Here I come, worthy or not: Notes on the Worthy Opponent

worthy opponent--a character whose personal and/or organizational interests run antithetical to the protagonist of a novel or short story; an individual of significant enough stature to insure a sense of fear in the reader that the protagonist will either lose outright or have to relinquish some of the prize.

The concept of shooting fish in a barrel comes to mind when considering the dynamics of the worthy opponent. It would take a poor shot indeed to miss hitting at least one fish thus constrained. By extension, an antagonist who is made to seem evil for its own sake or merely contrary for the sake of being contrary prove no real threat to the protagonist or the reader, leaving additional metaphors such as paper tiger or tempest in a teapot to hover over the story.

An ideal opponent for a protagonist in a story is a person in his or her own way every bit bigger than life than the protagonist, a person of steely desire and purpose, equipped with such tools as a brilliant sense of humor, an obvious intelligence, adaptability, charm, and that great catch-all, people skills.

The goal is to provide the worthy opponent with enough clout that the outcome of the story is in doubt to the very end. A plausible opponent is one who might, in a mystery, outwit the detective; win the heart of the protagonist in a romance; supply superior magic in a fantasy; have a grittier social/existential problem than the protagonist in a YA novel; have loftier motives than the protagonist in a science fiction novel. There is no genre in which an unworthy opponent would be more welcomed than one with some interesting, intriguing dimension.

We may begin historically with Achilles and Hector in The Iliad, where it is still possible to root for Hector against the anointed hero, Achilles; then we can move to a trope in which a personified Nature presents a worthy opponent, first as the whale in Moby-Dick, then as the marlin in The Old Man and the Sea. To be sure, there is Dr. Moriarty, standing against Sherlock Holmes, emphasizing the common denominator here--a worthy opponent plausibly stands between the protagonist and the protagonist's goals.

In the original Star Trek TV series, the Romulan commander tells Capt. Kirk, "I regret that we meet in this way. You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend." In the TV drama, The Wire, Omar Little was heard to observe, "A man got to have a code." Little had such a code, lived by it, and in tropes reminiscent of Greek tragedy, died by it. Another splendid example of worthiness in opponents also appeared in The Wire, where the characters of Avon Barksdale and Russell "Stringer" Bell were school chums, then loving partners in a flourishing Baltimore drug trade before a clash of philosophy led each to action that betrayed the other.

One of the dividing lines between the worthy opponent and the mere opponent is fairness. The worthy opponent plays fair, in large measure because he is confident of his abilities and his cause, thus he is "allowed" to play fair. The mere opponent uses any means at his disposal to win. A helpful recipe for creating the WA: give him or her ten percent more in some relevant, thematic ability than you give the protagonist. Heat to boiling, then serve.

Character Traits

iconic characters--memorable individuals in dramatic narratives; presences in stories whose attitudes and bearing outweigh the plot of the narrative.

A significant test by which to assess the memorability of a character is to determine what that character wants--really wants, then decide what that character will to to achieve the goal. Why is Hedda Gabler so memorable and what did she want. Why is Lady Macbeth so memorable? Perhaps for her insistent urge for power, but just as likely because of the first words out of her mouth when Macbeth returns to her, having already had one change of heart before screwing up the courage to murder Malcolm. "My husband!" she affirms.

Consider this list of characters culled from the ages:

Antigone: she was willing to put her life on the line for insisting on doing what she believed to be right.
Anton Chigurh: not just an enforcer or a hired killer but as well a control freak of epic proportions.
Becky Sharp: known for her bigger-than-life opportunism.
Captain Ahab: at the very least, he was so bent on revenge that he overrode his religious tradition and risked damnation to achieve it.
Captain Spaulding: with more than his greasepaint eyebrows to call him to our attention, his every act flies in the face of comfortable tradition and convention, and wouldn't we just like to get away with that?
Florentino Ariza: from Love in a Time of Cholera, his aching, unrequited love for Fermina Daza sends him through intimate encounters with over six hundred substitute lovers.
Fleur: this haunting presence of many a Louise Erdrich short story and some novels is incarnate a stunningly attractive Native American woman who years for a return to the old ways; she has the will and, seemingly, the magic to back up her presence.
Lewis and Clark: two military men who set forth on an assignment and in the process discovered a continent.
Jane Eyre: she rode plainness and intelligence and love into an archetype who spoke to Rochester across the Moors and to us across the eras.
Joan of Arc: a teen-age girl who hears voices and leads armies.
Omar Little: an impressive presence from the recent TV series The Wire, he made his living by robbing drug dealers. He had a code of honor, an ethos. The mere thought of him evokes memories of the sounds when he took to the Baltimore streets: "Yo! Omar commin! Here come Omar."
Sisyphus; from the Greek myths, a man who drew as punishment an eternity of the frustration of performing a meaningless task.
The Wife of Bath: an epitome of womanly force, spirit, and earthy intelligence. She would not be denied. Compare her to Erdrich's Fleur.
Wile E. Coyote: character write huge. Armed with Acme Products, Coyote is the patron saint of characters with established goals.

We must not forget the specific things these estimable icons want. To want something as abstract as freedom, independence, even love is to miss the point entirely and to miss the thrust of the true Valhalla of Characters: a specific something or someone; none had the time nor patience for abstractions.

Four Thought

irony--a condition created when a character says one thing while feeling an opposing urge; a deliberate, emphatic expression made by a character in the explicit belief that the recipient will conclude the exact opposite meaning; any lurking space between what is said and what is meant.

Irony is the stage manager for most human drama; it is the genome of crossed purposes, misinterpretation, and expressions of things being taken as other than what we intended. The marvelous prank letter inflicted on Malvolio in Twelfth Night demonstrates irony in a never-to-be-forgotten manner. Through a ruse, Malvolio, the steward of the attractive young Countess Olivia, is led to believe Countess Olivia has a romantic interest in him. When Malvolio appears before Olivia, dressed as the prank letter suggested, the disconnect plays forth, with irony taking the winning hand, one on which the writer double downs when Olivia finds herself drawn to a handsome young man, Cesario, who has undertaken the job of commending to her the interest of Orsino. But of course the reader will already know the irony of Cesario not really being Cesario, but rather Viola, who wishes nothing more than the affections of Orsino. Irony truly trumps in this exemplary drama.

As its inherent condition of a person, place, or thing being opposite to our expectations makes itself known, irony causes us to understand that we are in a rigged game, a drama called Life in which we are now cast in a Road Runner cartoon, then informed by the director that we have been cast as Wile E. Coyote.

Omar Little--a front-rank character in the HBO novel-for-television, The Wire; a gritty, magnetic character who is openly gay, whose major source of income is robbery, a man who has in fact killed in defense of his beliefs, Omar Little never robs from people who are not directly involved in the drug trade, has a strict code of ethics which follows it, emerges as one of the few uncorrupted characters in the mise en scene, remains likable, admirable throughout his tenure in the sixty-episode series. When presented with moral quandaries, Little can be seen considering them as a prelude to determining his course of action. His senses of humor and irony are manifest; he is the only front-rank character who does not use profanity nor does he in any way suffer from not doing so. On occasion, Omar Little's purposeful focus is reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote, although Little is more likely to use irony instead of becoming its victim; Little and Coyote represent polarities in character force that merit study. Omar Little is a reminder that dignity is a major factor to consider in the creation of character.

Where would they rather be?--a question to ask of characters before introducing them into any scene. It is quite possible for them to want to be in the current scene, agendas and ambitions burning brightly or fearful of potential consequences. Also it is likely they would prefer to be elsewhere, doing things other than those required of them in the instant moment.

The answer to the question informs what the character thinks, says, does, keeps the character on track moment to moment. The action or overwhelming needs of a scene may mercifully prevent the writer from listing too much detail about the character, but nevertheless will influence the choice of words used in rendering the character and the pace with which the character performs.

It is important to realize that the character's preference does not operate on a right-wrong basis but rather on an opportunity-providing basis. The waiter working the dinner shift may want instead to be attending an acting class or, better still, be a character in a performance, providing the temptation for that waiter to behave at the present task of serving cheap or expensive meals to pensioners or CEOs in ways that produce a chemistry to the scene and perhaps even a consequence.

backpack--the tools, history, emotions, and baggage a character carries when setting forth into a new scene. Characters may or may not behave like tourists in a new setting, craning their necks to look at the sights or, contrarily, being blase to a fault. An actor may show up for a performance, thinking he knew his lines, but this time, in this scene, there is doubt. A housewife may return home from grocery shopping, thinking she has three hours of free time to work on a short story before her son returns from school, then notices her husband's car in the driveway. Or an ambulance. An actor leaves her afternoon AA meeting to attend a cast party at which she knows there will be several bottles of champagne.