The Hero Aims Low
I’m working with Berkeley Breathed of Bloom County and Opus fame on the story for an animated Opus film. One of the many rewarding things about this collaboration is that it forces me to justify certain of my core storytelling precepts…things I’d otherwise just “know” and never really examine carefully.
We were discussing what sort of goal Opus should set his sights on in the beginning of the film. It occurred to me (and forgive me if others have said this before or better) that 99 times out of 100, the hero of the movie aims low. What do I mean?
Typically, the hero is presented with an incident that leads directly to instability in his life. As such, his initial goal is to return to stability.
However, the hero’s stability is, in fact, an unsatisfying state—he just doesn’t know it. He may be in active denial, or he may be blissfully ignorant. One thing’s clear, though. The hero aims low (“Just get my life back to the way it was”) before eventually realizing that this won’t be enough.
He needs to exceed the status quo. Once he does that, he becomes the hero. As always, the initial and final goals can be any combination of internal, external or interpersonal.
Try the “hero aims low” game and you’ll see it holds up for most movies. Shrek is an obvious example.
I think you’re right that the breakdown of the status quo launches the story. It seems to me the solution to that problem is something the main character never expected - a relationship. It’s through the relationship that the MC’s mind goes to work and realizes the status quo isn’t so hot and there’s a lot more out there, namely Fiona or Jack in Titanic etc. Then the relationship becomes the central conflict in the story and the past life fades away. What do you think?
Relationships are key, but I’d suggest that the most important relationship is between the protagonist and the Truth.
That’s what this post is about, at least.
Ah, yes, had not read that post yet. Thanks and congrats on a great site!
This is the Bugs Bunny theory. Remember that Bugs Bunny at the start of each cartoon was always asleep and then someone — Elmer, an opera star, a construction company — would interfere with his peaceful enjoyment of his warren. Bugs would effortlessly fend off the interloper’s first few attempts until he got annoyed, at which point he would look into the camera and say dryly, “You realize, of course, this means war.” And then he would obliterate his opponent and return to his base state, sleeping.
In a TV series, you have to return to the base state, to be ready for next week. I guess in a family show, you can learn a valuable lesson, although you can never remember the lesson on the next show — in case the episodes are shown out of order.
The important point, though, is that the protagonist is not the aggressor. He has to be just minding his own business and whatever uncouth or illegal actions he takes are forced upon him by the antagonist and only the antagonist is harmed by them. Even heist pictures are careful to show that the victim had it coming.
In a movie, whatever happens has to be the most important event in the hero’s life, which poses something of a contradiction. If there’s a happy ending, it has to be something really good for the hero, but if the hero is deliberately seeking that happy ending, he comes off seeming mercenary.
In consequence, then, the hero’s goal is always a return to the status quo — getting his house back, defeating the terrorists, arresting the bad guy — but coincidentally, he must considerably upgrade his own life: get the girl, quit drinking, be reinstated on the police force, whatever.
Malvolio, I was mostly with you until the very end. You write:
I wouldn’t say upgrading is merely coincidence. In fact, sometimes (often) it’s post-incidence. For instance, Shrek achieves his stated goal of “getting my swamp back.” He then makes a choice to leave once again and rescue Fiona.
How now, Malvolio? Yellow stockings and cross-gartered too?
I would say that there is not, in fact, any status quo to go back to. At least, not one that is worthwhile (bugs bunny aside). Take movies like Titanic or T2 or E.T. or, heck, any Shakespeare for that matter (Twelfth Night included) - the place they begin in is a place they’re trying to escape. Rose hates her manicured lifestyle, John and Sarah Connor are in the pits, the kid in E.T. isn’t the happiest and Shakespeare has Hamlet’s dad dead, Romeo and Juliet sold into marriage, Viola from 12th Night having just lost her dad and brother, etc. Even Nemo, Shrek and Incredibles have deep psychological back stories that the heroes are trying to get away from, not return to.
My thinking is the strongest stories have heroes stuck in impossible situations and it’s only when a relationship with an outside force comes that the hero is truly able to break free - Jack to Rose, the terminator to Sarah and John, Fiona to Shrek, the ghost to Hamlet, etc.
That said, I think it’s great fun to have the hero strive for normalcy in act 1. Simply, they in denial about their inner problems and have yet to meet the force that will drag them kicking and screaming into the light. (and stupid me, is there a reason why my paragraph breaks don’t show up???)
uh, never mind about those paragraph breaks…
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that the dynamic was universal, just that it was common and useful.
Take Titanic — if it were Jack’s goal, not just to get to America, but to seduce some rich girl en route, it would have been a very different movie.
The hero has to have some goal or the movie quickly become listless, but it doesn’t have to be the movie’s goal. Indeed, it is more poignant if (as in Shrek) the hero voluntarily sacrifices his own goal to achieve something better.
My point is that, the goal has to be inoffensive. Obviously, the goal cannot be overtly negative, or the hero loses the audience’s sympathy. Less obviously, it is difficult to have the goal be something too grandious without making the hero look self-serving or foolish or both.
So, the status quo is convenient. How many heros snarl “I just want my life back”? Or are out to save their families? Or (in the case of dramas) recover from this or that traumatic event? Or (in the case of heist pictures) are forced out of retirement for one last score?
Take sports movies. You would think any sport is all about a dynamic and self-serving goal: you are going to beat the other guy for no reason other than you want to be the winner. That’s sports in real life. Sports movies are almost always about redemption — the central character has screwed up or been screwed over and is now trying to work his way back. Think The Natural, Major League, Any Given Sunday, The Rookie, The Blood of Heroes, Jerry Maguire, Necessary Roughness, Rocky — the protagonist is trying to return to his natural state of dignity and public acclaim.
How many movies, biopics aside, can you think of where the hero sets a goal for himself at the beginning, not to right a wrong but to simply achieve some benefit for himself, and then spends the movie trying to achieve it? There are some, but not many.
Oh, and I was originally going to be “Benvolio”, but he was kind of boring and “Malvolio” sounded cooler. Never even read Twelfth Night
Hmmm…so you think Jack was the protagonist of Titanic?
I second Craig - Jack is not the protagonist, Rose is. Jack’s role (in my terminology) is as the relationship force.
I think you have an interesting idea, but I don’t believe “self-serving” and “losing audience’s sympathy” are mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe the opposite. Without Rocky being a washed-up boxer, we wouldn’t be cheering him on when he decides to “go the distance.” Or Jerry Maguire and his foolish idea to alleviate the guilt of parasitical agenting. Both are very self-serving (when the psychology is boiled down), but in ways the audience can sympathize with and relate to. (and if you notice, both of those examples have relationship force characters that come in and cure their ills). Really, we want them to succeed. I find a character with no problems and no way of alleviating those problems dead boring.
I think Shakespeare, interestingly, creates some of the most engrossing drama with characters that are completely self-serving and horribly offensive - namely, Macbeth, Othello and Lear. They dig their own graves and destroy everyone around them, but never do I feel without sympathy. I’d go so far to say ALL personal conflict evokes sympathy, even for self-destructive monsters and antagonists, and it’s the methods they go about achieving their goals that keeps us watching.
Malvolio is definitely a cool name. Though read 12th Night and you may change your mind about naming yourself after him…
Okay, I give up. How is Rose the protagonist? She doesn’t actually do anything, except jump out (out!) of the lifeboat, thereby eventually causing Jack’s death. Oh, and she helps Jack escape his handcuffs, a task relegated in most movies to a length of wire or a clever dog or rat. The rest of the movie she just dithers like a dull Hamlet — should I kill myself or should I marry Billy Zane? If the movie hadn’t grossed a jillion dollars, I would be asking, “Did Cameron lose touch with his senses?” (I still don’t understand that success. The foreground story, which is clearly what the audience was responding, would have been considered hackneyed and trite in 1912; Leo gives a terrible performance, even for him, and is laughably miscast as an Midwestern roughneck; he and Winslet are a grotesquely mismatched pair, utterly without chemistry.)
But back to goals.
Why is Rocky written as a washed-up loser, a “cheap leg-breaker”, a bum — instead of just some young fighter trying to get a break?
Why is Jerry Maguire written as an formerly successful agent who threw his career away for idealism — instead of just some guy otherwise without prospects who happens to sign a talented athlete?
Why is John Maclane written as a broken-down divorce’ with a stalled career — instead of a new recruit hoping to make a name for himself?
The reason is (imo) that ambition feels grasping and unappealling. A person who struggles to advance his position is a climber, a schemer; one who fights to regain his position is plucky.
Anti-heroes are another problem — or perhaps another solution. It doesn’t matter that Macbeth is a treacherous regicide and murderer of children — we aren’t rooting for him. Similarly, we don’t need to see why Don Corleone is a criminal, we don’t need it justified, because we aren’t on his side. (The sequels were about how he and Michael became and remained criminals — but it isn’t intended as a defense of their behavior.)
Good column - you really had me thinking. I’d never broken down plots according to this paradigm before. However, I’ve got to respectfully disagree with your “99 times out of 100” analysis of this kind of plot. I’d argue that while this type of plot is used, it’s actually rather rare.
For example, in almost every romantic comedy I can think of, the hero isn’t aiming to restore stability - the hero’s current state is unsatisfying, he knows it. So, he aims high - to land a woman who’s probably better than him. The tension of the movie comes from will he or won’t he be able to achieve the goal, and when he does achieve the goal, he (and the audience) are satisfied.
(For example, Meet The Parents: Ben Stiller wants to marry his girlfriend. An impossible obstacle stands in the way: the father. When he finally conquers the father, proposes and she says yes, the movie’s over. He got what he aimed for and it’s satisfying.)
And, in most action movies, the hero’s goal is to restore stability - let’s stop the bad guy and make the world peaceful again. The end of the movie, where he does so, is satisfying - he’s back at his stable state and it’s satisfying. Peace is restored.
(Die Hard. His goal is to stop the madman threatening the building and his wife so he can get back to his stable state - he wants to spend time with his wife. He tosses the bad guy off the building, hugs his wife, all is good again. He’s back to his stable state and it’s everything he dreamed of.)
Or take the Hero’s Journey - a thousand movies have done it, but Star Wars seems to be the easiest example. Luke is definitely your hero, and he starts out wanting to escape from his life, not return to it. He needs to exceed the status quo - but unlike your paradigm, he knows it and wants that from the beginning. He aims high and we’re thrilled when he gets there - he wants to become a Jedi Knight from early in the movie. (Now, Han Solo is exactly what you describe - he just wants to pay off his debt and return to his pirating ways in the beginning, then he shows up at the end to save Luke when he realizes that his initial goals weren’t high enough. But, he’s not the hero of the movie.)
In short, I’d argue that “Shrek” is a special example of this working, and that Berkeley Breathed is screwed. ;)
Lowell:
Well, I take a slightly broader view of a character’s intentions. For instance, in Meet The Parents, I think Gaylord’s goal is to simply survive the weekend.
He aims low.
His ultimate achievement, however, is to prove his worthiness to his fiance’s father, and he does that by standing up to him.
I’m fuzzy on Die Hard (been a while), but I recall that the hero’s actual goal has nothing to do with killing terrorists, but rather with solving his marriage. Wasn’t the deal that he was aiming low (trying to convince her to either return to New York or it’s splitsville, but either way, he was going to back to New York), but ended up achieving a better goal (repairing his marriage by having to live through an ordeal in which he nearly loses her)?
In Star Wars, Luke doesn’t want to become a Jedi from early on. In fact, he bitches about it when he has to wear the helmet and whack the floating ball thing. What he wants is to leave the farm. Go on an adventure. “Fight the Empire.”
He aims low. His dream is a childish dream. When Obi-Wan dies, only then does Luke realize he must actually become a Jedi (and his continuing struggle with that is what much of Empire is about). It’s no mistake that his final victory is achieved the first time he truly uses the Force.
Low goal: leave home and fight, kick ass, be cocky (extension of whom he already is) High goal: understand the nature of the battle, develop patience, become spiritual (evolution into whom he becomes)
I think RomComs almost always use this device. Think about Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping.
“Meet The Parents” opens up with the hero about to propose. (remember the kids with the signs?) That is his goal. (And, by definition, a Jewish man asking a WASP to marry him is aiming high.) The obstacle (or task - see, I’ve been reading my Wordplay) is to get the father’s approval. He gains that, gets his goal (the acceptance of the proposal) and is happy.
“Die Hard” opens with Willis’s character trying to reconcile with his wife. Instability comes into his life (terrorists take over the building) and his goal becomes defeating the terrorists and getting back to his original state (spending time with his wife). He achieves his goal (killing the terrorists) returns to his stable state (reconciling with his wife) and finds it fulfilling. Yes, he had an initial goal of figuring things out with his wife, but I don’t really think you can argue that his initial goal was low and he realized what he should have been shooting for is defeating terrorism. That’s stretching a bit. He has two seperate goals, and in both of them, he’s not aiming low - he’s aiming exactly where he should.
Within five minutes of first hearing the word “Jedi” Luke declares “I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.” Along the way, he’s impatient (floating ball scene) and despairs of reaching his high goal (becoming a Jedi), but when he finally does (trusting in the force and destroying the death star), he’s fulfilled. We (and he) exalt in the achievement of his high goal.
Having a high goal, overcoming obstacles, and achieving the goal is a very simple construction - yours is infinitely more interesting. But I think the simple one is the much more common one. I think you can even make a good movie with the simple construction - “The Fugative” comes to mind. His goal is “find the one armed man and by doing so, avenge my wife’s murder and clear my name.” He spends the movie doing it. He does it. He doesn’t find that his goal was low and that he’s unsatisfied - he and the audience are fulfilled.
But, I fully plan to steal your insights for my next movie.
No, Gaylord’s goal isn’t to propose. He proposes in the first five minutes.
Nor is Gaylord’s goal to get the father’s actual approval. Gaylord’s goal is to get the father’s nominal approval, because the truth is that he sees the whole thing as, and you said it, an obstacle.
Aiming low.
The true goal he must set for himself is to actually rise to a place where he proves himself a man to the father.
Luke doesn’t understand what a Jedi means. That’s why he’s using the targeting computer in the final scene (man, I’m a dork).
Richard Kimble’s goal is to prove his innocence. Low goal. His higher calling? Exposing the conspiracy that killed his wife. He begins with a selfish motive (prove my innocence) and expands his adventure to a non-selfish motive (defeat evil, even at the risk of getting caught and dying).
Steal away! But first read the article on theme; I think it explains this article somewhat.
So long as the hero’s goal isn’t viewed as self-serving, it can be internally generated. In romantic comedy, the hero may be trying to win the woman he loves — so long as his love is returned and the obstacles are practical (like the father in MEET THE PARENTS, or distance and circumstance in SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE or WHEN HARRY MET SALLY); in other RomCom’s the problem is that the couple don’t know that they love each other (as in YOU’VE GOT MAIL or IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT or GREEN CARD).
What cannot happen is that one party loves that other and attempts to convince her to love him back. That would be self-serving (and a little pathetic), so no matter how much more frequent it is in real life, it doesn’t happen in the movies.
Similarly, in STAR WARS, had Luke simply run off to battle the Empire, he would have looked like a vainglorious fool. Just escaping the farm and seeing some adventure is self-serving. Instead he is carefully given motivation — the supposed murder of his father (oops, I hope I’m not giving anything away here :) and the executions of his aunt and uncle, and then the need to save Leia and deliver R2-D2.
In THE STING, is Hooker in it for the money? Of course not, he’s avenging his friend Luther.
In RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, is Jones seeking glory or acclaim or academic prestige? Of course not, he’s fighting the Nazis.
In ROMANCING THE STONE, is Wilder interested in the stone? No, she’s trying to save her sister.
The positive hero has to be admirable and that means having admirable motivation, which boils down altruism (including, unfortunately, revenge), true (reciprocated) love, and return to the status quo.
All right, I’m going to call a truce to this argument until you watch some fucking movies. In “Meet The Parents” he absolutely does not propose - his proposal is interrupted by a phone call from his girlfriend’s sister, where she announces that she’s getting married. Then he loses the ring in the luggage, etc, etc…
Obstinance in the face of logic. Finally, I believe that you really are a repblican, and it’s not a front for comedic purposes.
Jeff:
The details are kind of irrelevant. I stand by my point of substance: his goal is to get past the father, rather than being a man and standing up for himself (which is ultimately what gets him past the father).
Indiana Jones absolutely doesn’t care about Nazis in the beginning of Raiders. That’s the CIA’s concern. His lower goal is the glory of the artifact itself…the ultimate achievement for a man who worships relics.
His higher goal becomes love.
“The details are kind of irrelevant.”
Yeah, those pesky facts that get in the way of a good theory. ;)
Craig, the stable state theory works fine for most comedies, but I’m not sure about the Dial Soap claim. For example, fantasy movies. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy dreams of a land… well, you know. (And as we know, All Movies Are The Wizard of Oz.) In Star Wars, Luke wants off Tatooine. Bad. The crew of the various Enterprises want to boldly go. Indiana Jones wants to dig up the past and take it home with him.
Then there’s tragedies - MacBeth wants glory and power. Achilles wants glory.
I think you can make the case that the typical American hero (and kung fu movie hero) is a reluctant hero who has to be pushed into action…
But it’s a good observation, if you cut it down to maybe 50 out of 100… it defines, if you will a sort of super-genre.
Alex:
What’s the Dial Soap claim?
Yes, Dorothy dreams of running away. In fact, that’s sort of the perfect example. Her low goal is to run away. Her high goal is to return home. :)
C.
It occured to me that what you guys may have been arguing about in this post might be the difference between what the hero thinks he or she wants (usually in the first half of the movie) and what he actually needs - which he usually learns when having a revelation towards the end.
Often the audience is aware of this difference in goals/wants/needs by the “point of no return”, the scene in the middle of the movie where the climax/battle becomes inevitable. The hero often doesn’t catch on until after things get really bad.
For example: in the movie French Kiss the Meg Ryan character thinks she wants to get her slimy boyfriend back, and the Kevin Kline character wants to smuggle his stolen necklace, sell it, and start a vineyard. What they both really need is a loving relationship with the right person.
In the middle of the movie Meg kisses Kevin in her sleep (on the train)as he tries to get into her knapsack, which she is using as a pillow, to retrieve the necklace. At that point, based on Kevin’s reaction (the kiss stuns him so much he stops fishing for the jewels), we in the audience say “aha!, I knew there was something more going on, these two belong together”. At that point the climax (we want them together, they either will end up together or not but this has to be dealt with) becomes inevitable and the goals change from the small/low initial ones - to what both characters really have truely needed all along.
I think “the hero aims low” is a pretty good way to think about this difference between what the character wants, and really needs.
Abso-blooming-lutely.
And it’s when the hero get life back in order (seemingly) that they realize: My life sucks. If not for the shake-up of the inciting incident they’d continue to ignore the shortcomings of their existence, continue to suppress their waiting ‘authentic self’, continue to remind themselves not to rock the boat.
Of course, according to Campbell this is simply the hero’s refusal of the call :-)