The flat arc, Lord of the Rings, and going the distance

We're almost a week into the new year, meaning, according to all research, that a fair number of people have already abandoned their New Year's resolutions. People can be forgiven for thinking there is some magic to keeping a resolution; we're often fed the notion that change only comes as a result of some great epiphany at the end of unusual events. The character arc of most fiction, be it in books, movies, drama, or TV, follows this formula. A character is stuck in some place, then events come along that crescendo until they finally reach a point where the character realizes something that prompts a change. The change allows the character to overcome the thing that has been preventing him or her from finding happiness.

Three kinds of arcs

(Caveat: I'm definitely plagiarizing someone in this section. I'd be happy to cite the proper source, but this is now so widely circulated, I don't really know where the following classification of character arcs began. I'll have to just be content with saying this isn't me.)

Generally, the trajectory or arc a character follows in a narrative can be classified as one of three types of arc:

The positive arc: Most of us are pretty familiar with this one. It's what I just described above. We meet a character and learn about that character's traits, which are a blend of positive and negative. The negative traits are causing some kind of problem in the character's life. (This is sometimes called "the lie the character believes.") The character faces a series of challenges that force her to face up to the weakness (or to see through "the lie") and change. The moment of change is the climax, and it is followed by the denouement, which shows us how the climax allows the character to resolve the issue.

One reason I really like Finding Nemo is that you can teach a lot of narrative concepts easily from it. It follows a perfect narrative cycle of rising action-climax-denouement. It also has three characters who clearly have positive character arcs.

The negative arc: This is an artsier example, at least for main characters. Stories in which the main character gets worse instead of better tend not to satisfy, so we usually relegate the negative character arc to a secondary character. In a negative character arc, the person has a chance to change for the better, but fails to. Sometimes, this just means retreating into the negative traits that cause the problem (continuing to believe "the lie"), but it can also mean the character actually goes from good to bad or bad to worse. Charles Foster Kane from Citizen Kane is one familiar example of a main character with a negative arc.

The flat arc: In a flat arc, the character doesn't essentially change. We might see the character dealing with challenges better in some sections than others, but the character's view of how one ought to face challenges doesn't really change. Often, it is a secondary character with a flat arc. This character is not changed by events nearly as much as the character causes change in others. This character comes into the story knowing something, and this knowledge unlocks the mysteries another character (usually the main character) needs to unlock, or helps the main character see through "the lie." Once in a while, a story will be about this "impact character," and the story becomes about how the main character changes others, rather than is changed. Chauncey Gardner in Being There or Amelie from the movie of the same name come to mind.

There can be mixed arcs. Frodo Baggins has basically a flat arc: he is able to endure from beginning to end because he is basically humble and true and good from beginning to end. However, he is wiser at the end. So are all of the hobbits, and while their basic character remains the same at the end as it was at the beginning, they have also changed enough that they are able to defeat Saruman and his lackeys in the Scouring of the Shire.

Lord of the Rings and the flat arc

Nearly all the main characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings have flat arcs. There are a few exceptions, like Saruman, Boromir, and Gollum (all negative arcs), but most of the characters are very much the same at the end as they were at the beginning. The movies changed this for a couple of characters, because the movies needed to make money and people really love positive character arcs. I understand why everyone loves positive arcs. It's important for us all to believe we can change. That's a good thing to believe. If you didn't it'd be hard to get out of bed in the morning.

But I'm a big fan of the flat arc. The fact is that most of us don't really need an epiphany to get past the hurdles in our lives. We just need to do the damn work. Most people who resolved to lose weight or run a 10K this year or whatever know what they need to do to accomplish their goals. Lack of knowledge isn't keeping them from losing the weight. It's lack of tenacity. One of the great secrets to life that isn't really a secret at all is how important it is to put your head down and keep on going.

Aragorn, the movie

There's one character arc in LOTR in particular I'd like to look at a little closer. Owing to the influence of the movies, Aragorn has come to be seen as an example of a classic positive character arc. Kristen Kiefer on her writing blog makes this very mistake while discussing--go figure--the subject of character arcs.

Aragorn is sort of a fantasy George Washington in the movies. He's happy fighting wars, but reluctant to assume the responsibility of ruling. Afraid he might not be worthy to be king because of mistakes made by his forefathers, Aragorn spends much of the trilogy denying the mantle of hope for mankind that others are trying to put on him. This "lie that he believes" is chipped away at bit-by-bit, until finally he decides to become the king he was born to be when the father of the woman he loves tells him it is the only way to save Aragorn's love.

It's a nice story. The trilogy itself came out right after 9/11, and America immediately read its current political situation into the challenges faced by the Fellowship. We saw Frodo's reluctant resolve to do what needed to be done to stop evil as our own story of facing up to extremism. So making Aragorn over into a Washington resonated with us, as well.

Tolkien's Aragorn

But that's not Tolkien's Aragorn. Tolkien's Aragorn was two when his father Arathorn was killed fighting orcs. Aragorn was taken to Rivendell by his mother, where Elrond took on the role of father to him. While in Rivendell, he was given the name "Estel," Elvish for "hope." No one spoke of his true name or lineage in order to protect him from the enemy. When he became full-grown, though, Elrond told Aragorn who he really was and "delivered to him the heirlooms of his house."

This included the shards of the sword Narsil, the one that cut the ring from Sauron's hand. Aragorn is, in fact, carrying this broken sword with him when he meets the hobbits in the books, because it is part of his destiny to carry it as the heir of Elendil.

The only heirloom Elrond does not give to Aragorn is the sceptre of Annuminas, which he says Aragorn needs to earn by way of a hard and long test. This test becomes Aragorn's whole life, which he spends in wandering and fighting the enemies of the free people of Middle Earth. His wandering is not something he does to avoid being king; it's what he has to do to earn the right to be king.

The day after Elrond told Aragorn who he was, Aragorn met Arwen, Elrond's daughter, and immediately fell in love. (Arwen had been away for many years at Lorien, which is why Aragorn had never met her before.) Elrond, sensing Aragorn's true feelings, tells him this:

"Aragorn, Arathorn's son, Lord of the Dunedain, listen to me! A great doom awaits you, either to rise above the height of all your fathers since the days of Elendil, or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin. Many years of trial lie before you. You shall neither have wife, nor bind any woman to you in any troth, until your time comes and you are found worthy of it."

The next day, Aragorn begins his long test. He wanders for thirty years, learning about the world as he does, becoming friends with Gandalf, and "uncovering the plots and devices of the servants of Sauron." He then sees Arwen again in Lothlorien, and she falls in love with him. She believes he will achieve great things. He does not know if he will be able to live up to her hope, but he says he will "hope with her hope."

When Elrond learns of Arwen's choice, he is grieved. He tells Aragorn that he will agree to lose his precious daughter to him, but only if by doing so, he can help to restore mankind. He will not allow Arwen, therefore, to marry him unless he becomes the king of a reunited Gondor and Arnor.

This is critical to understanding Aragorn. He wants to become king more than anything, because only by becoming king can he have what his heart desires, which is to marry Arwen. At no point in his story does he ever waver from his determination to become king. What we see in him is not reluctance to be king, only an uncertainty about whether he will be able to pass his test. He does, it is true, remain long hidden, and he keeps many false identities. But this is a strategic decision on his part to delay coming forth until the time is right, not born out of a concern that he might somehow have the same moral failings his forefather Isildur did when Isildur failed to destroy the ring. Aragorn refers over and over again to his wish to return to Gondor as heir to the throne, beginning as far back in the trilogy to the Council of Elrond, when he explains Boromir's dream thus:

For the sword that was broken is the Sword of Elendil that broke beneath him when he fell. It has been treasured by his heirs when all other heirlooms were lost; for it was spoken of old among us that it should be made again when the Ring, Isilur's Bane, was found. Now you have seen the sword that you have sought, what would you ask? Do you wish for the House of Elendil to return to the Land of Gondor?

And, in fact, the ring having been found, it is Aragorn who has the sword remade--not Elrond--and Aragorn does this before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell on the quest. He sees the quest as the end of his long trial. It's the denouement to a catharsis he had decades ago, not a moment of new revelation.

Most of our lives are flat arcs

One of the questions about literature I most often ask myself is whether it's ultimately good for people who spend a lot of time reading it. Certainly, I think that believing we can make our lives into positive-arc stories, ones in which we change and overcome our challenges, is a healthy belief. But we might also end up in long and futile cycles of waiting for some kind of enlightenment to strike us before change can happen. In reality, most of us are in a story that's more like the Aragorn of the books than the Aragorn of the movies. We don't have some great moment of revelation where we suddenly see we've been doing it all wrong. We've known for a long time what we were trying to do with our lives, and we know what we need to do to accomplish it. It's not a mystery, it's just hard, and we might fail at it.

Aragorn doubts himself. Four times, after the Fellowship breaks, he criticizes his own decision-making and puts the blame on himself for the group's difficulties. But he doesn't doubt his ultimate goal, just his ability to accomplish it. There is no catharsis in Lord of the Rings for Aragorn, no moment when he stops "believing the lie." He's got a game plan from very early on, and the story for him is just that game plan developing over a long time.

As we try to accomplish our dreams in our own lives, this arc is more likely what we need to succeed. We don't need a great unmasking of some truth. We don't need to learn some secret we don't already know. We don't need a new plan; we just need to do better at the plan we've had all along.