<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/flawed-characters/" class="series-3807" title="Flawed Characters">Flawed Characters</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/flawed-characters/" class="series-3807" title="Flawed Characters">Flawed Characters</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-compelling-characters-who-are-flawed-part-1/" title="Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 1)">Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 1)</a></li><li class="serieslist-li-current">Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 2)</li></ul></div><h3>Sudden Change</h3>
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Any character whose life changes dramatically can be excused for acting differently or even badly. In Rescue Me, Denis Leary’s Tommy Gavin, an NYC firefighter, changed to an extreme version of who he was before 9/11. He suffers from the events of that day in many ways and also has survivor’s guilt that torments him constantly. Startling imagery which represents what’s going on in mind is a constant part of the storyline. Gavin may be an alcoholic, womanizing, emotionally abusive man, but we get why he’s that way &#8211; one horrible event changed him.
Bosch, in the original novels, was a “tunnel rat” in Vietnam. That experience left a terribly flawed human being.
It’s like a switch was flipped either on or off and nothing would ever be the same.
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<h3>Worse Than Them</h3>
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Thomas Shelby is the head of the Peaky Blinders crime family. They’re small compared to others, but vicious as needs must.  They have razor blades in their hats and use them in fights to try to blind their opponents, hence the name.
Thomas is strong, decisive, and fearless. He can fight for his family like a crazed wolverine and uses his hat exactly for what it was designed.
Not really a nice guy.
<div id="attachment_42213" style="width: 342px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42213" class=" wp-image-42213" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Tommys3-683x1024.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="332" height="498" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Tommys3-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Tommys3-100x150.jpg 100w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Tommys3-200x300.jpg 200w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Tommys3-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Tommys3-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Tommys3-150x225.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 332px) 100vw, 332px" />Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) Photo courtesy of BBC</div>
But, 4-5 things mitigate Thomas:
1) As mentioned, he has PTSD from his time during WWI. Opium is the only way he can gain peace. He is proud of his service and even though he’s a hardened criminal, he often times says he served king and country. His pride in that overshadows his behavior in the mean streets of Birmingham.
2) He’s smart. He finds ways around the worst of what he’s expected to do like faking an execution in order for his friend not to have to die.
3) To that end, he’s intensely loyal, not only to his immediate family, but to his friends and the gang.
4) Thomas, as bad as he is, has a strong moral compass given his world. There are right things and wrong things but he’s also flexible enough, given the circumstances, to change his mind.
5) Yes, he’s terrible (at times), but he’s not worse than DCI Chester Campbell (Sam Neill) who is tasked in the first season with finding some stolen guns that might end up in Libya. Winston Churchill, Campbell’s boss, makes it clear that’s it’s do or die. To that end, DCI Campbell interrogates suspects by beating them to a pulp, breaking fingers, and terrorizing entire neighborhoods.
He’s a real piece of work and we root for Thomas because he’s a sweetheart compared to this sociopath who uses his badge to justify his intense cruelty.
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<h3>Context</h3>
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What should be eminently clear is that everything in a character should be in context. In Top Boy, characters who seem extreme abound. But they are born into and come from crime and violence and perpetrate crime and violence in response.
In The Wire, many of the characters we like like Omar (Michael Kenneth Williams), Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), fight for survival on the mean streets of Baltimore, a place of despair at times so deep there is no hope.
In Deadwood the city itself is a character and those who live in it use whatever means necessary to survive in this relatively lawless town.
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<h3>Hannibal: In A Class by Himself</h3>
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Several concepts to why we like a serial killing cannibal (especially when played by Anthony Hopkins), are in play here. But, the most salient is &#8211; he’s charming. You might be eaten by him but &#8211; well, there really is no but &#8211; he’s a madman. However, he’s a erudite, clever, funny madman and a human flesh gourmet who hears classical music in his head while he’s slicing and dicing his victims.
When I attended Silence of the Lambs and the audience applauded the line, “I’m having a friend over for dinner” while showing Hannibal’s sadistic jailer coming off a plane while on vacation, I was appalled. But it only goes to show that despite how truly horrifying Hannibal the Cannibal is, being funny and clever, and not an obnoxious twit will get you celebrated even if you’re a murderer.
Hannibal was so well-liked that he inspired more books, movies, and a TV series.
Dexter is a stiff board compared to the loquacious Hannibal Lecter.
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<h3>Slow Burn To Bad</h3>
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Walter White didn’t start out to be Heisenberg. He was initially a good man under impossible circumstances that pushed him into cooking meth. However, as with many situations, his actions had unforeseen consequences and the deeper he went the more he had to compromise who he was.
Same with Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy. Jax was always a bit of an outlaw but as the series progressed, he got worse until he was basically irredeemable. The ending moment when he opens his arms and runs into a truck on his bike shows what he thinks of what he’s become &#8211; a tragic hero to his life and the choices that he’s had to make.
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<div id="attachment_42214" style="width: 779px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42214" class=" wp-image-42214" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/d5f4ec2f36f1042f2e79a87b356dc19e-1024x682.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="769" height="512" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/d5f4ec2f36f1042f2e79a87b356dc19e-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/d5f4ec2f36f1042f2e79a87b356dc19e-150x100.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/d5f4ec2f36f1042f2e79a87b356dc19e-250x166.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/d5f4ec2f36f1042f2e79a87b356dc19e-768x511.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/d5f4ec2f36f1042f2e79a87b356dc19e.jpg 1490w" sizes="(max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px" />Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam). Photo courtesy FX</div>
These are examples of the frog in hot water scenario &#8211; the characters do a slow burn to bad, not willing or able to get out before they’re boiled alive.
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<h3>Fascinating</h3>
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Assassins do their jobs like any good worker. That it’s murder is a given and somehow when we’re presented with a character like this we accept them.
Jodie Comer’s Villanelle in Killing Eve is a strange mixture of acceptance and abhorrence but we cannot look away even when she’s stabbing a man in the eye with a syringe filled with poison.
Several factors contribute to our embracing this character but first among them is that she’s fascinating. At times, almost playful and childlike in her approach to the killings. There’s a deeply dark core to her though that initially fascinates us. Why is she locked onto Eve (Sandra Oh)? Who does she work for and why? What would drive a smart, capable, beautiful woman to get off on cruelty? She’s so good at what she does we admire her craft. She’s obviously deeply bruised. She constantly repeats that she only kills ‘bad people’ which makes her assassinations just a bit more palatable. There’s so much to unpack here by the time we reel in horror from her we’re already trapped like a fly in honey.
Plus, the organization that hires and pays her has obviously a lot to do with why she does what she does. If she’s bad, that organization is evil. So, by comparison, she’s not so bad.
Uh, yeah.
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<h3>Genius</h3>
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Sherlock Holmes is not a nice man. He wasn’t written to be and never tries to be. His contemporary manifestations both the Benedict Cumberbatch series and the House, M.D. series (House = Holmes) are the same.
At times, especially Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) is absolutely cruel and totally uncaring. He tortures Cuddy, Wilson, and his team with his obnoxious attitude. And why shouldn’t he? Because he can. He’s a medical genius who only wants to solve the diseases plaguing his patients. Human beings are not really important to him.
That’s clear in the very first episode when his buddy Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) tries to get him involved with the young teacher who is having severe seizures.
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WILSON 
The 29-year-old female…
HOUSE 
The one who can’t talk, I liked that part.
WILSON 
She’s my cousin.
HOUSE 
And your cousin doesn’t like the diagnosis. I wouldn’t either. Brain tumor, she’s gonna die, boring.
WILSON 
No wonder you’re such a renowned diagnostician. You don’t need to actually know anything to figure out what’s wrong.
HOUSE 
You’re the oncologist; I’m just a lowly infectious disease guy.
WILSON 
Hah, yes, just a simple country doctor. Brain tumors at her age are highly unlikely.
HOUSE 
She’s 29. Whatever she’s got is highly unlikely.
WILSON 
Protein markers for the three most prevalent brain cancers came up negative.
HOUSE 
That’s an HMO lab; you might as well have sent it to a high school kid with a chemistry set.
WILSON 
And she’s not responding to radiation treatment.
HOUSE 
None of which is even close to dispositive. All it does is raise one question. Your cousin goes to an HMO?
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That introductory sequence shows his humor, cruelty, and brilliance all in one small scene. We might not like Dr. House but we sure will admire him.
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<h3>They Evolve</h3>
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Harley Quinn is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma as Winston Churchill had famously said. Well, not about her specifically but…anyway.
She’s had several manifestations until this last iteration which had her begin a transition from really, really bad person to someone seeking redemption. That evolution started in the Suicide Squad movies where she did good things but was forced to. She was always playful, powerful, and unique and once she started down that path, she became downright funny.
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<div id="attachment_42215" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42215" class=" wp-image-42215" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/harley-quinn-movie-1024x683.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/harley-quinn-movie-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/harley-quinn-movie-150x100.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/harley-quinn-movie-250x167.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/harley-quinn-movie-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/harley-quinn-movie.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. </div>
The Hulk is another evolving character. Starting out as a “Hulk smash!” sorta superhero, he eventually merged both his Bruce Banner persona with that rage-filled monster. He went from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Dr. Hyde. He’s still big and green but now he wears glasses and works in a lab.
Evolution is writ large in many redemption characters.
Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) becomes a force of good. Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is a loud, obnoxious fighter who emotionally then physically tortures Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and ultimately becomes his friend and mentor.
Magneto (Ian McKellen) was never all that bad in what he wanted to accomplish but like a lot of baddies, it was the lengths he went to in order to accomplish them. But over several films he changes and works with Professor X not against him.
Of course, there has to be hints of these characters’ potential evolution or at least an inciting incident that pushes them over to the light side.
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<h3>In Conclusion</h3>
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There’s a saying: The best arguments in the world won’t change anyone’s point of view &#8211; the only thing that can do that is a good story (novelist Richard Powers). Mr. Powers knows what we need to understand which is even the most unlikable characters become likable or at least acceptable when we’re given a compelling take on them.
Writing any character in a way that allows us to understand them, engages us in their story, and we’ll embrace and follow them anywhere.
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-compelling-characters-who-are-flawed-part-1/" title="&lt;&lt; Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 1)">&lt;&lt; Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 1)</a></fieldset>

Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 2)

<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/flawed-characters/" class="series-3807" title="Flawed Characters">Flawed Characters</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/flawed-characters/" class="series-3807" title="Flawed Characters">Flawed Characters</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li-current">Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 1)</li><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-compelling-characters-who-are-flawed-part-2/" title="Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 2)">Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 2)</a></li></ul></div>I was/am a big Sopranos fan. Also, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Ray Donovan, Billions, Suits, and others that featured characters who I wouldn’t associate with on a dare. Violent, narcissistic, even evil, men and women who did unthinkable things and yet who I follow eagerly from week to week, movie to movie.
To say I am always conflicted about my love of these shows would be understatement. What is it, what was it about the horrible characters that attracted me to them?
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<h3>Well- Developed Backstories</h3>
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Make no mistake, the characters featured in these series and movies were deeply flawed, but behind their behavior was the sense that something important drove them to it.
The always entertaining Benicio del Toro is a former prosecutor, now assassin, seeking revenge for the murder of his wife and daughter in Sicario.
In Banshee Anthony Starr’s character is an ex-con who becomes a sheriff in a small town and dispenses justice his way (based on his past) while he tries to locate the diamonds he heisted from a Ukrainian criminal.
And don’t cross Liam Neeson, a retired CIA agent (with a particular set of skills) and mess with his family in Taken.
In Death Wish, the original Charles Bronson film, you see the backstory as villains rape and murder his wife and daughter. He becomes a living target, drawing bad actors to him as some sort of masochistic Judas goat in order to shoot them. A vigilante. You’d have to be made of stone not to feel for this man whose family was so brutalized and maybe you’re uncomfortable about his actions, but you understood and accepted them.
Tony Soprano’s backstory involved his crime-based family. Tony was raised to be a villain. His role models were criminals. This wasn’t totally revealed initially, but you get a sense of it, not only from the world of organized crime which is familiar, and from a very conniving Uncle Junior and Mama Soprano who worked against Tony to take over the family businesses. How do you respond to life normally when your mother orders a hit on you?
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<div id="attachment_42205" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42205" class=" wp-image-42205" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/wp2793104-1024x640.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="771" height="482" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/wp2793104-1024x640.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/wp2793104-150x94.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/wp2793104-250x156.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/wp2793104-768x480.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />Tony Sopranos (James Gandolfini). Photo courtesy of HBO</div>
Likewise, Ray Donovan’s father&#8217;s first introduction is his release from prison and subsequent brutal murder of a priest who Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight) thought had molested his son, Bunchy.
Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) hated his father so much that he had to be drugged and kidnapped  to attend his funeral. 
These family trees and backgrounds are corrupt and infected with bad, bad people. Violence, as the saying goes, begets violence. It’s not an excuse for behavior, but rather an explanation for it. Characters who are flawed requires some insight into their actions. 
Tapping into that delicate balance of justice vs. outrage is one key to making an audience embrace your character and their world.
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<h3>The World</h3>
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Speaking of the world, that’s another big check box. 
Game Of Thrones features a plethora of bad people acting in horrible manners and although we might cringe many times (the Red Wedding) we get that that world was different than ours. Being in power meant you had a target on your back. Justice was rough at best, meted out at sword tip in many cases. There weren’t courts and advocates for your crimes, there was a cursory judgment usually handed down by a single person &#8211; perhaps the King &#8211; who wielded your fate on a chopping block.
Billions features basically two men at polar opposites of a world of corporate greed and treachery, and yet both used the same techniques to get ahead and strike at the other. Neither Paul Giamatti’s Chuck Rhoades nor Damian Lewis’ Bobby Axelrod had misgivings about their behavior. Both were corrupt because of their world and their place in that world. Even Maggie Siff’s Wendy Rhoades was terribly flawed because the world she worked and lived in was Axelrod’s company and she was Rhoades’ wife. We understand if not wholly accept their behavior because of it.
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<h3>Flip It</h3>
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Ray Donovan’s (Liev Schreiber) terrible upbringing background made him the polar opposite as a family man who was engaged in his family’s daily lives. Like all parents, he faced challenges raising his kids but he and his wife made sure they were always involved in bringing strong family values to the situation despite the ofttimes violence of his world.
His work behavior may have been less than stellar, but he compartmentalized those two worlds and kept one from affecting the other. This made him master of two worlds &#8211; a quasi-criminal work place and a semi-normal family life. An entire subplot involved his wife’s strong desire to send her kids to a prestigious school. Ray had plenty to worry about in his business life, but struggled with the same issues all parents and husbands have.
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<div id="attachment_42206" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42206" class=" wp-image-42206" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/raydonovan_502_5638-r-1024x768.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="771" height="579" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/raydonovan_502_5638-r-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/raydonovan_502_5638-r-150x113.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/raydonovan_502_5638-r-250x188.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/raydonovan_502_5638-r-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/raydonovan_502_5638-r.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />Ray Donovan (Liev Schreiber) Photo by Michael Desmond/ SHOWTIME</div>
Dexter’s father made sure he grew up with a moral compass, flawed though it was. Being a cop, Dexter’s dad was able to moderate his serial killer son’s worst behavior by channeling it to at least better purposes. Even after Dexter’s father died, his ‘ghost’ guided Dexter’s behavior. Whether or not you believed that a man with killer tendencies could sublimate those tendencies into ‘good’ is another story. I mean, he didn’t just shoot or stab people, he also tortured and mutilated them and revelled in it.
The writers worked hard each episode to convince you of Dexter’s ‘angel side’ because he was shown in an ongoing series of flashbacks being taught those values by a strong and engaged father figure.
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<h3>Moderated</h3>
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Are there shades of bad behavior? Sure. Killing Eve’s Villanelle (Jodie Comer) is a villain but she seemingly only does what she does to ‘bad people.’ Yes, she’s a serial killer (by definition) but nowhere near as bad as Hannibal Lecter.
Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is capricious. The Joker is funny. Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) of Justified only ‘pulls’ on someone who draws on him &#8211; an old west type of justified.
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<h3>Rules/ Moral Compass</h3>
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Tied to the world your challenging characters come from is the rules of your script. Rules are defined as what actually makes your world the world. When we engage with Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) of Boardwalk Empire we follow a gentleman thief. He’s less likely to massacre an entire group of people than say someone from Vikings. The rules of their worlds are different.
Bosch (Titus Welliver) plays by his own rules and breaks the established ones within limits. He’s a detective and he may do some bad things but he stops at certain boundaries. In season four he finds out who murdered his mother and has the opportunity to kill him but he doesn’t. Characters like Tony Soprano or Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis, The Shield) would not have stopped at that line.
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<h3>Slow Burn To Evil</h3>
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As some series progress, a character who started out with some issues become increasingly more aberrant. Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) was certainly never an angel but when the series started he wasn’t like the rest of the Sons Of Anarchy MC. He did kill a man trying to rape Tara Knowles (Maggie Siff) but it was justified. By the time the eighth season rolled along, Jax was a bad, bad man forced into increasingly aberrant behavior.
Justified did a similar thing when Raylan Givens shot a drug dealer in Miami in the opening but the shooting was ‘justified.’ He drew first, is what Raylan tells his bosses. But Raylan stayed his course throughout the run of the series.
The opening episode of The Shield had Michael Chiklis’ Vic Mackey execute another cop. You’d think you couldn’t get more evil than that, but you’d be wrong. Mackey was bad to begin and got much, much worse as the seasons ran.
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<h3>Entanglement</h3>
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In Killing Eve the Villanelle character (Jodie Comer) is pure evil; a psychopathic, cruel woman who enjoys watching her victims die. But, she (basically) only kills people she’s assigned to kill and she’s creative and smart about it. There’s a fascination there that’s hard to resist, and because she’s not arbitrary, we’re okay with following her.
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<div id="attachment_42207" style="width: 782px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42207" class=" wp-image-42207" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/06killingeve1-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-1024x577.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="772" height="435" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/06killingeve1-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-1024x577.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/06killingeve1-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/06killingeve1-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/06killingeve1-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/06killingeve1-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 772px) 100vw, 772px" />Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh). Photo courtesy of Showtime</div>
However, what really keeps us tied to that character is her connection to Sandra Oh’s character, Eve. There are hints in the first few eps that something about Eve shakes Villanelle when they meet in a hospital bathroom, and it goes to who Villanelle has become. There’re indications that some past event has scarred her deeply and it’s someone named Anna who looks like Eve.
That backstory and the current manifestation of that backstory keeps us engaged in Villanelle even though we’d never want her over for dinner. 
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<h3>A Mission</h3>
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In The Americans neither the Keri Russel nor Matthew Rhys characters are what we would consider good people. They’re spies. Agents sent over from the U.S.S.R. to help the communists destroy our country and our way of life. 
But, ideology aside, they’re soldiers on a mission. Certainly, they have their hesitations about what they’re doing in later episodes but initially they’re there doing what they do for their country which they believe in. Wars demonize the enemy in order to make soldiers feel okay about what needs to be done. We know America is an ideal to emulate but coming from Russia, the citizens of the time were told what their country wanted them to hear. Hard to fault a soldier doing what he or she believes is righteous if they’ve never been given any other point of view.
Plus, in order to keep the illusion of a normal family, the spies have had children they care deeply about just like any other parents. Their children’s welfare is always foremost, something we can certainly relate to. A different ‘mission’ than the spying but a mission we can understand.
Some of the most emotionally painful episodes come when their daughter, Paige (Holly Taylor) finds out her parents are Russian spies. How they traverse this seemingly intractable landscape is just amazingly well-done and creates a tight bond with the parents that we all can relate to &#8211; trying to get our children to understand the decisions we’ve made.
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-compelling-characters-who-are-flawed-part-2/" title="Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 2) &gt;&gt;">Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 2) &gt;&gt;</a></fieldset>

Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 1)

<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/theme/" class="series-3758" title="Theme">Theme</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/theme/" class="series-3758" title="Theme">Theme</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/elevate-your-script-with-theme-part-1/" title="Elevate Your Script With Theme (Part 1)">Elevate Your Script With Theme (Part 1)</a></li><li class="serieslist-li-current">Elevate Your Script With Theme (Part 2)</li></ul></div><h3>TV Themes</h3>
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No, not the great music that introduces the shows, but the actual thematic overlays that follow entire runs of seasons.
Billions speaks of greed and power. Axe has some memorable lines that illuminate this, &#8220;You Were Wrong. I’m not human. I am a machine. I’m a f****** terminator.&#8221;
Axe to Chuck: “What have I done wrong? Really? Except make money and succeed.&#8221;
Axe always justifies/ rationalizes his bad behavior as does Chuck and his blind ambition to be in charge and take down who he perceives are bad guys.
Chuck: “There are no innocent men. Not on Wall Street.” And &#8211; “Wouldn’t we be better off if we didn’t let shame win?”
Star Trek, TOS (The Original Series), tackled themes weekly. Gene Roddenberry once said he created the show as Wagon Train in outer space. Fine, it was. But the deeper, underlying reason he expressed, was that he wanted to get around the network censors and put social themes on the small screen by placing the situations in another era and on other planets. It’s a testament to his genius vision that decades later the series stills resonates and is still exploring strange, new worlds, but with familiar themes.
Few know that Star Trek: TOS has the first interracial kiss on broadcast television between Kirk and Uhura. It seems ridiculous now, but there was a time when that sort of interaction was taboo. One episode, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield had aliens who were colored black and white. To show the silliness of racism, one has a right side black and left white, and the other the opposite. And they were bitter enemies. Ridiculous and telling of our world at that time.
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<div id="attachment_41772" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41772" class=" wp-image-41772" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/spock-1024x426.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="771" height="321" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/spock-1024x426.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/spock-150x62.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/spock-250x104.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/spock-768x320.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/spock.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />Nyota Uhura &amp; Dr. Spock in Star Trek</div>
Beauty is only skin deep was explored in Mudd’s Women who were gorgeous beyond measure because they took a pill to make them that way. In the end, the pills ran out and all could see their true beauty without the enhancement.
Even before Star Trek, Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone had an amazing set of episodes with strong themes. One stands out about a beautiful woman who runs screaming from her doctors and nurses who are horrible monsters only to find out that her beauty is actually horrifying. In this world she’s the “monster.”
The Munsters had Marilyn who wasn’t a monster and everyone in the family felt sorry for her because she wasn’t a vampire, Frankenstein, werewolf, or other frightener, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
One Outer Limits episode (The Chameleon) showed a young Robert Duvall being enhanced to look like an alien so he could infiltrate an alien camp. As he interacted with the “invaders” he came to understand and like them. In the end, he couldn’t harm them putting the thematic idea of prejudicial fear coming from the unknown on stark display.
Black Mirror today regularly applies solid themes to the episodes to create deeper feelings in the viewer.
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<h3>Oscar Bait</h3>
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A sampling of Best Picture Oscars shows the power of theme. Rocky, Moonlight, The King’s Speech, The Hurt Locker, Unforgiven, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and My Fair Lady all were critical and commercial successes because, they not only told a great story very well, but had strong themes underpinning those stories.
CODA is a film about a deaf family &#8211; except it’s not as much that, thematically, as a young woman trying to find herself and break away from societal expectations. Yes, it has some of the most powerful moments (and sometimes funny) points to make about being deaf in a hearing world, but Ruby’s struggle to stop being her family’s hearing interface to the world is universal in that we all go through this to some degree or another.
This is an old-fashioned theme in many ways &#8211; immigrant families expecting their children to follow into the family business. But how old-fashioned? Is not Kinky Boots or Uncorked about familial expectations and trying to get beyond them?
The universality of theme shows itself again and again.
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<h3>How To Use Theme</h3>
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Want a script that punches people in the feels? Use a strong theme to carry the narrative. It helps in all aspects of your story.
Here’s how:
<ul>
<li>Make the theme universal.</li>
</ul>
Love, death, money, ego, fear of something, loss, evil, redemption &#8211; all these have universality in the world in any age, any era, any culture.
<ul>
<li>Explore theme throughout the story.</li>
</ul>
Characters reacting according to their natures, which is one of the ways theme is illuminated, lends overall strength to the story. The plot should touch on the why of the story. How did those criminals get caught by the protagonist? Why did the event in the character’s past end up creating that person’s flaws. How did the character’s lack of humility cause them to get a bad result?
<ul>
<li>Go into the subconscious, the hidden places.</li>
</ul>
Horror scares us because we have a strong self-preservation instinct that’s hard-wired to make us flee danger. Even if we know it’s a story, our brain triggers a response. Horror especially emotionally taps into that darkness we all fear. And that fear that we feel, digs into our sub-conscious mind and kicks at our most vulnerable spots. Solid theme gets you solid scares.
We laugh at comedy because it has a universal appeal. Since true laughter is spontaneous, unexpected, explore what has been proved funny forever because that’s getting into the deep recesses of our minds. A person getting hit with a pie is funny no matter when or where it takes place. Someone being caught in the middle of something embarrassing is fodder for the foolishness we all experience and understand. If the story is satirical, we can all relate if the situation lends itself to exaggeration of the theme of ego, greed, etc.
Love is always, always a solid overlay to any storyline. We all seek it, we all understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. It’s part of our deep brain.
Redemption is a strong, ever-present theme and probably a number one theme.
Nothing like the boxer who “goes the distance against all odds” (Rocky) or the shattered person who climbs back out of a pit of despair. The romantic lead who loses and then regains their love interest has launched a million storylines. The team who can’t play to save their lives, like The Bad News Bears, suddenly finding their “groove” and perhaps not winning the championship but gaining a measure of self-respect is always a strong entry.
<ul>
<li>Try to reflect the theme in other characters beside the main character.</li>
</ul>
Side characters who either reflect the main character or expose them is a nice thematic way to add texture to your story. If the main character is ego-poisoned, people around him can show that same issue or invalidate it. Suits has characters who illuminate the world of cutthroat lawyers who work hard to get a result but at least as interesting is the office politics that most seem to play. No one is pure but some are less vicious than others.
<ul>
<li>The Seven Deadly Sins are a great place to find theme.</li>
</ul>
Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth cover the gamut with pride (ego) being the first deadly sin that really defines the others. Se7en famously had the serial killer exposing societal ills by killing according to the deadly sins.
The converse is the Seven Virtues: Chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. These can be easily used in any storyline. Someone who can’t control their bad habits (gluttony) may have to learn temperance (control.) Movies about addiction have strong themes of finding a way to handle lives turned upside down by an inability to maintain a normal existence.
<ul>
<li>Theme should not be just a concept but rather an emotional response.</li>
</ul>
Les Miserables is a powerful story about character Jean Valjean’s journey from poverty to success. Nothing in it is intellectual &#8211; it’s all raw emotion and pain ultimately ending with acceptance and joy.
Lord of the Rings is a difficult, dangerous journey undertaken because of a sense of responsibility by a stout group of reluctant but brave hobbits.
Dune is messianic in its approach in both story and theme as Paul Atreides fulfills a destiny not of his choosing but of his fate after the evil Harkonnens murder his family and try to take over the planet. But a deeper, darker theme expressed by author Frank Herbert is beware of heroes.
<ul>
<li>Theme should never be blatantly obvious.</li>
</ul>
The lessons of theme should float lightly on the surface of the story and be interwoven into the tale not expressed vocally by someone (unless it’s satiric.) We work in in a visual medium &#8211; show don’t tell &#8211; theme should be a part of that mandate. Audiences will ‘get it’ if you write your story with a relatable theme. No one doesn’t understand Seabiscuit’s journey. Or the despair of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. Or the stark lessons in Wind River. When the wildlife officer played by Jeremy Renner leaves the rapist on the top of the mountain giving him the same chance he gave his victim, the theme of natural justice thunders wordlessly.
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<div id="attachment_41773" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41773" class=" wp-image-41773" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Cocaine-Bear-main-new-1024x650.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="771" height="489" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Cocaine-Bear-main-new-1024x650.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Cocaine-Bear-main-new-150x95.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Cocaine-Bear-main-new-250x159.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Cocaine-Bear-main-new-768x488.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />Cocaine Bear</div>
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<h3>Conclusion</h3>
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Theme is the why. Why are we telling this story, why are people reading/watching it? More importantly,  why are they responding to it?
Even Cocaine Bear, that mad romp in a forest, had underlying themes (besides don’t give cocaine to a bear.)
Use the best part of any movie, theme, for your Meth Monkey flick.
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/elevate-your-script-with-theme-part-1/" title="&lt;&lt; Elevate Your Script With Theme (Part 1)">&lt;&lt; Elevate Your Script With Theme (Part 1)</a></fieldset>

Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 2)

Writing Compelling Characters Who Are Flawed (Part 1)

Elevate Your Script With Theme (Part 2)

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