Full Transcript for DZ-128: What even is a Character Arc?

chatbot and make me. Go. Yeah, I am really smart. But also, I think a large part of character arcs is then intimately connected to what is this film about? What is the theme? What are the rules of the story world? Stu, you mentioned in our Discord chat that you think that there's an emotional event as described by Judith Weston between the audience and the characters. Ooh, did I actually use that phrasing? Yep. Fucking hell, the discord Stu is way. Smarter than fucking podcast Stu canna test wow. So so there is these are things that we're going to try and wrangle with in this primer episode so that we have a vocabulary a taxonomy and a lens to then tackle, discrete types of stories and at the moment The ones that we have planned are a steadfast character arc, like where the characters ostensibly do not internally change and they may change the world around them or it may be a survival film or it may be a melodrama. We may get into subcategories in other episodes once we pick the homework. A positive arc, which feels like a more traditional Western storytelling. And then a negative arc, which in my head is definitely tragedy is one flavor of that, but where I guess characters change negatively. And then we'll get into a whole lot of what does negative mean? How does the story teach us that it's a negative or a positive change? Because, Mel, what was the thing that you and I were arguing about, whether it was a tragedy or not? No. Oh, I do remember this. I remember having this argument. Oh, it was Blue Moon. Oh, it's Blue Moon, of course. Is Blue Moon a tragedy or not? Oh, I listened to an interesting podcast about that. Was it ours? Because you weren't on that episode. I wasn't on it. So, yeah. I listened to it while swimming. That could be dark, depending on how you view that character arc. I think recently I've been figuring out how I visualize things, and I think this for me, it's essentially four quadrants, where, you've got the quadrant graph, and you have characters either do change or they don't, they do change for the better or they do change for the worse. Characters changing for the better is a lot of hero's journeys, etc. Characters changing for the worse would obviously be something like the Godfather trilogy. And then you have characters who don't change for the better, like they were steadfast because they needed to be. And no matter what the world threw at them, they kind of remain stalwart or whatever. They may have learned something, but they don't necessarily fundamentally change. Some people, this is also interesting. I have, since I've done no homework whatsoever, off the top of my head, I'm thinking like, if you think about something like David Lowery's The Green Knight, some people might argue that it's that. And then you have characters that don't change for the worse. They need to change and they refuse to change. And that is bad. The Green Knight is an amazing pull, by the way. That's one that we should try and break down.

Oh, it's, and as soon as it came out of my mouth, I was like, oh, have you guys done that one on a podcast I wasn't on? I don't think you have. We should do that one. So, I mean, maybe that should be. So. It's great. If you haven't realized, there is no homework for this episode, because basically we are recording our session zero, where we discuss the frameworks before diving into it. We actually, I think we found that really effective, particularly when we did ensembles, right? It helped us kind of come up with a lot of the terminology. And I think we even did the same thing with character motivations way back when. So I think, for example, I think what the two of you have articulated, and I'm going to take my interpretation of it. Because I agree with Mel for the record. You're just trying to get AI to fucking identify whatever Chas is outnumbered from the transcripts. The receipts. It is being told to be fair. Oh, yes. We know how that works. Told by Stu. And told by whom? Yeah, exactly. Having learned from hours of Stu listening to Stu. Machines are all biased. Related. so when you're talking about a character hasn't changed, and then they should have you're talking about an audience perspective on that change I think there is two layers to the character's arc or three really which is what happens to the character do they change or not change better for the better or worse what is the character's experience of that or belief of that do they believe they've changed for better or for worse, right and then the third is what is the audience perspective on that so a character can change right that's the first kind of filter have they changed have they not and then there's the judgment layer from the character which is do I believe this is for the better or for the worse and then there's our perception of that and the reason I bring that up is I think there is negative arcs, like if I had legs I can kick you I will kick you, the rose burn film which is a negative character maybe it's one of the examples we decide to do because it is a downward spiral of the main character in which she is very aware she is downward spiraling. Sorry, Mel. No, I've been meaning to see it and I haven't yet. So I just intentionally missed everything you said, which is fine. Good, good. So maybe we should do it for the homework. But it's an example of where the alignment between the character's perception of what's happening to them and the audience's perception of what happened to them is aligned. And so I think part this comes back to character arcs are really difficult to talk about is because they're not just in isolation. Rarely is a film only about one character, right? So we're actually talking about how we harmonize other characters around them. Is one character steadfast and the other character positive? All that stuff is going to be the complexity I think we're going to dive into. Yeah, and the complexity is so much. I think even calling it an arc is a misnomer, right? Because an arc, we think of that as shaped like a rainbow. And most of it is actually a character rollercoaster. No matter whether they change or not, whether it's for the good or the worst, it's usually like there's corkscrews, there's loop-de-loops, there's backtracking. It's complex, especially in something like a TV show, right? Where you just have all this time and space to explore that. So like calling it an arc is kind of simplistic. All right. So when I was thinking about how to structure this episode, I was like, let's start with what we think we want to learn. I think on the one hand, the three of us love dropping signs and love talking about our own particular theories. The reason we do in a podcast format is so we can argue about it and go, oh, shit, yeah, Chas was wrong. Computer says so, or not right but like we like to challenge those theories so, there's another part of the reason that we do this and hopefully that other people is for me I want to learn stuff I hadn't thought about I want to be like oh fuck I've never considered before in my life that Chas could be right so what do you want to learn. So broadly I do want to learn better because I think, that I usually can conceptualize in my work, the themes that I'm exploring, I can't be precise until I'm a bit further into the project, usually in pages, but broadly what I want to say with the piece. And I broadly usually have the plot that I want to put my characters through. And then I end up kind of retrofitting the characters to best suit that plot. And what inevitably happens is the first few drafts, the characters feel forced or faked or not real. And it takes more effort for me to align all those things in a harmony, as you say, Stu. So I think I'm looking to perhaps find a more character-driven process, assuming that most of the stories that I'm going to write will involve an arc. And I want our follow-up question to what do we want end to this to be like, do we need arcs? What are they? Mel, what do you want to learn? I think for me, so look, I have written a screenplay that I am now backwards adopting into a novel. Like everyone in our writers group. I've decided to write a novel this year. This year is the year of the novel. And I do think now analyzing the screenplay that I have written, right? And taking my chart that I have and plotting where each of the characters are on that chart by the end, right? And then saying, okay, if, because the chart allows you to have a little bit of, they change? How much do they change? They change for the better mostly, they change for the worse. And then once you figure that out for each of the main characters, then figuring out what is the shape of the arc that gets them there. And I think for me that both the visualization and being able to do it for each character, just along a simple, very simple rubric to start, will allow me to, it's sort of, when you're writing a scene for a character, when you're writing

their dialogue, when you're writing whatever, just being able to glance at that one sort of North Star of. Where does that put the, is this a crazy thing for them to be saying, considering that by the end, they actually haven't changed, you know, or actually, you know, we're a third of the way through and there's some significant change and it can't come all at once what am I driving towards, at the end uh and just remembering that just being able to sort of constantly look at that I think that will be helpful, and and yeah also as we start to get into the nitty-gritty the steadfast and the there's so many different types and I'm sure we'll go over all of that vocabulary I think that will be helpful but in terms of at least you know setting out the, very basic definitions and stuff like that in this episode and just nailing down the the arc that the character will have taken by the end of the story is very helpful and again to do it on a visual spectrum. I have some ideas about that okay so there's a couple layers to this one, I have strong opinions. Shock. Strong opinions that are loosely held. So I kind of want to... Get those out, right? So I do want to talk through what I think. It sounds arrogant, but really what I want to do is get them out of the way to create space for me to learn what I don't know, right? Which is like the things I haven't conceived about. And that's why you're here and hopefully from the engagement from our listeners, please write in, give us feedback. We are not settled on our homework. So patrons jump in and vote. Or, you know, we may or may not be setting up a voicemail thing where you can just send us one-minute clips. I haven't decided yet. Anyway. The power. The absolute power. It'll be a living space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At this point, I just read out Chas's phone number. If you just want to send us a voicemail. Why is a food lawyer answering the phone? The other thing, and it sounds flippant, But I'm someone who cries in pretty much everything, right? I cry in commercials. Like, there are shows that really affect me. And I kind of have theories why, these films and these shows affect me. And I do think it is related to character arcs, kind of. And I want more of that in my work. so, my theory about myself and my work which is slightly introspective is that I'm actually someone I think who, feels a lot I react to film a lot so when I'm particularly when I'm directing I'm actually in some ways muting myself a little bit because I'm more, susceptible to feeling emotion so I think the work that I create isn't as emotional as the work that I like Okay. That may not be an accurate read, but there's a reserved quality. And also, you know, I am someone who somehow has learned to be quite emotionally regulated. So, it just says my psychiatrist wife anyway. Psychologist wife. She's not yet. Medical degree. She does not read the Discord often enough. Which Discord? Oh, the Discord in which I'm really smart. That one. She just gets dumpstered. So, that's something I'm really interested in. Because there is this kind of like layer of what a character arc is. As I said right at the beginning. The character arc is like a craft thing. Which and this is me beginning to unravel the way I think about it which is just about keeping fucking people interested right, you know we need we need arcs because otherwise shit becomes boring so there's like a surface level but then there's this other thing which is like the profound, the purpose of story the profound, reflections on self and life and the life journey and and all that stuff that we may get to and yeah I want to I want to be bet I want to be able to be bolder with my choices, both somehow more in control of my choices, but also less in control in a way, in that I don't want to be as measured with some of the stuff and, you know, just be like, you know what, I'm going to go for it. That's kind of what I want to learn. Do you mean emotionally? Like, instead of like a balls-out action sword fighting sequence? Oh, I'm... Yeah. I'm not... Okay. I mean, this is a survey episode. On the one hand, so we're talking about, you know, we're doing this in 2026 for those who don't fucking check the dates of the podcast or somehow finding this in the future, right? And so we are, I do think, in an interesting point in time with the relationship with media and, you know, the impact of AI and all those things. And I do think it's here. We can resist it. And I think we should think about the ways and we resist it, but all that stuff. I actually think the stuff that's going to become more valuable as both a consumer and a creator is stuff that's more emotionally authentic. The stuff that actually I think on a quote unquote business, not quote unquote, like the stuff that is going to be affected on a business level is spectacle. That's the stuff that's kind of becoming easier to reproduce. The stuff that I think is going to become more precious is the stuff that breaks your heart. One of my favorite records of all time is Jackson C. Frank, a folk singer, recorded one album, recorded it basically in like a day with Paul Simon. He died homeless in the 80s. And that's part of the narrative of it around it. But that album kills me whenever I hear it. It's just a guy on his guitar. And in some house, to me, it's more profoundly emotional than a lot of really over-producing. I mean, there's a judgment term in that, in stuff that's got a lot more complexity. So, yeah. I mean, there's a business decision in that as well. I get a business decision. Like, in what way are we still valuable? Well, hopefully. You know, I know how to write sort of action fighting scenes and spend time thinking about them. And maybe I'll be able to do them better than a computer. but your computer will never be able to imagine or conceive of loss or heartbreak or triumph. Right. I do want to, I think we are going to have to talk a little bit about the point of story

and us being three people who are dedicating our lives to being storytellers. And I can hear the Smartless podcast hosts shuddering at that term. Whenever their guests call themselves storytellers, they get mocked mercilessly. You get mocked mercilessly, Chas, anyway. But I think we need to talk about it because otherwise it's like, do we need characters in, you know, what are we trying to make? And I think the box that we're operating in for this series is we are talking about narrative and we are talking about stories that have characters. Characters right so that when we're we are necessarily unless we do an episode where we do go into media and experiences that either don't have characters, or maybe where you are the character for example as the audience member. Oh no no no no second person uh sorry. I'm not I'm not. No I'm just saying for the purposes of this it's a totally that's yeah no. It's okay but but but my The point is these other- I'm trying to draw the fence around what we're talking about. The boundaries, yeah. Because there is a point and purpose to why we as human beings are attracted to these, which then in turn- goes towards that key fundamental decision, do my characters need to arc or not? Which I feel like is worth discussing in this primer episode, and we'll get into it more when we've got actual examples. I mean, the fact that you are raising that as something that you actively think about is curious to me. Do you find that you consider that stuff, thinking about the question, in a generative state like you know I'm coming up with the idea I need to work out how my. Character acts or. Is it something that you go oh shit people uh I need to add this for whatever reason people are losing interest it isn't landing how you want. I often know what are the plot events I want my characters to go through and I don't really have a firm grip on what are the effects of those plot events on those characters, do I want them to not be changed by it do I want them to be changed by it so that I think that's what I'm trying to get to you. Don't think you naturally think about that and so you want this exercise to help make you think about that is that what you're saying. I think I I believe I think about it way too late in the development process and to Stu's point I think I come at it way too conceptually and intellectually and not instinctively. Again, I'm constructing characters rather than perhaps, not inhabiting them that comes later in the process. Because you know that character needs to go through x plot and so you're like. Well it would help. Character to have x y. Characteristic right sure and then and then I'm like well this character is too simple so now I need a contradictory trait you know and then it's yeah like I end up like fucking baking a cake by making 20 really shitty cakes. And I think, I think this exercise will hopefully give me some like osmotic learning that I can absorb that will speed up that development process. I'm not sure if osmotic is a word. Uh, it works. That conjugation works. Yeah. I mean, it sounds correct. If you've understood my intent, then it is a word. If I were reading that written, I would raise right with it. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Look, I think you have shows, right? Something like The Bold Type, which is almost didactic in it. We are here to teach young people how to grow up and be responsible humans and good friends and how to deal with partnerships. and health, you know, events and et cetera, et cetera. And then you have things that are, hey, we're going to explore a guy who makes meth in the middle of the desert. But all of those do, to some extent, teach us how to live, right? They teach us something about the human condition. They teach us something about ourselves. And the more aware of that we are, the more we can glean from that, both personally and as quote unquote storytellers. However, I will say, I think, I mean, without going too much into it, I think, very, very explicitly, and I can point to a couple of specific shows and movies and whatever, that when I was young, that film and television were my way out of a very bad situation. And it wasn't a conscious thing, but it was very much that through learning about these outside experiences, these experiences completely outside of my own even conception, you know, as a child and a teenager, I was able then to finally manage to A, see that the situation I was in was sub-ideal, and B, see an alternative and see characters that I didn't. Idealized or even aspects of them, if not specific, oh, I want to be like them. Oh, but I want that stubbornness or I want that, you know, zest for the truth, or I want that fight or I want that whatever specific aspect of this character to follow. And so, you know, that's an arc, right? If you see a character arc, you see a character escape a bad situation and still survive whether or not they're scarred by it, but be, you know, come out on the other side, glad they did what they did and so yeah I unabashedly do think that that is important and something that I want to put in my work. Like my day job as a lawyer I do a lot of really detailed non-fiction based right uh reading and writing and though I'm shimming with. Ai and law There's some. Fiction-based writing in that legal. There's a lot of hallucinations. I'm sure that's a case. Fucking go and look it up. And I think, you know, most document-based ways of actually affecting change require nonfiction writing. It requires policy documents. It requires persuasive speech. It requires fucking spreadsheets. It requires laws. It requires more documents, processes, blah, blah, blah. But I remember I had read a few philosophy texts and found them fascinating, but it was when I read Sophie's World. I don't know if you guys have read it, but it's, I'm going to spoil Sophie's World, but it's about a young girl who starts corresponding with an elderly gentleman, and each chapter is, he

tells her about a philosopher because of the questions and learnings of that philosopher, she then sees her world differently. So it is actually like through a character and a narrative and their experience, I was able to actually grasp the experience of this philosophy in action. And it ends up that they end up realizing that they are in fact characters in a novel being written by someone else to teach their child about philosophy. And then they start trying to gain agency for themselves. Anyway, this is all just a long-winded way of saying that what I see now is that Sophie's World made, philosophy, nonfiction, actionable for me through a character experiencing those philosophers. Without a character and without a narrative, I would have found it harder to implement action or change myself, even though I might have been reading the same philosophical texts. That is a lot of young adult fiction deals with that transitional stage between... Having no agency to gaining independence, right? And you are dealing with children who are going through that push-pull of my parents are awesome, my parents suck, I want them to take care of me, I'm independent, right? And they're going through it in different ways because they're different individuals. But I think maybe that's something that we're also tapping into, arcs is that as you talked about change is something we all go through so. Change management is actually part of what stories deal, about dealing with what is it like I've I've had long hair for most of my life and I've recently and I'm in my mid-40s, and I'm now looking at my hairline going, oh, fuck, I'm actually beginning to lose hair. Like, I was slightly receding, now it's just, like, fucking accelerated. And it is horrifying to me. And I've had other friends who were like, yeah, welcome to my 20s, buddy. Like, you had a good three decades, motherfucker. So, it's, like, that is part of what we're talking about, right? And this is why we're doing this all in the primer, because I think when we actually pick our examples, we might be able to be like, oh, this is interesting. They're focusing, this is what the character's experience of change is. Maybe there is a value or a belief around change. So, if a character changes, it's not only do they think that he's, you know, part of their self-reflection on change, it's how they feel about change. If we're dealing with this idea that transformation is a fundamental part of the life experience, which it is. I don't actually think you can argue anything. Everything dies. That is the, but everything is reborn. I mean, you know, this is the Philip Pullman thing. Every part of you is going to live forever. Oh, well, more accurately, every part of you is going to exist until the end of time and space. Yeah. Right. And maybe that's the heat death of the universe or the great collapse, or maybe it's infinitesimal. But the fact is on the scale of it, it's just the, what do you become? And you were talking about like Western traditions and the, I'm not going to butcher the word because Kim will kill us. And they're the one that brought it up. But it is the idea of change in kind of Eastern art is the, is the, one of the fundamental ideas of what they're dealing with. That transformation is what they're interested in from a storytelling point of view. I mean, fuck Neil Gaiman for becoming the very thing that all his work criticized. Being my favorite author, it's really brutal to come up against. The reality but one of the amazing observations that he had is his one of the endless dreams younger brother, the anthropomorphization of change and transformation was called destruction, because you can't create something new without destroying something old, I guess fundamentally, like I'm coming at this from, if we define change really broadly, everyone's going to arc every second of every movie. And I think I think of change perhaps too narrowly, but I go, is there a fundamental change in, ethical or moral or worldview of a character? Because I do think I've seen it in other people. I mean, Stu, you've said you've become a well-regulated human being. You have changed. What makes you think I'd become and wasn't always better at emotional regulation? I feel that was your verb construction. Rewind the tape. We have the technology. Chas is going to drop the film clip from 10 minutes ago back into the edit timeline. You know, I am someone who somewhat has, for better or somehow, has learned to be quite emotionally regulated. But I think, to your point, Mel, we do, like, going back to our yelling match about shrinking, we do, it is, stories are a safe way for us to have experiences other than our own. And the main way that we as humans, I think, can access that is by seeing characters. And you're asking if it's a, yes, this character has changed, no, they haven't, what's the tipping point or what's the toggle that takes it from a yes to a no? How do we sort of find that? Is that what you're asking? Or what's the effect of doing it or not doing it so that it is a more conscious choice? What is the effect? That's a big question. Early James Bond films, James Bond does not change. He has lots of experiences. He does not change. But yeah, I mean, we'll get into this in our steadfast. but the world changes around him in response to him. That's how- Does it? There are more dead people. Yeah, but- One less supervillain. That seems like a big change, right? I would say Dalton is the first time you actually see change. I'm going to start doing my info dumping about the ways I think about things because I do think it is relevant here to what you're talking about in terms of what do we understand as change, right? When is it too little or when is it too much? Yeah. So, there's a bit of a backstory here. I'm sorry. When I came out, so I, it's actually an important backstory and we can cut it. But my undergraduate, I did a combined degree with media and law. Really, my

main kind of interest coming out of high school into university were kind of like, what I think you could probably call English literature. Like literature and music, right? And I think film ended up appealing for me because it combined like literature with the kind of time, like music, right? Music is about rhythm and construction and timing and all those things. And film has it. I mean, you know, Kubrick always spoke to me because he talks about music being, film being more like music than painting, for example, because it's a succession of moods. But when I graduated, I kind of. Kind of like early twenties, I was like, I need to work on my eye. Like I have some instincts about what works, but I want to get better at it because I think most of the time we think of film as a literary medium, not as an audio visual one. Right. I mean, we're doing a podcast on screen mining, not a podcast on shots. And there's a reason for that. And that's why Shot Zero exists because shots, don't really, talking about shots as a visual thing or editing doesn't really work in podcast form. Right. So there was this book I discovered called The Visual Story, which is by a guy called Bruce Block. I've read it. I ended up when I taught like motion design, used it as like almost my textbook. I threw out their textbooks and went like, I'm going to use this as my guide. Visual story applied a whole bunch of art theory, which I hadn't learned because I came into film from the literary world, not from the art world. And I think that is, in my experience of film, is that is actually kind of the two convergence points. A lot of DPs come out of art schools. A lot of, you know, wannabe directors and writers and maybe editors come out of, like, effectively the literary school of film. The core idea in it is the two principles, which he calls contrast and affinity. So he basically breaks down how they're the fundamental design principles of everything. Rhythm is constructed from on-off. That's contrast. You don't have rhythm unless you have contrast. But the repetition of turning that into on-off, on-off, on-off is actually the affinity that the rhythm gets its construction from the way it balances contrast and affinity together creates the rhythm. But it goes into a whole bunch of stuff. Coming into character, and one of the things then he goes into is tone. And the way in which we understand tonality and the way we map tone is how it is related to everything else. Our eyes literally adjust the way they tone map our environment based on the environmental cues, right? Which kind of, I mean, this is a whole other conversation, but the whole movies are getting too dark is like, yeah, because they don't give you a fucking bright highlight. Right? For you to understand that, like, I only understand that is really dark because you give me something super bright in the frame is like classic cinematography. And now we're like, oh, let's just dim it all down consistent. You need the contrast for us to understand. You need contrast to understand silhouettes. So I think one of the things I'm coming into with arcs is how are you creating contrast? Not just the contrast over time or forward from the character that they go from, they're hateful, now they're loving, which is, we'll go into the specifics of that, but how we even understand that as a thing. How do we understand that these characters' values exist is about contrast, that we, in that point of time, understanding that this person has underdog values, to use the Michael Hauge term, because he's talking about character arcs when he's talking about the philosophical stakes or the values. Oh, this is underdog values. Understand that's an underdog value you have to have contrast around it. And also you kind of have to establish the world that they're in right because in something like predator badlands by the time you get to the end of his arc that you understand it's an arc because you understand the world as well as you understand the contrast like how he started but if you were to drop him into a different movie or into our world you would not say that that is good or that he has changed or whatever because it's, you're creating a contrast between him and his specific world as opposed to just you know a good bed. I mean that is an excellent point now that this is where one of the ways that I think character arcs ties into film because character arcs whether you have them or not can reveal, the value system of the characters and whether that's punished or rewarded can reveal the value system of the world that they're in. And by extension, what it is that you as the filmmaker is trying to say one way or another. And I love the contrast and affinity, concepts you I'm writing down as we go a list of questions I. Think we should ask of. Every film as we go through the series. So I take contrast and affinity and when I think about it particularly over time right because because we're dealing with a time part, based art and and that's what an arc is maybe maybe in the visual arts world you look at a Rothko and I love fucking Rothko but I don't go I'm experiencing arc in Rothko maybe there is some transformative qualities while I scan through the image, and I'm kind of doing that mental thing. But, you've got a control of it in composition. There is like the eye scan in a good composition, but I do think it works differently. I think about it as unity, right? And I think affinity is a good word as well, you know. But unity, contrast I still think works. But also then you're talking about the transformation. That's what time gives you. Time gives you the movement from order to disorder. It gives you movement from A to B or A, B, C, right, black, white. And that, to me, is where you're on. It is the movement that releases emotion. That's part of my theory. It is seeing the character go from A to B. Yeah. That is actually the releasing of the emotion, not the B, whatever B is. I

know it sounds like I'm being analytical, but I'm kind of not. No, but it's all still relative, right? Like if you have a show like Better Call Saul, which if you're including something like Breaking Bad, you know, spans 20 odd years, right? That character changes significantly. However, there's this great French movie called Full Time that happens essentially almost in real time, right? It essentially happens over the course of like a day. And that character also drastically changes over the course of a day. But where she drastically changes is you're saying drastic because of the span of time that happens. And if she made that exact same change over 20 years. That if her character, like the shift in her worldview that happens over that day, if that shift happened over the course of 20 years, you would say that character had not changed. So it has to happen at enough speed. I think so. I think so. You look at a rock that's been sitting there for a thousand years and you're like, yeah, actually the stalactite dropping a bit of water onto it has changed this rock. But has the rock changed? No. Right. Like it's a bit relative. You'd say, has it changed in the span of since the rock began? Yeah. Has it changed in my lifetime? No. So that does have to kind of, you have to contextualize it a bit. Weirdly, the rock is a really good abstraction for this. Thank you? Because it is about, is it changed because of external forces or is it changed internally? Right. But the rock doesn't change as an innate, innate, dangerous word, but the rock doesn't change because of quality of it being a rock, really. Right. It's still a rock. It's the externals versus acting it, right? Whereas, like, rock that is molting is changing because of what it is. So, there are probably characters that are rocks in which they're only changed by external factors. And they're characters that are probably whatever the opposite is. Lava. Fire. Rocks is an excellent example, like a chemical reaction. Like coal turning into diamond, for example. Yeah. And the whole thing that makes rocks not alive is that they don't change. Life is a constant stimulation and a reaction. Right. So we're talking about, is it a stable reaction or is it an unstable reaction or is it completely in? Yeah. Like, I mean, it sounds weird, but, you know, coming back to your life thing, Chas, my bigger abstraction of that, because I like abstracting things to the point of uselessness, is that I think it's not just about learning to live. I think it's about culture because I think there are kind of two camps. Look, there's a big spectrum in between. There are people that are like, I tell stories to literally document my personal experience, but I don't expect it to have an impact on the world. And there are other people, the other extreme is I'm not documenting my personal experience at all, but I believe I can have an impact in the world. Right? Like, are you inward or outward looking? And I think this is more than just a binary, but I think they're, so to me, culture is the way of. Capturing that as an idea right because culture captures values it's lessons it's a whole bunch of stuff but I but you know how else do we communicate culture how else do we even think about culture other than as separate to instinct god that's getting. I know we're getting abstract but in in a weird kind of way I always knew we would have to get somewhat abstract because we we have to deal with the fundamental idea of should characters arc or not. That's actually taps into a deeper question of should characters act is like can people change is. A world view yeah yeah absolutely and on top of that is is not only if we're ever going to talk about internal change we're going to have to find some kind of values-based way of discussing that because, without sounding moralistic or didactic because even positive or negative those characters may feel we the film may be telling us this was a negative change, or a negative arc for this character but the character may be fuck yeah so. The question is how does the because I this is the thing and and it does tap into what else, you were kind of using the language around punishment and reward, because I think there is actually is the in-between, which is that you have how does the character, has the character change? Yes or no. How do they feel about that change? How does the world in the story feel about that change? Right. That's what punishing and rewarding is talking about. What is the, and then there is how we feel about it. And those are three separate things. A character can think that they have changed for the worst. The world can be like, no, actually, you are fucking awesome. And the way the filmmakers position us, us as an audience, is to feel bad for us. I think the difficulty is as the more as you as a filmmaker or as a creator are pulling, the lack of a better word, pulling the camera away, the less control you have over it. Which is that I think you can have a character clearly go, I feel fucking awesome that I murdered all those people. And you can have other characters go, I agree, James Bond, you are awesome because you killed all those hoogers. The third part of how does the audience feel about it? You've got some control, but clearly conversations around Starship Troopers. Wolf of Wall Street. And many other films show that just because you work really hard to say Homelander is a bad guy, people will be like, but I identified with him. And he would never suck dick to save his life. He'd murder a whole bunch of people, but he draws the line at sucking dick. Like Matt Walsh. I think that was Gorilla Dick specifically. Like I do come back to, we glanced on this and we didn't have the tools to discuss it and maybe we'll use it as an example. But when we came to Blue Moon, I think there was a, you put your finger on it, Stu. I thought of it as a tragedy because I was putting my own moral value judgments on this beautiful

creative soul, like taking active choices that were going to prevent him from expressing his art and ultimately dying. And Mel, I think you were pointing out, but this is what made him happy. She did. Yes, he was making that active choice. Right. But he wouldn't have made the other choice. That wouldn't have made him him. That would have been compromise. You said it was a sad ending and I said, I don't think he looked at it that way. Yeah. And so I think it'll be interesting to see if we can point to objective lessons about whether the film was directing us to feel one way or another or whether it was genuinely leaving it in our laps and what is the impact of that. Okay. So the other tool, which I'll say in the kind of more emotional way, which is many years ago, I worked with the, well, he was the stereoscopic supervisor when we worked on Happy Feet 2. He talked about scenes basically just being... Goodbyes he was like the sad a sad scene is just all all sad scenes are goodbyes and all happy scenes are kind of like hellos, and I think he's really talking about gain and loss and like that is a very clear contrast and a lot I think when we start mapping of these you'll see that they've set up, what the beginning position looks like and that means like I guess if it cycles you go from gain, loss, gain, or loss, gain, loss. And it sounds analytical, but, you know, I mean, maybe this is most of my middle age. Like, it's just the inexorable slide towards grief. So, in fact, I mean, that sounds sad, but it actually means that anything that is joyous, that is about gain, about connection, are all the stuff that works for me, right? Anything that speaks to community, I know works for me, but community is often about connection. Which is gain, right? And like the feeling of separation or breaking apart, which is loss. But I think you can actually think about that in terms of characters and this connects to the values. Walter White, I think at the very end, thinks he's winning because he's gaining what he values. I would argue, yes, he's gaining what he values, but he didn't think he valued that at the beginning of his journey. What he values has also changed, not just whether he's gaining it. And that's, again, where you get into something like TV, which I think has a lot more room to explain that, like in a film. But I actually think that his fundamental shift, not just of what he values, but what he thinks he values, which are two different things, both have shifted by the end, dramatically. I got mocked mercilessly in my last year of high school because all my stories started with, in my house in France. Nothing has changed, Chas. nothing has changed. But I was I was 16 living in Argentina having the time of my life I was in boarding school and I fucking loved being away from my family and we were going out clubbing and drinking every weekend it was, just so awesome and then my parents one day said we're fucking moving to Australia, and that was in between my, penultimate year of school and my last year of school. And I was already planning like the year 12, the end of school trip, the, you know, the prom equivalent, I was going to be in leadership positions within the school. Like my whole life was upended and I still feel the pain of my parents and, Like, I still hold a grudge against my parents for doing that to me. And even my phrasing around it. I don't know if they gave a shit about what was happening to me. They were like, we've got to do this for external reasons. But my mom constantly defends herself by pointing out, and it's annoying that she's right, that within two months of moving to Australia, I met the love of my life with whom I now am married and have children. And that would not have happened. And so I'm trying to simultaneously hold in my- Grudge. Like, can I let go of that grudge given what I've gained? Like, you talk about loss and gain in there. But also at the same time, I think it's okay to feel and acknowledge loss while also- Because life is complex. It's the roller coaster and the loop-de-loops and the backtracking. It's not a smooth, you know, rainbow ride. We gain Mel as a citizen and America gains not having her. And America keeps taxing her. Yeah, that's it. Everybody wins but me. And the world, which is us, is happy about that. So how does the audience feel? I'm conscious that my mom listens to this occasionally. I'm just like that slightly 20-year-old who thinks they're, I mean, I still am, but who thinks they're really smart. Oh, dude, it's like the second law of thermodynamics. Like we're talking about creation and destruction. We're talking about contrasts. In some ways, creation is the bringing of something together. Isn't that what, you know, and destruction is the taking it apart. But then we're like, oh, there can be creative destruction in which the destruction makes something new. And then there's inertness, which is the absence of either of those things. Right. That is coming back to the heat death of the universe. That is to me what is so horrifying about that idea, which is that it just stops. You know, to me, that is actually fundamentally on a cosmic horror level, more horrifying than, oh, the whole universe, the Big Bang is going to become to the big collapse. It's like, well, that implies it's going to keep going. And so, to me, ARCs, yeah, it's that question of, like, are you changing or are you not changing? I think it's actually a really, and then the question is, are you actively resisting that change, coming back to Mel thing, or are you enabling that change? I think that is kind of, like, an interesting question, you know? Like, when I'm beginning to recede, am I like, fuck yeah, I'm just going to shave my hair. I'm going to go from like shoulder length hair for like a long time, you know, 15 years at this point, and then just shave it all off. Or am I just going to resist the change? Or do you slowly, do you try to cut it and then grow

it back out and then try to comb it over or then try to wear it up and then like always, like maybe there's other stages, you know? And there is, and there's some of them are very contextual. There are absolutely, guys who can pull off the fucking, they've got the tiny little ponytail and they're mostly bald and they look cool as fuck. In a way, from my perspective, that if they were like, I'm just shaving my hair off and going out of the beard, they wouldn't be. I don't know. And how does the world reward or punish you for these choices? Exactly. And how do you feel about those choices? And how does the audience seeing a story about you going through this transformation feel? And who does it matter? Who matters the most, whether it's you or whether it's us or whether it's Emma? So as much as I talked about the camera pulling back, I think what is so fascinating about this is characters aren't real. The world's not real. But our experience of that is. So you've got this tension between what me, what I'm saying, that the writer has control, particularly in some ways the most around the character. But whatever. We can get into the philosophical monkey-muck about that. But essentially... The audience is always, well, I mean, if you're lucky, you've got an audience for your work, right? Maybe it's just you, but hopefully it's not just you as the writer. It's at least one other person, you know, your long-suffering wife or friends who read your stuff or more. And then you've got the other layer, which is the text, and then the layers within the text. And that's important because I do think on, that's the tension we're trying to balance and you're always trying to balance, which is ought to be true to the characters. But we have since the beginning been very conscious of what the audience experience of the material is you know and I think, thinking about the ways they even understand what the character arc is to start how does the audience even meant to comprehend how this character changes is a huge question, that I think most of us you know you're going to look at it and go well it was from here but it may help you diagnose I now look back at projects that we may be actively working on and going. How is the audience meant to understand how these characters changes? How will we, I mean, that's the dramatization question, right? Yeah. Yeah. Can I read out the running list of questions that I've written down from this discussion that we could apply? And look, this is, I think when we've done this in the past, where we've had the list of questions, we've totally forgotten about them and then just talked about each example. So this is more, I guess, of an opportunity, I guess, to have an analytical lens. All right. You said something really early on, Stu, that stuck with me. And I think it's an important question. When or how did the film and I'm using film shorthand for film and television, teach us as the audience to expect, whether characters will change or not because I think that is you mentioned it in passing but I think it's so important I think the story will set us up in a way, to expect characters to change or not and then either subvert that expectation or not but I think it's an important, tool for us to look at these stories that we're going to be diving into and go, how have they set us up to what are the expectations, that the film, that the story is setting up for us in the beginning? Did the characters change? Was it experiential change or internal value change? How is that dramatized? Is the character aware that they changed? How do they feel about that change? Does that even matter? Mad to who? Yeah. How does the film want to make you feel about that change? If different to the character, how has the film done that? How does the story world punish or reward the transformation? What are the values explored by the arc? How does this relate to the theme? How is contrast versus affinity or unity portrayed through the character's transformation? What is the emotional event created between the character and the audience as a result of this transformation? And maybe I should say journey rather than transformation, because that's assuming there is a transformation. Can I set up one question that I think would have to come before all of those other questions, because it's a little bit more meta? Excellent. And that is, do we broadly, does the general public enter stories with, whether it's a conscious or subconscious expectation, do we come to a story with an expectation that there will be change, whether for better or worse? Whether that's a cultural thing or whether that is, you know, some cultures may, some might not, or whether it's because we're storytellers, we might more than others, or... Is that an expectation of us entering into a film, a TV show, et cetera? I know, and I personally do, but yeah. Look, I think it's individually specific. And this is on my mind for obvious reasons, which is I've been thinking about the very positive reaction to A Night at the Seven Kingdoms, right? And people saying, oh, it's this unwoke show. It's amazing. It's just back to the old days of heroic art and all this stuff. How is it un-woke? Anyway, sorry. No, I think the answer is, my interpretation of it when you kind of read into what they're saying, is this is, there's a couple of things. One, this is a character who's rewarded for resilience. And I think it is Lindsay Doran has talked about particularly resilient characters really audiences love characters that are resilient and then are rewarded for it, right like there which is kind of the steadfast arc so this is a character who's like we define him as we we think of the spoilers he's this guy that thinks he, you doubt so it's important that he doubts that he's a knight and in, the trial of the seven, and hopefully by the time this podcast is out, I finally finish what is going to be in a very long video. Not a chance. Surely not a

chance. That which is going to happen. That this episode will come out of the video account. This episode will come. I mean, okay, this is me based on the experience of your previous videos having to go through like 18 iteration shared with the Discord and we have yet to see one edit. Someone put money on it. I'm taking the under. I'm going to say my video will come out because I'm not editing this podcast. Because until the video comes out, so. Annoyingly, you are also currently in charge of the release of podcasts. So, you could game this system and just hold this episode hostage until your Night of the Seven Kingdoms video is released. Yes. Anyway, sorry, I interrupted. Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Resilience. Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Resilience. So, he's got clear, quote unquote, underdog. This is the Michael Hauge stuff. He's got underdog values. He is resilient. And then he is triumphant. And I think that is the positive stories that like all audiences want positive stories is kind of connected to that, and I think the reason it is unwoke this is so my politics is that it is a simplified view of the universe, the richness of game I love knight of the seven kingdoms I love the tone, but the big contrast between it and game of the game of thrones is game of thrones is a lot more like nuanced in I mean what even is a character journey I mean it's got many of them stacked on top of each other but, that whole character's resilience overcome great a great, obstacle and then is importantly rewarded and this raises to me the other question is what do we even mean by story world at what point do secondary characters or just other, like, even that implies a hierarchy. How do we know what the primary character is? What makes something a secondary character? What makes Luke the primary character, not Han? Han is the one that changes. Luke may or may not be Leia, but... She is just as steadfast as Luke, perhaps even more fucking resilient. They torture Leia and she does not give it up, right? Like, she is a fucking champion in that film, but it is Luke that is rewarded. I mean, what rewards do you give a princess? Who is the leader of the rebellion. They stop torturing her and she regains her freedom? Yeah, they didn't give- But this shows the point, right? Yeah. Like, at what point do we map on the reward as in Luke is the primary character because he is the one that is rewarded? If they put a medal on Leia, right, in the medal ceremony, would we go, like, I mean, she's on screen before Luke. Chewbacca's fucking robbed. Chewbacca is absolutely robbed. But, you know, I mean, Star Wars is very specious. I mean, droids are absolutely tromped on. Anyway. um speaking of Star Wars and droids and presumably sex mel you want to say. That's my segue actually I didn't anything in particular no there's a lot I have lots of Star Wars thoughts about, well sex look I think the medal ceremony is super fascinating when you consider the way that Andor and Rogue One

lead right up to it and you're just imagining who is like just off screen right watching that medal ceremony happen and being like why why does why does he get a medal and and I nobody knows my name it's actually really fucking fascinating to think of from that viewpoint, um in terms of you know who's changed and who's rewarded very different things. Sorry this is a non-secretar the distinction that I have internally like my conceptually between, the rock being changed through external forces and whether it undergoes like internal intrinsic change. I do like that abstraction. I think it works. It's a really good... Metaphor? Is it a metaphor? Mel called me up on that in the shrinking episode. But one of the tools that I use at the beginning of any kind of project is there's this, graph that Michael Hauge one of the fucking gurus has mapped out where it's is six stage plot structure, but on the bottom is the outer journey where you've got setup opportunity new situation change of plans progress point of no return complications and high stakes major setback final push climax aftermath, and all those plot beats, to my mind are all the external things that happened to the character, right and those are what most gurus I feel tend to focus on and what I find super helpful, not necessarily his labeling of them but he's mapped the inner journey of a single protagonist against those very same beats. Oh god I recognize this diagram. So during the setup the character is living fully within identity during the new situation after the opportunity the character is glimpsing longing of destiny, after the change of plans they're moving towards essence without leaving identity so these are very sort of, Freudian and Jungian terms but I'd find that I find that super helpful for me, because it's forcing me at this very conceptual stage of just writing out major plot points of my story to think about what are the characters undergoing at the same time. And sometimes I've thrown them out after doing that mapping. So what I find is interesting about this is that you're like, well, we have a plot already, right, in some ways. That is an arc of its own, whatever it is, but it's literally taking the audience on it. And then you're kind of reverse engineering the character's experience with. Of the plot in a way to think about what their arc is as a result of the plot rather than what how it's there what, what your intention is for their arc and how that will create the plot is that kind of like yeah. I mean I mean it even it does happen like I go through this I ask these questions very early on of an internal perspective as well but I'm forcing myself to do it and I'm and I'm conceptually building it. But perhaps it's a reflection of how I experience the world. I feel predominantly at the expense of external events rather than in charge of them. But which stage are you? Are you fully committed to essence but growing in fear? I mean, age-wise, you probably should be. Shots fired. Have I passed the point of no return? Yes, I have. And someone who's just crossed into living one's truth with everything to lose. I'm not sure that the labels help, but just forcing me to ask, to map the inner journey of a character against the plot. That I'm more, usually I have a clearer idea of the plot beats of a story before I've got an understanding of the character's experience of those. So this does connect to the observation, which is part of the reason you have a quote-unquote low point at the end of the third act, that you have the low point or, the Dark Night of the Soul, whatever you want to call it, at the end of the third act is actually so the triumph... That happens feels bigger. There's just literally more contrast. So you can kind of, once you become aware of this, if you've got a story in which the break from the second action to the third is the character kind of head, right, you'll go, well, the climax of this film is going to be them losing, right? Because it's the rollercoaster. The rollercoaster peak works only because it's going to go as low as it can go and the reason you want to go low is you so you can rack people high a roller coaster is the movement between the peaks and the troughs a roller coaster that's just on a, flat road is just driving in Melbourne, it's kind of this interesting thing of the audience experience of it how that relates to the character yeah and the the contrast is. That not reflect and And again, this is my personal worldview, but change for humans, I guess I say humans more broadly, change for me is easier to adopt when there has been, I won't say trauma necessarily, but a significant experience. Sounds like trauma, Chas. Sure. It can be falling in love. It can be anything, but it's significant. We are pattern recognizing machines. Like that's how we've evolved to survive, right? And usually we want to adhere to the pattern and to adopt a new pattern, usually something quite disruptive has had to happen. Occur to make us embrace it and to make that change stick. I mean, I do love the observation that a whole lot of, you know, happily ever afters would have ended in divorce a year later. And that's quite a reasonable observation that most rom-coms, certainly some of the classic or more cliched ones, you know, these people barely know each other. I fucking love how Frozen subverts that, you know, like it really is leaning into the love at first sight. And then it goes, he's a fucking sociopath who's trying to murder you. So, yeah. And maybe that low point is reflective of an experiential thing where it is easier to change fundamentally following a low point or a significant peak or trough. Do you guys have any other questions to add to my list that we'll take into our- I. Think that's a really good set of questions. What I do maybe have is a list of about 20 films, and also I've discovered, exactly how I want to tie this back into my very first ever episode and bring the whole

thing full circle. And also, you better believe I'm going to talk about Cassian Andor changes. Excellent. Okay, so... Fun. I've actually not only thoroughly enjoyed myself, I'm not sure how much value listeners will get, from this episode, other than perhaps it's prompting them to ask the same questions of their own work and what they're going to, and hopefully weigh in on the Patreon polls for homework suggestions. So I would say once we've settled on the homework and look, are we going to start with steadfast or are we going to start with positive? Like what do you, what is your gut instinct? Why don't we start with negative? Why don't we start with doesn't change? Well, that's steadfast, not negative. Steadfast steadfast but right could be for the worse. Well, and I think Steadfast, our instinctive reaction has been Steadfast is actually where to start because a lot of what people think of Hero's journey stories require the character to not change. Well, it's the story circle as well. They return to the same place having changed and then do it again. Well, I, like the story circle. I think it's really good. And I think the fact that it's actually not overly detailed is what makes it work. But I think the difference with the hero's journey and the story, circle is when you break down the hero's journey, the important thing is that they learn what they need to learn, which is mostly physical, in order to return with the elixir and change the village. The important part of me in my reading of the hero's journey and the writer's journey, because they're slightly different, is it is about their impact on, their home village that is the change, rather than the ways in which their change necessarily. Oh, we've got to do Xena. I mean, my classic example is Harry Potter, right? Like, Harry Potter wins at fucking Harry Potter by never changing, despite going from a kid- being tortured by his adopted uncle and aunt in a fucking cupboard in some shire yeah to having his mind explode like going through the most ridiculous experiential journeys, and he does have some internal moments they're usually actually the worst parts of the books to read is jk rowling failing to like capture what it's like to be a teenage boy wrestling with internal, conundrums but he did but he wins by not changing right like internally he wins by being the same little boy that he was before he knew magic was real. It's the only way he could win. And that is a story plot and world that rewards his lack of transformation of him being steadfast so that's so. This comes to steadfast it's his resilience so we. Talk about. Steadfast resilient arc might be a. More heroic. I like the neutral language of steadfast because I think we might find films if we can find an example of a character that is steadfast and they're punished yeah rather rewarded. Yeah I mean I think that's what melodrama is right like but. Then you also have whether they're punished or not is whether they've does not necessarily relate to if they've if it's for better or worse for them personally because so it's. Almost you know you're breaking. This down into. Yeah I'm again look if nothing else I'm glad that we've had this discussion so that we've got the questions to approach these films with. So even less people decide to tune in for the next episode fewer talking about a downward spiral that is then published punished negatively, how do you feel about it I feel negative about it mel was reminding me that Yeah, that downward spiral is bad. How do you feel about it? So, I think Stu and Mel's instinct to tackle resilient or steadfast first is because it, reflects what a lot of western storytelling paradigms and we can highlight the fact that the characters are not actually changing and it's so it's a useful, kind of starting point yeah. And it might be an interesting so when I was looking through these movies that killed me like there's also films like a million miles away which I didn't think was a great film like it's a good, you know, it's like a seven out of 10, but I was boiling my eyes out at the end of that film, because that is an example of a resilient film. And in some ways it's like, that is that interesting space coming back to a, catharsis episode. It's the watching Field of Dreams and going, you know, I'm not a huge fan of this, but why are you so successfully manipulating me? And that's really interesting because if I'm going to be mid screenwriter, and I'm lucky if I'm mad, but if I'm mid, how can I mid and make you cry? Write about baseball. Write about baseball. I can help you. Write about baseball. Like, it is a shortcut. You're not wrong. It is. We need to find the cricket version of a baseball movie. I don't think there is. It's called Lagaan. It's Lagaan. Why are we not doing a Bollywood film, Chas? You're like Eastern story, Eastern telling. I mean, this is a good metric for how do we pick homework is how much did it make you cry? Pride and Prejudice, Meg 2, The Trench, and... And all of us strangers. That is quite a movie marathon day. Pride and Prejudice and all of us strangers are probably closer. I've never made somebody in a movie theater get up and move because I was crying so hard until... In the Meg 2? Yes, yes, definitely the Meg 2. Just to mount a potential argument here, I feel that all of us strangers has to sit in positive because the journey that Andrew Scott's character has to go through, is a positive one because at the end he has to have space for the Paul Mescal character. And he wouldn't, at the beginning of that film, had the space for the Paul Mescal character. Okay, so I think that's actually my hand grenade slash useful tool. From that observation. It's a good one. And it kind of threads the needle between how characters feel about it and... The world and how the audience fucking fits. Sorry. Yeah. Cause I mean, you know, I'm big into relationships. I mean, that's just generally how I feel about the world. I'm

not someone who's particularly solitary and, and so it's a positive arc because that's a relationship coming together and that relationship rewards him. That is the equivalent of the medal ceremony in Star Wars. Star Wars isn't about the music and the triumph. It's that moment in what the character has done and is needed for them in that. I know Mel is disagreeing. No, I'm not. I'm not actually. I just, the term reward, I'm like, well, you're right, but oh my God. It's a shorthand, right? Yeah, I don't actually disagree. I'm just excited that there's a potential episode out there where we do All of Us Strangers, Paddington 2, and Predator Badlands. That is a potential homework episode. I will be stocking up on tissues beforehand. Okay. Is there anything going into, we don't know what our homework is, but when we finally have our list of our homework, is there anything like, you know what? I was going to be thinking about blah, but now I'm thinking about bleh. Like, is there a new lens that you're going to be coming in at when you review this stuff? And then maybe you'll discover a third thing. I don't actually think there's a new lens for me. yet I'm sure there will be but you know what I do think is interesting, going back to my quadrant graph I think what will be interesting for me is to take whatever we do decide our homework is and to look at where those characters land on those points how, for on two levels one are they all grouped together are they well apart are the ones that emotionally affect me more you know grouped together or apart, etc. And then also then, you know, looking at where they are on the chart, considering how they're written, and do you start finding different patterns or different, you know, arcs? That present in a certain way. And obviously then you apply different lenses as well, right? Like genre, you know, Predator Badlands is obviously going to be able to do something very different than Aftersun because of the world that they're operating in. But I think using that chart for me will be quite helpful going in, going, okay, where do these characters lie? How far to any given extreme are they? And then taking that and saying, oh, if I have a character that is in a very similar place on the chart, how is that similar or different? All right I'm going to jump in just because it's where my brain grenaded right you made the comment about isn't just a character arc an emotional event for the audience but I'm now like coming back to the Paul Mescal thing I'm like yeah, reward punishment is about the emotional event like in the simply are they is the character closer to the world or is it away from the world and are Are they close to the audience and they're away from the audience? And I talked about the camera pulling away and making us go, oh, maybe the character's evil. But that is literally visually distinguishing us from the character. So I'm going to come into this thinking about the concept of character arcs as an emotional event, as the entire arc is the emotional event. And as we talked about in our emotional event episode, which is the other episode of Draft Zero, if you're this far, you've listened to this one, but if you're going to listen to any others, you should listen to... Catharsis though at some point we should fucking remaster it it's been like 12 years and the emotional event but I think that's it I I actually think, beginning to I mean that's contrast closer together right it connects it to on a relationship level and we're talking about a character's relationship to themselves am I closer to myself whatever does that mean it's usually my sense of who I am am I am I closer or way and and the world ultimately represents the characters that are around and I think films that are richer where the characters more individuated and represent for like a better word different factions that's more complex but when you've got here's the imperials here's the rebels it's really to say that character is now closer to the rebels because they're literally getting medals from them, right and then how does the film, metaphorically visually or literally position us as closer or farther away I think can be a really simple, binary I'm going to come into whatever our homework is and maybe I'll even forgotten it by the time I've finished those films and got something else but for now well. I'm I'm gonna build on that where I think my big difference from having done this episode going into the homework and the lenses that we're going to do, is actually exploring the emote the audience relationship with the character arc that is something that I don't think I was thinking about coming into tonight, and I'm coming out of tonight going, it's one of the integral parts. Because it is fundamental to the question of should I –, have a character arc or not, because what is the relationship I want that story, that transformation, that journey to have with the audience? Sounds so fucking obvious at the end of- Hey. It only took us two hours to get there. But you got there, Chas. You got there. Thank you. Thank you. I'm also, I think, going to use the rock, not Dwayne Johnson, but an actual rock. The literal rock and the stalactite, yep. A literal rock is a great way of discussing both character change over time and external versus internal forces. I think it is just such a great way of talking about it. Yeah. Are they a creative force, which I think is a unifying force? Are they a destructive force, which is a force to war? I mean, that's the tensions, right? Are you creating order, are you creating disorder, or are you inert? And I think the rock is a good way of thinking about that. like is a rock you got rock would you say fire is kind of destructive would you describe water, I don't describe water as. Creating you know like using taking the rock metaphor perhaps too far a rock can be steadfast in the face of fire and water. So we got rock scissors paper so. Rock is rock.

Rock is rock scissors. Are scissors. This is an audio medium. Oh I'm so glad no one can see that other than people who might want to see it. I mean if people want to read about scissoring mel's fan fiction is going to be in the show notes thanks. You have. I actually don't want to challenge you to find it because I'm worried that you would take the challenge. If nothing else I hope our listeners to this episode experience what I experienced when I both edit these episodes and also when I listen to other screenwriting podcasts is all it does is fire off neurons in relation to my own work. So hopefully this more esoteric. Discussion fires off thoughts in relation to your own work. Hopefully we're more fire than or scissors than rock. I always try to be more scissors than never be paper, definitely paper bad paper bad fire possibly worse thank you both of you for, coming on and recording and getting through this episode and making it super entertaining for me so hopefully it's super entertaining for the audience thanks as always to our amazing patrons who make more Draft Zero happen more often in particular our top tier patrons, krob these sandra jesse randy paolo thomas jen malay alexandra and I feel like we should credit alexandra's other half is it natalie god I'm probably getting her name wrong and just ruining that whole thing, we should say academy award-winning alexandra is as he will forever be known. And natalie it's both of them. Yeah yeah sure okay, Only one of them is on my fucking Patreon list here. Natalie, you need to take over Alexandra's patronage of our podcast. I'll fix it with the automatic Patreon extraction that reads the Patreon API to work out who is the patrons at the time of publishing and inject them into the show notes. And what I'll get it to do is to remap that to say Natalie and Alexandra. But in Chas's voice, right? And we now have, thanks to Stu's relentless Googling of himself, we now know we have a BAFTA award-winning listener as well. So damn you all listeners for being more successful than the hosts of this podcast. For now. Forever. I hope you all feel like arguing with either Stu or myself. About anything on this episode or anything in general. And you can find many ways of getting in touch with us at our website at draft-zero.com. At the website, you'll also find the show notes for this and all our other episodes. As well as links to support us and spread the word for free via a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Very important for spreading the word. Or if you think that what we do here is worth a dollar or preferably more than a dollar, then you can also find links to our Patreon page to support us getting these episodes to you quicker. Thanks. And thanks for listening. And now, for Backmatter. Uh hopefully this drops by 30 june so hopefully not given that I know the date of your official. Australian or is that just the party the party is the fourth of july uh happy and brilliant thank, you uh the actual ceremony is the week prior because it's on a thursday at 2 p.m which is a very random time to have a citizenship ceremony but there you are and so for everyone's sanity mostly mine it's uh is fourth of july instead. It's what they would call in the men's right or pick up arts community a shit test they're trying to shit test you which is like it's negging it's like how much do you really want to be australian because you can cut you can, you can be australian if you come at 3 15 a.m. On tuesday yeah otherwise you miss out I I'm now in the sunk cost fallacy of this relationship where I have poured so much money and paperwork and admin and literal, blood and piss and tears. I mean, the tears weren't mandatory. They just kind of happened at the 18th time that the same amount of paperwork had to be refiled. There's certainly no way, honestly, I would drag myself there over shredded glass at this point because they owe me that certificate. And this has immediately become back matter. I was gonna say speaking. Of sunk cost. Fallacies because we've been doing. Drafts for 12 years hey.