Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedDecember 16, 2015 - 2:13pm
Maybe we are over thinking Spy vs. Spy?
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeDecember 16, 2015 - 3:33pm
No way, man! Welcome to the Age of Poptimism! Everything which was ever famous to any degree deserves any and all attention it receives!
Sarcasm aside, very simple works are suitable for exploring questions such as What Is a Story / Is This a Story? or What Is a Protagonist / Is This a Protagonist? The fundamentals are more readily visible than they might be in highly complex, obscure or dense works. Complex works might also be good to explore so that one can see how/if those fundamentals remain despite the addition of deep/opaque context.
Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedDecember 16, 2015 - 5:00pm
Yeah, but basics are only for basics.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeDecember 16, 2015 - 6:19pm
Basics form the base upon which one may base that which is not basic.
I don't think "Is this a story?" is a very interesting or vital question, because I'm okay with reading fictional texts which are not (or may not be) stories. But it's a persistent question, and, given the exalted place "story" holds in some people's schemes, it's not a generally irrelevant question. I'm not set on getting you to care about Spy Vs. Spy, though.
[Honestly, I don't know what you meant by your comment, so I just wrote all that stuff anyway.]
Thuggish
from Vegas is reading Day of the JackalDecember 16, 2015 - 6:52pm
It's funny, I was watching the Sopranos as I made most of these posts. BUT! Tony is clearly the protagonist, bad a guy as he may be, so I'd say no, the Sopranos is not like that.
Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedDecember 17, 2015 - 3:08am
Sigh.
bookperson123 i...
January 11, 2018 - 6:45pm
Chances are really good that I'm nowhere near as educated as you guys, so bear with me. I have a question regarding pro/antagonists. If the main character(s) in a book is neither a protagonist nor an antagonist and the main conflict of the said book is this person vs another person exactly like that and neither one of them could be considered the bad guy... is there a word for that? not Pro but not An like neutagonist or something like that? My computer is telling me that's not a word, but is there a word for it?
bookperson123 i...
January 11, 2018 - 6:48pm
And a good example of a book like this you have probably already read is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
Community Manager
helpfulsnowman
from Colorado is reading But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck KlostermanJanuary 12, 2018 - 3:23pm
A protagonist is not necessarily a good person or a bad person. Protagonist is the person in the story that the action centers around. Antagonist is the person acting against that person. But as far as who's right and wrong, that's neutral.
These things get mixed up with each other because it's pretty rare to have a bad/unsympathetic person as the main character in a story and have the antagonist be the "good" person, or for those forces to be more neutral. If you've seen the movie Downfall, it's about Hitler's final days. It doesn't necessarily make Hitler out to be a good dude, and I don't think you feel all that bad for him. But he's still the protagonist in that movie because the action revolves around him.
To get really fancy about it, pro, used in this way, is defined as:
a prefix of priority in space or time...
So the "pro" in "protagonist" is not about pro/con, it's about priority in the space and time of your story.
In Frankenstein, I would say that Frankenstein is the protagonist because the action is centered around him, and he takes the priority in the story most of the time. The creature is the antagonist because he's working against the doctor. And I say that even though I'm a lot more sympathetic to the creature and don't find the creature to be "evil."
If your book is balanced so that the story is told from both (or neutral) perspectives, then I would say you have a dual protagonist situation, or that the characters fulfill both roles for each other.
jyh
from VA is reading whatever he feels likeJanuary 18, 2018 - 11:53am
Good times. Classic Dwayne.
Dwayne
from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updatedJanuary 22, 2018 - 5:04am
I didn't realize that this would still be going. I forgot about this idea!
Maybe we are over thinking Spy vs. Spy?
No way, man! Welcome to the Age of Poptimism! Everything which was ever famous to any degree deserves any and all attention it receives!
Sarcasm aside, very simple works are suitable for exploring questions such as What Is a Story / Is This a Story? or What Is a Protagonist / Is This a Protagonist? The fundamentals are more readily visible than they might be in highly complex, obscure or dense works. Complex works might also be good to explore so that one can see how/if those fundamentals remain despite the addition of deep/opaque context.
Yeah, but basics are only for basics.
Basics form the base upon which one may base that which is not basic.
I don't think "Is this a story?" is a very interesting or vital question, because I'm okay with reading fictional texts which are not (or may not be) stories. But it's a persistent question, and, given the exalted place "story" holds in some people's schemes, it's not a generally irrelevant question. I'm not set on getting you to care about Spy Vs. Spy, though.
[Honestly, I don't know what you meant by your comment, so I just wrote all that stuff anyway.]
It's funny, I was watching the Sopranos as I made most of these posts. BUT! Tony is clearly the protagonist, bad a guy as he may be, so I'd say no, the Sopranos is not like that.
Sigh.
Chances are really good that I'm nowhere near as educated as you guys, so bear with me. I have a question regarding pro/antagonists. If the main character(s) in a book is neither a protagonist nor an antagonist and the main conflict of the said book is this person vs another person exactly like that and neither one of them could be considered the bad guy... is there a word for that? not Pro but not An like neutagonist or something like that? My computer is telling me that's not a word, but is there a word for it?
And a good example of a book like this you have probably already read is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
A protagonist is not necessarily a good person or a bad person. Protagonist is the person in the story that the action centers around. Antagonist is the person acting against that person. But as far as who's right and wrong, that's neutral.
These things get mixed up with each other because it's pretty rare to have a bad/unsympathetic person as the main character in a story and have the antagonist be the "good" person, or for those forces to be more neutral. If you've seen the movie Downfall, it's about Hitler's final days. It doesn't necessarily make Hitler out to be a good dude, and I don't think you feel all that bad for him. But he's still the protagonist in that movie because the action revolves around him.
To get really fancy about it, pro, used in this way, is defined as:
So the "pro" in "protagonist" is not about pro/con, it's about priority in the space and time of your story.
In Frankenstein, I would say that Frankenstein is the protagonist because the action is centered around him, and he takes the priority in the story most of the time. The creature is the antagonist because he's working against the doctor. And I say that even though I'm a lot more sympathetic to the creature and don't find the creature to be "evil."
If your book is balanced so that the story is told from both (or neutral) perspectives, then I would say you have a dual protagonist situation, or that the characters fulfill both roles for each other.
Good times. Classic Dwayne.
I didn't realize that this would still be going. I forgot about this idea!