Shinta Reviews: Code Geass Part 2: R1 sect

A tritagonist is, at its most basic, the third-most-important character in a story. The protagonist, of course, the most important character in a story, as the character the story is about. The deuteragonist is the second-most-important character, and the tritagonist follows directly into third place.

But that doesn’t really tell you how to identify one well, or what to expect from them, or how to write one. Or why counting characters typically stops there.

A protagonist, naturally, centers the story being told. It orbits them and they are the ground wire for the story. If a story is the story of anything, it is the story of the protagonist. A few stories don’t have protagonists, but they are vanishingly rare and almost exclusively very short. It’s hard to write something long without a character to center it.

If you draw a line from the protagonist to the deuteragonist, you have the axis that forms the emotional core of a series. Deuteragonists aren’t always present, but when they are, this is their role. The deuteragonist’s relationship to, contrast to, and comparison to the protagonist and their actions carries the major themes of a story and typically its most powerful emotional resonances. They draw out what’s important about the protagonist to turn that story into a narrative thread. The story is the story of the protagonist. But what the story says about that is often left on the deuteragonist’s shoulders.

A tritagonist, if one exists, is a counterbalance to that axis. Originally, tritagonists emerged as a way to shift antagonism off the deuteragonist’s shoulders and allow the deuteragonist to have a different relationship to the protagonists. Nowadays, they fulfill more roles than that, but in the end, their existence is to tug the orbit of the protagonist in a different direction than the deuteragonist.

This doesn’t mean the deuteragonist and tritagonist need to be on opposite sides, or even opposing personalities. But they often have different skills, values, and priorities that the protagonist needs to choose between. In a love triangle, the protagonist is likely the vertex and the deuteragonist and tritagonist will be the offshoots. In a trio, the Hero will be the protagonist, and the deuteragonist and tritagonist may be the Secretary of War and Secretary of Defense type of roles, the right and left hands. One might be reason and one might be emotion. They can get along well, but they represent different ideals and directions the protagonist could take. Or, you can be traditional and make one of them the antagonist.

If the protagonist is not making a choice between them, the tritagonist generally still represents Another Option somehow, a reflection of the direction a story could go, and a contrast to the relationship between the protagonist and deuteragonist.

(inside each gift is what everyone's favorite item is)

Everyone got gifts from Zoey! For Baldi, extra long ruler, coffee mug for Principal, banana for Filename2. For Protag and his cousins (Deuterag and Tritag) Homemade bag, sword and walkie-talkie. Notebook for Player, new jumprope for Playtime. Chocolate bar for Bully and medkit for Crewpostor.

Everyone: You too, Zoey! 😊😊😊😊😊😉😌

Are you 100% sure you want Protagonist and his cousins to be warriors like you two? If so, what's imagination makes you two interested? 😕 - Anonymous.

Lukas: Of course! We are 100% sure they can be the bravest warriors!

For Lukas's imagination, they can be the bravest warriors and helping innocent people

*Protagonist and his cousins laugh evilly while beating bad people*

Thank you so much @bijonah for tagging me!!!

1. Last movie I watched?

Minutemen, the DCOM where three guys time travel in snowsuits and rescue people from embarrassment and somehow no one figures out who they are even though they’re literally always together, one of them is like 7 feet tall, and another one is like half that size. It’s one of my favorites tbh

2. Last song I listened to?

The Revolution by For The Foxes

3. Last book I read?

??? um ???

4. Last thing I ate?

peanut butter and jelly sandwich with crunchy peanut butter

5. If I could be anywhere right now, where would I be?

Disneyland for sure

6. Where would you time travel to?

Sometime in the future I guess, just to see if we ever stop arguing about whether or not people deserve rights and move on to other shit. Like, I wanna go so far that I never meet another racist or homophobe again and we’re fighting over who gets to vacation on Jupiter or something.

7. Fictional character you’d hang out with for a day?

RILEY MATTHEWS