The Empty Man of Action vs. The Active Heart: Dispassionate and Dramatic Characters from James Bond and Sherlock Holmes to Little Miss Sunshine, Hamlet and The Hobbit

Abstract

After defining the terms Character, external and internal objectives and intimacy, this chapter uses those concepts to define two of the three forms of narrative space. DisPassionate characters like Superman have only external goals and lack intimacy, which limits their empathetic response while pushing their Spaces towards spectacular adrenalynic engines. By contrast Dramatic characters (the most common form of character) possess both external and internal goals. In Dramatic characters internal conflicts create the possibilities of empathy, pushing setting into a quiet unobtrusive role that won’t distract from the emotional conflicts inside and between characters. For these reasons DisPassionate Space is largely spectacular and non-empathetic while Dramatic Space is usually an unengaging backdrop behind empathetic characters. However, since 9/11 many traditionally DisPassionate characters, from Spiderman to James Bond to Sherlock Holmes, have acquired dramatic internal goals while Dramatic characters and spaces have increasingly migrated from the big screen to small-screen outlets.