Making the Case: Role of the Admirer
This last week I watched Diablo Cody’s Young Adult which is a film that, like so much of what I tend to enjoy, is both hilarious and tragic. It’s about this 30-something year old woman who is terribly self-destructive, yet continually blames the world for her failings. And while watching it, I noticed a character that is sort of familiar for these storylines.
But first, a disclaimer…
I am not a teacher. I have no credence to talk about storytelling aside from the fact that I, myself, am aspiring to tell stories for a living. So everything I say should not be taken as some kind of objective truth in any form. What I write is from my perspective, and my perspective can totally be wrong.
The above is a tag for this blog in general. Below is something which specifically applies to this post.
This is a post about a particular character archetype. I want to be the first to say that adding needless terms into what should be the seemingly natural process of storytelling at first seems to do more harm than good. A lot of times what stymies me in my writing isn’t a lack of ideas, but a lack of definition for those ideas. I’m stuck deciding if the scene I’m writing should be considered a “climax” or a “culmination”. I continually debate if my hero’s best friend is a fake-ally opponent, a fake-opponent ally, or one of the other millions of terms used to turn storytelling into something much more robotic than it should be.
This is something that really inhibited my process for a while. Rather than come up with ideas for what could move the story/characters forward, I was stuck on frustrating and pointless terminology like this. I’d think “if my story doesn’t have a turning point that occurs exactly every ten pages, then I’m a fraud!” It got, well… toxic. My outlining started to get so frustratingly exact that I would never get anything written. I began to believe that the value in a story was not found in it’s characters, emotionality, or experience, but in the rigid rules determined by various old guys with degrees. As a result, my stories suffered.
I started writing from a place of ill-advised objectivity. I didn’t write what I wanted to write, but what I thought would be considered “correct”. My stories came out slowly, painfully, and finally… detached. I had no connection to them. Sure, the structural beats would seem fine, but the actual story would ring hollow. Characters didn’t speak or interact naturally, storylines came out for the sake of creating a “conflict point”, and tons of more issues became apparent as I wrote.
On top of all this, I was consciously hating on my own work. Because it lacked just one or two of the “necessary beats”, I kept going back to this thought that I was just a bad writer. And it’s hard not to feel that way when there are step-by-step manuals on how to write a story. (Look at Save The Cat/22 steps to story/ ANYTHING that “Lessons From The Screenplay” might mention). These terms have a place and time, but I’m here to say that they do not belong in the minds of a beginning writer.
What I talk about is not a prescription. You do not need a character like the one below in any of your stories. It’s something which offered me some inspiration in one of my stories and, maybe, can inspire you. And if it doesn’t, that is fine. Write what you want to write.
With all that being said… let’s talk about “The Admirer”, a character archetype which seems to recur in certain tragic stories.
Alright, so who/what is an “Admirer”?
This is a character which most often appears in tragedies brought about exclusively by protagonist stagnation. They seem to appear in stories which follow someone on a path towards their own destruction, and often are the character who helps the protagonist remain on this path. I found a few examples to show who this person is, and exactly how they function.
Because these characters don’t emerge until late in the story, there will be spoilers for:
- Young Adult
- Bojack Horseman
- Breaking Bad
- The Wolf of Wall Street
Sandra (Young Adult)
Sandra is nothing more than a background character for most of the film, largely existing as just another person whom the protagonist (Mavis) has forgotten from her time at high school. But Sandra does have a distinct function- she specifically stops Mavis from changing for the better. In a brutal scene in which Mavis begins to break down and lament how she’s hurt the people around her, Sandra tells Mavis not to feel bad, and simply revel in the fact that she’s “better” than everyone else. She reinforces Mavis’ toxic worldview and insinuates that the world has victimized her. She mentions that everyone from their high school wishes they could be Mavis, and Mavis should take this as proof that her continually selfish behavior has brought her success.
Vance Wagner (Bojack Horseman)
Vance is an interesting character in that he originally emerged as an antagonist to Bojack and appeared as a symbol of exactly how depraved people can become when they are offered unconditional forgiveness. This is especially horrifying when, while shooting towards rock bottom, Bojack strikes up a friendship with Vance. Here, they have a conversation familiar to the one had between Mavis and Sandra- Bojack laments that he ought to change because he has hurt so many people, but Vance propositions him to the opposite effect. He tells Bojack that he should own the identity of the destructive movie star who doesn’t care about his effect on others, effectively saying that Bojack should lean into the very selfishness that has hurt the people around him. Bojack, unfortunately, takes this advice and further pushes people away.
Todd (Breaking Bad)
Todd enters into the show around the final season, right as Walt is beginning to decide whether or not to give up his crime-ridden lifestyle. Though a wide variety of things motivate Walt to remain on the path of destruction, it’s undeniable that Todd’s admiration and respect for Walt helps this decision be made. As former allies such as Jesse and Skyler begin to abandon him, he’s able to find solace and validation for his actions through Todd’s naive admiration.
The Audience (Wolf of Wall Street)
They only appear for the final scene of the film, but the audience which Jordan Belfort teaches at the end of The Wolf of Wall Street is yet another symbol of “The Admirer”. Here’s not just one person, but a crowd of people who admire the protagonist, despite the fact that Belfort is giving this presentation from jail. Because these people are so enraptured by Belfort, the film is given the bittersweet ending of “sure, he’s admired… but he’s the same person”.
What’s The Commonality?
Each of the protagonists from these films have their chance to learn stymied by admirers. The admirers enter the story when everything else has propositioned the character to change. They are the sole ally left, and in a sense, they’re the opposite of a true ally. Whereas a true ally is meant to call out the flaws in the protagonist and support them on the path to change, The Admirer helps them fight against this change, most often by appealing to their ego. Their presence validates the protagonist’s worst traits and helps them maintain a self-destructive path.
So there’s “The Admirer”. Maybe it inspires a character within your story, and maybe it doesn’t. Again, this is not a character common in most stories, but if it sounds like a character that could be in your story, I hope this is helpful.
