Post
by Gaffer Tape » Fri Feb 23, 2018 12:41 pm
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.