importantly themselves. It requires a plan and fairly careful plotting, going beyond the fulfillment of overly-specific prophecies. It can’t just be that they picked up a bauble from X shop on X day at X time and that’s the indication that this character is chosen by X to perform Z. They have to be more than that. The Messiah makes the mantle.
Is your Messiah willing to step up and say: “I have a vision”, “I have been chosen”, “I am the one”, regardless of any indication of true divine favor? Faith is the key component of the messiah. Not, “religious” faith. They must believe in something, but that doesn’t have to be a higher power.
Remember:
The Messiah’s path is hard. The messiah is not an archetype for a day-tripping protagonist who has everything handed to them, and adventures because it's fun.
They are set a task (regardless if someone else gave it to them or not), they chase that purpose, but they are never assured victory.
It is fraught with disappointment, self-doubt, betrayal, challenges that may lead to their eventual death and martyrdom. In a way, self-doubt is actually a more significant, and important, adversary for your messiah, than for a normal hero. It is the moment where your character undergoes an acid test, and learns what they’re truly made of. It cuts to their core in a way that no villain, cackling madman, or bridge warden asking their favorite color, can.
Messiahs work for their happy ending, if they get one at all. They need to believe even as their faith is tested. If you’re using the Judeo-Christian model then they will suffer, a lot.
They challenge the status quo. Anyone with a stake in the current world order will want them dead. The hate they inspire must be as great as the love and zealous fervor in their followers.
You must to show the changes they inspire in the story. This can’t be an abstract, it must be visible. “Making the world a better place,” is fine in theory, but if you don’t show how the world is changing then it isn’t real to your readers.
“Change” does not equal “better.” History is littered with examples of people that tried to make the world a better place, and left it more broken and beaten than when they arrived. Just because your character means well, doesn’t mean that their actions won’t have unforeseen consequences. Frank Herbert’s Dune series has some fantastic examples of this.
They will make mistakes and that’s okay. This is something to keep in mind when writing any character, but it remains true for a messiah.
They are more than themselves, as much a perception as a person. This is true whenever you’re writing a public figure, but it’s especially important when working with a messiah. There is the individual, the normal character, and there is the perception of who that character is to the masses. These need to be treated as, almost, separate characters. How aware your character is of their public persona is a stylistic choice, but ignoring their public face could lead to backlash when they “break character.”
There may be dissension in how they should save the world even amongst their followers. Prophecies can conflict. They can be wrong. They can be fulfilled in unexpected ways. They can all be right. Yes, even the ones that conflict.
When we get to the end of the novel, we must be able to see how the world has been changed through their actions.
Core Character Traits:
Bind people together: The Messiah is the leader who walks alone. Even so they are the fulcrum, they must be able to unite people, even those who are mortal enemies, behind them.
Lead by Example: A messiah leads by example, they ask no one to do what they would not do themselves. They are a leader, they make choices, and they decide the fates of others. They live their faith. They are a beacon. They are the living embodiment of their cause and what it means. If one wants to know what they aspire to be then look to the Messiah. They are the living guide, other characters remake themselves in their image.
Inspire: Their example must inspire others to change, whether that is based on who they are or the actions they take. People want to be like them. To reach them. To understand them. To touch a power beyond themselves.
Certainty: A messiah faces moments of doubt in themselves, but once they accept their cause they cannot waver. There is only one direction: forward. They must be more than confident, they must be certain. Certain this is the right course, certain of their cause, certain of their righteousness. “I do not believe, I know”. Of course, in all that certainty they can still be wrong. Their path getting there was just very clear.
I Walk Alone: In the end, for all their followers, all their zealots, and all their armies, the Messiah will inevitably face their final challenge alone. It is an enemy only they can defeat and a task only they can do. This is what separates them from the Chessmaster, the General, the Hero, and other leader types. In the end, they are alone.
Forget About It:
Destiny: It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of destiny, of being pre-determined. A messiah cannot be a messiah if someone else makes them that way. They are not some cog in caught in a greater clock, they are the driving force that leaves the world trembling in their wake. Only you, the author, can make them a messiah and you do that by virtue of their actions and by the very nature of who they are.
Prophecy: Prophecy is not a road map. It’s a mix of wishful thinking and half-remembered dreams. A prophecy won’t make your character a messiah, they have to do it on their own. They can fulfill a prophecy, but that’s just an after the fact justification acting as proof for other characters. Prophecy won’t prove anything to the Messiah, alone it won’t convince them.
Fate: Destiny and Fate are the same and they aren’t. Thinking about fate will trap you in the same mentality as destiny. The idea that the mantle makes the Messiah, that it justifies their existence. They are this way because they were fated to be, they were meant to be. A messiah justifies themselves. They cannot be made. They simply are. Thus, they are outside the machinations and control of fate. Maybe this was always meant to happen, but we still have to make our own way.
God: Ironically, messiahs don’t actually need to be divine in nature. They aren’t chosen, not really. If they attract a god in your setting then it’s because the god was attracted to them. They were already special before they were ever endowed with any unique abilities and/or raised above the shoulders of their peers. In this case, its egg before chicken. Their god may give them their cause, but they did so because only they, out of all the other creatures in their world, had the capacity to fulfill it.
Try not to let that go to your head.
Some Examples Both Historical, Religious, and Literary (By no means a complete list):
Jesus
Joan of Arc
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nelson Mandela
Gandhi
Osiris
King Arthur
Paul Atreides (“Dune” by Frank Herbert)
John Sheridan (“Babylon 5” bonus points: Arthur figure)
Delenn (“Babylon 5”)
Rand Al’Thor (“The Wheel of Time” bonus points: Arthur figure)
Aragorn (“Lord of the Rings” bonus points: Arthur figure)
Keladry of Mindelan (“Protector of the Small” by Tamora Pierce)
Daenerys Targaryen (“A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin)
Mina (“War of Souls” by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman)
The Chessmaster is very simple in concept, but ends up being one of the most difficult characters to do right. This is because they are heavily reliant on the author having the firmest grasp they can on the inner workings of the societies in their setting both social, military, and political. They need a firm grasp on the actual landscape of the setting such as where the mountains are, what towns are situated where, maps, and such. They need an understanding of scope. Most importantly, they have to be able to keep an eye on the bigger picture.
You need this because strategizing relies on being able to look at your setting from the perspective of the Chessmaster and make plans regarding it. Keep in mind, those plans are not your plans as in the author’s plans. The Chessmaster only has access to the information made available to them during the course of the story. It is all too easy to try to write this character and end up with one that’s cheating by peeking over the author’s shoulder to find out everything they can’t possibly know.
A chessmaster is a character with a plan, possibly with multiple contingencies. They have a goal. They are proactive in the narrative.
A chessmaster’s presence should always be felt, even when they aren’t seen, even when it feels like they are doing nothing.
A chessmaster is there to outthink the other characters in the narrative, they are not there to outthink the reader.
Don’t let your character outwit with your own cleverness.
With the Chessmaster, it is very easy to end up in a situation where the author is trying to trip up the reader, but strategy is not built off plot twists. If your reader figures out where you’re going give them the credit, they had the time they needed and the overview to get a grasp on the villain’s plan. A well laid out strategy is a beauty to behold even after you know where it’s going. The Chessmaster must always remain a character within the narrative, they are not the omnipotent guiding hand of God. Their strategy must always be based around information they either reveal to the reader or can be supposed off what other character’s come across. Foreshadowing is often key with many pieces carefully placed so that when the reader looks back all the pieces of the plan click into place.
Too often, a would be Chessmaster is a character who just sits on the sidelines and does nothing while they cackle maliciously. You can’t just talk about a grand strategy within the story or have other characters talk them up. They need a plan of action and that requires the author taking chances. You must be willing to learn how to strategize and create your own strategies from the perspective of this character.
They aren’t always going to all be brilliant, but that’s the risk every strategist takes. In the end, the best advice is this:
K.I.S.S.
Keep it simple, stupid.
Common Misconceptions:
The biggest mistake when working with a Chessmaster is assuming it’s all about intelligence. The character does what they do because they are smart. While this may be true, it’s not intelligence which makes a Chessmaster successful. It’s all in the observational skills. The ability to both accumulate massive amounts of information and then operationalize that information effectively within their overarching strategies in order to achieve their goal.
A chessmaster is a social animal.
A chessmaster is devious.
A chessmaster is good at making observations about people and using them.
A chessmaster is a manipulator.
A chessmaster is not omnipotent.
A chessmaster can be but is not always a sociopath. They are able to compartmentalize their emotions out of the way and do what they believe is necessary in spite of them (or because of them). True manipulation requires empathy or, at least, the ability to convincingly fake it.
As Villains:
The Chessmaster villain requires a different sort of protagonist i.e. a character who does more than bludgeon their way through problems. You need a protagonist who is capable (though they may not be as good or as smart) at rising to the occasion and able to meet them on the intellectual field of battle.
They may not be agree with their Chessmaster foe but they do need to be able to understand them and comprehend what they are capable of. After all, understanding how an opponent thinks is the first key to defeating them.
Plans within plans, as it were.
This is why the character of Paul Atreidies in Dune is so compelling. He is more than able to match the Baron Harkonnen in a test of wits, in moving his pieces on the board in order to disrupt the spice flow the rest of the galaxy needs and lure in the Emperor. Trapping them all, so that the only way out is his way.
Your protagonist needs to be more than a hammer.
What You Need:
Writing a Chessmaster is like playing chess against three people: the antagonist, the protagonist, and the writer. The writer must make their moves to advance the overarching narrative and throw down impediments for both parties as the story progresses while the characters within the narrative play the long game against each other.
Strategy is all about figuring out what you need and implementing a plan to get it. Being clever is a nice side benefit, but it’s not the point. You can build more and more on top into a complex web, but at it’s heart it is all about what your character either needs or wants.
When we write the Chessmaster, we risk getting caught up in the idea of being clever. The nimble mind which evades all the traps might pop up here and there. It’s very easy to outwit ourselves while trying to work through this character because, again, we risk getting caught up in the short term gains while missing the long term goals.
Your eye must always be on the prize.
Simple plans are easier to carry out.
Never lose sight of the end goal.
Plans always revolve around an understanding and expectation of how other people in the narrative are going to behave.
Remember, the Chessmaster can be wrong. They can miscalculate. They can make mistakes.
Some Chessmasters are not good at playing speed chess. Some are. You might want to figure out which one you have.
