Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2011

Find Your Characters' Shadows (Or, How Heroes Fall When Villains Push Them Over)

Psychologist Carl Jung named the face which we present publicly, which we use to hide things we don't like about ourselves, the persona . He also coined the flip-side, the shadow , which is something similar to the three-dimensional version of our physical shadows. This is teeming with everything that we try to hide, sometimes even from ourselves. In order to create a three-dimensional character, we need to individuate , or integrate, their archetypal parts into a cohesive sort of unit-y whole. This, of course, includes both their persona and their shadow. Now, the mark of a good villain in any story falls under his ability to force his opposition, the hero, into the spotlight where he'll find ways to highlight and criticise the things your hero would like to hide. Now, Shadow: Recognising It The shadow is upsetting the acknowledge, so we shove our awareness of it down to an unconscious level, thereby making the only way to truly know the contents of your shadow to co