Characters Cont.

After thinking about the importance of characters in narratives for the past few days, I've come up with another, possibly better example, than " The Princess Bride". My example is Ethan Hunt from the Mission Impossible series.  His character as a spy affects everything, the plot, setting, theme, all of it. As a spy for IMF, he takes on seemingly impossible missions which is the basis for the plots in all of the movies. The plot is centered around his specific character. Spies seem to travel a lot so the settings for these shows are often in foreign places all over the world, and of course a spy is only as good as his gadgets, which puts the time at present so the tools he uses can be a little more futuristic.

Characters are key to any narrative. Without them, a story would  be like coloring a picture with only a white crayon. You'd have the complete outline, but no real color, nothing to catch the eye. Characters catch the reader. We cheer with the heroes, curse the villians and even fall in love with some of them. Plots and themes revolve around characters and their actions. They affect every part of narrative, which is what makes them one of the essential elements of a narrative.