What is a protagonist?

[amiel]

"Not another thread using that damned word." I'll try to be brief.
This is a theory, specifically relating to N play, that may have already been covered (has been to some extent). But I feel the need to state it explicitly, if for no other reason than to be told I'm wrong.
Protagonist: the character in the story who is answering the question posed by premise.
Corralaries:

-There can only be one protagonist per story.
-Answering is not a journey to an end, but an end unto itself.
-Supporting characters may highlight what the Protagonist is doing (either to support or undermine), but they are not in the process of answering the question themselves.
-Two (or more) stories may be set in the same "universe during the same time frame and share casts, but there are no shared protagonists in one story.
-However, a group,nonliving object, etc... may be the protagonist of a story in somewhat experimental stories, but only if treated as a single entity.[/list:u]
(edited once for spelling)

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Unfortunately, I think your post illustrates a lot of common errors surrounding protagonists and stories in general. I'm afraid I will, this time, go line-by-line.

"There can only be one protagonist per story."

Incorrect, and frankly puzzling. So many exceptions exist, and for so many reasons, as to render this statement flatly left-field.

"Answering is not a journey to an end, but an end unto itself."

This reads like babble to me. A resolution without process is not a story. Also, elements of the process may carry sub-answers, or nuances, with great thematic power. Finally, a given resolution ("answer") may legitimately be, "I don't know."

Again, that statement is so much like babble that I am not even sure whether my points address it. "End" for whom? Writer? Audience? Character?

"Supporting characters may highlight what the Protagonist is doing (either to support or undermine), but they are not in the process of answering the question themselves."

Also incorrect. They may be there for contrast, for example, in which case they are in that process. Some stories do very well with multiple minor characters who are recognized as potential protagonists, with their "lesser" status being a strict function of screen time rather than "importance." (See most John Sayles films, notably City of Hope.)

"Two (or more) stories may be set in the same "universe during the same time frame and share casts, but there are no shared protagonists in one story."

See above. This claim is ... weird. It strikes me as the kind of thing that people repeat to one another, all the while spiralling further and further away from what actually happens in stories.

"However, a group,nonliving object, etc... may be the protagonist of a story in somewhat experimental stories, but only if treated as a single entity."

Anything can be a protagonist as long as the human observer can identify with it.

Best,
Ron

[amiel]

> I'm afraid I will, this time, go line-by-line.

I think the bias against line by line replies is unfounded.

>>"There can only be one protagonist per story."

>Incorrect, and frankly puzzling. So many exceptions exist, and for so many reasons, as to render this statement flatly left-field.

I may be staked for this: What are these examples? Any three will suffice. I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm not challenging the statement just to challenge.
Before you answer, let me illuminte a point. I said story, not work. That movie with two protagonists you saw, may be two seperate stories. Those two stories may be of the same premise, and they may entwine each other.
What you say may be true; I'm okay if I'm wrong. But I want a concrete example. I want to know why this example qualifies as a single story and not the thing I just described.

>>"Answering is not a journey to an end, but an end unto itself."

>This reads like babble to me. A resolution without process is not a story. Also, elements of the process may carry sub-answers, or nuances, with great thematic power. Finally, a given resolution ("answer") may legitimately be, "I don't know."
Again, that statement is so much like babble that I am not even sure whether my points address it. "End" for whom? Writer? Audience? Character?

The end is for the writer. Let me clean up the statement thus:
Answering the question put forth by premise can be an open ended process.
I apologize for the new-age tone in the previous version.

>>"Supporting characters may highlight what the Protagonist is doing (either to support or undermine), but they are not in the process of answering the question themselves."

>Also incorrect. They may be there for contrast, for example, in which case they are in that process. Some stories do very well with multiple minor characters who are recognized as potential protagonists, with their "lesser" status being a strict function of screen time rather than "importance." (See most John Sayles films, notably City of Hope.)

You caught me. This statement is from left feild.

>>"Two (or more) stories may be set in the same "universe during the same time frame and share casts, but there are no shared protagonists in one story."

>See above. This claim is ... weird. It strikes me as the kind of thing that people repeat to one another, all the while spiralling further and further away from what actually happens in stories.

I did not come to this conclusion randomly; I came to this conclusion from observation. Once again, show me an example. I could be wrong, but I want to be proven wrong. Please, don't just say that there are examples, show me the examples.
I hope I haven't come off like a prick by saying that. I'm just trying to get some ducks in a row. I want to make sure they are the right ducks.

[Mike Holmes]

Um, this is a circular argument. There can only be one protagonist per story, because stories only have one protagonist.

Whatever. If we use your definition of "work" then RPGs are works, and can have as many protagonists as you like. So, what was the point of your original statement?

Mike

[amiel]

Mike Holmes said:

Whatever. If we use your definition of "work" then RPGs are works, and can have as many protagonists as you like. So, what was the point of your original statement?

Because works that have multiple stories (and therefore multiple protagonist if you accept my argument) break up the stories scene by scene. In other words (if you accept what I'm getting at), there are never two protagonists in the same scene. This would change the way a lot of roleplayingoccurs if accepted.

[Gordon C. Landis]

amiel (Jeremiah?),

Here's my thought on what's come up so far: your "illuminated point" - that two protagonists may have two different stories - is a HUGE qualifier.  If you turn "There can only be one protagonist per story" into "it is always possible to identify a single story associated with a single protagonist" . . . OK, I wouldn't argue with that.  A multiple-protagonist story can be seen as multiple stories intertwined, if you want.  And there may be value in looking at it that way.  Knowing that any story, no matter how many characters/protagonists it contains, can be reduced to a set of relationships among single-character/protagonist stories, sounds like a somewhat interesting analytical method.  But that does NOT stop you from ALSO looking at it as ONE story.  The overall effect of (to use a probably-familiar e.g.) LotR would be changed if you dropped Aragorn and his story, or Frodo and his story.  So the "overall" story of LotR is NOT just Frodo's, or Aragorn's, or anyone else's - it is LotR.

A "work" contains stories, AND is a story.  At least, so it seems to me.

My question becomes - where are we going with your definition/theory of Protagonist, in the context of RPGs?  What's important here, as a foundation to build on?  With that info, I might understand why looking at an individual story per Protagonist matters - but without it, I'm left thinking "lot's of stories (or works, if you prefer) have multiple protagonists - what point is he trying to make?"

Gordon

[Valamir]

I put forth the movie Traffic as an example.  In that movie you had 3 or 4 distinct stories being told, each had its own protagonists and supporting characters.  The way Traffic was filmed made the seperateness of the stories very obvious.  Each had its own cinematographic flavor and there was little if any overlap between the stories.  They were all related only tangentally around the theme of the failure of the war on drugs.  The movie was a single "work" but it contained multiple stories.

I think what is being suggested is that ALL "works" which appear to have mulitple protagonists can really be seen as housing several stories each with its own protagonist but where the seperateness is more subtle and harder to tease out than a movie like traffic.  You'll have alot of overlapping characters, alot of shared scenes, etc but ultimately there are seperate stories being told that each protagonist is the protagonist of.

Where I think this come home for us is the idea that player characters are protagonists might not be so cut and dry.  Under the above model, one could envision games where I am the protagonist of my story, but "merely" supporting cast for yours.  You're the protagonist of your story but supporting cast (or even mostly absent) from mine.

What this leads to is an interesting idea about how the role of the player (especially as it pertains to directoral and authoral power) might be different during scenes where his character is the protagonist of his own story vs. scenes where some other player's character is the protagonist.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Mike Holmes said:

Whatever. If we use your definition of "work" then RPGs are works, and can have as many protagonists as you like. So, what was the point of your original statement?

Because works that have multiple stories (and therefore multiple protagonist if you accept my argument) break up the stories scene by scene. In other words (if you accept what I'm getting at), there are never two protagonists in the same scene. This would change the way a lot of roleplayingoccurs if accepted.

Well . . . two stories (and thus two characters, by your reasoning), running at the same time in one work, can "share" a scene.  Both characters are in it, it's important to both of 'em . . . two protagonists, same time, best as I can figure.

Now, the characters don't HAVE to both be "demonstrating" their protagonism in that same scene (but beware deprotagonization, I guess) - they don't both HAVE to be even IN that scene.  I think traditional "party balance" RPG thinking can have difficulty with even that notion, so it's probably worth calling attention to it.  But I'm having trouble taking it any further than that.

Gordon

[Le Joueur]

Well . . . two stories (and thus two characters, by your reasoning), running at the same time in one work, can "share" a scene.  Both characters are in it, it's important to both of 'em . . . two protagonists, same time, best as I can figure.

I think a lot of misunderstanding is flying around here, pointed out quite early by Ron.  This is a matter of perspective.  It doesn't really matter if it is a story or a work or a whatever, in gaming there isn't a singular audience.

The way I have always looked at it is that there is a 'story' for each protagonist, exactly as each protagonist has their own separate audience, an audience of one: the player of that character.  Y'see in all the talk of deprotagonization, I thought it was clear; whether you deprotagonize a character to the other players doesn't really matter, it's whether you deprotagonize the character to its player.

You can have a scene with multiple protagonists because each player has a different perspective of the scene; a different 'story' is told in each.  In movies, in stories, in plays, or in whatever, the audience is assumed to be a single perspective receiving the same information (performance), but that ain't how it works in role-playing games.

This is so fundamental to how gaming is different from any other medium you care to name.  My manner of gamemastering has always been a matter of helping the players tell their own stories in a shared 'space,' not to each other, but to themselves.  You can thus literally have them all being protagonists in the same scene at precisely the same time.

Ultimately, that's why terminology like 'protagonist' breaks down in gaming parley (and invariably seems to draw comparisons to 'life'); you are a protagonist for an audience of one by necessity, more if you're lucky.

Fang Langford

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jeremiah,

I perceive no prickdom; you're asking legitimate questions that deserve real answers. Sorry I took a day to get back to this thread; actually, I was off the Forge nearly the whole time.

The main issue for this thread is that you have set up a self-fulfilling prophecy. If story is defined as having one protagonist, then a multiple-protagonist situation can only be justified as multiple stories, regardless of any causal interactions among them. This is, I think, not a valid argument.

The key is the "causal interaction" among the various protagonists' situations and decisions. If it's a major element of the resolution-conditions for one or more characters, then the whole (or the part containing these two protagonists) must be considered a single story.

Before I get to the examples, let me break down the protagonist issue some more.

1) Protagonism relies on identification. The character must be up to something or reacting to something in a non-Psycho way. Most of the time this is straightforward, but a hint or more-than-a-hint of Psycho-ness is possible, if it's overridden by non-Psycho behavior in the clutch. Hence Riggs in Lethal Weapon is a protagonist insofar as he is not trying to kill himself, and we plug for him when he decides to behave otherwise.

2) The protagonist cannot be a villain, which includes both the Psycho thing mentioned above as well as something more complex. I shall explain a key element of non-Psycho villainy: given a character who can be identified with, he or she may display some tactic or approach to life that involves harming others who have not harmed him, or exploiting others. Schemers, blackguards, crooks, greedheads, and so on are the examples; this is the most common sort of villain. Note that if a protagonist does have some element of this in his behavior, it must be comparatively less than that of the villain(s).

3) A story is composed of (at least) a protagonist and a situation (conflict), in which some confluence of protagonist actions, others' actions, and environmental elements all produce a resolution to the conflict. (Side note: obviously, a non-Psycho villain is a wonderful and coherent way to provide conflict; this issue is worth quite a bit of my time and I won't go into it here.)

Now, if you have more than one such character in what purports to be a single story, how to determine whether it's several stories in one package or a single story with multiple protagonists? I suggest that my "key" above is the only valid criterion. When protagonist-level decisions and actions occur for Character A such that the circumstances and conflict for Character B are changed, thus prompting similarly protagonist-level decisions and actions, then we have a single story with multiple protagonists.

Pulp Fiction is a widely-misunderstood movie, and I hope I can bring it up without invoking knee-jerk reactions regarding the style, the sequence, any details regarding Tarantino as a director, etc. Let's focus on the plain story. Three guys all have a subordinate relationship with a crime-boss guy. They all cope with the question of whether it is "right" to obey his orders without personal judgment being involved. One says "No, it's not" (Butch), one says, "Yes, it is" (Vincent), and the third changes from being like Vincent to being like Butch (Jules). In each case, key interactions among two of them prompt the circumstances of one another's decisions. A lot of people miss the key interactions between Butch and Vincent in this regard; the interactions of Vincent and Jules are of course more obvious. Vincent snubs Butch and arguably cements his determination to defy Marcellus; later, Butch shoots Vincent. Vincent independently demonstrates his subordination by not acting upon his attraction to Marcellus' wife (see the bathroom scene). Vincent and Jules continually argue the key point under the guise of various metaphors; Jules puts aside the gangster life and vanishes from the story. None of the protagonists would have done what they end up doing without that interaction with the others. Their fates illustrate a judgment (Theme) on the Premise: Butch has his freedom, his money, and his girlfriend; Vincent ends up shot like a dog in a cruddy bathroom; Jules has become kind of a Zen Man and has gone to seek virtue (i.e. not harming others gratuitously).

The Brothers Karamazov is a bit more problematic, but it's thematically unified very tightly and I think it qualifies too. It has three protagonists as well: Alyosha, Ivan, and Dmitri, three of the four brothers. The primary conflict is "Who killed Dad," or more specifically, "Did Dmitri kill Dad," or more generally, "Who cares, because Dad was a fuckin' asshole?" They deal with it differently, to say the least, to the extent that three separate philosphical treatises emerge, and their actions in doing so all create circumstances under which the culprit, the bastard fourth brother Smerdyakov, is revealed.

Let's take Dumas' The Three Musketeers, too, which illustrates some of the possible diversity. D'Artagnan is the protagonist; his concerns in life are easy to identify with and his wit and fighting competence are both directed by a value system (a rather complex one). I think that Porthos and Aramis are definitely supporting characters, as their escapades tend mainly to back up or complicate D'Artagnan's situations. However, Athos grades toward being a co-protagonist, for exactly the same reasons that D'Artagnan is one. He might not get all the way there, as his conflict is nested wholly within the larger one, but almost. In Twenty Years After, this effect is greatly heightened and I consider this book to have two full protagonists.

And finally, a couple of buddy movies which illustrate the two sides of the line.

In Some Like It Hot, the two protagonists face exactly the same problem (threatened by the gangster Spats), but (even though they stay together as a "team"), each one develops a different and independent resolution that doesn't rely on the other's decisions. So I'll call this a movie with two separate stories, albeit "touching" one another.

In Lethal Weapon (first movie only), the one protagonist's problem is that he's suicidal and needs a way to channel his wackiness positively; the other's problem is that his daughter has been kidnapped by furniture-chewing assholes. They solve both their problems in an entirely-intertwined fashion, in the "changing one another's circumstances" way I describe above. Hence I'll call this a movie with one story, with two protagonists.

All comments are welcome.

Best,
Ron

[Laurel]

Traditional literary and film theory will forever break down when it comes to RPGs because from Aristotle on down, the tools of critique were designed for a paradigm that contained 1) author-actors-audience as distinct from one another and 2) plot, mood, conflict, theme as author-produced elements that must be conveyed via characters/actors to
reader/audience.  These two elements are assumed in those media.

RPGs, in which the "player" serves as author, actor, and audience within each scene are not constrained to one protagonist/one story/one goal/one premise (regardless of the game's supported GNS priorities).  

For RPGs, my personal definition of protagonist is a character (likeable or not) attempting to achieve an objective or objectives and engages the player group during their attempt.  By engages, I mean that the character's personality, motives and actions which reveal themselves as the character attempts to achieve its goal/goals interest and entertain all the players.  Typically, PCs are protagonists rather than NPCs but not all PCs are protagonists.   A "party" might have only 1 protagonist and a bunch of sidekicks and tag-alongs or each character might be a distinct protagonist with their own agenda.

Frankly, in literary criticism, people argue to this day over "the"
definition of a "story", so I'm not going anywhere near that debate.  :)

[Gordon C. Landis]

The key is the "causal interaction" among the various protagonists' situations and decisions. If it's a major element of the resolution-conditions for one or more characters, then the whole (or the part containing these two protagonists) must be considered a single story.
Ron

Thank you Ron - that's exactly what I was trying to get at in saying an important shared scene.  Except your version actually makes sense.

And Jeremiah - certainly no prickdom perceived by me either.  Entirely valid discussion.  When Valamir says

Where I think this come home for us is the idea that player characters are protagonists might not be so cut and dry. Under the above model, one could envision games where I am the protagonist of my story, but "merely" supporting cast for yours. You're the protagonist of your story but supporting cast (or even mostly absent) from mine.

What this leads to is an interesting idea about how the role of the player (especially as it pertains to directoral and authoral power) might be different during scenes where his character is the protagonist of his own story vs. scenes where some other player's character is the protagonist.

Is that where you are headed with this?  If so, I think the only dispute is over "absolutes" - certainly, you CAN have only one protagonist per scene, and it may be a very interesting mode of play.  But there's no reason you MUST.

I think people (Paul Czege?) might become concerned that a player's "supporting (or absent) character" status/activity would become "deprotagonizing" for their own story . . . which is a very interesting discussion that I think requires substantial Narrativist play to comment intelligently on.  hmm . . . I was going to say I'm not qualified in that regard, as I haven't managed to start GMing Nar-style - but I am in a game where this might apply.  Some real main/supporting char issues, especially in recent (and probably upcoming) sessions . . .  The GM's perspective is something I'd like to see, I may have an actual play post about this issue after our game this weekend.

Thanks (as always) to all for getting the brain a'churin',

Gordon

[amiel]

Gordon C. Landis said:

Ron Edwards wrote:

The key is the "causal interaction" among the various protagonists' situations and decisions. If it's a major element of the resolution-conditions for one or more characters, then the whole (or the part containing these two protagonists) must be considered a single story.
Ron

Thank you Ron - that's exactly what I was trying to get at in saying an important shared scene. Except your version actually makes sense.

So, now I'm getting somewhere with this. So, in multiple protagonist shared story arrangement there must be a causal interaction between protagonists? Reserving judgement.
(btw Ron thank you for using Pulp Fiction as an example, it's what started this warped little theory in my head.)
Godon C. Landis said:

When Valamir says Quote:

Where I think this come home for us is the idea that player characters are protagonists might not be so cut and dry. Under the above model, one could envision games where I am the protagonist of my story, but "merely" supporting cast for yours. You're the protagonist of your story but supporting cast (or even mostly absent) from mine.

What this leads to is an interesting idea about how the role of the player (especially as it pertains to directoral and authoral power) might be different during scenes where his character is the protagonist of his own story vs. scenes where some other player's character is the protagonist.

Is that where you are headed with this? If so, I think the only dispute is over "absolutes" - certainly, you CAN have only one protagonist per scene, and it may be a very interesting mode of play. But there's no reason you MUST.

Okay, fair 'nuff. Let's explore this as an idea seperate from "must". Any objections? I want to explore what mechanics might make this work.
Gordon C. Landis noted:

I think people (Paul Czege?) might become concerned that a player's "supporting (or absent) character" status/activity would become "deprotagonizing" for their own story . . . which is a very interesting discussion that I think requires substantial Narrativist play to comment intelligently on.

Ultimately I'm trying to work up system ideas that won't allow for "deprotagonization". That's why I'm trying to get down to what a protagonist is (down to genetics ;). I want to know what makes a protagonist tick. Everything from Dirty Harry to Elric to Big Bird. Next question (for Ron): Why can't "Psycho" characters be protagonists?[/quote]

[Paul Czege]

Hey,

I think people (Paul Czege?) might become concerned that a player's "supporting (or absent) character" status/activity would become "deprotagonizing" for their own story...

I think if we're talking in terms of outcomes, that Ralph is describing exactly how Narrativist games play out, at least in my experience. Sometimes, for what might be entirely circumstantial reasons, a PC is entirely absent from the story of another PC. Sometimes a PC plays a supporting role to another, perhaps with their actions and decisions functioning as a counterpoint to the actions and decisions of the other PC, or perhaps as someone loyal who gives good advice. And those are just two examples. There are a myriad other ways that one PC can function as supporting cast for another without being conceptually undercut or suffering corrosion of their own thematic significance. I'm not sure why this stuff might seem like a big issue to people, because in my experience it happens naturally and without pain during play. Hardly "deprotagonizing," this stuff is reminiscent of the best ensemble cast television programs (e.g. The West Wing).

I don't think Ralph is proposing an actual control mechanic, some kind of systematic way of passing the baton of protagonism from one player to another over the course of a game session, with constraints on the actions of those designated as supporting characters. As a player, I might or might not have a problem with something like this, depending on the implementation. If the baton passing hindered players from taking actions of thematic significance with their characters when another character was the designated protagonist, or forced everyone to treat the actions of the designated protagonist as significant despite situational disconnect from the character's thematic core, then I'd have a problem with it.

Paul

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jeremiah,

Down to the genetics, eh? You've come to the right place.

Protagonist = individual coping with a threat to fitness potential (email me for details and definition). This comes in two levels: (1) the "core," or fairly basic threats to maintenance and/or reproduction of self, family, and kin; (2) the social context, which concerns the obligations and reputation issues that might surround a core conflict.

"Psycho" is not a technical term. I used it to indicate an individual whose actions neither directly nor indirectly increase fitness potential. This could be a boring pseudoprotagonist who just plain does do anything (Johnny Mnemonic), or (as I implied) a character, usually a villain, who is a "mad dog" - the serial killers, the abusive perverts, the loose cannons, and the dangerous incompetents.*

That does not include a protagonist who is simply "a bit off," or who deals with problems in ways that do not reflect the social norm. Such a character is usually fitness-increasing (almost always; two notable exceptions exist in film), just in some offbeat way. The quirky geek who gets the girl, the rogue/outlaw who beats the villain at his own game, the crime-boss with a heart of gold, and the high-risk hotrodder, all qualify. We call these characters "psycho" or whatever, but that is just icing, compared to the real freakozoids described above.

Best,
Ron

*  I also distinguished it from villains who are much like protagonists, in terms of fitness-potential efforts, but who harm or exploit others in doing so.