Conversation

To a first approximation, a character in a movie is interesting to the degree their motive is strong without being legible. Think Ahab or Tyler Durden, Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, Andy Dufrese. If there’s a clear motive, it tends to be nominal (whale, anarchy, girl, escape)
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Notice that the behavior of such characters tends not to be efficient in pursuit of the nominal goal. Exceptions like the Terminator (a robot) prove the rule. But it’s not inefficient either. It is just distorted somehow in a characteristic/signature way. Hence strong characters.
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By contrast genre fiction characters efficiently pursue their nominal goals, at least within a formulaic notion of efficiency, tied to a virtue. Liam Neeson’s “particular set of skills” in Taken for example. Genre comedy characters merely flip it to inefficiency.
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Occasionally, such stock genre characters rise above formulaic efficiency via what we tend to call a stylized presence, like John Wick. They go from character to idea.
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A strong character compresses a how+why coupled motivation into an identity. The can’t just win, they have to win in a characteristic way. They can’t just apply their skills to anything, they have to have characteristic goals. Eigencharacters driven by eigenvalues on eigenvectors
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Replying to
What really made this click as the eigenvector concept, I enjoyed that! I think this is also what people mean when they say "organic" or "character-driven" storytelling
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