Forum - View topicAristotle's six elements of drama.
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wanderlustking
 Posts: 449 Location: Bozeman, Montana |
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Way back in the day, Aristotle made a list of qualitative elements of drama; he listed them in order from most to least important; that list is made up of:
1) plot: what you tell your friends when they ask you to describe it. 2) character: the people in the story, and how they interact with one another. 3) theme: a broad idea, message, or moral of a story (protip: good themes usually can't be boiled down into simple morals). 4) diction: the dialogue, as well as general pacing of events. 5) music: the awesome sounding stuff that starts right before the hero starts kicking ass. 6) spectacle: this can mean anything from special effects in an action flick, to dance choreography in a Broadway musical. As film and animation technology have improved, different orders of this list has become increasingly relevant; in fact, works can now be held up merely by the merit of the sixth and (according to Aristotle) least important element. While I understood this academically, it never really registered until I watched Gurren Lagann; a friend of mine who didn't like it much asked what was so great about it, and in answering him, I realized that it's elements, when put in descending order of importance look like this: 1) spectacle: this show has some really cool mech battles. 2) diction: it moved at the perfect tempo, and had some of the most memorable quotes in anime. 3) music: Row Row Fight The Powah! 4) character: I liked them well enough, but they were more character types than real human characters. Especially Kamina. 5) plot: a very basic coming of age story, the only real twist being the use of spoiler[Kamina as a decoy protagonist.] 6) theme: not a whole lot more to this than "Humans are special. Anybody else have an anime they think threw Aristotle's list out of whack? |
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Raftina
 Posts: 3282 |
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Aristotle lived in a time where the visual medium is a stage play, where the special effects consisted of a bunch of pulleys and rudimentary chemical reactions, and the actions of characters are so limited that you need to have a Greek chorus tell the audience what's supposed to be happening even when almost every action occurs off stage, and the characters themselves narrate some of the occurrences. It's certainly not unexpected that a visual medium with relatively low cost for special effects wouldn't follow his list. My expectation is that theme is easily the least important item in anime.
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JaffaOrange
 Posts: 260 |
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I daresay that diction is where anime falls flat.
Also, as Raftina said, for Aristotle there was a very specific type of drama that could be typified by a list like this. If you look at other works, plot is often not the most important feature; not surprising when originality in plot is hard to find and creators make their mark on things with character or spectacle, for better or for worse. When you have a medium like animation that has so many possibilities in its visual presentation, not hampered by reality and what things really look like or things like physics and orientation, to not make spectacle an important part of your work would seem like a waste. Last edited by JaffaOrange on Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:52 am; edited 1 time in total |
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saint of m
 Posts: 4 |
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Spectacle does seem to be a major part of anime. After all, the laws of physics are more of a suggestion in animation, as well as the laws of nature, and anime uses stylization over detail.
It makes sense to me. |
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rojse
 Posts: 234 |
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I like the list Aristotle proposes - it's generally in the order that I would agree with, but would point out that there are many good shows/movies/books that attack the list in an entirely different order and nonetheless end up better for it.
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fstony
Posts: 10 |
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Interesting topic. A friend of the family insists that Aristotle said everything that needs to be said. This list has held up remarkably well, so maybe he's right.
I would suggest that one should view this as a checklist, not an exercise in prioritization. If your engine doesn't fire on all cylinders, your audience is in for a rough ride. If you can get at least average results on all of these points, and high quality on most, then the final production should appeal to someone. I agree that pacing is a big problem in television anime. I'm sure that the problem stems largely from the fact that much (most?) of it is derived from other material that doesn't fit the tv season very well. |
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Tris8
 Posts: 2114 Location: Where the rain is. |
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I might be opening a can of worms here, but it seems to me Evangelion, compared to this list was definitely out of wack. It's like they glanced at the list and for the last couple eps chucked the #1 point of plot out the window  . For the rest of the series it follows the list pretty closely though, except I'd say that Character was always its main focus.
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ethanftw
 Posts: 107 |
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I agree with this. Aristotle lived in a time where things were much different. In fact, if he were alive today he would probably poop himself because he would of never imagined that what is possible today was ever even possible. Like all things, the list needs to change with the times. I still think that this list is very sound but some things are a bit different now. For one, I think music plays a much bigger role in not only anime but television. The right music at the right time can really make you feel a certain way. I don't know how many times I have got pumped to see someone's ass get kicked while epic fighting music was playing and the main villain of the show was trash talking the protagonist. Secondly, I don't think the theme plays a big of role as it used to. Granted, I think it's still important sometimes. However, back then they used to create stories, or plays to show lessons and etc. Now half of the time, stories, shows and etc are created purely for entertainment. Most of the time I walk away from an anime without learning a lesson, but I really don't care. My lesson was, "wow that was a good series" or "wow, that sucked". I also think that in todays day in age that spectacle is a huge part of what makes something truly entertaining. Especially with anime. You hear people all the time saying "the art style and visuals are very poor" or "the art style is awesome", etc etc. That's all part of spectacle. So, I think that with the changing of times, anime has learned to adapt, rather than follow the general list of Aristotle. But, meh, that's just my take. |
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