Okay, so I'm an animation major and taking a storyboarding class right now. He mentioned how protagonists usually enter from the left, and antagonists enter from the right. I asked him "what is the method for having neutral characters enter." He said there was no such thing as a neutral character... So I got really confused, and mentioned a few examples. Like that turtle thing in the never ending story, it seemed neutral because it was completely apathetic. But it's apathy changed the course of the entier movie... seemingly in a negative way, so that makes it an antagonist? But if I remember correctly is entered from the left of the screed... well actually it entered from the bottom, but when we are looking at it in wide shot it's on the left. The definition of neutral means disengaged... so that means to have a neutral character it would need to be a character that has no desires or wants... so lets have a character be a vegetable. Lets make this vegetable be a main character. Everything depends on this vegetable, both the good outcomes and the bad, everyone is depending on him for some reason. So despite what the vegetable wants to happen... the things that happen as an outcome will happen anyway because he has no ability to respond. His inability to respond frees him from the obligation to, thus making him a neutral character. BUT, lets say that all the bad outcomes happen because he is a vegetable. The circumstances then, despite who the character is, happen. Making the character defined then as an antagonist? So a character is defined pro or antagonist based then on the results of his or her responses or lack there of. The story then defines a character, not the character itself... so a character cannot define his own neutrality? I understand that every character is motivated by something, so the fact that there is a motivation means the character is aligned to some side. However, the vegetable I used as an example is not aligned because he lacks the ability to be. He cannot be anything other than what he is... and now that I think about that many movies have adopted that line. "A wolf can't be anyhting other than a wolf" or whatever. So that doesn't change the fact that a wolf is a wolf... just because he lacks ability to be anything else doesn't change his antagonist position. The story could even make us pity the wolf, and he would still be an antagonist. what is everyone elses thoughts?

Scrat's acorn in Ice Age 2: The Meltdown is like your vegetable, yet it is decidedly not neutral. The animators make it a protagonist to Scrat's antagonist.

Your professor is right. There are no neutral characters. If your vegetable is involved in the story at all, it is either an object of desire for a character (which, depending on the alignment of the character, makes it an opposing character if events conspire for it to elude capture or an ally if it "fortuitiously" keeps "coming back home"), an object of fear (in which case the poles are reversed, and the vegetable is bound to keep showing up, antagonist-like), or a tool in a conflict against another character.

If none of the above apply, then the vegetable is a prop, not a character.

Quote: Scrat's acorn in Ice Age 2: The Meltdown is like your vegetable, yet it is decidedly not neutral. The animators make it a protagonist to Scrat's antagonist.

Your professor is right. There are no neutral characters. If your vegetable is involved in the story at all, it is either an object of desire for a character (which, depending on the alignment of the character, makes it an opposing character if events conspire for it to elude capture or an ally if it "fortuitiously" keeps "coming back home"), an object of fear (in which case the poles are reversed, and the vegetable is bound to keep showing up, antagonist-like), or a tool in a conflict against another character.

If none of the above apply, then the vegetable is a prop, not a character.

Hmm, okay so I had a big sack of common sense just smack me in the face. I didn't think about the fact that for a character to be a character it actually has to influence something. Influence a reaction... or influence change... anything. So ultimately a character's personal opinion doesn't matter in it's definition of pro/ant/neutral, it's how the events in the story unfold. I think that's where I got confused. A character can't be a character and remain neutral, which completely makes sense. That is, if we are saying that how everything acts around said character despite the character's personal feelings also defines it's alignment, which makes perfect sense to me.

One thing to add is, it is possible to present two or more factions in an equal light. Like the coyote and the roadrunner - which one is the good guy and which one is the bad guy? Neither because both are just following their natures - the coyote wants to eat the roadrunner and the roadrunner doesn't want to get eaten.

Also you can have 'local' thematic opposition where the alignment is different from the piece's global opposition. The three stooges, for example, are usually portrayed as the three 'good guys' against some short-tempered, jealous, or unreasonable 'bad guy'. But, the stooges struggle mostly against each other. When it's Larry vs. Moe, neither is really the good guy or the bad guy, instead they are each trying to do something good but are getting in each others' way because they are trying to do conflicting good thinga.

The actions of an entity have absolutely nothing to do with its protagonist / antagonist label ... that label is assigned by the viewer / writer, not by the values of the character.

In the USA / USSR conflict, the protagonist is whichever country you are from.

In a Mob vs. Police movie the protagonist is whoever the writer chooses to make us sympathize with most. It doesn't have to do with actions, intent, morality or anything ... only with identification.

In Sci-Fi the antagonist can often be inanimate nature, such as the Sun or the Vacumm of space. (Cold Equations anyone).

Yep. The inanimate antagonist - the object-you-just-can't-get-rid-of - is a classic device of animation.

Quote: One thing to add is, it is possible to present two or more factions in an equal light. Like the coyote and the roadrunner - which one is the good guy and which one is the bad guy? Neither because both are just following their natures - the coyote wants to eat the roadrunner and the roadrunner doesn't want to get eaten.

Also you can have 'local' thematic opposition where the alignment is different from the piece's global opposition. The three stooges, for example, are usually portrayed as the three 'good guys' against some short-tempered, jealous, or unreasonable 'bad guy'. But, the stooges struggle mostly against each other. When it's Larry vs. Moe, neither is really the good guy or the bad guy, instead they are each trying to do something good but are getting in each others' way because they are trying to do conflicting good thinga.

Which helps bring it to a clearer light. It is something to think about. And I'm remembering that old cartoon... the roadrunner was often portrayed as the antagonist, oddly enough. It always outwitted the coyote, and often times as a child I somewhat rooted for the coyote, without thinking about the consequence of what would happen if the coyote actually DID win. The road runner would be caught.

Bugs Bunny vr. Elmer fud (no clue how to spell his name by the way...) I always ruited for bugs bunny, who was in the same position as road runner. I'll have to think more on that.

Elmer Fudd.

Keep one things in mind about Road Runner v Coyote and Bugs Bunny v Elmer Fudd: the writers generally had a preference for one character over another (Road Runner over Coyote, Bugs Bunny over all his opponents - Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Marvin Martian, Wiley Coyote aka "Wile E. Coyote"), though they would let this general protagonist "lose" just often enough to keep things interesting for the fans of the opposing character (Road Runner never, ever lost, but he did engage in tactics of questionable ethics).

I don't know why, I just felt like pointing that out.

Why should protagonists enter from the left and antagonists from the right? I've never actually noticed it in anything I've watched, but maybe it's one of those things that you'e only notice if it didn't happen, or maybe I'm just not observant enough. Anyway, is there a specific reason given for it?

Quote: Why should protagonists enter from the left and antagonists from the right? I've never actually noticed it in anything I've watched, but maybe it's one of those things that you'e only notice if it didn't happen, or maybe I'm just not observant enough. Anyway, is there a specific reason given for it?

I'm not sure the deaper reason for it, but it's just what people associate as being good versus bad. If you ever watch stain removal comercials, you will always see the good stain removal on the left, never the right. Same with before and after photos.

and no you really wouldn't notice if it didn't happen that way, the point is it's a subtle way to control how the viewer sees the characters before they ever have a speaking part. Before their image is even fully realized by the viewer, the viewer has already to some extent made a sub-conscience asumption about that character.

Some movies exploit this, like sin-city has people enter from all sides because the point is to confuse the viewer, but that is the general rule.