Do you think Dragon Ball should tackle darker, more character-driven stories?

[Cipher]

There's no such thing as a character-driven story, they're all plot driven. Good stories just make the sequence of events feel like it comes from the people inside the story instead of it (obviously) being at the whims of the plot.

That's not true, especially outside the realm of genre fiction*—the term generally exists to differentiate between fiction in which character motivations and actions provide the impetus for, or whose exploration informs the entirety of, the narrative, versus fiction in which they are largely reactionary to outside circumstances. But Dragon Ball has never been what most people would call character-driven.

*Though not all non-genre fiction is character-driven and not all genre-fiction is plot-driven

[ekrolo2]

There's no such thing as a character-driven story, they're all plot driven. Good stories just make the sequence of events feel like it comes from the people inside the story instead of it (obviously) being at the whims of the plot.

That's not true, especially outside the realm of genre fiction*—the term generally exists to differentiate between fiction in which character motivations and actions provide the impetus for, or whose exploration informs the entirety of, the narrative, versus fiction in which they are largely reactionary to outside circumstances. But Dragon Ball has never been what most people would call character-driven.

*Though not all non-genre fiction is character-driven and not all genre-fiction is plot-driven

And the motivations, actions and reactions exist only so far as the plot demands them to exist. Goku fights people because the plot needs him to fight them, same as for any other character. It makes this not boring by rooting it as a character thing when it exists, obviously, for plot purposes.Whether the writer is more obvious or subtle in the way they go about this is the only real difference I see.

[Cipher]

And the motivations, actions and reactions exist only so far as the plot demands them to exist. Goku fights people because the plot needs him to fight them, same as for any other character. It makes this not boring by rooting it as a character thing when it exists, obviously, for plot purposes.Whether the writer is more obvious or subtle in the way they go about this is the only real difference I see.

Yes. Obviously fictional characters are not real people.

[ekrolo2]

And the motivations, actions and reactions exist only so far as the plot demands them to exist. Goku fights people because the plot needs him to fight them, same as for any other character. It makes this not boring by rooting it as a character thing when it exists, obviously, for plot purposes.Whether the writer is more obvious or subtle in the way they go about this is the only real difference I see.

Yes. Obviously fictional characters are not real people.

I know, that's why a character driven story does not exist. It's all plot stuff that bothers to mask the game of chess being played to varying degrees as per the style or wishes of the writer. The way I usually see "character driven" get thrown around is as though the characters are the one's driving things when they're not, it's all plot.

[ABED]

And the motivations, actions and reactions exist only so far as the plot demands them to exist. Goku fights people because the plot needs him to fight them, same as for any other character. It makes this not boring by rooting it as a character thing when it exists, obviously, for plot purposes.Whether the writer is more obvious or subtle in the way they go about this is the only real difference I see.

Yes. Obviously fictional characters are not real people.

I know, that's why a character driven story does not exist. It's all plot stuff that bothers to mask the game of chess being played to varying degrees as per the style or wishes of the writer. The way I usually see "character driven" get thrown around is as though the characters are the one's driving things when they're not, it's all plot.

The difference between the two concepts is whether the story is more about the external or internal conflict or changes.

And plot is just what characters do and say. Point being, they aren't entirely separate concepts.

[The Patrolman]

They did with the Future Trunks arc



It didn't end well

[ekrolo2]

Yes. Obviously fictional characters are not real people.

I know, that's why a character driven story does not exist. It's all plot stuff that bothers to mask the game of chess being played to varying degrees as per the style or wishes of the writer. The way I usually see "character driven" get thrown around is as though the characters are the one's driving things when they're not, it's all plot.

The difference between the two concepts is whether the story is more about the external or internal conflict or changes.

And plot is just what characters do and say. Point being, they aren't entirely separate concepts.

What characters do and say is what motivates them and how they react to things that happen around them. Focusing on Goku's emotions as he fights over why the fight happens doesn't change the fact that he'll do and feel whatever the plot needs him to.

We'll probably go around in circles here but I stand by what I said earlier: there is no such thing as a character driven story, everything happens to the whims of the plot, some stuff is just better as masking this as coming from the characters themselves then other stories.

They did with the Future Trunks arc



It didn't end well

They also did it with the Bardock and Trunsk specials, the Saiyan arc, the Freeza arc and those worked fine. Even the Android arc, which I don't personally like, plays itself pretty straight with plenty of dark stuff in it and people seem to love the crap out of it. The Black arc sucked because of poor writing, not because it was dark.

[ABED]

What characters do and say is what motivates them and how they react to things that happen around them. Focusing on Goku's emotions as he fights over why the fight happens doesn't change the fact that he'll do and feel whatever the plot needs him to.

We'll probably go around in circles here but I stand by what I said earlier: there is no such thing as a character driven story, everything happens to the whims of the plot, some stuff is just better as masking this as coming from the characters themselves then other stories.

The plot and the characters aren't hermetically sealed. One entails the other. If the characters just do whatever the plot needs them to do instead of acting in accordance to their personality, it's not good writing. If what you are saying is true then the distinction between plot driven and story driven has no meaning. I don't think that's true. I think it's useful when thinking about the kind of story you want to write whether you want to delve more into the internal aspects of your characters (e.g. Breaking Bad) or you want to delve more into the external aspects like how Sherlock Holmes solves a mystery. Sherlock Holmes stories are much more about the steps he and Watson take to solve the case, not their internal struggles, which were rare. It's useful to draw that distinction, not that one is worse than the other.

And some writers start with story first and create the characters to facilitate the telling of that story. Other writers come up with the character first and figure out a plot to service showing off that character. Breaking Bad came out of the head writer thinking of "how does a guy go from Mr. Chips to Scarface?" The plots in the show are in service of showing Walt's change from milktoast high school chemistry teacher to drug kingpin.

What you are saying with everything happening based on the whims of the plot makes it sound like characters are all reactive and passive.

[ekrolo2]

What characters do and say is what motivates them and how they react to things that happen around them. Focusing on Goku's emotions as he fights over why the fight happens doesn't change the fact that he'll do and feel whatever the plot needs him to.

We'll probably go around in circles here but I stand by what I said earlier: there is no such thing as a character driven story, everything happens to the whims of the plot, some stuff is just better as masking this as coming from the characters themselves then other stories.

The plot and the characters aren't hermetically sealed. One entails the other. If the characters just do whatever the plot needs them to do instead of acting in accordance to their personality, it's not good writing. If what you are saying is true then the distinction between plot driven and story driven has no meaning. I don't think that's true. I think it's useful when thinking about the kind of story you want to write whether you want to delve more into the internal aspects of your characters (e.g. Breaking Bad) or you want to delve more into the external aspects like how Sherlock Holmes solves a mystery. Sherlock Holmes stories are much more about the steps he and Watson take to solve the case, not their internal struggles, which were rare. It's useful to draw that distinction, not that one is worse than the other.

And some writers start with story first and create the characters to facilitate the telling of that story. Other writers come up with the character first and figure out a plot to service showing off that character. Breaking Bad came out of the head writer thinking of "how does a guy go from Mr. Chips to Scarface?" The plots in the show are in service of showing Walt's change from milktoast high school chemistry teacher to drug kingpin.

What you are saying with everything happening based on the whims of the plot makes it sound like characters are all reactive and passive.

That's why I bring up stories that cover it up better, those are the one's that get called character driven because it creates the illusion that the people in the story are the one's making things happen when its all at the whims of the author. Whether an author is good at making this illusion or not depends on their sensibilities or writing style.

[Gaffer Tape]

I certainly think there can be a lot of disagreement/wriggle room in defining whether a certain story is plot-driven or character-driven, but to say there is no distinction between the two terms is, well, simply not true at all. Now, I'd say it's fair that a lot of stories can have a decent mix of external and internal conflicts driving the narrative. But for the sake of simplicity, let's try to isolate them as best as possible. I think ABED's use of Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful example of a plot-driven story. At least in terms of the Doyle short stories, I think it's fair to say they're not character-driven in the slightest. Every single story is driven by a mystery to solve, and the traits of the characters are only important insofar as they determine the roles the characters play in the stories. Watson observes things, Holmes discovers clues, the villain does villain things. I think people tend to confuse such a statement with the idea that plot-driven narratives contain no well-drawn characters, which is obviously not true considering Holmes is one of the best-known characters in modern literature.

Conversely, I'd say the purest example of a character-driven narrative would be something like Waiting for Godot, My Dinner with Andre, or any television episode where two characters are trapped in a room. In all of those, there are very few external conflicts driving the narrative, usually just enough to justify the setting. For example, the characters are waiting for Godot, who never actually arrives during the course of the narrative, because that's ultimately not what's important. His impending arrival is simply a setup to put Didi and Gogo in a situation where their characters will be forced to play off of each other for the next two hours. Stories like those have conflicts entirely related to character. It's all about learning who the people are, and the conflicts are all about how the characters interact.

Again, I feel those are extreme examples, and stories don't necessarily have to conform to those styles to fit in one category or the other... or perhaps both. But I used those to illustrate that there is certainly a clear difference in storytelling between the Sherlock Holmes story "The Red-Headed League" and Waiting for Godot, and, as such, a clear difference between plot-driven and character-driven stories.

I would definitely put Dragon Ball into the category of plot-driven. And again, that does not mean there aren't good characters in Dragon Ball. It does not mean those characters don't help shape the stories. And it does not mean they never change or grow (although it's relatively rare and even more rarely a focus). But most of the stories in Dragon Ball are driven primarily by "stop the bad guy," "save the world," "find the things," "defeat the enemy," and things of that nature, which are all very plot-driven setups.

[DragonBallFoodie]

DB has recently tried something like that with Trunks and Zamasu.

Speaking for myself, I didn't enjoy it. I felt it was too generic and standard.

DB possesses a cartoonish gag-based nature, that is entertaining and funny but still had enough drama to be engaging. DB was never afraid of being funny before, why should it depart from that?

[ABED]

What characters do and say is what motivates them and how they react to things that happen around them. Focusing on Goku's emotions as he fights over why the fight happens doesn't change the fact that he'll do and feel whatever the plot needs him to.

We'll probably go around in circles here but I stand by what I said earlier: there is no such thing as a character driven story, everything happens to the whims of the plot, some stuff is just better as masking this as coming from the characters themselves then other stories.

The plot and the characters aren't hermetically sealed. One entails the other. If the characters just do whatever the plot needs them to do instead of acting in accordance to their personality, it's not good writing. If what you are saying is true then the distinction between plot driven and story driven has no meaning. I don't think that's true. I think it's useful when thinking about the kind of story you want to write whether you want to delve more into the internal aspects of your characters (e.g. Breaking Bad) or you want to delve more into the external aspects like how Sherlock Holmes solves a mystery. Sherlock Holmes stories are much more about the steps he and Watson take to solve the case, not their internal struggles, which were rare. It's useful to draw that distinction, not that one is worse than the other.

And some writers start with story first and create the characters to facilitate the telling of that story. Other writers come up with the character first and figure out a plot to service showing off that character. Breaking Bad came out of the head writer thinking of "how does a guy go from Mr. Chips to Scarface?" The plots in the show are in service of showing Walt's change from milktoast high school chemistry teacher to drug kingpin.

What you are saying with everything happening based on the whims of the plot makes it sound like characters are all reactive and passive.

That's why I bring up stories that cover it up better, those are the one's that get called character driven because it creates the illusion that the people in the story are the one's making things happen when its all at the whims of the author. Whether an author is good at making this illusion or not depends on their sensibilities or writing style.

I won't argue this point anymore as it would be us just spinning our wheels, but what Gaffer and I are discussing is a legitimate distinction. Are we simply quibbling over what to call it?

For the record, I would be up for a story that's less about the twists and turns and more about the internal change and conflicts of the characters. We've seen DB do dark well, though I don't think you can go much further and have it feel tonally like DB.

[ulisa]

I tend to prefer stories driven by characters than stories driven by plot. Not that I dislike the latter but in my opinion, stories that are focused more on characters and less on plot are typically more interesting. Some of the best advice I received in regards to writing was “Make your characters real and they’ll write the story for you.”

I don’t mind the darker stories that Dragonball has done but I also think you can have character focused stories without the darkness. Personally I’d like a mix—some dark, some light hearted but focused on the characters and their interactions with one another more than anything else.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Toriyama’s gag-humor which is why I usually don’t revisit the earliest episodes that much. Maybe it works for a lot of people but it’s never really been my thing. Any crossover with the Dr Slump characters I generally don’t like. I guess I like more circumstantial humor than gag humor and I don’t mind putting a bit more drama into the story. I actually thought the Buu saga did this pretty well—-balancing the humor and drama instead of being one or the other.