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Essay

Introduction ~

As my title suggests in this report I will be researching and discussing the struggles of fictional character throughout time, the many different forms of entertainment and the extent of their struggles. But also whether they are personal or circumstantial struggles, the reasoning behind making characters struggles and what it helps the writer achieve. I will also investigate whether or not more writers should be making modern characters problems more true to life to teach children how to deal with such struggles. In Chapter One I will discuss the ways in which character flaws can lead to the character struggling, and compare them to the ways in which characters often have no control over the circumstantial struggles they face. Following this in chapter Two I will analyze how writers make their protagonists struggle through time and depending on the different age and generation of the audience. Continuing from that Chapter Three will be an investigation into why writers often kill off mothers in stories, create evil stepmothers, and discuss what this effect has on the audience, the story and how this can lead to the father roles playing a bigger part. Similarly to the last in Chapter Four the Orphan trope will be explored, the reasoning behind it, how it can be the turning point in a story and why it is so common across so many forms of media. Lastly in Chapter Five I will try to determine whether or not modern writers should be including much more realistic and true to life struggles for their characters, whether some writers already have been and what this could do to change protagonist and audience relationships. A struggle is defined as ‘‘Striving to achieve or attain something in the face of difficulty or resistance.’‘ (Cambridge Dictionary, no date) The protagonist is often the most important part of any story, they give the audience a viewing point into the story. In the real world I’m sure most of us would find it hard to think of many, if anyone, we know to have never struggled in life, at one point or another. But what of the fictional world, Have you ever read a book or watched a film where the main character had a completely problem and struggle free life? If you were to create a fictional character why would you want them to face hardship and struggle. Is a character living easy and painless life to boring for a viewer to watch, or would the audience possibly prefer this?

Chapter One ~ Character Flaws

Characters having flaws is one way writers can make them struggle, A character flaw is defined as a ‘‘limitation, imperfection, problem, phobia or deficiency present in a character.’’ (Character flaw, 2016) Writers do this ‘‘to make a character realistic and relatable they are given flaws, because if there is anything a writer can be sure of it is that no-one in their audience will be perfect.’’ (TV Tropes, no date) To make a good solid character the audience needs to engage with them in some way, or even emotionally care for the fictional being. Another very important aspect of creating a character is to make them feel as ‘real’ as possible, ‘‘we all have flaws, because, well, were human. Our flaws are part of what makes us real.’‘

However, most of the flaws in our favorite characters lives aren’t their own personal flaw or fault, but flaws in their lives that are often out of their control. Wreck-it-Ralph for example, from the 2012 film with the same name, to those who know his story he is the villain of a arcade game, he is disliked by all of the other characters. Through the story however it becomes clear that he is in fact a nice character who never chose to be the villain, it was just who he had to be in order for the game to function. ‘‘My names Ralph, and I’m a bad guy’’ (Wreck-it-Ralph, 2012).,Ralph goes on to say ‘’It becomes kinda hard to love your job…when no-one else seems to like you for doing it.’‘ (Wreck-it-Ralph, 2012). It is clear that he doesn’t like having to be the bad guy and others treat him badly, this becomes clear after he is stopped for a apparently random security search ‘‘Random, my behind, you always stop me.’‘ (Wreck-it-Ralph, 2012). Why do writers often start their protagonists lives in terrible situations? An online article claimed it was because ‘‘In fact, in every story we’ve ever experienced, we are the protagonist.’‘(M. Morrison, no date). This is suggesting that seeing the protagonist succeed through hardship shows the audience that they can do the same.

Another reason writers give their characters fundamental flaws and often terrible lives is because that awful situation or event is what powers the story. Henry James once said ‘‘What is character but the determination of incident? And what is incident but the illumination of character.’‘ (Field, 1982). SYD Field, a famous American screenwriting guru, perfectly explained this quote by saying ‘‘the elements within the character really determines the incident; how the character reacts to that incident is what illuminates and truly defines his/her character.’‘ (Field, 1982). Imagine watching a film or reading a book where the main character starts the story being perfect and living a flawless life, remaining that way throughout and ending with things being the same way. There wouldn’t be any rising action, climax or resolution, there would be no story.

For example, in the 2013 Disney Animated film Finding Nemo, when Marlin son Nemo is kidnapped, everything changes and dad has to go on a cross ocean adventure to get his son back. Many call this kind of life flaw the ‘dramatic need’ such as Waldo Salt, who was a famous American screenwriter. ‘‘The first thing he (Waldo Salt) did was choose a simple dramatic need; then he would add to it.’‘(Field, 1982). He also stated that, ‘‘The ‘dramatic need’ is the engine that powers the character through the story line.’‘(Field, 1982). So essentially if the character has no flaw, say sadness, being an orphan, being lost etc, they won’t want anything, like happiness, a family, to be found. If the character wants for nothing there is no dramatic need and nothing will change, and often this change in a story is the most important part.

Another interesting idea explored in this essay is the idea of our relationships with a character being based off of the choices they make and the actions they take when facing a problem. Robert McKee stated ‘‘the essence of character is action - what a person does is who he is.’‘ (Mckee, 2010). Writers must keep this in mind when creating characters, he follows with ‘‘True character can only be expressed through choice in dilemma. How the person chooses to act under pressure is who he is - the greater the pressure, the truer and deeper the choice to character.’‘ (Mckee, 2010). So is this why writers make their characters and their fictional characters lives so flawed, so they can show the protagonists true character through their choices? If so, does this then make the audience relate more to the character. SYD Field says ‘‘sometimes incidents and events in our lives bring out the best in us, or the worst, sometimes we recover from these events and sometimes we don’t - But they always impact us.’‘ (Field, 1982) Are writers trying to make their characters suffer and struggle but ultimately succeed to show the audience that when they have a problem in their lives they can too?

Chapter Two ~ Happily Ever After

In order for a writer to best connect with their audience surely the problems should relate to their audience in some way. But through the years how much have characters problems and they ways in which they struggled changed, and to what extent have many original stories been altered to fit into modern day entertainment. The original Grimm’s Folk tale of Cinderella is a very well known story, but the original tale is much different and a lot darker than the 1950 Disney film mostly known by audiences today. The Disney film shows Cinderella being bossed around by her evil step sisters, but apart from bullying and mean comments it’s quite tame compared to what happens to her in the Grimm’s version. They ‘’put an old gray bed-gown on her, and give her wooden shoes.” (Grimm and Grimm, 2012). In the animated film Cinderella’s clothes are rather worn out and undesirable, but she wasn’t shown wearing uncomfortable wooden shoes. The Grimm’s fairy-tale also tells of how the step sisters would throw her food (peas and lentils) into the ash filled fireplace and make her pick them out again in order to eat. She also did not have a bed of any kind and so was forced to sleep by the fireplace too. Cinderella’s emotional state in the animated film is also somewhat sugar coated, she isn’t seen as being anywhere near as depressed and devastated as she is in the original story. In the film, she is shown crying only on a couple of occasions, whereas in the book it states ‘‘Thrice a day Cinderella went and sat beneath it, and wept and prayed.’‘ (Grimm and Grimm, 2012). Having the protagonist of a film spend most of their on screen time crying wouldn’t make for much of a uplifting children film, considering the film’s target audience is supposedly 5+, along with Bambi and Pinocchio. (Disney Films, 2011)

Another aspect of the original stories that have been changed or cut out for the more modern versions is pain, gore and gruesome deaths experienced by the characters in the tales. As previously discussed in modern Disney characters do still die and often in very dramatic and sad ways, however it is often less terrifying and disturbing then in many older stories. At the end of the Grimm’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1812), the evil queen has to wear red hot shoes and dance until she drops down dead, for the amusement of the royal court for her crimes against the princess. It goes without saying why we didn’t see this in the 1937 Disney adaptation, a Disney princess giving such a hellish punishment even to such a villain would never be seen in Disney and something as shocking would be unsuitable for a younger audience. The evil step sisters in Cinderella avoided losing their lives as comeuppance for their actions, but had their eyes plucked out by birds. Again, not exactly child friendly. But it’s not only the villains who would suffer such pain in the original versions of these tales. In the 1837 fairy tale of ‘’The Little Mermaid’’ by Danish Author Hans Christian Anderson, the mermaid protagonist doesn’t magically and painlessly get her voice taken away by the sea witch, the sea with cuts her tongue out with a knife. The Disney adaptation also chose not to include once she obtained her human legs from the witch, every step she took on them it felt like knives were stabbing into her legs. As well as how in the end she didn’t marry the prince and live happily ever after, he married someone else and she turned into sea foam. However, most unsurprisingly of all is the fact that Disney’s chose to change their versions of the stories to miss out on the originals mention of rape. Some viewers these days are outraged enough by the fact that in the story the Prince of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty kisses the slumbering Princess without her consent. However, in the Grimm’s story the prince rapes her in her sleep, leaving her to be awoken by one of her two children (whom she gave birth to while she slept) who sucks the cursed piece of flax from her finger. This obviously would not have been suitable ‘‘Since Disney is a family company, some of these darker and less pleasant stories were given happier vibes and endings as not to scar little children for life.’’ (S.P 2015) But why were these stories seen as suitable for children of the past but not suitable for children of today. Was it because children’s lives were so much harder in the past, and because of this they were tougher and could handle a much darker bedtime story? So if the struggles and problems of the characters have changed so much through time, has the way they faced and overcome the struggles changed so much too? Staying with the theme of female protagonists and their struggles, in both the original and Disney versions of Cinderella she doesn’t really do a lot to save herself. In the original tale she wishes to the birds for help which they respond to, until the Prince takes her away and saves her. Similarly to how in the Disney adaptation the fairy god mother grants her wishes until again, the prince comes and saves her. This being rescued by the prince and living happily ever after is how Sleeping Beauty and Snow White also have their struggles ended. These films were all made before the year 2000, however many Disney films made after the turn of the millennium see the female protagonists overcoming their problems themselves. The 2009 Disney animated film The Princess and the Frog shows the main character Tiana not only save herself, but the Prince from being killed by the villain Dr. Facilier. Similarly in the 2012 film Brave, Merida the young princess, not only refuses to pick a husband but later goes on to save her mother’s life when she is turned into a bear. The animation Company Studio Ghibli however has been showing young female protagonists triumphing against their problems since 1988. For example in their animated film My neighbour Totoro (1998), the protagonist a young girl called Satsuki finds and rescues her little sister after she becomes lost following an argument they had. In Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), we see a young witch struggle to live on her own in a new town, but through the story she never gives up and she keeps trying until she gets a good job, makes friends and also saves a young boys life after a blimp crashes in her town. My last example is from Spirited Away (2001), where after Chihiro’s parents are turned into pigs and she is forced to work for an evil witch. As the story progresses he gathers the courage to face the witch and get her parents turned back into humans. “Many of my movies have strong female leads- brave, self-sufficient girls that don’t think twice about fighting for what they believe with all their heart. They’ll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a savior. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man ~ Hayao Miyazaki’’ (Goodreads,2017) . Studio Ghibli is often referred to as the ‘Japanese Disney’ so why when so many of Disney’s leading ladies are getting rescued by princes, are Miyasaki’s often much younger characters overcoming their problems themselves and often helping others along the way? Does Miyazaki want to show young girls how capable they can be? and what does this say about Disney’s message to young girls?

Chapter Three ~ Disposable Mums

Nemo (Finding Nemo), Lilo (Lilo and Stitch), Ichigo Kurasaki (Bleach), Po (Kung Fu Panda), Ariel (The little Mermaid), Haruhi Fujioka (Ouran High School Host Club), Remy (Ratatouille), Cinderella, and Luke Skywalker (Star Wars) are some of the most well known and popular fictional characters from film, TV, anime, and literature. Even though these characters differ in age, gender, species and even universes they all share one thing in common, all of their mothers are dead. Whether it happened on or off screen a huge number of our favourite cartoon characters are motherless. Is this a coincidence, or are writers giving their characters such a huge life flaw for a reason?

The loss of a character’s mother creates a dramatic need for the protagonist. This quite simple idea is backed up by Caroly Dever, a professor of English who suggests ‘‘The unfolding of plot and personality depends on the dead-mother.’’(Dever 1998,) So are writers using this trope to make a huge change in the characters life to start their adventure? For example, after Todd from Disney’s 1981 Fox and the Hound loses his mother when she gets killed, he is taken in by the kind middle aged lady farmer Widow Tweed and his life being raised by her and being friends with Copper the Hound dog begins. If his mother had stayed alive and with him they both would have lived out their lives in the forest like normal foxes. This also seems to be the case in the 2004 anime Bleach, directed by Noriyuki Abe, in which the protagonist Ichigo Kurasaki witnesses his mothers death at the hands of a Hollow (Demon). This tragedy is the turning point in his life and inevitably leads him to be the hero of the story. If his mother had stayed with him, he wouldn’t have grown so protective of his sisters, received his powers and saved the day. He would have just stayed a normal boy and not become the hero of the story, since the dramatic purpose of the hero is such an important one, it gives a viewing point into the tale, that invited everyone viewing to be apart of it and see it through their eyes.

This trend of killing mothers began a long time ago, since the invention of stories, because the risk of dying from childbirth was so much higher back then. ‘‘Women died frequently from childbirth. Therefore, there were many single parents, although men tended to marry quickly after their wives died as in Snow White and Cinderella.’‘ (Hopes&Fears, 2015) Extracts from the Grimm’s versions of Snow White and Cinderella seem to prove this statement. From Snow White ‘‘After a year had passed the king took to himself another wife.’‘ (Grimm and Grimm, 2012). and from Cinderella ‘‘When winter came the snow spread a white sheet over the grave, and when the spring sun had drawn it off again, the man had taken another wife.’‘ (Grimm and Grimm, 2012). This taking of new wives is what lead to Snow White and Cinderella strife, having their loving mothers taken away and then replaced by evil stepmothers.

The replacing of a mother was a very common plot twist in fairy tales, and so often the replacing women were horrible villains. This caused the turning point in most fairy tale stories, but is that the only reason writers use this trope? In ‘In the use of Enchantment’ (1976), Bruno Bettelheim explains this writers tool by saying ‘‘The typical fairy-tale splitting of the mother into a good (usually dead) mother and an evil stepmother…is not only a means of preserving an internal all-good mother when the real mother is not all-good, but it also permits anger at this bad ‘step mother’ without endangering the goodwill of the true mother.’‘ (Hopes&Fears, 2015) An interpretation of this quote could be the mother is eternally good, the guardian angel watching over their child yet is unable to help. While the stepmother is someone the audience can love to hate. However, through the years the evil stepmother trope seems to be dying out. This could be because of a combination of the decrease in mother mortality rates during childbirth, the rise in divorce rates and remarriage in modern society meaning more and more modern day children have stepparents. So to reflect this change, in modern stories and animations representing everyday step mothers being evil has grown less popular.

So what are writers doing instead? It has been suggested that they are being replaced by father figures. ‘’The old fairy-tale, family-romance movies that pitted poor motherless children against horrible vengeful stepmothers are a thing of the past. Now plucky children and their plucky fathers join forces to make their way in a motherless world.’‘ (Roth, 2014) Research indicates this statement is true for many of the newer animated feature films, such as the 2002 20th Century Fox film, Ice Age. Where Manny the mammoth becomes a protective father figure to a human baby, after it’s mother dies. At first he is reluctant, but their bond grows and by the end of the film Manny is very sad to have to give his adopted child to a family of humans. Another example of a reluctant father figure and children coming together is seen in the 2010 Illumination Entertainment film, Despicable Me. In the film, super villain Gru adopts three orphaned girls in order to pull off an evil plan, but in the end they end up helping each other and became very close and happy together. The loss of the mothers seems to be making it possible for the children to build bonds with father figures. But why are writers matching kids and dad’s together? Is it because men come across as more fun, or quirkier, or could it be because it’s abit less conventional? A recent U.S Household survey showed that only 8% of homes with kids are headed by fathers, whilst 25% are headed by mothers leaving the majority of 67% being headed by married couples. (Datacenter, no date).

But what if the killing off of mothers isn’t about forcing the protagonist grow up? What if it has a more personal connection to the writer? Most of the examples of films analyzed in this essay so far where the mothers are scarce have been Disney films. Since 1937, 56 out of 104 Disney animated feature length films have primary characters with dead or missing parents or raised by a single parent. A possible reason for why so many mothers are killed off in Disney films could be connected to Walt Disney himself, as one article explains ‘‘In 1938 and riding high with the proceeds from his first big screen movie Sleeping Beauty, Walt bought his mother, Flora, and his father, Elias, a house in LA as a golden wedding anniversary present.’‘(Poulton, 2010). the article goes on to say ‘‘Days later, Flora died from asphyxiation caused by the new, poorly installed boiler.’‘ (Poulton, 2010). This extremely sad accident is why some people think so many Disney protagonists are motherless. In a 2014 interview with The Lion King producer Don Hahn said ‘‘Disney deliberately wrote off, killed off, or replaced maternal figures as a consequence of the guilt he carried about his own mothers death.’‘(Hopes&Fears, 2015)

Chapter Four ~ The Orphan

The loss of a mother can cause more than enough struggle for a character, but just as many famous protagonists are not only motherless, but fatherless too, they are orphans. The orphan trope extends over every form of entertainment; Comic books - Batman, Anime/Manga - Tohru Honda (Fruits Basket), Film - James Bond, Literature - Frodo (Lord of the rings) and Video games - Link (The Legend of Zelda). Even one of the most well know characters in the Bible was an orphan, “Moses was an orphan.”(Gillaspie and Oromaner, 2012). Evidence suggests that he is an orphan because he is deprived in every manner of a parents care. But arguably the most famous orphaned hero is Harry Potter, from the fictional Novel which has 450 million books in print world wide, and film franchise with a combined worldwide grosses worth 7.7 billion. It is no accident that Harry Potter was made an orphan by the author of the book, J.K Rowling ‘‘The child wizards adventures are premised on the death of his parents and the responsibilities that he must therefore assume.’‘ (Mullan, 2014) After his parents are murdered he is forced upon his relatives who treat him horrible. The start of Harry’s story bares similarity to Cinderella’s, (both the Grimm’s original folk tale1697 and Disney film adaptation 1950) ‘‘Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.’‘ (Rowling, 1997). This links to Cinderella being treated badly and sleeping in a fireplace. Yet Cinderella still had her father, whereas Harry had neither parents and they are both treated badly. Harry’s parent’s, Lily and James Potter, can do absolutely nothing to help their son, leaving the audience pitting the whole Potter family, unlike Cinderella’s father, who is hardly mentioned in the Fairy-tale, is alive, but does nothing to aid her daughter.

Differing from the idea of loosing the mother causing emotional struggle and leading to a shift in their family dynamics., losing both parents can mean the protagonist gains a lot of freedom. ‘‘They don’t need an excuse to go on wold adventures or stay away for days on end.’‘ (Conveniently an orphan, no date). because there’s no-one at home to miss them. The lack of parental advisory allows the protagonist to take on their new adventures and responsibilities and become a hero. In the gaming franchise of The legend of Zelda there is never a single mention of where Link, the young protagonists, parent are. However, I don’t have an exact age for the character, he is often referred to as a ‘kid’ and a ‘child’ by the other in game characters. The lack of adult supervision allows Link to Battles monsters, collect treasures and be the hero of the game.

For some protagonists, rather than their parents never being mentioned or seen in a story, leaving a clean and easy means for them to have their adventures and let the story unravel, some writers include the parents but have them dramatically killed off early in the story. Batman is an obvious example of this, the young Bruce Wayne witnesses his parents gruesome murder when he is a child (8 or 10 years old, depending on the writer). But this tragic event is the turning point in his story, which leads him to later become the caped crusader Batman, who through avenges his parents deaths and also fights villainy and evil throughout Gotham City. But evidence suggests some writers don’t just kill of parents to give the child freedom, or a means to avenge, but instead because to the young audience loosing their parents is a terrifying concept and that a absent family structure ’’Plays on the primal fears’’ (Hopes&Fears, 2015). of having no-one to nurture and protect them. It seems unlikely that writers do this so the audience can relate to the orphaned characters since as of April 2016 the recorded amount of orphaned children in the United States was only 120,000, (Fill-a-heart-4-kids, no date). which is a large number, but not compared to the number of children who are not orphans.

Chapter Five ~ New Struggles

In some of the more recent animated films (2010+) writers have been giving their protagonists struggles that could be seen as relating more to the modern world and modern children’s lives. Often also subtly showing child and parent viewers how they can deal with such struggles themselves. The three main topics of struggle discussed in this chapter are Loss, Prejudice and emotion. Firstly, one of the primary themes in the 2014 animated feature film Big Hero 6, directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams is loss. Hiro Hamada (the protagonist) lives with his older brother aunt aunt, since his parents died and made them both orphans. Himself and his older brother Tadashi both have talents in making robots, whilst the older brother attends university studying it, the younger makes robots to fight illegally. The turning point in the story is when Tadashi dies dramatically in an explosion, leaving Hiro with no immediate family still alive. Hiro spirals into despair and depression, leaving him neglecting his studies, refusing to eat and ignoring his friends ‘’No, don’t push us away Hiro, we’re here for you.’’ (Big Hero 6, 2014). one of his friends pleads, in the film. The audience see’s Hiro in his worst emotional state here.

Hiro’s salvation comes in the form of a medical assistant robot Baymax, who was built by his late brother, Tadashi. Baymax tries to treat the boy’s depression by making him acknowledge his friends and giving him comforting hugs. Showing children the level of depression he reaches is important, because it later when he comes to terms with his loss shows the viewer that there is always hope of things becoming better. The robot manages to get Hiro out of his room and his mental state seems to get better. This is when the film displays another stage of loss, anger. This is mostly displayed by the villain of the film Robert Callaghan, a professor at the university Tadashi studied at, when Callaghan’s daughter is supposedly killed in an experiment that goes wrong, the professor seeks revenge against those who were responsible. His anger takes him over and turns him from a nice, good natured man into the vengeful villain of the film. Hiro tries to relate to the man in an attempt to defuse his anger, ‘‘This won’t change anything, trust me. I know.’‘ (Big Hero 6, 2014) The boy tries to explain to the man than getting revenge won’t bring his daughter back. This shows the audience that being angry is a stage of grief, but it is a stage that needs to be pushed past in order to accept the loss underneath anger is pain. One of the most important lessons from the film is showing children the right and wrong way of dealing with loss. Hiro, although struggling at first manages to deal with his grief healthily, we see him at the end of the film in the cafe with his friends laughing, hugging and talking to his aunt and attending his university. Whereas Professor Callaghan’s obsession with revenge results in him ruining his own life and career.

The 2016 animated film Zootopia, directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore, has a very different topic of struggle for children and adults alike to learn from, Prejudice. Prejudice is a negative attitude about someone held on the basis of cognitive constructs called stereotypes. Zootopia is set in a world of all animal, run by and made for animal. It includes prey and predator animals, with prey animals outnumber predators ten-to-one, just like in the real world. In earlier versions of the film the division between predators and prey was huge, Predators were made to wear collars to prevent their aggression. This was however changed because director Rich Moore though ‘‘it made their world too negative.’‘ (Julius, 2016). So the concept changed to show a more of a subtle underlying bias for most of the film. The story starts with all of the animals living in harmony to ‘‘show how bias and prejudice can so easily divide a culture.’‘ (PasteMedia, 2016)

The film shows prejudice through the two main characters of the film. Firstly, through Judy Hopps, a small fluffy bunny rabbit and the heroine of the story. From a young age she wanted to be the first rabbit police woman, but was frequently mocked by other children and her own parents tried to convince her out of it, possibly trying to save her from the hardship and ridicule. Other animals assume that she isn’t suitable for the job and instead should be a carrot farmer, ‘‘You’re from bunny burrow…so how about a carrot farmer?’‘ (Zootopia, 2016) she is told this when she first arrives in zootopia. Judy struggles a lot trying to prove herself as a police woman too, she is called names like ‘‘fluffy butt’‘ and ‘’dumb bunny.’’ (Zootopia, 2016). when she fails and even after she proves herself has to insist to her new boss that she is not a ‘‘not just some token bunny.’‘ (Zootopia, 2016). It is important for the viewer to see her struggle to prove herself when everyone is doubting her, because she persists and eventually proves herself worthy, despite others criticism.

The other character who is seen having to fight against their prejudice, is Judy’s companion Nick Wilde, who everyone assumes is a sly fox. The foxes attitude to other animals changed drastically when as a child he was muzzled by children he thought were his friends because he was a predator ‘‘You thought we could ever trust a fox without a muzzle? You’re even dumber than you look!’’(Zootopia, 2016). This makes Nick have a bitter attitude to other animals, and leads him to accept that they see him as a sly trickster, so he becomes a con man, to fit their stereotype ‘‘if the world’s only going to see a fox as shifty and untrustworthy, there’s no point in being anything else.’‘ (Zootopia, 2016). However Judy and Nick become friends and help each other not just to save zootopia, but to help each other overcome their struggles with prejudice through empathy. This is an important message for the audience, Zootopia shows that underlying prejudice can lead to racism, so it is important to overcome prejudice, one of the last messages in the film expresses this when Judy says ‘‘the more we try to understand one another, the more exceptional each of us will be.’‘ (Zootopia, 2016).

The last film explored in this essay is the 2015 film Inside Out, directed by Pete Docter, which discusses the topic of emotions and asks the question ‘‘is it OK to not be OK all of the time?’‘(Poehler, 2015). The film takes you inside the brain of Riley, a young girl, in her head are her 5 main emotions, Joy, fear, anger, disgust and sadness. In the beginning of the film it shows Joy leading and helping Riley through her life, making the girl as happy as possible. But after a life changing move, Joy starts to struggle to keep the girl constantly happy. Emotion researcher June Gruber found that ‘‘making happiness an explicit goal in life can actually make us miserable.’‘ (Marsh and Zakrzewski, 2015). this idea is explored in the film, showing children and parents that it isn’t healthy to ignore all the other emotions. In one moment of the film, sadness is trying to be more involved with controlling Riley, Joy tries to prevent this by instructing sadness to stay inside a chalk drawn ‘circle of sadness’. Many experts would call this ‘emotional suppression’. Ignoring sadness intervention later causes Riley’s emotional state to get a lot worse, as she cannot feel joy or sadness.

An important moment in the film comes when the girls imaginary friend Bing Bong is crying after he looses the wagon him and Riley used to play in. Joy tries to be positive, but it is the empathy that sadness shows him that helps him overcome his grief. In the pivitol moment of the film, when Riley is finally able to feel sadness again, she goes to her parents for help, rather than following through her plan of running away. Being reunited with her family gives her mixed emotions of sadness and joy, displaying the films deeper message of without sadness you cannot be happy and visa versa. This is why the writers of inside out didn’t call ‘Joy’ ‘Happiness’ because joy alone cannot always make a person happy. The film explains that the struggles that come with emotions are necessary and that ‘‘Life isn’t as simple as ‘Happy’ or ‘Sad’, emotions are a lot more complicated than that.’‘ (Marsh and Zakrzewski, 2015).

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Conclusion

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Chapter Five - New Struggles

In some of the more recent animated films (2010+) writers have been giving their protagonists struggles that could be seen as relating more to the modern world and modern children's lives. Often also subtly showing child and parent viewers how they can deal with such struggles themselves. The three main topics of struggle discussed in this chapter are Loss, Prejudice and emotion. Firstly, one of the primary themes in the 2014 animated feature film Big Hero 6, directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams is loss. Hiro Hamada (the protagonist) lives with his older brother aunt aunt, since his parents died and made them both orphans. Himself and his older brother Tadashi both have talents in making robots, whilst the older brother attends university studying it, the younger makes robots to fight illegally. The turning point in the story is when Tadashi dies dramatically in an explosion, leaving Hiro with no immediate family still alive. Hiro spirals into despair and depression, leaving him neglecting his studies, refusing to eat and ignoring his friends ‘’No, don’t push us away Hiro, we’re here for you.’’ One of his friends pleads, in the film. The audience see’s Hiro in his worst emotional state here.

Hiro’s salvation comes in the form of a medical assistant robot Baymax, who was built by his late brother, Tadashi. Baymax tries to treat the boy’s depression by making him acknowledge his friends and giving him comforting hugs. Showing children the level of depression he reaches is important, because it later when he comes to terms with his loss shows the viewer that there is always hope of things becoming better. The robot manages to get Hiro out of his room and his mental state seems to get better. This is when the film displays another stage of loss, anger. This is mostly displayed by the villain of the film Robert Callaghan, a professor at the university Tadashi studied at, when Callaghan’s daughter is supposedly killed in an experiment that goes wrong, the professor seeks revenge against those who were responsible. His anger takes him over and turns him from a nice, good natured man into the vengeful villain of the film. Hiro tries to relate to the man in an attempt to defuse his anger, ‘‘This won’t change anything, trust me. I know.’‘ The boy tries to explain to the man than getting revenge won’t bring his daughter back. This shows the audience that being angry is a stage of grief, but it is a stage that needs to be pushed past in order to accept the loss ‘’Underneath anger is pain’‘. One of the most important lessons from the film is showing children the right and wrong way of dealing with loss. Hiro, although struggling at first manages to deal with his grief healthily, we see him at the end of the film in the cafe with his friends laughing, hugging and talking to his aunt and attending his university. Whereas Professor Callaghan’s obsession with revenge results in him ruining his own life and career.

The 2016 animated film Zootopia, directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore, has a very different topic of struggle for children and adults alike to learn from, Prejudice. Prejudice is a negative attitude about someone held on the basis of cognitive constructs called stereotypes. Zootopia is set in a world of all animal, run by and made for animal. It includes prey and predator animals, with prey animals outnumber predators ten-to-one, just like in the real world. In earlier versions of the film the division between predators and prey was huge, Predators were made to wear collars to prevent their aggression. This was however changed because director Rich Moore though ‘‘it made their world too negative.’‘ So the concept changed to show a more of a subtle underlying bias for most of the film. The story starts with all of the animals living in harmony to ‘‘show how bias and prejudice can so easily divide a culture.’‘

The film shows prejudice through the two main characters of the film. Firstly, through Judy Hopps, a small fluffy bunny rabbit and the heroine of the story. From a young age she wanted to be the first rabbit police woman, but was frequently mocked by other children and her own parents tried to convince her out of it, possibly trying to save her from the hardship and ridicule. Other animals assume that she isn’t suitable for the job and instead should be a carrot farmer, ‘‘You’re from bunny burrow....so how about a carrot farmer?’‘ she is told this when she first arrives in zootopia. Judy struggles a lot trying to prove herself as a police woman too, she is called names like ‘‘fluffy butt’‘ and ‘’dumb bunny.’’ when she fails and even after she proves herself has to insist to her new boss that she is not a ‘‘not just some token bunny.’‘ It is important for the viewer to see her struggle to prove herself when everyone is doubting her, because she persists and eventually proves herself worthy, despite others criticism.

The other character who is seen having to fight against their prejudice, is Judy’s companion Nick Wilde, who everyone assumes is a sly fox. The foxes attitude to other animals changed drastically when as a child he was muzzled by children he thought were his friends because he was a predator ‘‘You thought we could ever trust a fox without a muzzle? You're even dumber than you look!’’. This makes Nick have a bitter attitude to other animals, and leads him to accept that they see him as a sly trickster, so he becomes a con man, to fit their stereotype ‘‘if the world's only going to see a fox as shifty and untrustworthy, there's no point in being anything else.’‘. However Judy and Nick become friends and help each other not just to save zootopia, but to help each other overcome their struggles with prejudice through empathy. This is an important message for the audience, Zootopia shows that underlying prejudice can lead to racism, so it is important to overcome prejudice, one of the last messages in the film expresses this when Judy says ‘‘the more we try to understand one another, the more exceptional each of us will be.’‘

The last film explored in this essay is the 2015 film Inside Out, directed by Pete Docter, which discusses the topic of emotions and asks the question ‘‘is it OK to not be OK all of the time?’‘ The film takes you inside the brain of Riley, a young girl, in her head are her 5 main emotions, Joy, fear, anger, disgust and sadness. In the beginning of the film it shows Joy leading and helping Riley through her life, making the girl as happy as possible. But after a life changing move, Joy starts to struggle to keep the girl constantly happy. Emotion researcher June Gruber found that ‘‘making happiness an explicit goal in life can actually make us miserable.’‘ this idea is explored in the film, showing children and parents that it isn’t healthy to ignore all the other emotions. In one moment of the film, sadness is trying to be more involved with controlling Riley, Joy tries to prevent this by instructing sadness to stay inside a chalk drawn ‘circle of sadness’. Many experts would call this ‘emotional suppression’. Ignoring sadness intervention later causes Riley’s emotional state to get a lot worse, as she cannot feel joy or sadness.

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Introduction 3.0

As my title suggests in this report I will be researching and discussing the struggles of fictional character, throughout time, the many different forms of entertainment and the extent of their struggles. But also whether they are personal or circumstantial struggles, the reasoning behind making characters struggles, what it helps the writer achieve. I will also investigate whether or not more writers should be making modern characters problems more true to life and possibly even darker and less glamorized. In Chapter One I will discuss the ways in which character flaws can lead to the character struggling, and compare them to the ways in which characters often have no control over the circumstantial struggles they face. Following this in chapter Two I will discuss how the ways writers make their protagonists struggle through time and depending on the different age and generation of the audience. Continuing from that Chapter Three will be an investigation into why writers often kill off mothers in stories, create evil stepmothers, and discuss what this effect has on the audience, the story and how this can lead to the father roles playing a bigger part. Similarly to the last in Chapter Four the Orphan trope will be explored, the reasoning behind it, how it can be the turning point in a story and why it is so common across so many forms of media. Lastly in Chapter Five I will try to determine whether or not modern writers should be including much more realistic and true to life struggles for their characters, whether some writers already have been and what this could do to change protagonist and audience relationships. A struggle is defined as ‘‘Striving to achieve or attain something in the face of difficulty or resistance.’‘ The protagonist is often the most important part of any story, they give the audience a viewing point into the story. In the real world I’m sure most of us would find it hard to think of many, if anyone, we know to have never struggled in life, at one point or another. But what of the fictional world, Have you ever read a book or watched a film where the main character had a completely problem and struggle free life? If you were to create a fictional character why would you want them to face hardship and struggle. Is a character living easy and painless life to boring for a viewer to watch, or would the audience possibly prefer this?

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Introduction 2.0

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Chapter Four ~ The Orphan

The loss of a mother can cause more than enough struggle for a character, but just as many famous protagonists are not only motherless, but fatherless too, they are orphans. The orphan trope extends over every form of entertainment; Comic books - Batman, Anime/Manga - Tohru Honda (Fruits Basket), Film - James Bond, Literature - Frodo (Lord of the rings) and Video games - Link (The Legend of Zelda). Even one of the most well know characters in the Bible was an orphan, ''Moses was an orphan.'' Evidence suggests that he is an orphan because he is deprived in every manner of a parents care. But arguably the most famous orphaned hero is Harry Potter, from the fictional Novel which has 450 million books in print world wide, and film franchise with a combined worldwide grosses worth 7.7 billion. It is no accident that Harry Potter was made an orphan by the author of the book, J.K Rowling ‘‘The child wizards adventures are premised on the death of his parents and the responsibilities that he must therefore assume.’‘ After his parents are murdered he is forced upon his relatives who treat him horrible. The start of Harry’s story bares similarity to Cinderella’s, (both the Grimm’s original folk tale1697 and Disney film adaptation 1950) ‘‘Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.’‘ This links to Cinderella being treated badly and sleeping in a fireplace. Yet Cinderella still had her father, whereas Harry had neither parents and they are both treated badly. Harry’s parent’s, Lily and James Potter, can do absolutely nothing to help their son, leaving the audience pitting the whole Potter family, unlike Cinderella’s father, who is hardly mentioned in the Fairy-tale, is alive, but does nothing to aid her daughter.

Differing from the idea of loosing the mother causing emotional struggle and leading to a shift in their family dynamics., losing both parents can mean the protagonist gains a lot of freedom. ‘‘They don’t need an excuse to go on wold adventures or stay away for days on end.’‘ because there's no-one at home to miss them. The lack of parental advisory allows the protagonist to take on their new adventures and responsibilities and become a hero. In the gaming franchise of The legend of Zelda there is never a single mention of where Link, the young protagonists, parent are. However, I don’t have an exact age for the character, he is often referred to as a ‘kid’ and a ‘child’ by the other in game characters. The lack of adult supervision allows Link to Battles monsters, collect treasures and be the hero of the game.

For some protagonists, rather than their parents never being mentioned or seen in a story, leaving a clean and easy means for them to have their adventures and let the story unravel, some writers include the parents but have them dramatically killed off early in the story. Batman is an obvious example of this, the young Bruce Wayne witnesses his parents gruesome murder when he is a child (8 or 10 years old, depending on the writer). But this tragic event is the turning point in his story, which leads him to later become the caped crusader Batman, who through avenges his parents deaths and also fights villainy and evil throughout Gotham City. But evidence suggests some writers don’t just kill of parents to give the child freedom, or a means to avenge, but instead because to the young audience loosing their parents is a terrifying concept and that a absent family structure ’’Plays on the primal fears’’ of having no-one to nurture and protect them. It seems unlikely that writers do this so the audience can relate to the orphaned characters since as of April 2016 the recorded amount of orphaned children in the United States was only 120,000, which is a large number, but not compared to the number of children who are not orphans.

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Chapter Two ~ Struggling through the Years*

In order for a writer to best connect with their audience surely the problems should relate to their audience in some way. But through the years how much have characters problems and they ways in which they struggled changed, and to what extent have many original stories been altered to fit into modern day entertainment. The original Grimm's Folk tale of Cinderella is a very well known story, but the original tale is much different and a lot darker than the 1950 Disney film mostly known by audiences today. The Disney film shows Cinderella being bossed around by her evil step sisters, but apart from bullying and mean comments it’s quite tame compared to what happens to her in the Grimm’s version. They ‘’put an old gray bed-gown on her, and give her wooden shoes.” (p.74 Reference) In the animated film Cinderella’s clothes are rather worn out and undesirable, but she wasn’t shown wearing uncomfortable wooden shoes. The Grimm’s fairy-tale also tells of how the step sisters would throw her food (peas and lentils) into the ash filled fireplace and make her pick them out again in order to eat. She also did not have a bed of any kind and so was forced to sleep by the fireplace too. Cinderella’s emotional state in the animated film is also somewhat sugar coated, she isn’t seen as being anywhere near as depressed and devastated as she is in the original story. In the film, she is shown crying only on a couple of occasions, whereas in the book it states ‘‘Thrice a day Cinderella went and sat beneath it, and wept and prayed.’‘ (p.75, refference) Having the protagonist of a film spend most of their on screen time crying wouldn’t make for much of a uplifting children film, considering the film’s target audience is supposedly 5+, along with Bambi and Pinocchio. (Refernce website?)

Another aspect of the original stories that have been changed or cut out for the more modern versions is pain, gore and gruesome deaths experienced by the characters in the tales. As previously discussed in modern Disney characters do still die and often in very dramatic and sad ways, however it is often less terrifying and disturbing then in many older stories. At the end of the Grimm's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1812), the evil queen has to wear red hot shoes and dance until she drops down dead, for the amusement of the royal court for her crimes against the princess. It goes without saying why we didn’t see this in the 1938 Disney adaptation, a Disney princess giving such a hellish punishment even to such a villain would never be seen in Disney and something as shocking would be unsuitable for a younger audience. The evil step sisters in Cinderella avoided losing their lives as comeuppance for their actions, but had their eyes plucked out by birds. Again, not exactly child friendly. But it’s not only the villains who would suffer such pain in the original versions of these tales. In the 1937 fairy tale of ‘’The Little Mermaid’’ by Danish Author Hans Christian Anderson, the mermaid protagonist doesn’t magically and painlessly get her voice taken away by the sea witch, the sea with cuts her tongue out with a knife. The Disney adaptation also chose not to include once she obtained her human legs from the witch, every step she took on them it felt like knives were stabbing into her legs. As well as how in the end she didn’t marry the prince and live happily ever after, he married someone else and she turned into sea foam. However, most unsurprisingly of all is the fact that Disney's chose to change their versions of the stories to miss out on the originals mention of rape. Some viewers these days are outraged enough by the fact that in the story the Prince of Disney's Sleeping Beauty kisses the slumbering Princess without her consent. However, in the Grimm’s story the prince rapes her in her sleep, leaving her to be awoken by one of her two children (whom she gave birth to while she slept) who sucks the cursed piece of flax from her finger. This obviously would not have been suitable ‘‘Since Disney is a family company, some of these darker and less pleasant stories were given happier vibes and endings as not to scar little children for life.’’ (refference) But why were these stories seen as suitable for children of the past but not suitable for children of today. Was it because children's lives were so much harder in the past, and because of this they were tougher and could handle a much darker bedtime story? So if the struggles and problems of the characters have changed so much through time, has the way they faced and overcome the struggles changed so much too? Staying with the theme of female protagonists and their struggles, in both the original and Disney versions of Cinderella she doesn’t really do a lot to save herself. In the original tale she wishes to the birds for help which they respond to, until the Prince takes her away and saves her. Similarly to how in the Disney adaptation the fairy god mother grants her wishes until again, the prince comes and saves her. This being rescued by the prince and living happily ever after is how Sleeping Beauty and Snow White also have their struggles ended. These films were all made before the year 2000, however many Disney films made after the turn of the millennium see the female protagonists overcoming their problems themselves. The 2009 Disney animated film The Princess and the Frog shows the main character Tiana not only save herself, but the Prince from being killed by the villain Dr. Facilier. Similarly in the 2012 film Brave, Merida the young princess, not only refuses to pick a husband but later goes on to save her mother’s life when she is turned into a bear. The animation Company Studio Ghibli however has been showing young female protagonists triumphing against their problems since 1988. For example in their animated film My neighbour Totoro (1998), the protagonist a young girl called Satsuki finds and rescues her little sister after she becomes lost following an argument they had. In Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), we see a young witch struggle to live on her own in a new town, but through the story she never gives up and she keeps trying until she gets a good job, makes friends and also saves a young boys life after a blimp crashes in her town. My last example is from Spirited Away (2001), where after Chihiro’s parents are turned into pigs and she is forced to work for an evil witch. As the story progresses she gathers the courage to face the witch and get her parents turned back into humans. “Many of my movies have strong female leads- brave, self-sufficient girls that don't think twice about fighting for what they believe with all their heart. They'll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a savior. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.” Hayao Miyazaki (refference). Studio Ghibli is often referred to as the ‘Japanese Disney’ so why when so many of Disney's leading ladies are getting rescued by princes, are Miyasaki’s often much younger characters overcoming their problems themselves and often helping others along the way? Does Miyazaki want to show young girls how capable they can be? and what does this say about Disney's message to young girls?

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Chapter Three ~ Disposable Mums*

The loss of a character’s mother creates a dramatic need for the protagonist. This quite simple idea is backed up by Caroly Dever, a professor of English who suggests ‘‘The unfolding of plot and personality depends on the dead-mother.’(In Death and the mother from Dickens to Freud: Victorian Fiction and the Anxiety of origins, 1998,) So are writers using this trope to make a huge change in the characters life to start their adventure? For example, after Todd from Disney’s 1981 Fox and the Hound loses his mother when she gets killed, he is taken in by the kind middle aged lady farmer Widow Tweed and his life being raised by her and being friends with Copper the Hound dog begins. If his mother had stayed alive and with him they both would have lived out their lives in the forest like normal foxes. This also seems to be the case in the 2004 anime Bleach, directed by Noriyuki Abe, in which the protagonist Ichigo Kurasaki witnesses his mothers death at the hands of a Hollow (Demon). This tragedy is the turning point in his life and inevitably leads him to be the hero of the story. If his mother had stayed with him, he wouldn’t have grown so protective of his sisters, received his powers and saved the day. He would have just stayed a normal boy and not become the hero of the story, since the dramatic purpose of the hero is such an important one, it gives a viewing point into the tale, that invited everyone viewing to be apart of it and see it through their eyes.

This trend of killing mothers began a long time ago, since the invention of stories, because the risk of dying from childbirth was so much higher back then. ‘‘Women died frequently from childbirth. Therefore, there were many single parents, although men tended to marry quickly after their wives died as in Snow White and Cinderella.’‘ (refference) Extracts from the Grimm’s versions of Snow White and Cinderella seem to prove this statement. From Snow White (p.340) ‘‘After a year had passed the king took to himself another wife.’‘ and from Cinderella (p.74) ‘‘When winter came the snow spread a white sheet over the grave, and when the spring sun had drawn it off again, the man had taken another wife.’‘ This taking of new wives is what lead to Snow White and Cinderella strife, having their loving mothers taken away and then replaced by evil stepmothers.

The replacing of a mother was a very common plot twist in fairy tales, and so often the replacing women were horrible villains. This caused the turning point in most fairy tale stories, but is that the only reason writers use this trope? In ‘In the use of Enchantment’ (1976), Bruno Bettelheim explains this writers tool by saying ‘‘The typical fairy-tale splitting of the mother into a good (usually dead) mother and an evil stepmother...is not only a means of preserving an internal all-good mother when the real mother is not all-good, but it also permits anger at this bad ‘step mother’ without endangering the goodwill of the true mother.’‘ An interpretation of this quote could be the mother is eternally good, the guardian angel watching over their child yet is unable to help. While the stepmother is someone the audience can love to hate. However, through the years the evil stepmother trope seems to be dying out. This could be because of a combination of the decrease in mother mortality rates during childbirth, the rise in divorce rates and remarriage in modern society meaning more and more modern day children have stepparents. So to reflect this change, in modern stories and animations representing everyday step mothers being evil has grown less popular.

So what are writers doing instead? It has been suggested that they are being replaced by father figures. ‘’The old fairy-tale, family-romance movies that pitted poor motherless children against horrible vengeful stepmothers are a thing of the past. Now plucky children and their plucky fathers join forces to make their way in a motherless world.’‘ Research indicates this statement is true for many of the newer animated feature films, such as the 2002 20th Century Fox film, Ice Age. Where Manny the mammoth becomes a protective father figure to a human baby, after it’s mother dies. At first he is reluctant, but their bond grows and by the end of the film Manny is very sad to have to give his adopted child to a family of humans. Another example of a reluctant father figure and children coming together is seen in the 2010 Illumination Entertainment film, Despicable Me. In the film, super villain Gru adopts three orphaned girls in order to pull off an evil plan, but in the end they end up helping each other and became very close and happy together. The loss of the mothers seems to be making it possible for the children to build bonds with father figures. But why are writers matching kids and dad’s together? Is it because men come across as more fun, or quirkier, or could it be because it’s abit less conventional? A recent U.S Household survey showed that only 8% of homes with kids are headed by fathers, whilst 25% are headed by mothers leaving the majority of 67% being headed by married couples.

But what if the killing off of mothers isn’t about forcing the protagonist grow up? What if it has a more personal connection to the writer? Most of the examples of films analyzed in this essay so far where the mothers are scarce have been Disney films. Since 1937, 56 out of 104 Disney animated feature length films have primary characters with dead or missing parents or raised by a single parent. A possible reason for why so many mothers are killed off in Disney films could be connected to Walt Disney himself, as one article explains ‘‘In 1938 and riding high with the proceeds from his first big screen movie Sleeping Beauty, Walt bought his mother, Flora, and his father, Elias, a house in LA as a golden wedding anniversary present.’‘ the article goes on to say ‘‘Days later, Flora died from asphyxiation caused by the new, poorly installed boiler.’‘ This extremely sad accident is why some people think so many Disney protagonists are motherless. In a 2014 interview with The Lion King producer Don Hahn said ‘‘Disney deliberately wrote off, killed off, or replaced maternal figures as a consequence of the guilt he carried about his own mothers death.’‘

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Chapter One ~ Building Character*

Characters having flaws is one way writers can make them struggle, A character flaw is defined as a ‘limitation, imperfection, problem, phobia or deficiency present in a character.’’ Writers do this ‘‘to make a character realistic and relatable they are given flaws, because if there is anything a writer can be sure of it is that no-one in their audience will be perfect.’’ To make a good solid character the audience needs to engage with them in some way, or even emotionally care for the fictional being. Another very important aspect of creating a character is to make them feel as ‘real’ as possible, ‘‘we all have flaws, because, well, were human. Our flaws are part of what makes us real.’‘

However, most of the flaws in our favorite characters lives aren’t their own personal flaw or fault, but flaws in their lives that are often out of their control. Wreck-it-Ralph for example, from the 2012 film with the same name, to those who know his story he is the villain of a arcade game, he is disliked by all of the other characters. Through the story however it becomes clear that he is in fact a nice character who never chose to be the villain, it was just who he had to be in order for the game to function. ‘‘My names Ralph, and I’m a bad guy’’ Ralph goes on to say ‘’It becomes kinda hard to love your job...when no-one else seems to like you for doing it.’‘ It is clear that he doesn’t like having to be the bad guy and others treat him badly, this becomes clear after he is stopped for a apparently random security search ‘‘Random, my behind, you always stop me.’‘ Why do writers often start their protagonists lives in terrible situations? An online article claimed it was because ‘‘In fact, in every story we’ve ever experienced, we are the protagonist.’‘ This is suggesting that seeing the protagonist succeed through hardship shows the audience that they can do the same.

Another reason writers give their characters fundamental flaws and often terrible lives is because that awful situation or event is what powers the story. Henry James once said ‘‘What is character but the determination of incident? And what is incident but the illumination of character.’‘ SYD Field, a famous American screenwriting guru, perfectly explained this quote by saying ‘‘the elements within the character really determines the incident; how the character reacts to that incident is what illuminates and truly defines his/her character.’‘ Imagine watching a film or reading a book where the main character starts the story being perfect and living a flawless life, remaining that way throughout and ending with things being the same way. There wouldn’t be any rising action, climax or resolution, there would be no story.

For example, in the 2014 animated feature length film Big Hero Six, if the protagonist (Hiro’s) older brother (Tadashi) had not died in the beginning of the story there would have been no adventure. Hiro would not have become emotionally unstable, he would not have tried to seek revenge and he would not have in the end come to terms with his loss and moved on. GIVE DIFFERENT EXAMPLE Many call this kind of life flaw the ‘dramatic need’ such as Waldo Salt, who was a famous American screenwriter. ‘‘The first thing he (Waldo Salt) did was choose a simple dramatic need; then he would add to it.’‘ He also stated that, ‘‘The ‘dramatic need’ is the engine that powers the character through the story line.’‘ So essentially if the character has no flaw, say sadness, being an orphan, being lost etc, they won’t want anything, like happiness, a family, to be found. If the character wants for nothing there is no dramatic need and nothing will change, and often this change in a story is the most important part.

Another interesting idea explored in this essay is the idea of our relationships with a character being based off of the choices they make and the actions they take when facing a problem. Robert McKee stated ‘‘the essence of character is action - what a person does is who he is.’‘ Writers must keep this in mind when creating characters, he follows with ‘‘True character can only be expressed through choice in dilemma. How the person chooses to act under pressure is who he is - the greater the pressure, the truer and deeper the choice to character.’‘ So is this why writers make their characters and their fictional characters lives so flawed, so they can show the protagonists true character through their choices? If so, does this then make the audience relate more to the character. SYD Field says ‘‘sometimes incidents and events in our lives bring out the best in us, or the worst, sometimes we recover from these events and sometimes we don’t - But they always impact us.’‘ Are writers trying to make their characters suffer and struggle but ultimately succeed to show the audience that when they have a problem in their lives they can too?

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Introduction*

As my title suggests in this report I will be researching and discussing the idea of flawed characters in the many different forms of entertainment. The extent of their flaws, whether they are personal or circumstantial, the reasoning behind it and whether or not trauma is being somehow glamorized or not taken as seriously as it is in fiction than real life. A struggle is defined as ‘‘Striving to achieve or attain something in the face of difficulty or resistance.’‘ In the real world I’m sure most of us would find it hard to think of many, if anyone, we know to have never struggled in life, at one point or another. But what of the fictional world? If you were to create a fictional character why would you want them to face hardship and struggle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_flaw

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Notes + Quotes for Chapter Five ~ Sugar Coated...

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/miid.html

‘‘Researchers Ms Andrea Lawson and Dr Gregory Fouts (Department of Psychology University of Calgary, Canada) counted the number of verbal references to mental illness in 34 animated feature length Disney films. Words and Phrases such as ‘crazy’, ‘lunatic’, ‘nuts’, ‘loony’, and ‘out of ones mind’.’‘

‘‘References to characters with mental illness were made in 29 of the 34 (84%) films.’‘

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Bruno Bettelheim, the uses of Enchantment (1989)

p.7 ~ ‘’Many parents believe that only conscious reality or pleasant and wish-fulfilling images should be presented to the child - that he should be exposed only to the sunny side of things. But such one-sided far nourished the mind only in a one-sided way, and real life is not all sunny.’‘

p.8 ~ This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form : that a struggle against severe difficulties in life in unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence - but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.’‘

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Notes + Quotes for Chapter Four ~ The Orphan...

The Orphan trope in Cinema / Story

Why do writers do it?

Compare to actual Numbers?

Dickens to modern day, why?

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvenientlyAnOrphan

‘‘They don’t need an excuse to go on wild adventures or stay away for days on end, they don’t have anyone waiting around for them to come home. This lack of older responsibilities is also exactly what allows the heroes to take on the new responsibilities that come from being a hero.’‘

Examples of Orphaned hero’s in different Media’s :

Comic Book ~ Batman

Anime/Manga ~ Tohru Honda (Fruits Basket)

Animated Film ~ Elsa + Anna (Frozen)

Film ~ James Bond

Literature ~ Frodo (LOTR)

Video Games ~ Link (Legend of Zelda)

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http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/orphans-in-fiction

‘‘It is no accident that the most famous characters in recent fiction - Harry Potter - is an orphan. The child wizards adventures are premised on the death of his parents and the responsibilities that he must therefore assume.’‘

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https://goodmenproject.com/arts/why-disney-characters-and-superheroes-are-usually-orphans/

‘‘In fact, of Disney’s 40 full length animated features from 1937 until 2000 I know of only 1 where the protagonists parents remain alive for the entire film.’‘

‘‘In fact, in every story we’ve ever experienced, we are the protagonists. So in seeing how they successfully triumph over their challenges, we get a message about how we can do the same.’‘

‘‘One of the earliest examples of a Orphan Protagonist : Bible - Moses.’‘

‘‘One of the greatest heroes in the Hebrew bible is Moses. Moses had the power to talk to god, act as his messenger and split the Red Sea, and of course, he was an Orphan.’‘

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Bruno Bettelheim, the uses of Enchantment (1989)

p.8 ‘‘Many fairy stories begin with the death of a mother or father, in these tales the death of the parent creates the most agonizing problems, as it (or fear of it) does in real life.’‘

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http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/culture/film/216573-disney-single-parents-dead-mothers

‘‘In shorthand, it’s much quicker to have characters grow up when you bump off their parents. Bambi’s mother gets killed, so he has to grow up. Belle only has a father, but he gets lost, so she has to step into that position. It’s a shorthand.’‘

‘’Because Losing a parent is inherently dramatic and terrifying, an absent parent structure ‘Plays on the primal fears that children have about their primal relationships.’ ‘‘

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krresearchreport-blog · 9 years ago

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Notes + Quotes for Chapter Three ~ Disposable Mums...

Why do they kill off Mums?

Evil step mums changing to Plucky dads?

Why are writers doing this?

What it does to audience/character relations?

Compare to actual figures

Walt Disney guilt for his own mother?

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http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/07/why-are-all-the-cartoon-mothers-dead/372270/

‘‘Bambi’s mother, shot. Nemo’s mother, eaten by a barracuda. Lilo’s mother, killed in a car crash. Koda’s mother in brother bear, speared. Po’s mother in Kung Fu Panda 2, done in by a power crazed peacock. Ariel’s mother in the 3rd little Mermaid, Crushed by a Pirate ship. Human Baby’s mother in Ice Age, chased by a saber-toothed tiger over a waterfall.’‘

‘‘All the movies on board seemed somehow to feature children lost or adrift, kids who had metaphorically fallen out of their prams.’‘

‘‘The mothers in the movies were either gone or useless. and the father figures? To die for!’‘

‘‘Either the mothers died onscreen, or they were mysteriously disposed of before the movie began: chicken little, Aladdin, The Fox and the Hound, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, The Emperor’s New Groove, The Great Mouse Detective, Ratatouille, Barnyard, Despicable Me, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and this year, Mr Peabody and Sherman. So many Animated Movies. Not a mother in Sight.’‘

‘‘The dead-mother plot has a long and storied history, going past Bambi and Snow White past the mystical motherless world of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, past Dickens Orphans, past Hans Christian Anderson’s little Mermaid, past Grimm’s stepmothers, and past Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.’‘

‘‘In Death and the mother from Dickens to Freud: Victorian Fiction and the Anxiety of origins (1998), Carolyn Dever, a professor of English, noted that character development begins ‘in the space of the missing mother.’ The unfolding of plot and personality, she suggests, depends on the dead mother.’‘

‘‘In the use of enchantment (1976), Bruno Bettelheim, the child psychologist, saw the dead mother as a psychological boon for kids: ‘the typical fairy-tale splitting of the mother into a good (usually dead) mother and an evil stepmother...is not only a means of preserving an internal all-good mother when the real mother is not all-good, but it also permits anger at this bad ‘stepmother’ without endangering the goodwill of the true mother.’’‘

~ Do they kill the mother so the father can take over?

‘’The dead mother is replaced not by an evil stepmother but by a good father. He may start out hypercritical (Chicken Little) or reluctant (Ice Age). He may be a tyrant (The little Mermaid) or a ne’er-do-well (Despicable Me). He may be of the wrong species (Kung Fu Panda). He may even be the killer of the child’s mother (Brother Bear). No matter how bad he starts out, though, he always ends up good.’‘

~ Used to be child vs Stepmother - now it’s Child and Father vs World?

‘’The old Fairy-tale, family-romance movies that pitted poor motherless children against horrible vengeful stepmothers are a thing of the past. Now plucky children and their plucky fathers join forces to make their way in a motherless world.’‘

‘‘67% of U.S households with Kids are headed by married couples, 25% by single mothers and only 8% by single fathers.’‘

~ Why then? To make dad’s more involved? Suggested men would be better? Looks like more fun?

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1308584/Why-does-Disney-hate-parents-Ever-noticed-favourite-films-kill-Mum-Dad-.html

‘‘In 1938 and riding high with the proceeds from his first big screen movie Sleeping beauty. Walt bought his mother, Flora, and his father, Elias, a house in LA as a Golden Wedding Anniversary Present. Within days of moving in, Flora complained about the stultifying temperatures coming from the central heating boiler and her doting son arranged for a swift replacement. Days later, Flora died from asphyxiation caused by the new, poorly installed boiler.’’

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http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/culture/film/216573-disney-single-parents-dead-mothers

‘’How many Disney films have a primary character with a dead, missing or single parent?

56/104 ~ Total animated feature films distributed by Disney since 1937

of those :

35/54 ~ Produced by Walt Disney

5/15 ~ Produced by Pixar

0/6 ~ Produced by Studio Ghibli

Absent Parents :

Pinocchio

Peter Pan and the Lost boys

Arthur (King Arthur)

Penny (Rescuers)

Belle

Emperor Kuzco

Lilo

Vanellope Von Schweetz

Lewis (Meet the Robinsons)

Mothers killed and/or Captured in Films :

Dumbo

Bambi

Todd

Ariel

Quasimodo

Tarzan

Princess Kida

Nemo

Koda

Elsa and Anna

Adoptive mothers and Evil stepmothers :

Perdita (101 Dalmatians)

Kala (Tarzan)

Messua (Jungle Book)

Mena (Bambi 2)

Gothel (Tangled)

Queen Grimhilde (Snow White)

Lady Tremaine (Cinderella)

Queen Narissa (Enchanted)

Single mothers and fathers :

Cody’s mum (Rescuers down under)

Mrs Jumbo (Dumbo)

Sarabi (Lion King)

Zira (Lion King 2)

Mrs Potts (Beauty and the Beast)

Eudora (Princess and the Frog)

Andy’s mum (Toy Story)

Sarah Hawkins (Treasure Planet)

Django (Ratatouille)

Princess Jasmine (Aladdin)

Maurice (Beauty and the Beast)

Chief Powhatan (Pocahontas)

‘‘Disney’s ‘motherless’ plot line - recurrently used over the past 80 years - has been refuted by many experts as coincidental. But in a 2014 interview, even Lion King producer Don Hahn attributed it’s use to Walt Disney’s own childhood trauma. According to Hahn, Disney deliberately wrote off, killed off, or replaced maternal figures as a consequence of the guilt he carried about his own mothers death.’‘

~Old explanation for there being no mothers...

‘‘Women died frequently from childbirth. Therefore, there were many single parents, although men tended to marry quickly after their wives died as in Snow White and Cinderella.’‘

‘’In the uses of Enchantment: The meaning and Importance of Fairy tales, Bettelheim asserts that the (deceased) mother and the (wicked) stepmother act as two halves of the same figure in our emotionally divided and complicated human relationships representative of the opposite feelings of love and rejection.’’

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http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/106-children-in-single-parent-families#detailed/1/any/false/573,869,36,868,867/any/429,430

2015 : Children in single-parent Families = 35%

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parent

‘‘In the United States, 80.6% of single parents are Mothers.’‘

This leaves 19.4% being single fathers.

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