: Re: Are reactive protagonists inherently a bad thing? I'm just getting into writing and while reading about it I've found a lot of topics which claim that reactive protagonists are generally frowned

A reactive or passive character is one that only "reacts" to things that happen around/to them. An active character is one that "actively" tries to shape their world or control what happens next.

Active characters are generally more well liked by readers because active characters have more room for characterization. I.e. you can see their characters by the choices they make and this provides for stories that are more character driven.

Passive characters are harder to show characterization for because they make less choices, and tend to exist mostly in plot driven stories. Character driven stories are currently much more popular in today's media then plot driven ones.

An example of a character who is both passive and active is Katniss Everdeen. During most of the Hunger Games Katniss is a passive character who is reacting to things and other peoples decisions, however she becomes and active character at the end of the book when (spoilers) she chooses to eat the berries with Peeta.

Passive characters actually show up a lot in dystopias. It generally helps drive home the point about how hopeless living in a dystopia would actually be, that the characters can't be active in this situation. A subversion of this is V from V for Vendetta who plays an active role in shaping the story and his plot instead of just reacting to it.

So, in conclusion, people like active characters because they like character driven stories, but passive characters can be used in the proper context and this is a link to the YouTube video I got most of this from:

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: Re: Are reactive protagonists inherently a bad thing? I'm just getting into writing and while reading about it I've found a lot of topics which claim that reactive protagonists are generally frowned

More posts by @Barnes643

: What if my published short story is made a movie or a novel, without my permission? I am writing a short story and thinking of publishing it in the next month. But then, I had a doubt.

: Release for book of interviews I would like to write an ebook in which I ask people to share their experiences in a specific topic. Where can I find a good release for these people to

: Need advice about the structure of my body part My first body part will argument that educating young children about history is of importance. The permitted words for this part is 150 words.

: How do I portray irrational anger in first person? Characters (and people) get angry at all sorts of things that might not make sense to the outside observer: Marty McFly and the word "chicken,"

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