You're my...protagonist?

From my last post you probably picked up on my pre-occupation with character arc. I took some screenwriting classes several years ago and my classmates and I got into a spirited debate about character arc in action films. There's a pitfall that action films often fall into because people (including, often, writers) equate the character archetypes of "hero" and "protagonist" thereby writing stories that have no one, no character, driving the plot. You see, a hero doesn't have to have arc, and often they don't. The example our professor used to illustrate this concept when defining all the character archetypes at the beginning of our course was James Bond. Bond is not the protagonist in the Bond films. He's the hero. He never changes, his goals and motivations remain static from beginning to end of each film and across the entire series of films. According to my prof the Bond girls are usually the protagonists in those stories.

Spiderman would be a good example a story, or series of stories, where the hero is also the protagonist. You can see though, how it might be easy to write a story with a hero and no protagonist (and therefor no plot) and if you're a lover of action films (like I am) you can probably name, without much effort, a dozen or so films that fell into this trap.

Someone in the class had the audacity to criticize one of my favorite films for this very problem, and I had to set him straight. The film is Armageddon and he believed that Harry (Bruce Willis' character) was trying to do double duty in the story as both hero and protagonist, and he felt that the character didn't really change enough. His claim was that the only difference at the end is that he has come to trust AJ (Ben Affleck's character) more and he didn't think that was enough of a change. I, of course, disagreed and here is what I had to say about it at the time:

I think the change that Harry goes through in Armageddon is multi-faceted. However, trusting AJ was the essential change because it was his passing of the torch, admitting that he couldn't do it all by himself now and that someday (much sooner than he realized) he wouldn't be around to run things anymore, either in the drilling business or in his daughter's life. He had to trust someone to take over for him. Also, he started to trust the captain as well, whether it seems this way to most or not, I think that in attacking the guy the way he did, that whole exchange was about both those characters overcoming their distrust of each other in order to work together and get the job done. The thing about Harry was that he was a control freak and that control was being taken away from him, he couldn't control the asteroid, he couldn't control his daughter, he couldn't control AJ, he couldn't control his crew, he couldn't control the astronauts and in the end he had to let go of it all.

Also, if you want to get deep into the psychology of that character, his goal was not to save the world his goal it was to protect his family which consisted of his daughter and, though he wouldn't admit it, AJ. In the end his putting trust in AJ,his realization that AJ was part of his family, his passing the torch to AJ was the fulfillment of his goal, he saved the Earth and accomplished his real goal which was to protect his daughter, he left her in the best possible hands. I think you aren't looking deep enough at the protagonist's goal. It's more complicated than saying that in Armageddon the goal is to save to world, in Jaws the goal is to kill the shark (or save people from the shark), in Batman the goal is the defeat the villain. Save the world, kill the beast, defeat the villain, those are the action in action films but the real story is why our protagonist feels compelled to do those things or why they are reluctant or what do they really want.

I think that all Harry wanted in the world was to protect his daughter and therefore his trusting AJ is the essential change in that story, he realized what she did and didn't need protection from...she did need to be protected from the asteroid the size of Texas hurtling towards Earth, but she did not need protection from AJ and in fact AJ being younger and likely to be around longer was better suited to protect her.

I think all of the oil drillers had their own motives for wanting to save the world, none of them had as a goal: Save the World. One guys goal was to get chicks, how? Save the world. Another's goal was to make his ex-wife and kid proud, how? Save the world. Harry's goal was to protect his daughter, how? Save the world, but also pass the torch, trust AJ, realize that it's not always the case that if he wants something done right he'll have to do it himself, that he isn't always the best man for the job and that AJ will be better equipped to take care of her for a longer time than he will.