Protagonist development: Transformation or revelation?

[RX-79G]

As your protagonist makes their journey, they turn into the person they need to be. How do you view that process?

Transformation is the "coming of age" or "hero's journey" model, where the character takes on characteristics they didn't believe they had before and becomes a different person than they started. Bester's Gully Foyle, for instance, or most YA SFF.

Revelation is where the character "lives up to their potential" or "gets serious" and reveals themselves to be the person they always knew they are but tried to hide from. Think Arragorn, who sees the necessity of taking on the mantle of king, or Paul Atredies, who transforms himself in accordance with his certainty about the role he must play.


Transformation characters do not understand and are scared of what is happening. Revelatory characters fight to keep something they know what how they should act, but might be avoiding it as it goes against their habit or they fear what their actions will bring.

 

[goldhawk]

IDK. Whenever someone starts talking about transformation of the protag, I think of Toy Story. Woodie was a great guy, until Buzz showed up. Then he became jealous. The story is him overcoming his jealousy. He didn't transform into someone new; he didn't reveal his hidden character. He just overcame a problem. He return to the great guy he was in the first place. I think that limiting oneself to thinking that the protag must be different in the end, will limit the types of stories you can create.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I think this might be a genre-specific model. My tales are moralistic or fablist (as horror is often) so neither and both for me.

pH

 

[RX-79G]

IDK. Whenever someone starts talking about transformation of the protag, I think of Toy Story. Woodie was a great guy, until Buzz showed up. Then he became jealous. The story is him overcoming his jealousy. He didn't transform into someone new; he didn't reveal his hidden character. He just overcame a problem. He return to the great guy he was in the first place. I think that limiting oneself to thinking that the protag must be different in the end, will limit the types of stories you can create.

I think what you describe in Woodie would be Revelation - he doesn't become something new, but is revealed to be the good person he always was under the jealousy.

But I agree with Phyrebrat that every story doesn't have to have character development and change.

 

[ErikB]

I don't think transformation characters are scared or confused. Rather I believe they are growing. Becoming or enhancing.

Its a thin line I suppose if you consider a character that is waking up to their full potential as the other side of the protagonist coin.

 

[The Big Peat]

I think this might be a genre-specific model. My tales are moralistic or fablist (as horror is often) so neither and both for me.

pH

Is there a case for saying some horror stories work by changing the reader's perception of the main character by revealing the moral choices they have taken?

Or am I talking out of my behind?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Bit of both. Mine becomes what he is capable of but what he didn't want to be. That tends to be a running theme with my protagonists. They become what they are fighting. Except one who doesn't really change except he has to accept fairies exist.

 

[Null_Zone]

The hero has always been capable, beyond actually needing a skill/knowledge, they simply need the motivation to act.

Why die to defend the Hamsters of cuteness when all harmsters are always gits, until the Chinchilla you love suffers eternal damnation on behalf of a hamster convict. Do you stand up for the cause your chinchilla believed in even if you don't?

 

[Phyrebrat]

Is there a case for saying some horror stories work by changing the reader's perception of the main character by revealing the moral choices they have taken?

Or am I talking out of my behind?

I'm not much of an authority but I suspect those fall under the category of tragedy. And I think that's sort of my point. It's a creolisation of archetypes and genres.

My go-to example for horror tropes is Macbeth *ignores the chorus of yawning as pH once again references Macbeth* which has comedy (gatekeeper), horror (witches,golden dagger, Birnam Wood) and of course tragedy.

I'm really not sure. I could say your idea is certainly true for Louis Creed in Stephen King's Pet Sematary, but I'd argue that's a tragedy as well.

pH

 

[RX-79G]

So, maybe many types of horror don't actually have "protagonists" in the usual sense, let alone heroes?

 

[The Big Peat]

I'm not much of an authority but I suspect those fall under the category of tragedy. And I think that's sort of my point. It's a creolisation of archetypes and genres.

My go-to example for horror tropes is Macbeth *ignores the chorus of yawning as pH once again references Macbeth* which has comedy (gatekeeper), horror (witches,golden dagger, Birnam Wood) and of course tragedy.

I'm really not sure. I could say your idea is certainly true for Louis Creed in Stephen King's Pet Sematary, but I'd argue that's a tragedy as well.

pH

Well you're more of an authority than me! Fairy nuff.

 

[goldhawk]

So, maybe many types of horror don't actually have "protagonists" in the usual sense, let alone heroes?

I don't write horror but it seems to me that a sense of helplessness is a must.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Okay, I've found one.

India, a child character in Michael McDowell's wonderful 80s pulp horror, The Elementals, is a precocious city girl with a liberal father, Luker, who is taken to an extended summer holiday in the family's well-appointed house on a spit in Dauphin island. She has to juggle her elite liberalness and earthbound view on life with the realisation that the black housekeeper, Odessa, is proud of her position as personal retainer; of Southern Values; and of the very real existence of the supernatural. She doesn't stop or kill the spirits, but she does go through a process of enlightenment.

Maybe @ratsy can weigh in on this, too, as he's read The Elementals, but I was also going to reference a book he recently gave me; The Fisherman (which draws with The Elementals and House of Leaves as my favourite 'horrors') has a bit of a hero in it,and I would not say is a tragedy, but starts out with tragic inciting incidents.

I would say horror is more concerned with existentialism than characters, but that seems like a contradiction, doesn't it.

It's an interesting thread, this, because I've never really thought much deeper than 'I love a good horror' [but I do hate the term 'horror' because horror is an emotion that is evoked rather than a genre as far as I'm concerned].

I also wonder, now I'm on a roll, if Stephen King's It, has something of a Hero's Journey element - there are seven 'heroes' in The Losers Club, they come of age, and bring differing skillsets to the elimination of the antagonist, some of them fail and fall by the wayside, and one - Bill - seems to be the hero-est of them.

Re @goldhawk 's suggestion of helplessness: Definitely in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. That Protag is a very weak and ineffectual human that ends up dead because of the ease with which she can be manipulated [by the spirit].

pH

 

[RX-79G]

Alien's Ripley is a survivor and vanquisher of the revealed type, but definitely in a horror film.

 

[The Big Peat]

To answer the question in the OP though - both, and I think elements of both can be seen in most characters.

Take Rand Al'Thor. He develops in that he learns swordcraft, politics, strategy, diplomacy, channeling - yet him being able to channel at is definitely a revelation. So is his status as a messiah that gives him the tools with which to practice politics etc.etc. And then there is his mental journey. His sense of conscience and honour are, I think, always there and revelations. But the hardness - the hardness he develops. Indeed, in a lot of ways The Wheel of Time is the story of What Rand Is vs What Rand Must Become.

I suppose you could argue for it as being like an axis chart, like so

------Change
Development-Revelation
------Stasis

A traditional horror character might fall high on the stasis and straight in the middle. A traditional bildungsroman character would be high on change and decidedly more in development than revelation. George Smiley is decidedly static, although a lot lower than the possible horror character, but with a decided tilt to revelation. And so on.