The role of the Trickster in “The Dark Knight”
In a recent Screenwriting Master Class course, we had an interesting discussion about the role of Coleman Reese in the movie The Dark Knight. His is a short subplot [only in three scenes in the script], but it provides an important function.
For those of you who may not remember, Reese is an employee Wayne Enterprises:
The three beats of the Reese subplot are:
* He has been in charge of vetting Lau Industries for a possible deal. We learn two things about Reese here: (1) He’s smart, but not bright enough to pick up that Lau is a bad guy. (2) He’s embarrassed by Wayne’s behavior, falling asleep in a corporate meeting. This establishes he has some attitude toward Wayne.
* Reese meets with Lucius Fox, showing off plans for some Bat gear that he has discovered the R&D division of the company has been producing. Then he announces his deduction: Wayne is Batman. He demands millions of dollars a year for the rest of his life to keep quiet before Fox calmly belittles him and shuts him down.
* Reese appears on a TV news show to reveal Batman’s true identity, only to have the Joker call up live on the air to proclaim, “I’ve put a bomb in one of the city’s hospitals. It’s going off in sixty minutes unless someone kills you.” This sets off a crazed scenario where authorities evacuate all the hospitals. Why is this important? So that the Joker can have this conversation with Harvey Dent:
In other words, Reese’s subplot is necessary for the Joker to propagandize Dent, turning him into Two Face, a victim devoted to gaining revenge for the death of his lover Rachel, setting into motion the final sequence in the movie that leads to Batman choosing to take on an anti-hero role: The Dark Knight.
In this respect, Reese plays a Trickster: Ostensibly an ally [employee of Wayne Enterprises], he turns out to be an enemy [first tries to extort money, then threatens to go public with Wayne’s secret identity].
That led to this observation in our class by Annika:
One thing that’s really great about the Trickster is how much they add to the plot. Even a small character like Reese is responsible for a major turn in the story. By making use of a least one Trickster per script, you’re really just helping yourself by putting interesting turns within reach.
And my response:
Annika, that’s a great way of looking at the basic narrative function of a Trickster. A Plotline point is an event which hooks into the plot and turns it in another direction. And how do those events / turns occur but through the actions of characters?
This is a generalization as each story is different and each character is different, but if you look at archetypes in relation to the Protagonist and their journey, one way to think about them in terms of influencing plot turns would be (in descending order):
Nemesis
Trickster
Attractor
Mentor
Since the Nemesis and Protagonist are most often vying over the same goal, and the Nemesis typically provides the most opposition of all to the Protagonist, it makes sense they would be involved in the most significant plot turns, if not the most numerous as well.
The Trickster’s basic function is to test the Protagonist — I sometimes refer to these tests as “pop quizzes” — in advance of the Final Struggle (again I am speaking generally), therefore it wouldn’t be surprising to see a character fulfilling this narrative function next in line in terms of importance.
Since the Attractor is the character who most connects to the Protagonist’s emotional development, a writer can also look to them to spark a shift in the story, more likely through an internal turn within the Protagonist, created by their appeal to the P’s ‘heart.’
Since the Mentor is the character who most connects to the Protagonist’s intellectual development, a writer can also look to them to spark a shift in the story, most likely through an internal turn within the Protagonist, created by their appeal to the P’s ‘head.’
In general, this is an excellent lens through which to consider your primary characters in relation to the Protagonist: how what they do can help to turn both the Plotline and the attitude of the Protagonist.
And to your original point, the Trickster is likely one of the more significant in this regard because that’s in the nature of what they do: test the Protagonist.
In screenplays, characters provide narrative functions. Oftentimes these can be typified by one of five character archetypes: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, Trickster. And just as their specific narrative functions differ in relation to the Protagonist, so too the degree of their influence on the Plotline. Definitely something to consider as you work out each character’s subplot.
