Choo-Choo-Choose You II: The Last Starfighter

            I posted a link to last week’s rant over on my Facebook fan page, and somebody asked a question about it.  And I started answering there, but then I realized it’d be better over here. And then (as I was scrawling my response in the comment section) I realized it’d work even better as a quickie Tuesday post.

            So... the question.

            I'm curious how you view Alex Rogan's arc in "The Last Starfighter". It seems to violate your rule about chosen ones not getting invested in the other world. As a character arc, it was pretty believable to me, 

            A fair point.  I tried to make this clear, but I can see where it might not be.  Two points from Ravenclaw for that one.
            Okay, I hate that I have to refer to this but...

            (shudder)

            In his various musings on story, Joseph Campbell has a step—“rejecting the call.” At first glance it seems like it’s a rebuttal of my “not getting invested” point, but it's not. Y'see, rejecting the call happens much earlier in the plot. In The Matrix, for example, it's Neo refusing to trust Morpheus when they first talk on the phone (and getting arrested). In The Force Awakens, it's Rey insisting she can't leave Jakku and has to stay behind. And here, in The Last Starfighter, it's Alex learning about aliens, the KoDan Armada, the head-crushing bad guy, and saying “nope, nope, nope—take me home!”

            But really, how long does that refusal last?  In any of these cases? Alex is home for all of... what, an hour?  Two?—before he realizes he has to go back.

            One of the thing about investment is that it takes time. In-story it takes even more time.  When a plot dives head-first into action on page one, it doesn’t mean much because we don’t know who these people are. And how often do we roll our eyes when a story tries to convince us of “love at first sight”...?

            When someone refuses to get invested and walks away, that happens later in the story.  In the particularly bad movie that sparked that rant, the chosen one walked away over an hour into the movie.  Within the movie, weeks had passed, weeks of people training this guy as the chosen one.

            In a way, this is a lot like the difference between saving the cat and patting the dog.  The isolated acts themselves look very much the same, but they’re different because of when they happen in my story and what they’re trying to accomplish.  Refusing the call is a character thing.  It’s a believable response to being shown a bigger world, or a bigger destiny, and it helps ground our suddenly-overwhelmed protagonist and make them more believable.

            But refusing to be invested is just a cheap attempt to build tension.  It undercuts any character growth that’s happened and makes the reader/audience question if this character can really be trusted. Which really sucks if the character is my long-heralded chosen one protagonist.

            In short, it makes my story worse.

            Next time, character stuff. For real.

            And, hey—two weeks from today I’ll be at Borderlands in San Francisco with my brand-shiny-new second hardcover, Paradox Bound. Give ‘em a call, reserve a copy, and come say “hi!”

            Until then, go write.