Hannibal´s screenwriting page - Character functions

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The dramatic functions

In Something Really Important, I briefly mentioned that characters can have six different functions, and that those functions were:

protagonist,
antagonist,
MacGuffin,
mentor,
modifier,
and commentator

Naturally, without knowing more about each and every one of them, or understanding what a function is, that statement lacks value. So let´s make some sense.

What is a function?

Every character in a story must be participants in the conflict in some way. If they don´t bring anything to the table, they should be cut. However "bring something to the table" is a vague phrase. It can mean almost anything. The waiter who gets your hero some wine certainly brings something to the table, perhaps even more visually than your villain. And we all love our minor characters - the person before the hero in the line, the next-door neighbour, the mother-in-law, well, perhaps love is a big word...

But how do you know if your character is nescessary or not? How do you know what characters you will have to find other employments, and what characters to keep at all costs?

That can be a hard nut to crack, unless you´re thinking in terms of function. "Function" in itself can mean all sorts of things, but for now, let´s say that it means "what role a character has in a conflict or situation". No matter what type of conflict you have there are a minimum of two participants (but they can exist within the same person, if we´re dealing with a dilemma for example), and at the most six different types of participants. You guessed it, it´s the six functions. After that you start to double functions.

That´s why, if you´re still wondering if you can actually put up some general rule, I give you this:

If the character serves a function in the story, it should probably stay. (There are some exceptions to this rule, but we´ll get to them later.)

Now, there´s two more things you´ll need to know about functions before we dive into the different kinds:

First, characters - and therefore functions - can consist of humans, animals, androids, aliens, or objects, or something completely different. It doesn´t matter. The principles are the same.

Second, a character can change function during the story. We call this shapeshifting. For example, your best friend (a modifier) can turn out to be the villain (an antagonist).

The protagonist

The protagonist is probably the most widely known dramatic function. Simply put it´s the hero. It´s Indiana Jones. It´s Ashley Judd in "Double Jeopardy". And it´s Julia Roberts in "My Best Friend´s Wedding". The word protagonist comes from the Ancient Greek, and directly translated it means "fighter for (our side)", that is, the protagonist is our champion.

That doesn´t mean that the protagonist necessarily must be good. In more complex stories, the person we´re rooting for can actually be a criminal, or someone quite despicable. This of course means that the story must be so compelling, or that this anti-hero must be so easy to understand (and even forgive), that we will want to continue with the story. And that´s difficult to accomplish.

And you need to understand that the dramatic function of the protagonist doesn´t exclude a flawed person, with many dimensions. The function encompass so many different characters that Joseph Campbell named this "the hero with a thousand faces".

The antagonist

Conversely, the antagonist is the champion for the other side. And it will need plenty of room to be interesting. Here we find such characters as Freddie from the "Nightmare on Elm Street"-movies, the strict teachers in "Dead Poets´ Society", and the family Oleson in "The Little House on the Prairie". Check out my column The Antagonist, if you want to know more about how to do it well.

The MacGuffin

The MacGuffin is what the protagonist wants, and wants badly. In Something really important, I´ll let you in on how "The Hunt for Red October", "The Bridge on The River Kwai" and "There´s Something About Mary" was done. But for now you should know that the MacGuffin reflects the protagonist, and that it should be something which we can understand that the protagonist wants.

The mentor

In the Greek epic "The Odyssey", Mentor was responsible for tutoring Odysseus´ son. In modern films this dramatic function serves to give the hero the opportunity, the training and the tools for toppling the reign of the antagonist. The archetypical mentor is Yoda in "Star Wars - A New Hope", who teaches Luke Skywalker about the Force.

The mentor can also be a witness, a clue, or any important information that helps the protagonist. As with the other functions, this does not have to be in the form of an old man with a robe.

Of course, not all mentors are benevolent. Anti-heroes can need a dark mentor, someone to lead the hero down the wrong path.

Often, the relationship between the protagonist and the mentor is uneasy, with failed exercises and too tough tests. But the training is necessary, and must be necessary. If you can cut the mentor, the antagonist is most probably not threatening enough.

You may be tempted to use the mentor in the finale. After all, if you can train the hero, you must be stronger, smarter and better than the hero. But that´s considered cheating. It´s the deux in the deux ex machina. It´s the cavallery. In other words, you must find some way to incapacitate the mentor before the ultimate test.

In some stories, especially short stories, this dramatic function can appear only as a memory of what an old teacher used to say, or as part of what the protagonist has to learn from the antagonist, but it´s rarely cut altogether.

The modifier

The dramatic functions above would seem to cover most of what you need in a conflict: a pro-side, a con-side, a goal, and the trump card.

But stories are not all about conflict, they´re about characters, settings and themes too. That´s where the modifiers come in.

Modifiers are any and all characters that shape the world, make it colourful, and make it seem real. I´m talking about friends, allies, persons from the backdrop, and so on. Without them, the story and its universe would seem thin. And the hero would seem one-dimensional, friendless.

On the other hand, if the story contain too many modifiers, the story will veer off in every direction at once. You will need some moderation here. And if you can´t bring yourself to cut the superfluous modifiers ("But this character is so funny", "But he´s based on a friend of mine" or something like that), you will do harm to the protagonist. The rule here is to keep modifiers to a minimum - not more than a couple of scenes without some antagonist, or mentor. If you have to, transform modifiers to antagonists, mentors or MacGuffins. At least then you can defend them in story meetings.

The commentator

Contrary to what you might have heard, you can have characters who doesn´t participate in the conflict in the story. Just make sure they comment on the story. Their function is on a higher plane: to make sure the audience understand what´s going on, and to make sure that the audience feel the way it´s supposed to feel.

The dramas of Ancient Greece had their choir. And novels usually have a storyteller. The whole story can be in flashback, as in "To Kill a Mockingbird", and that takes a commentator to make that happen.

But this is still the least usual dramatic function. Sure, all stories are based on the writer or speaker telling it, but this is a separate entity (if sometimes called the same as the author), that is part of the story. If you´re not absolutely, definitely, honest-to-God serious about telling the story through a commentator, you should absolutely, definitely cut it.

The "ifs", "ands" and "buts"

How do you use these functions? Do you set out to make an antagonist, or do you just use it to analyse? Well, that´s pretty much up to you. But this is a neat way of making a story better, or getting un-stuck.

That´s why you need the basic rules for the dramatic functions:

1. Never double the protagonist.

2. The other functions you may double. Actually, the further down the list, the more you tend to double.

3. Except the commentator. Only one commentator.

4. You don´t have to include every function in your story, except the protagonist and the antagonist.

5. The dramatic functions are not characters. You have to create characters that embody the function without being too predictable.

6. The higher up in the list, the more space the functions should be given.

7. If you remove a dramatic function, you will probably give that function to another character.

Finally, if you examine your own life, you may perhaps discern the protagonist easily, as well as the antagonists, but can you find your MacGuffin? And what roles do you fill in other people´s lives? I promise you, you´re somebody´s antagonist.

Fun, huh?

By Lennart Guldbrandsson Back to top of page