HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 103: ONCE AGAIN, IT'S ALL ABOUT BEING BOLD

 

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON had its third episode on Sunday. And it's an interesting study in contrasts. King Viserys spends the episode...well, drinking, mostly, and arguing with/worrying about his daughter.

Meanwhile Prince Daemon, who has been mostly offscreen for the last two years losing his war against the Crabfeeder and his Triarchy, gets word that his brother is finally going to send ships and save the day--and kinda seems to lose his whole honking mind, first beating the king's messenger and then taking on the Crabfeeder's forces literally on his own. 

It's a trap, of course, but it is dangerous in the extreme, and he gets shot twice in the chest in the process.  But his risk succeeds in drawing out the Crabfeeder's troops, which allows the Sea Snake's forces to finally once and for all destroy the Triarchy. And Daemon, who let's be honest has had a pretty checkered record so far when it comes to being the badass that he says he is, emerges from the moment seeming just the cat's meow of cool, even though the whole move is really predicated on him not wanting his brother to show him up. 

Meanwhile Viserys, who was finally doing the right thing by sending men, looks that much lamer. Seriously, V., save your "troops" and your "boats." We're rock and roll down here, we just need a guy with some guts. 

[And for me a big key to the scene is the archers. They get off SO MANY rounds while he's running for the Crabfeeder. They're the threat that you know is eventually going to take him down, because there are just too many of them, he has no defense against them and too far to go. And yet he keeps running. They embody the level of risk he is taking.]

How do you get people to root for a character? Have them be !%!%ing bold. They don't have to succeed. In some cases they don't even have to be talented. They just need to be willing to put it all on the line to attain their goal. 

And how do you get people to turn on a character, even a good one? Do the opposite. Have them be wishy-washy, whiny, indecisive, helpless, inert. Viserys really is in a shitty position. He's the king, he rides a freaking dragon, for gods' sake, and yet all anyone wants to talk about is his heir. Oh, and also, he really is still backing his daughter, despite all the pressure against him to do otherwise. We should be on his side. But because all we get from him is words and foot stomping, he's very hard to root for.

STRANGER THINGS KNOWS HOW TO DO (AND OVERDO) BIG CHOICES

One of the things I write about a lot is the importance of having your character make big, bold choices. Those choices teach us who they are and give us a reason to root for them. I think it may be the most important thing in a pilot; you'd think it would be have a great character, and that's clearly important, too. But if they don't make any big choices, I'm not sure it matters. 

At the end of STRANGER THINGS 406, we see two versions of that principle at work. One is really effective, and the other sort of challenges my whole concept. 

Let's start with that. The older kids go out in the boat to investigate a rupture between the universes. And when they get to the spot where it seems to be coming from, Steve agrees to swim down and check it out. It's definitely a bold move. But he does so without any reflection on the danger involved. And what's more when he seems to wake something up on the other side, he seems genuinely surprised--and then is surprised again when that thing drags him down. 

None of that makes any sense. No one in that situation reacts that way. And so in that moment, rather than us feeling more connected to Steve, we feel removed from him. His bold choice is presented in a way that actually undermines his credibility; it's very much what the writers needed to happen.

But then on the other side of things, once Steve is dragged down, the other characters all jump in after him. Which is equally foolhardy, obviously, but now it's done with the acknowledgement of them knowing that. This isn't about being clueless, it's about saving their friend. It's the very definition of a great, character-defining choice.

OZARK KNOWS HOW TO DO BOLD CHOICES

Last week I finished the first part of the final season of OZARK. And I was immediately struck by one of the show's greatest innovations--it gives Jonah a real story. 

Jonah and Charlotte both have always been sitting there in the background waiting for their moment. Between his relationship with Buddy (and everything that brought) and his tech prowess, Jonah has gotten a lot more time than Charlotte, and I hope the final 7 episodes do for her what these 7 have done for him, because at this point I think of her as almost the show's secret weapon. NO ONE would see her coming. 

But I'm not sure anything has really prepared us for what we've seen in the first 7 episodes of the season, in which he's basically become Wendy's nemesis and the family truth teller. And the way the show has done that so quickly is by allowing him really clear and bold choices right from the jump. 

Consider the things he does in 401: 

1) He gives Ben's ashes to Ruth without telling Wendy.

2) He tells Wendy he knows she killed Ben. 

3) He suggests the crazy new detective character talk to Lisa, Helen's daughter, about what happened to Helen, creating the possibility he will find out the truth. And he does it in front of his family. 

4) He gives Ruth the software she needs to launder the money in her new business, which will directly compete with the cartel. 

5) He tells his parents trying to launder Navarro is ridiculous. 

6) He asks Charlotte to confirm that she would never kill him the way Wendy killed Ben. Charlotte says he needs to grow up. 

7) He agrees to launder Ruth's money. 

It's really amazing how many big choices he makes. And each is a choice that has risks to it, and one that involves standing up to others (mostly his family). And as a result each choice gives us a very clear sense of his desires and a clear direction. This is why big bold choices is so important in a script: it tells your audience who your character is. And the bolder they are, the more committed we as audience become to them. We love the people that really put themselves out there, that put themselves on the line. 

It's also worth noting his choices' variety. Some are physical actions, while others are things he says. Some are very direct and obvious, while others are more slow burns (like giving the ashes away, which Wendy won't discover until the next episode). Many are very much about opposing Wendy; but sounding out Charlotte is also about trying to learn if he's all alone in this family or not. And helping Ruth, while definitely going to piss off Wendy, is also about his feelings for her and Ben. Even while his actions have one pretty clear motive, there's room for other layers, too.

The other thing to notice is how his strong choices actually help not only him but everyone else. When one character makes a strong choice, it can call forth that in others, too. Ruth asks him to join her. Charlotte stands up to him. And most importantly, Wendy more or less loses her mind. The rest of this first half of the season will doing a whole series of things first to try and win him back and then, shockingly, to destroy him. 

Obviously, a character's choices have to be motivated by their situation and desires, or they seem crazy and unrelatable (a problem I'm going to talk about with regard in OZARK tomorrow). But in general, when we can give our characters those big swings, it elevates everything. And most importantly, it tells us who they really are.

ENCANTO LETS ITS PROTAGONIST MAKE BIG, RISKY CHOICES THAT HAVE CONSEQUENCES

Today's piece on ENCANTO is about two of the most rules of good writing. First, your protagonist has to make choices. I can't tell you how many scripts I read (okay, and write) where the protagonist doesn't ever really do anything. They react perhaps, but they don't  make significant choices. Compelling stories are like ping pong; you cannot just volley. You have to take chances. 

It's not just about keeping our attention either. We learn who a character really is and what they really want through their choices they make. If they don't make choices, we can't connect with them. We can't understand them. 

Mirabel is constantly making choices. Some of them are small--I'm going to set up these little decorations outside all the doors. Some of them are large--I'm going to go into Bruno's Forbidden Tower of Scary. Every time, they tell us something about her. She needs to tell people she's fine with what happened. She wants to help her family. And every time, they make us invest in her again. The bigger the choice, the more we root for the character (assuming the choice makes sense for who they are). 

But the other half is equally important: The choices need to have consequences (which lead to new choices). In the very best scripts, in my opinion, characters make choices which lead to new problems which lead to new choices. And ENCANTO really fits the bill here, too. Think of Mirabel's journey--her desire to figure out what's going on with the house leads to her interrogating her sister Luisa. And that conversation allows Luisa to share burdens she's told no one about, which is great. But it also shakes her up, such that she starts to lose the ability to access her physical strength, which gets Mirabel into further trouble. Similarly, going into Bruno's tower leads to her discover the prediction about her, which leads her to question her family about Bruno, which leads to more complications, including meeting Bruno himself. 

When I'm writing a feature length piece I like to break down the script into roughly six or seven 15 minute units.  I try to figure out what does my protagonist want at the start of each unit; what choice will they make to reach that goal; what complications will ensue, and then what new problem or goal do they have, which becomes the start of the next unit. It definitely helps me to think through a script in these terms of choice and consequence.