Concept in Definition ABC

The term characters corresponds to the plural of the character concept, which, in general terms, refers to each of the beings human, flesh and blood, symbolic or animated, who play a certain role and who appear and act in a work of fiction, either in the theater, in the movie theater, on television or in a book.

It is very difficult to imagine a story, a movie, a play or a fiction program on TV in which there are no characters, since they turn out to be the focus of attention and center of all the stories that develop or can develop in these media, that is, we can summarize it as the story in question.

Characters of flesh and blood, symbolic, animated

The aforementioned distinction that is made in the definition regarding that not only human characters exist, that is to say, of flesh and blood, is due to the fact that it is Recurrent to be found in movies, books, TV shows, among others, with characters such as aliens, animals of all kinds, gods, objects inanimate, which also play the role of some character, many of them even develop leading roles, crucial in the stories.

Building of the character

The character turns out to be the consequence of a mental construction elaborated through language and image. Fictional characters are almost always represented by professional actors and dancers, although as we said, for the "other" characters, the animated ones, the puppets, animals, aliens, there are vocal actors, that is, they only lend a voice to a character or they can be created through sophisticated techniques by computer, thanks to the phenomenal advances that have taken place in this field in recent decades.

Character types

Critics and scholars often distinguish between two distinct types of characters, circular and linear.. The circulars are those considered more complex, realistic and credible, because they present a wide range of characteristics in their personality, like real Bah people, and they are usually the ones the main characters are intended for. And the linear ones, on the contrary, are simpler, less credible and have very few characteristics of personality, generally destined to those secondary roles of little importance in the work.

Now, the above is a fairly broad, general and whimsical delimitation and that many times may not have to do with the reality if we take into account that there are also many characters framed in the secondary category that manage to contribute to the plot a great richness and relevance, almost on a par with the main characters, even if they were not there, the story would lose everything in interest. Because how many times has it happened to us as spectators of series, novels, movies, that we fell in love and admired some secondary character and not the main characters... yes, many!

Meanwhile, within the main characters, we can make a sub classification, those who do good, such is the case of those popularly called heroes and heroines and who somehow represent the goodness in the story and by case they are who the public always wants succeed. Normally they must suffer various vicissitudes before succeeding but it is usual that they are the final victors of the stories.

Meanwhile, on the other "side of the ring" we find the antagonists, who on the contrary to those just mentioned have the mission of embody the evil of history and therefore they are the ones who inflict most of the setbacks and complications on the protagonists. Usually the public does not like them, especially when they do very well their bad character, and they usually win in almost all the development of the story, except in the end which is where the characters almost always win protagonists.

The characters in fictional stories that are represented in movies or on TV are represented by professional actors and actresses.

A character in his professional work

On the other hand, in common language, it is also common for an illustrious person who stands out in the task of a certain activity to be called by the term character.

For example, a politician, more precisely the President of the United States, Barack Obama, of course, is not engaged in the representation of works of fiction, but as a consequence of the outstanding place that he occupies in the local and international public space and due to the incredible diffusion that his acts have in the media, the common people consider him as a character. In the world of music, of sport, art, medicine, among other areas, we can also find many characters that stand out for the type of task or work that they have displayed over a period of time or because of the place they occupy in the context to which they belong.