John Wick: Writing A Terrifying Protagonist

tell me his name again thanos he's a plague honey he invades planets he takes what he wants he wipes out half the population he said loki the attack on new york that's him all right did that seem familiar probably right but most likely not for the reason i want to focus on okay how about this some men aren't looking for anything logical like money they can't be bought bullied reasoned or negotiated with things still not completely clear well all right i have one more example that should make the pattern plain to see we called him babayeka the boogeyman well john wasn't exactly the boogeyman he was the one you sent to kill the [ __ ] boogeyman now i think we are cooking with fire so we just watched three very short scenes from three very different movies but of course they all have one thing in common they all hype up the villain part of what makes the antagonist for many great stories so effective and intimidating is the fear and respect they elicit from the heroes the goal of protagonists is to stand at the center of a story and ferry the audience to the emotional rises and falls of the narrative by and large we are meant to walk in the shoes of the protagonist so by definition if they fear the power and abilities that the antagonist wields we will also feel that way having the main characters verbally state their trepidation with facing their antagonists has served as a key method of building up iconic villains such as thanos the joker and john wick except of course one of those don't belong john wick isn't the villain in fact he is so firmly the protagonist that the whole movie is named after him but he is definitely talked about like he is a villain the bodies he buried that day [Music] lay the foundation of what we are now really if a person only watched this scene between theon mafia joy and his father one would definitely come away from it thinking that jon is as villainous as they come but why why does the film dedicate this time to making the hero sound so menacing well i think it's because the writers knew it was absolutely the best thing to do given the circumstances and that writing choice and what we could all learn from it is what the rest of this video is going to be about almost without fail through every client that i have worked with in every manuscript that i have edited essential focus has been to make the protagonist interesting like i said before a protagonist usually stands at the center of a story and therefore carries the story on their shoulders because of this it is very important to many writers to endear their protagonist as soon as possible to the audience or at least make the main character likeable early on this is actually the titular subject of the late blake snyder's ultra famous book save the cat within snyder describes the usefulness of having a decisive moment where the protagonist proves they are worth rooting for as soon as they appear or at least close to it the example of such an action snyder gave was saving a cat an action nearly anyone could get behind john wick as a film does this exact thing but with a bit of a twist instead of a cat it's a dog and everyone can get behind taking care of a dog yeah well if you're asking me if i if i like wild animals slobbering all over me then yeah i guess i'm not really a not really a dog lover wow okay maybe not everyone because narrative techniques that focus on tugging on your heart strings don't work equally on all people but i think you get the point the entire reason that we see john wick with this puppy is to give us a picture of who he is as a person someone we can understand and possibly care for in fact the entire introduction of this movie is geared towards that goal the opening shows us john bloodied bruised and vulnerable the opening moments continue on showing us that jon was a loving husband but is now coping with the difficult reality of losing the love of his life this all culminates with jon receiving this puppy as the last gift from his late wife a final thing to remember her by and while the literal save the cat moment is john taking care of the dog the entire intro is one big save the cat moment it's an orgy of evidence to impress upon us that jon is a good dude who deserves our sympathy the narrative is doing its absolute darndest to cast an emotional net that can capture as many people's hearts as possible as deeply as possible and it's doing that for two reasons the first of which is so this moment hits hardest where it hurts most jon is beaten his dog is killed and it gets revealed that all of this happened simply as the aftermath of a chance run-in with a terrible stranger all that positive regard the film spent the intro building up is cashed in here and any person with a heart will at least feel a little bad at watching a puppy and a man get brutalized for no reason but as i said this is only one part of why the intro was set up this way the other is to give narrative weight to this scene this whole exchange between boss vigo and his son joseph might honestly be the most important scene in the entire movie and its contents are the complete inverse of everything that happened during the intro where the opening of the movie went out of its way to impress upon us a john that was vulnerable kind heartbroken and protective this scene educates us on an entirely different side of john one that is murderous ruthless calculated and efficient i once saw him kill three men in a bar with a bouncer and the reason i think the scene is so important from a technical editing perspective is because it expertly lays the narrative bedrock for making john wick a terrifying protagonist something that the movie relies on for the rest of its run time this is accomplished not just by the information about jon's past which is honestly terrifying on its own but who the information comes from it's not john who gives his own character relevant details it's the gangsters the villains and because of how modern fiction has commonly handled delivery of character information this makes jon seem like the villain let's dive into why typically one of the most important jobs a narrative has to accomplish early on is establishing the antagonist and the threat they pose there are two very common ways to accomplish this one way is to showcase the villain's methods in ruthlessness through a scene of action this shows the audience firsthand how dangerous and threatening the antagonist is christopher nolan did this with both the joker and bane and the mcu accomplishes this with villains like killmonger the second method of establishing the villain's threat is a bit different as it revolves around words more than action many times the main characters or even the protagonist will relay the dangerous aspects of the villain through dialogue if he gets his hands on all six stones tony you could destroy life on a scale hitherto on dreamtop now both of these methods the action based and the dialogue based are really just smoke in mirrors to disguise the narrative construction going on underneath let's focus on the dialogue method for a moment when a main character talks about how powerful or dangerous or threatening a villain is it is meant to set up the traditional struggle of a story overcoming conflict all good stories revolve around a character generally the protagonist overcoming some conflict and that conflict is created by the antagonist so for our main character to overcome the conflict they therefore have to overcome the antagonist pretty simple stuff but for the antagonists to be overcome that means by definition they must be in an elevated position relative to the protagonist to say that in a less pretentious way the villain needs to be better than the hero stronger faster smarter wealthier whatsoever the narrative conflict demands typically whatever the strengths the protagonist has they should be ineffective at dealing with the antagonist there wouldn't be much of a conflict if the hero could save the day right away a well-executed antagonist targets and highlights the weaknesses of the protagonist when done right this should cause the protagonist to confront their weaknesses experience character growth and rise to meet the challenge of the antagonist and of course the greater the difference in power between the protagonist and the antagonist the greater the conflict and the greater the payoff if and when the protagonist ultimately succeeds all in all this is meant to say that when main characters talk about the threat of the villain they are establishing the benchmark for who they have to overcome and surpass and that is why john wick in this scene feels so villainous what seems like just simply dialogue is actually an inversion of traditional narrative formation it's the antagonists fearfully establishing the threat of the protagonist john will come for you and you will do nothing because you can do nothing our hero character is depicted as a single-minded murderous force of nature that cannot be reasoned with let us not resort to our baser instincts and handle this like civilized man to move on and it's the villains who have to try to change and evolve to overcome him tasker crew [Music] how many how many do you have and i think this is the key to what makes john wick so terrifying as a protagonist this isn't a situation like in taken where the main character is a highly skilled killer but the villains brush him off and i will kill you good luck this is a situation where the main character is a highly skilled killer but the villains are horrified of him that [ __ ] nobody is john mike and what that does for anyone who engages with the fiction is let them know they should be horrified of john wick ii it's an incredibly simple but effective way of making the protagonist terrifying however this isn't a carte blanche endorsement of this narrative technique there are distinct dangers and weaknesses associated with it and to avoid them very specific writing fail-safes need to be utilized all of which john wick as a film employed in the intro and believe it or not we actually already touched on them let's say you want to use this technique so you want to convince the audience of the threat of your protagonist by having the villain fear them this can only work if the audience understands the villains to be threatening first if the villain is weak or meager or unintimidating or worse non-descript them being scared of your protagonist doesn't mean much but if your villain is hardened and ruthless their fear of the protagonist is much more impactful so in the case of john wick the film needed to establish the threat of the antagonist before making them fearful of john and that's exactly what it did this scene is an example of a villain introduction through action that i was talking about and it allows the audience to get a sense of how dangerous and twisted these gangsters are they are the kind of people who don't think twice about breaking into your home killing your dog and beating you senseless just because they felt like it the film is banking on you thinking these are scary people which would make their eventual fear of jon exponentially more meaningful but that still isn't enough because you don't want your audience to be only terrified of your protagonist you want your audience to be invested in if not hopefully root for your main character however most people don't like cheering on a merciless mass murderer so how do you make your protagonist terrifying but also sympathetic enough to excuse their killing well you do what john wick did make the killings as justified as possible generally this is either done through moral justification or emotional justification moral justification is what superhero and action movies do the hero can kill their enemies because it is in service to the quote-unquote greater good emotional justification is what john wick does the narrative creates a situation where the audience can sympathize with and understand why jon is killing this is the value of the movie's save the cat intro the movie is telling you that jon was a peaceful morning widower who wasn't malicious but was simply pushed to the edge the other side of the emotional justification is making the villains as easy to root against as possible this is why yosef to put it scientifically is such an insufferable dick we want to see him get what he deserves and that creates a situation where we are willing if not happy to know that jon is coming after him so mercilessly the allure of the rest of the film isn't just seeing if john wick lives up to his legendary reputation it's waiting to see if the villain gets the comeuppance that we so desperately believe he deserves john wick is a terrifying protagonist because the villains fear him and he has the skills to back it up but we also root for jon because the narrative has convinced us on an emotional level that while we might not act on it some part of us understands john's desire for revenge and wants to see him succeed the anger and fear and regret in vigo's eyes as he comes to grips with how grave a mistake it was for his son to cross john is all the film needed to do to kick into full gear if any of you writers out there have been struggling with ways of making your own protagonist feel threatening or powerful this narrative technique might be right up your alley anyway i hope you guys enjoyed the video and i hope you might have learned something along the way too if you like what you heard consider subscribing for more content or if you really want to help out consider supporting the channel on patreon for early videos and other cool perks links will be in the description or if you want something more casual check out the second channel link for that below too again thank you all for watching to the end as always it was a pleasure and i will talk to you all again soon you

Channel: Savage Books

Views: 2,705,480

Rating: 4.9370046 out of 5

Keywords: how to write, writing advice, savage books, dialogue dive, john wick, keanu reaves, writing a protagonist, john wick video essay

Id: d03ad5H1MkU

Length: 15min 26sec (926 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ftgbhs]

I truly believe that the pinnacle of this movie was when Viggo utters the word "Oh" in response to why Aurelio struck his son. The complete change in temper, ending of the phone call, and the silence that followed, coupled with Wick's background really set this unbelievably dark tone of what is about to happen.

Viggo: I heard you struck my son

Aurelio: Yes sir, I did.

Viggo: And may I ask why?

Aurelio: Yeah well, because he stole John Wick's car sir, and uh... killed his dog.

Viggo: Oh.

[u/imSeanEvansNowWeFeet]

Inventive writing.

Just think about it, how many times have we seen the ‘beast awakened by tragic event’ cliche. So many. Yet with this one I really felt the power of John Wick’s brand.

The constant reference to the pencil kill is an example of where he has this mythical ability to instil fear

[u/WISCOrear]

A facking penceeel

[u/DreamNinja]

Interesting video but I'm not fully sold on the idea that John Wick is the first film to walk this path.

I think it does it well but the anti-hero has been a feature in film for a long time now. The setting up of the protagonist as a good guy who we then hear from the enemies is the most revered badass of all time, is a trope used in every film starring Jason Statham/similar action films. What sets John Wick apart was the quality of the writing, acting, and production, which are usually the shortcomings of the genre.

[u/anotherkeebler]

John Wick didn't invent the Protagonist with a Dark Past; that one has been around for quite some time. Shane for example. I like the very complex character Viggo Mortensen portrayed in A History of Violence.

Wick sets up the conflict very quickly, sets the stage for an above-average Action/Revenge movie, but it doesn't deviate very far from the formula:

1. I like this guy, he's a good guy. I can relate to him.
2. Somebody hurts him.
3. He turns the other cheek.
4. Somebody hurt somebody he cares for.
5. Turns out he's a secret badass and the bad guy is done for.

[u/isseidoki]

Love everything he said about john wick, but he is wrong about thanos. That scene in infinity war with bruce talking about thanos is not even remotely how we learn about thanos and his threat. It could be completely removed and nothing would be different because we already knew about his threat from avengers 1 and gotg

[u/CrazyPlato]

Never before have I seen a character who was so clearly the alpha in every room. When John Wick breathes, you can hear the silence as everyone around him holds their breath.