This first Image shows a young and doubtful Luke Skywalker, his eyes and face shows this, yet an older Master Yoda's eyes are calm and caring. In the story Yoda teaches Luke to understand that his power must be used for knowledge and defence, never attack. These Morals, along with the idea of an old and wise mentor creates a very cliché and very repeatable character.
The old wise character is one of the roles in fiction that is seen over and over again. For every time a person sees a young hero they see a powerful mentor. the soft as opposed to hard grip on his staff along with calm caring eyes portrays a man a viewer can believe that they can trust. this combined with actual scripting. creates lines such as "I am and always will be your friend" (tolken, the 2 towers), brings forth a character that a viewer can look up to even more than they may look up to the hero.
For every good guy there is a bad guy, and the old wise character is far from the only one we will recognize and relate to instantly. Lord Voldemort from the "Harry Potter" series is a prime example of someone a viewer can see and instantly recognize as the antagonist. Through clever use of subtle facial features such as unnaturally pale skin and having slits for a nose. these may seem like small overall changes, but when there is something mildly unnatural about a character the viewers brain instantly assume the worst. This will bring the conclusion that the character is evil.
I enjoyed your presentation and especially the idea you mentioned about the common story line shown in all sorts of film as well as the connection between the 3 man character elements, the hero, the villain and the wise.
ReplyDeleteI liked your ideas but i thought you could have gone into a little more depth about these story lines and why they work so well.
I think you could have improved your thesis if you mentioned why it is we relate so well with the hero, such as because we see ourselves as an underdog or we like to think were on the good side of a situation.
I also thought it may be helpful to mention the fact that the wise character ALWAYS DIES before the hero can complete his task. Like in Star wars yoda dies before luke can finish his training. In lord of the rings Gandalf dies before they can make it to mordor (he does return however they’re on there own for a while). Harry potter, Dumbledore dies before they can track down the 7 horcruxes. Literally so many options and I’d like to know how you think that relates to the hero character or how we see ourselves in the storyline.
I also would have liked to learn a little more about the significance of why the villain is connected to the wise character. It’s a common plot theme and Id be interested to hear your take on why it makes for such a good storyline.
Another interesting point you brought up was the difference in facial symmetry between hero’s and villains. I thought you might want to know there was actually a study done on the subject of facial symmetry that found the way we perceive beauty relies a lot on symmetry.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21609537-theory-about-why-symmetrical-faces-attract-has-just-fallen-wayside-facing
All together i thought your presentation was really interesting and definitely made me think more about a lot of the movies I’ve seen.