More of Aristotle...it's still Greek to me....

Here live it's a new month, daylight savings time is upon us, and I am here with another blog entry. How can I follow up last months with Pixar images? Uhh. So anyways, I figured that I'd dive into more of Aristotle's concepts because they are interesting and applicable to today's stories. Back in my script writing class, I learned all about Aristotle's Poetics, and one concept I thought was interesting was Aristotle's thoughts that a story should either go from a high to a low (tragedy) or a low to a high. To be more precise, the main character or protagonist should go on this spectrum. This can be tied into the term peripeteia, used in Poetics to mean a 'reversal' or 'turning point.' Aristotle believes this has to do with external changes, not necessarily moral ones: a character that becomes rich undergoes peripeteia, as does a character that goes from being a king to peasant. Of course, in a lot of successful and mainstream movies, the underdog concept is used as a character goes from rags to riches. This is essentially all a reversal of fortune!

So an obvious definition would be simply going from one 'state' of affairs to the opposite. It seems so simple to us--but for Aristotle, this reversal of fortune meant the difference between a complex plot and a simple one. I'll look at it in a broader sense.

This going from one end to the spectrum seems obvious, but it's easy to leave out and acknowledging it can really enhance stories and make them stronger. By having a character start with nothing in some area of their lives, it makes that build to when they gain something that much stronger, whereas someone who starts out moderately successful may not gain as strong of a response. From what I've learned about this 'low to high' or 'high to low' the concept doesn't have to deal just with money/status: it could deal with someone totally shy becoming a social butterfly, an average teenager becoming a renowned superhero, etc. It all seems to simple but by starting a character on a high, or near sky high, that descent can be devastating, or that ascent from low-to-high can be captivating. 

But this isn't a new concept--it's everywhere--a lot of the most widely used examples of this go back to Scripture. And I mean it's hard not to see it: David is a lowly shepherd, the youngest of his family, and slowly rises to become one of the most widely recognized kings in history. To some extent, it seems as though Saul goes through this as he goes from being a powerful king to a double minded mad man that only by grace doesn't lose his kingship during his lifetime. 

Of course the 'rags to riches' or 'loss of power' of kings/royalty is the most obvious use of this concept, I mean take for example Aladdin, you see it at it's most obvious. Aladdin starts as a good-hearted peasant that has to steal food to eat anything, then ends up essentially as royalty. 

One "classic" example of this concept is the conversion of the apostle Paul recorded in Acts: Paul goes from being this authority figure in both Roman and Jewish society, then is blinded and 'humbled' to the point where he cannot go anywhere or eat for days. And following that, he becomes converted to a Christian and embarks on a journey where he will be beaten, exiled, shipwrecked, etc from different locations both in Jerusalem and around it. Of course, on a spiritual level one could clearly say he went from a 'low' to a 'high' but regarding the external changes, Paul goes from being a figure of great authority to being utterly helpless and alone after this revelation occurs from seeing Christ and he is blinded. 

Now I'm not sure if this is a textbook example but from high-to-low I thought of Johnny Bravo, a show I used to watch when I was a kid. In this show, you've got Johnny Bravo who seems good looking, has muscles, looks suave, wears sunglasses-but his arrogance to women throughout every episode lands him in complete trouble, and usually physical pain. Though Johnny is partly likable because of his wit or lackthereof, his arrogance (sexism) always lands him rejected by every woman and usually he loses everything he's tried to gain throughout the episode. He never wins over the girl, probably because he never really changes morally in the way he approaches girls--but whenever there's a hope that he's going to get the girl (at the beginning of the episode) he always loses her, and usually get hurt or bruised in the process. 

Now Aristotle believed that this reversal of fortune could be effective as a surprise, contrary to what people expect (though it's a natural cause and effect)---in today's society, mainstream movies usually have a happy ending, and we know that their going to have a happy ending because we want that pay-off. So personally, I believe that there aren't too many surprises, though one could argue that most of today's movies are reboots to familiar tales we already know the ending of. But as far as expectations in writing, I believe that it is still possible to catch someone off-guard with a sudden switch of fortune, or possibly more than one as a "fake out" to the end of the story or a plot-twist. 

So while one can look at the specific definition from Aristotle, I consider the 'reversal of fortune' in broader terms while looking at the possibilities for characters, how one can 'raise the stakes' in the middle by looking at where one wants the character to go at, where the path of the character will lead up as far as their own momentum. There is something captivating about watching a lowly character rise to prominence through endurance, and that is something that speaks to the 'under-dog' in every reader or viewer of any story.