Using Chaotic Characters to Explore Narrative Space
In any story, some characters are just too valuable to get rid of — for narrative's sake. You don’t want to get rid of them because they let you explore many fates, they help the story find its own color. One such example is Maladie from HBO's fantasy show "The Nevers". Spoilers ahead.
From “Hanged”, Episode 5, Season 1
Maladie is too precious a character to be killed. In this fifth episode she’s schedule for execution by hanging, and you can already tell that odds are she will escape. And escape she did!
Fully cooperative characters makes narratives bland. There’s no surprise, no challenge, no unexpected swings. Without Maladie, that's what we'd have in The Nevers, a classic story of two clans playing against each other (Ms. True's and Mrs. Bidlow's). Clan desertions may spice it up, but not enough to override the two fates at play, all too predictable.
Having a character that answers to a new fate — a character that serves a different cause — is useful in the creation of colorful narrative by inviting change in interesting ways. The growth and evolution of Maladie as a character opens even more possibilities… it's no longer two or three possible fates at play, but everything spanning them. Maladie's search of purpose makes her a wildcard, too essential to kill when the story just begins.
The value of stories is that they reveal possible narratives, they explore the space of possible fates. Invites the question: How much narrative must we-humankind explore before realizing the fate worth settling and fighting for has been known to us for so long?
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