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chapter five

ELEMENTS OF

CHARACTER

In order to take a hero through the 23 Hero Goal Sequences_®, you must first know how all the other characters in your screenplay will function to serve that hero on his journey of discovery. Every speaking character in your story must be there for a reason. Every single one.

They either help or obstruct the hero. Those are the only story jobs available. So you need to cast each character with premeditation about how you intend to use them in the plot.

A story is like a chess game, and every piece on the board has a highly specific function to fulfill. Knights, rooks, bishops, all fit into the pattern of the game in their own unique way. But you can’t suddenly thrust Scrabble pieces onto the chessboard and expect them to work, too.

Understanding the concept of character categories is also key to mastering the strength of the 23 Goal Sequence steps.

Once upon a time a scholar to whom we all owe a huge debt, Professor Joseph Campbell, went looking for universal patterns in storytelling. He studied myths in every corner of the globe.

At first glance it might seem that different cultures tell very different kinds of stories. A Japanese Noh play looks nothing like a Broadway musical. But Campbell set out to see if, below the veneer of style, all these extremely different ways for dramatizing the mythology of each society might actually be telling the same stories about the same human truths.

Turns out they do.

In Campbell’s book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Princeton University Press, 1972), he explains the universal mythological character categories as they are used by every culture on Earth. These characters actually reflect different aspects of the human psyche, so knowledge about these archetypes is immensely helpful for storytellers.

Christopher Vogler does a wonderful job of contemporizing and expanding on Professor Campbell’s work in The Writer’s Journey (Third Edition, Michael Wiese Productions, 2007). Chris’ book should be required reading for every writer breathing. Also, for a woman’s unique perspective on the Hero’s Journey add to your reading list Kim Hudson’s important The Virgin’s Promise: Writing Stories of Feminine Creative, Spiritual and Sexual Awakening (Michael Wiese Productions, 2009).

In the character categories under consideration here, I am including Campbell’s Hero, Shadow (Adversary), Mentor, and Threshold Guardian (Gate Guardian).

The Ally character I break into subgroups for more specificity and clarity.

Then to round out, I’ve added some very useful contemporary screenwriting categories as well.

But remember, every character you cast in your movie MUST come only from this list of categories. You need to know exactly the plot function each will serve.

The typical Hollywood movie story makes use of between five and seven main characters. Normally, two of these are the hero and adversary. That leaves you, generally speaking, three to five additional key characters to use for telling a one-hero story well.

Any number of minor characters can also show up to serve lesser functions in support of the main group. But even smaller roles must come from these character categories.

Each screenplay does not have to contain one of every character type. At a minimum you must have a hero and adversary, but after that your goal is to seek the right balance among the other characters you do use.

First, figure out who you want to be the hero. Then start arranging other characters in your story around that individual to provide conflict and subplots. Of course, a movie story can have more than one hero, and I will address that later. For now, for the sake of clearer understanding, I’ll refer to the hero in the singular.

Here are the character categories and the functions served by each:

THE HERO

This character’s pursuit of a focused, visible goal originating from urgent high stakes actually creates the story by driving the plot forward.

At the start of the movie your Hero feels somehow unsettled in everyday life… even if he’s not totally conscious of this attitude yet. But something’s off or out of focus in the way things are going. Then a specific problem plops into his lap.

Now goaded by necessity, the Hero rises reluctantly to defend himself and other people as he pursues a solution to this urgent physical jam, while struggling as well toward a personal sense of inner completion and new balance in life.

Most especially, this Hero is the character who takes the chances and carries the burdens of forwarding your entire story action-line. And only the Hero can make that big showdown finale happen.

Heroes should have personal qualities that are universal and likeable, while at the same time they need to be unique individuals with flaws, shortcomings, and their own personal angst. This goes for stories in all genres.

There are different kinds of Heroes possible. Besides the standard straight-arrow Hero, we have:

The Anti-Hero

At first glance he might not be admirable, but we quickly find he’s got guts and skill, so he becomes empathetic. Such as: mean mob bosses (The Sopranos), professional thieves (Wise Guys, Heat), friendly serial killers (Dexter), or drunken superheroes (Hancock).

The Tragic Hero

Brave people for whom we feel some empathy but who have uncorrectable flaws of character that bring about their downfall. Like: doomed gangsters (Scarface), doomed cops (The Departed), or passionate murderers (Body Heat).

The Trickster Hero

Always playfully clowning in order to unmask hypocrisy and stick it to The Man. Such as: puckish surgeons (M*A*S*H), irreverent frat boys (Animal House), or mischievous newspaper reporters (Fletch).

The Catalyst Hero

Does not personally undergo character growth but brings about growth in others (The Fugitive, The Spitfire Grill, Bagdad Café).

THE ADVERSARY

The Adversary is the one person most utterly determined to stop the Hero from achieving her goal. Qualities defining a strong Adversary are:

1. The Adversary opposes the Hero more powerfully than any other character.

Many roles from different character categories can scamper around causing all manner of trouble for the Hero. But each screenplay needs one single, powerful character who’s every bit as committed to preventing the Hero from reaching her goal as the Hero is to accomplishing it.

2. The Adversary should not be a group of people or an idea, but one individual.

The Adversary provides core conflict in a story and therefore must be present for the climactic showdown with the Hero. This is

a necessity, and requires that the Adversary be an actual person.

If a story asks the Hero to fight some faceless group or abstract idea, then that group or idea must be personified as a real, live, single Adversary.

In The Hudsucker Proxy, the innocent Hero Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) is plucked from the mailroom and made president of a company to be manipulated by a greedy Wall Street corporate conspiracy. And that conspiracy is personified by the heartless CEO Adversary Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman).

In Working Girl, Hero Tess McGill fights her way up to almost achieve everything she’s dreamed of — only to have it torn away from her by her thieving, scheming boss, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver). The movie cannot end until a climactic scene takes place between these two, and all obstacles in the Hero’s path— chauvinism, elitism, social privilege, class prejudice— are personified in Tess’s singular Adversary, Katharine.

3. An effective Adversary looks unbeatable.

The Adversary must appear to be the most powerful character in the story.

In The Shawshank Redemption, Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) wields total power over innocent prisoner Hero Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins). The cruel, corrupt warden Adversary answers to no one. He locks Andy in solitary confinement for months, and he murders the only person who can prove Andy innocent. It looks like there’s just no way poor Andy will ever triumph. And it’s the warden’s seeming invincibility that makes Andy’s ultimate victory over him so deliciously sweet.

4. The Adversary believes deeply in what he wants, and thinks it’s correct to confront and stop the undeserving Hero.

In Air Force One, the terrorist commander Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman), having hijacked Air Force One, tells President James Marshall (Harrison Ford) how Korshunov’s wife and child were killed in a revolutionary war in his home country. Now the terrorist is willing to die — and kill the President’s wife and daughter, too — in order to avenge his own family and win the conflict still raging back at home. This Adversary remains truly evil, but we sure get why Korshunov is driven to violent actions against the President and why he sees himself as correct in his actions. We understand his motivation.

Adversaries must believe passionately in their own cause.

It also helps to give your Adversary some charming or thoughtful qualities. The impact on any Hero will be much more powerful if that Hero finds his Adversary to be a wellrounded foe.

5. Psychologically, the Adversary can be the flip side of the Hero herself.

Dangerous or suppressed qualities within the Hero can be expressed in the character of an Adversary. This way the Hero symbolically ends up fighting some flawed aspect of herself, personified in the Adversary. There is often a scene near the climax of movies where the Adversary points out to the Hero how much they’re actually alike. That’s what happens in The Taking of Pelham 123 and Insomnia.

6. An Adversary may use helpers who carry out his will against the Hero.

In building to a climax many Heroes face legions of bad guys that must be overcome before earning the right to duke it out with the Adversary at last.

In The Matrix, Agent Smith commands hundreds of other foot-soldiers he sends off to attack the Hero. But Smith’s many operatives are not Neo’s one true Adversary. The movie cannot end until Neo and Agent Smith personally face each other and fight to the death.

Smaller, more relationship-driven stories may offer an Adversary who operates without help, like Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), the mother in Ordinary People.

Or, as in a few films, the Adversary’s influence will be felt and fought by the Hero without any Adversary Agents or even the physical presence of the Adversary until that final confrontation at the end of the story. In Sideways, struggling novelist Miles (Paul Giamatti) drinks his way through the vineyards of central California overwhelmed by yearning to get back together with his ex-wife Victoria. Victoria only turns up in the flesh for one climax scene near the end, at sidekick Jack’s wedding. But Victoria serves as Miles’ Adversary throughout, since his inability to win her back dominates almost every bad decision the Hero makes.

7. A Hero should not be his own Adversary.

Any character in the throes of internal self-combat has a lot going on inside, sure. But without an opposing force seen clearly in the outside world, stories containing these Heroes can become off-putting.

Man on the Moon presents a bio-pic tale about eccentric comedian Andy Kaufman (Jim Carrey). In this recounting of Kaufman’s career, all of the Hero’s problems can only be blamed on Kaufman himself. This tale of self-destruction becomes emotionally remote, and the domestic gross for the picture came in well below the break-even point.

When a Hero becomes his own Adversary, the audience does not experience an emotional journey so much as a clinical chronology of hara-kiri.

In Walk the Line, Hero Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) fights his inner demons and an instinct for self-destruction just like Andy Kaufman does in Man on the Moon. But in Walk the Line, Johnny Cash has a clear external Adversary in his father, who has inflicted a lifetime of psychological abuse on Johnny, nearly crushing his soul.

This movie avoids trapping the Hero as his own Adversary and creates a visible, riveting conflict in a film that was a hit with audiences.

8. A natural disaster isn’t an Adversary.

Getting caught in a violent storm (Twister) or lost in the desert (Flight of the Phoenix) may provide harrowing adventures and a wonderful arena for conflict. But like every other type of story, man-against-nature movies work best when there’s also a human Adversary present.

The Blair Witch Project concerns three student filmmakers who get lost in a deep backwoods area and can’t find their way out. Being lost in the woods is frightening. But it’s the creepy Adversary “witch” they never see who terrorizes them and kills them off one by one.

9. An Adversary can wear the mask of friendship or romance and not be revealed as the true opposing force until the end — but still remains the Adversary throughout.

One of the more dramatically intriguing versions of the Adversary character is what Professor Campbell has labeled “The Shapeshifter.” This kind of bad person hides from view behind a mask of innocence. The Hero believes that the Shapeshifter will provide a positive force in her life and she has no idea he actually wants to destroy her. A major turning point comes late in these stories when the Shapeshifter’s true nature gets revealed.

In The Usual Suspects, the lame and cuddly small-time criminal Roger “Verbal” Kint (Kevin Spacey) chatters away to U.S. Customs Detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) throughout the movie, telling the tragic tale of a heist gone bad and an ex-cop Hero (Gabriel Byrne) murdered by the vicious, legendary criminal mastermind Keyser Söze. Only in the last few seconds of the film, after Verbal has been released by Kujan and he’s limping away down the sidewalk, do we discover that Verbal is actually the legendary Keyser Söze himself. Kujan has just released one of the most insidious and brilliant criminals in the world.

Verbal Kint is a Shapeshifter Adversary.

A Shapeshifter does not change character categories during the story. Shapeshifters just conceal their true opposing nature from the Hero and the audience until it’s time for a dramatic Big Reveal later in the story.

10. The Adversary will not always be a bad person.

An Adversary is the main opposing force, but he is not necessarily a bad or evil person. Some of the most interesting Adversary characters are good people who fall into opposition with the Hero only because of circumstances.

Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) in An Officer and a Gentleman wants to fly jets for the Navy to prove himself better than his low-life sailor father. But drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley (Louis Gossett, Jr.) remains committed to grinding Zack down until he will DOR — Drop On Request — from flight training boot camp. Zack only looks out for himself, and Foley knows in battle such behavior can be deadly. Sergeant Foley isn’t a bad man. He’s a very good man with a tough job, weeding out recruits who might not back up fellow pilots under fire. Sergeant Foley works to save lives. But for Zack, he’s one hard-nosed Adversary.

11. The Adversary can never become the Hero, but sometimes can dominate the story.

The Adversary cannot take over the function of Hero in a movie. However, he can sometimes be the star.

A Charismatic Adversary shows up in stories where the plot builds to illuminate the opposition character as the dominant personality. Such roles invariably are played by movie stars and are often misdiagnosed as being the Hero of the film.

In Primary Colors, John Travolta plays Governor Jack Stanton, a charming, Bill Clinton-esque presidential candidate driving upwards from small state government to the Oval Office. Stanton dominates the story — but he isn’t the Hero of the movie. He’s the immoral Adversary to an idealistic junior campaign advisor, Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), who functions as the actual Hero shaping progress for the story, almost below script radar. This movie is about Henry’s journey from political idealism to campaign pragmatism, and Governor Stanton, the movie star in the film, stands as Henry’s Charismatic Adversary.

12. When romance becomes the dominant plot, the Hero’s object of affection serves as Adversary.

In love stories and romantic comedies where mate bonding becomes the main plotline, the object of affection character morphs into a central, plot-galvanizing Adversary — as in Groundhog Day, (500) Days of Summer, and Leaving Las Vegas.

If it’s a one-Hero love story, as in most romantic comedies, the loved one being chased serves as Love Interest-Adversary only. If it’s a two-Hero story focusing on love between the two Heroes themselves, each Hero serves double duty as both one of the Heroes and as the other Hero’s Adversary (as in Pretty Woman, The Notebook, and The Break-Up).

THE LOVE INTEREST

After food and shelter, romantic love ranks as the third strongest human need, and it plays an incredibly important part in bringing depth to screenplays. The presence of a Love Interest character in any story can provide a movie with its primary plot, or with a humanizing, theme-illuminating subplot.

But for a romantic relationship to work in a movie it needs to be about a lot more than just butterfly kisses and Valentine candy.

A Love Interest must fulfill a number of highly specific plot development functions.

1. A Love Interest provides major story change.

The principle of change holds true even in the pursuit of sexual conquest, and a romance that works dramatically for a script needs to be about falling in love and then fighting through lots of ups and downs to stay that way.

If we find the Hero already romantically attached when the movie begins, then soon that love affair must shatter.

If the plot starts out with a Hero meeting someone new and getting swept off her feet, before long conflict must arise in that relationship and cause it to fall apart. Girl gets boy, but then girl must lose boy to make it a movie romance. Only then can girl fight the good fight to get boy back.

A fairly common subplot in neophyte scripts I see runs something like this. The Hero meets a cute and clever girl at the library/market/mall and they enjoy chatting; the Hero asks her out to a movie and the date goes well; another date for dinner goes swell, too; at the zoo they find they both love hippopotamuses; he takes new girlfriend home to mom and dad, and the folks just love her to pieces; as the movie draws to a close, the two lovers look forward to a swell future. The end.

This new girlfriend is in no way an effective Love Interest character.

She provides no conflict or confrontation for the Hero. She does not counsel or challenge the Hero as he wrestles with inner pain and character growth. Unfortunately, this new girlfriend doesn’t provide any form of change at all, and is therefore dramatically useless.

For screen lovers, hope must crash into despair. Passion into anger. Love into fear. Winning must spiral into losing.

An effective screen romance causes major emotional changes and challenges for the Hero.

2. A Love Interest provides sexual tension.

Sexual tension created by the Love Interest draws audiences into a story using universally powerful emotions. Varieties of sexual tension range from the charmingly innocent to the lustfully steamy.

Sexual tension arises when two characters discover an attraction and realize there’s the possibility of a sexual relationship between them. This does not mean the Hero must actually go to bed with the Love Interest. Sexual tension wrapped around the mere possibility of making love can sustain a whole film.

In Six Days Seven Nights, New York magazine editor Robin Monroe (Anne Heche) travels with her fiancé (David Schwimmer) to the South Seas, and they’re flown around by a scruffy island- hopping pilot, Quinn Harris (Harrison Ford). Robin and Quinn alternate between disinterest and dislike for each other. This outward indifference masks a deep sexual tension which draws us in. Through high adventure their love blooms, but it’s not actually consummated during the film.

Mary Poppins offers magical nanny Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) a great and warm friendship with chimney sweep Bert (Dick Van Dyke). Mary and Bert sing together, dance together, undertake wondrous journeys together. Mary and Bert are more than fond of one another. But seldom has an opposite sex relationship been more devoid of romantic sparks. The complete lack of sexual tension means Bert does not serve the function of a Love Interest character. His purpose falls into a different category, the Sidekick.

If there’s no sexual tension, it isn’t a romance. Period.

Sexual tension is the most repressed of all human instincts. It can be explosive and dangerous, or immensely empowering. It’s the foundation of everyone’s fantasy life and can be blissful or destroy people. So it’s one of the most powerful dramatic tools available.

3. The Love Interest provides a main plot or subplot of sexual conquest.

Once sexual tension is established for the Hero and a Love Interest, the campaign for conquest begins. Here’s a powerful plotline in which the Hero will either win the object of desire or lose it forever. The idea that the Hero must fight for romantic conquest is essential to the dramatic usefulness of the Love Interest.

In Hitch, gossip reporter Sara (Eva Mendes) serves her character function as the Love Interest-Adversary when Hero Hitch (Will Smith), the “Date Doctor,” wins her, loses her, then wins her back again in pursuit of sexual conquest.

If we find the Hero in a story already happily married before the movie begins, and he stays that way throughout the story, the Hero’s spouse is NOT a Love Interest character. The conquest is already over. It’s only possible to build a genuine romance plot thread between a wife and husband if that marriage falls apart early in the movie. Divorce must be imminent, or recently finalized.

Then the campaign for sexual re-conquest can begin.

When movie stories require the girlfriend or wife of the Hero to be kidnapped and held for ransom, or held to force the Hero into something he doesn’t want to do, a romance subplot is not present. Trying to save the life of someone the Hero loves serves as a goal, not a romantic conquest plotline.

In the movie Miami Vice, Detective Tubbs’ (Jamie Foxx) main squeeze Trudy (Naomie Harris) gets kidnapped by the evil drug cartel, and both Crocket (Colin Farrell) and Tubbs race to save her life. Although we’ve seen Trudy lathering up in a steamy shower scene with Detective Tubbs, Trudy is not a Love Interest character because no campaign for sexual conquest remains in question. They already sleep together. They’re in love and stay that way.

An actual win-then-lose Love Interest subplot develops in Miami Vice between Crocket and the drug cartel’s business manager, Isabella (Li Gong). At first the relationship appears impossible, because Isabella works for the cartel and sleeps with the mob boss. But ultimately love triumphs between Crocket and Isabella, gets consummated, then is lost in a bittersweet parting. Cops and crooks can’t end up together. But Isabella serves as a true “forbidden” Love Interest character because she tests Crocket’s moral commitment to justice.

4. A Love Interest forces the Hero to look inward and pursue character growth.

Here’s another critical concept for good screenwriting that will be fully addressed later when we take a closer look at the

Character Growth Arc. For now, we’ll just say that a Love Interest serves as a window into the soul of the Hero.

Emotional intimacy with the Hero places the Love Interest in a privileged position to question, confront, and push the Hero toward dealing with his personal inner demons.

In a manner of speaking, a Love Interest plays the role of psychiatrist to the Hero. That’s why a Love Interest must challenge the Hero as well as support him. Kisses then slaps. Help then confrontation. Constant change.

As L.A. Confidential Hero Bud White (Russell Crowe) shares pillow talk with his Love Interest Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), he confesses his key motivation in life. He tells Lynn about how, when he was a boy, his father tied him to a radiator, then beat his mother to death as young Bud watched helplessly. This explains Bud’s compulsion to save women in jeopardy, and it’s the emotional wound he must overcome. A Hero like Bud White can’t tell this sort of stuff to just anyone. Only in an intimate romantic relationship could this critical revelation come out.

Bud also confesses to Lynn his lack of self-confidence — he doesn’t think he’s smart enough to solve the Night Owl Café murder case. Lynn lovingly encourages him. “You were smart enough to find me. You’re smart enough.” Nice.

A few scenes later, though, Lynn is caught having sex with Bud’s arch rival on the force, Lieutenant Ed Exley (Guy Pearce). See? Emotional support, then a kick where it really hurts.

5. Not every movie has room for a Love Interest, but romance remains the best subplot available.

Whereas the presence of the Hero and Adversary remain an absolute requirement for every feature screenplay, the presence of a Love Interest character does not. Many fine films have been made without a romance in them at all: The Hurt Locker, The Shawshank Redemption, Unforgiven, Apocalypse Now, Iron-Man, Jaws, and The Dark Knight all do not have Love Interest characters.

But a screen romance relationship can be the source of strong emotion for an audience. Love stories get our blood pumping and we enjoy living them vicariously. So if a romance main plot or subplot is a natural extension of the story you wish to tell, then by all means include one.

THE MENTOR

We come into this world already knowing how to breathe and eat. Beyond that, pretty much everything has got to be learned.

Many different people teach us. Kindly strangers, junkie muggers, that kid on the street corner who made betting on Three Card Monty look like such a sure thing.

Brilliant teachers, clueless teachers, teachers who don’t even know they’re teaching, all leave their mark upon us.

Teachers in screen stories are called Mentors.

A Mentor conveys to each Hero important skills and knowledge that must be mastered before the Hero faces an Adversary in the showdown to come. Whether a physical or psychological battle lies ahead, Heroes must prepare, and for that they need help.

Here are the key traits of a Mentor character:

1. A Mentor can be any person of any age as long as they pass on important knowledge or skills to the Hero.

Most often we think of Mentors as older people.

In Inception, Miles (Michael Caine) is a wise older professor who once taught the Hero, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), everything he knows, and who now offers more insightful assistance. The Matrix offers Hero Neo an older, sage Mentor in Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), father figure supreme.

But even though motherly or fatherly behavior is common for a Mentor, teachers can still come in many other shapes and ages. There’s Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, where a singing bug serves as Mentor to a wooden boy with a penchant for lying. How old can a cricket in a top hat be? And Pinocchio’s already got a father, Geppetto. Still, Jiminy stands as one of the classic Mentors of all time.

In Léon: The Professional, middle-aged hit man Léon (Jean Reno) takes 12-year-old orphan Mathilda (Natalie Portman) under his wing to protect her. But it’s Mathilda who serves as Mentor to Léon, teaching him the real value of life. Here, the Mentor character is a child.

2. Often the Mentor dies.

This usually happens only if the Mentor is an older person, so that their demise will not feel completely outside the natural order of things. Sad, yes. Tragic, no.

The death of a Mentor serves three functions. First, having trained the Hero and having passed along special tools and wisdom for the ultimate battle ahead, the Mentor’s death forces a lead character to stand completely alone and prove himself as the Hero. There’s no longer anyone to fall back on for help.

Second, the passing of the Mentor offers up a symbolic death in the metaphor of story just before the ritual rebirth of the Hero. The lead character emerges from the loss of the Mentor a transformed person, now all grown up and able to overcome the worst any Adversary can throw at her. The Mentor’s death is a rite of passage.

Third, death of a Mentor often comes as Unfair Injury to the Hero. This provides even stronger emotional motivation for victory. A climactic showdown becomes time to win one for the lost Mentor.

In Urban Cowboy, blue-collar Hero Bud Davis (John Travolta) learns the Way of the World and the Truth of the Human Heart from loveable Mentor Uncle Bob (Barry Corbin). When Bob dies, Bud redoubles his efforts to beat the mechanical bull and best his Adversary Wes (Scott Glenn) so he can win back Love Interest wife Sissy (Debra Winger).

3. There can be more than one teaching character serving as Mentor in a story.

For some Heroes there’s just so much to learn it takes a committee.

In Wall Street, young hotshot stockbroker Bud Fox learns from two Mentors, his dad Carl Fox (Martin Sheen) and his boss Lou Mannheim (Hal Holbrook). Bud’s delighted to think Wall Street tycoon Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) might become his third Mentor, but Gekko turns out to be Bud’s Adversary, a Shapeshifter hiding out behind the mask of a Mentor.

Luke Skywalker in Star Wars has Obi-Wan Kenobi for his Mentor, but he’s also got Han Solo.

4. A Mentor often gives the Hero an important or lifesaving gift.

Usually the gifts are only presented after the Hero earns them, through some form of self-sacrifice or commitment to the story goal. The gifts can be tools for the journey ahead, or objects with secret powers, or special knowledge that will turn out to be lifesaving.

In Kung Fu Panda, it’s the Magic Scroll of Power; in The Lord of the Rings it’s the ring; in Last Action Hero it’s a magic movie ticket; in Inception it’s an introduction to a brilliant dream constructing “architect,” Ariadne (Ellen Page).

5. Mentors can be dishonest or immoral, unchaste or bawdy, failures or reprobates.

Some Mentors attempt to lure Heroes down the wrong path. Such negative teachers provide examples for the Hero of how not to do things.

Mentors can also come in the form of hardened cynics or losers who have blown their own chance at success, like failed baseball player turned coach Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) in A League of Their Own. The Mentor may start out as a reprobate, then reform and rise to fulfill the Hero’s need for wise council. Or they may be wisecracking pains in the butt, like the obnoxious insurance salesman Ned (Stephen Tobolowsky) in Groundhog Day.

A committed Hero can learn from them all.

One senior law partner in The Firm, Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman), takes new associate attorney Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) under his wing to teach him the soulless but profitable ways of working for a law firm that’s secretly run by the mafia. Avery serves as a negative Mentor who teaches Mitch how not to live his life.

In Moll Flanders, Mentor character Hibble (Morgan Freeman) works as a servant in a 19th century London brothel. Bouncer and enforcer, he’s an unsavory guy. But Hibble offers kindness to Hero Moll Flanders (Robin Wright Penn) when she sells herself to the brothel to avoid starvation. He lends strength and helps Moll through some of the worst times imaginable. Hibble works most of his life in a whorehouse, but he rises to redemption by helping and mentoring the Hero.

THE SIDEKICK

A Sidekick character provides another important window into the heart of the Hero.

Sidekicks join the Hero for all or most of the story journey. Along for the ride, they tend to accept willingly a secondary, subservient position in service to the Hero. But they are frequently big personalities who insist on being heard, and most often function as the Hero’s non-romantic conscience.

A Sidekick has no trouble speaking his mind — or giving a piece of it to the Hero.