The Triangle of Dramatics - explaining a literary technique in Teen Wolf

[seraphim_grace]

I’ve explained this a few times today so it’s become apparent it needs it’s own meta. Now before I explain this there is a reason you’ve never heard of it - it’s high level criticism, it’s post graduate level. Your teacher probably won’t have heard of it because you don’t need to know the difference between melodrama and drama yet, because you

Comments

[absolute_enigma]

so in episode 4x04, Scott is the villain, Derek the champion, leaving Stiles being the victim at the beginning but Stiles and Scott snap their roles at the end of the episode ? (I'm trying to understand but as you said, it's kinda difficult to grasp everything ^^;)

[seraphim_grace]

it's easier if you draw a triangle

Scott starts as the villain, with Derek the catalyst/victim which leaves Stiles as champion (for questioning scott and forcing scott to make amends for what he did), so for Scott to rise as champion that puts Derek in the role of villain and Stiles into the role of catalyst, so Derek not stopping Peter allowed Scott to rise, as Stiles healed Malia, then if you twist it again so Stiles takes the role of villain then Derek becomes hero and Scott becomes catalyst, so Stiles manipulating Malia allows Derek to save the sheriff and scott gets to enact change

Remember these terms are massively simplified, but the Derek and Scott cannot both stand as hero

[ext_2882215]

So.does it have to only go in a circle around the triangle? Like, I'm picturing a triangle, with hero-Scott at the top, villian-derek in the bottom right, and victim-Stiles on the left. Can or does it ever happen that two characters can switch places, leaving the third where they were? Or if one moves, they all move around the triangle?

[seraphim_grace]

if one moves they all move in teen wolf, but you have to remember that these roles are vague descriptions at best, so i just watched the star trek movie for noise whilst working on a fic, and in it kirk, Spock and Nero take these roles, so you can understand that spock and kirk often change the roles of hero/victim between themselves but at one point when spock is made the villain for marooning kirk we see Nero as the victim, briefly