Babylon 5’s One Key to Character Arcs
One way.
There just might be one irresistible way to track and reveal how a character evolves—and make the most of how that arc drives the whole story.
In my last post, I said the key I found was setting up other characters as markers so we can follow a lead’s changes as compared to them. And, I dropped a fun little phrase we can ask our characters: “What do you want?”
On the one hand, asking that really can find the essence of what a character is. Especially, it can be the key to turning someone’s inner nature outward, where we can start matching that desire up against other characters that share the same goal. Or want some prize that puts them in our hero’s way. Or, they want the same thing and want all of it, or all the other degrees and combination of conflict that can come. (I’ve written about conflict types before, both a complex post and a simpler one, but so much of it does come down to What Do You Want.)
And on the other hand, that line is a catchphrase from a master class on storytelling: J. Michael Straczynski’s spectacular show Babylon 5.
After all, when a mysterious figure actually starts asking that question of a wildly varied cast, and then uses the answer one gives to start a galactic war..
Character Arcs – the Descent of Londo Mollari
Londo’s pretty much a clown. Just a washed-up, puffed-up alien ambassador who thinks his fading empire deserves more respect, and always scheming against his rival G’Kar from the world his empire had once enslaved. So when the smiling Mr. Morden asks “What do you want?” he growls “I want it all back, the way that it was!”
(You can watch his answer for yourself, here, including Morden’s reaction: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLijOyZ0GtN42ZtegVNYRV4aBRaTnZ0oVw)
Cue the star-spanning power grab.
But Babylon 5 isn’t about ships firing lasers (mostly). It’s about making us feel every step of the journey that Londo and others take. So if Londo wants his people to take power back from the other stellar empires, the story might chart his arc through characters like:
- The obvious enemy that he escalates his conflict with.
- Would-be peacekeepers who see he’s going to be trouble.
- An unlikely friend who’s seen sides of him that others never do.
- A confidante who stays near him but sees everything he’s losing…
- His people’s leaders that give him everything he wants. At a price.
Otherwise known as:
- G’Kar
- Commander Sheridan (and most of the human cast)
- “MIster GariBALDI!”
- Londo’s assistant Vir,
- and… well, a whole parade of backstabbing Centauri nobles, including the Emperor.
Brilliant.
Londo’s whole storyline is measured through his dwindling bonds with those people, in sequence. The further his goal of Centauri glory pulls at him, the more his conflicts with the earlier people of that list grow, and the more he’s dragged into the camp of the latter ones.
All because the first have the least in common with his goal, and the last ones have the most, at least in theory. And all the way Londo moves down that list, he (and we) can feel what he’s losing and what he’s risking to go on.
That’s the basic pattern of Londo’s arc, brought to excruciating life by how these people define it. That’s how simple it can be to pick stepping stones for a powerful story.
To B5 and Beyond – Crossing the Character Arcs
At least, that’s the basic pattern. Of course every step on Londo’s or any character’s journey is also another chance that they might see what’s coming and find the strength to pull back—but what would it cost them? Or, a writer could twist up something to change the pattern or someone’s place in it. A character could give up one goal for another, or find a way to reconcile them, or simply lose his reason to keep pushing. (Come on, fans will be talking for generations about Londo’s crazy friendship with Garibaldi, they can’t split those two up… can they?)
And a story would have more than one thread to tangle together. G’Kar has his own journey in their rivalry, and so do the shadowy forces Morden tempts Londo with, and I haven’t even mentioned their opposite number. Or almost anything about the human plotlines that actually are the series’s center, or the last seasons in the aftermath of all this…
–Trust me, Babylon 5 was Game of Thrones years before the first Game-move was ever played. And its people survived long enough to stand for something.
But any story can begin to build some of that power, with three steps:
- Know a character’s goal.
- Compare it to other characters, for who’s more in conflict with who.
- Lay the plot out so that key character’s arc goes past the others, in a pattern of similarity and conflict.
Then twist that character’s course and combine it with the others.
Speaking of twists… One last thing about B5 is that its story didn’t twist, or even move, so much in the first season. (Yes, it did all of the above and more in four years, with one to spare just for setups.) Not the first season was weak, but it did have a whole different pace.
More like, say, the slower arc of Harry Potter’s Severus Snape.
Next time: To Arc or Not To Arc?
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