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Flipping roles

Posted: May 10, 2015 12:51 pm
by RobertS
Would it be confusing to have character flip roles. Not early or mid story, but toward the end.

Say the guardian becomes the protagonist when he gains his confidence and the protagonist becomes the guardian to support the new protagonist (since this was the intent, but he wasn't up to snuff at the time) because he's better able to take on the role when the objective situation changes.

Also, currently, there are eight characters, not including the main, so that's nine characters. Should I trim out one of the other objective characters to fit the main in there. I intend for him to be the most conflicted until he "comes of age" within the context of the story, so he's definitely a complex character.

I'm undecided if he should fit the guardian role, which fitting with my first question, would mean he becomes the protagonist/main character (as the protagonist intended him to be) at the end of the story and the protagonist becomes the guardian.

Re: Flipping roles

Posted: May 13, 2015 7:58 am
by Chris Huntley
Yes, it could be confusing. HOWEVER, what you might want to do is to create complex characters where your players have elements of guardians and protagonists. For example, you may have the "guardian" character also represent Proaction, a typical Protagonist trait. Your "protagonist" might also have "Equity" -- concern for fairness -- which is part of a typical Guardian.

Bottom line, however, is that all the elements are represented, so it might be fine as long as the audience can follow and not think that these characters are the MC and/or IC.

Re: Flipping roles

Posted: May 24, 2015 8:02 pm
by Lighthope
RobertS wrote:Would it be confusing to have character flip roles. Not early or mid story, but toward the end.


May I give you this example of "character flipping":

Richard Ward Sturges from the 1953 version of Titanic.

A horrible character that you really wanted to hate. After the ship started sinking however, and without changing character, he became the type of person I can only hope to aspire to.

THAT is character "flipping" done right.

Guardian as Protagonist

Posted: Oct 31, 2015 4:52 pm
by adambein
So then the Main Character can have Guardian traits all the while keeping the Protagonist within it's own role. That'll come in handy.

Re: Flipping roles

Posted: Nov 06, 2015 3:58 pm
by Chris Huntley
Yes. That is why most stories have complex characters instead of archetypes. Complex character can comprise many unexpected combinations of character functions.