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The character of the master

There are elements of storytelling which I (predictably) enjoy. One is what I like to call the mystique of the master. Here’s the setup: there’s a character – call them the master – who is particularly skilled, whether in brains or brawn, and sometimes both. The master need not be the best, but they do need to be very good. A large part of the tension comes from seeing the master’s plan (if any), how good the master is, or how the master can be defeated. 

For examples, here are some characters skilled primarily in brawn:

• Ravana from the Ramayana
• Enkidu from The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Roland from The Song of Roland
• Ip Man from Ip Man
• Levi Ackerman and Zeke Yeager from Attack on Titan
• Arima Kishou from Tokyo Ghoul
• Itachi Uchiha from Naruto
• Yamamoto from Bleach

And here are some characters skilled primarily in brain:

• Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong from Three Kingdoms
• Hari Seldon and his “dead hand” from Foundation and Empire
• Yang Wenli and Reinhard von Lohengramm from Legend of the Galactic Heroes
• Dream of the Endless from Sandman
• Light Yagami and L from Death Note
• Robb Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire
• Thrawn from Zahn’s work
• Rommel in popular culture

And, naturally, some characters are skilled in both, the most obvious examples being Chrestomanci from Charmed Life, Dumbledore from Harry Potter and God from perfect being theology. Examples of these masters can be found scattered across a range of trope pages: Xanatos Gambit, Gambit Pileup, the Chessmaster, Old Master, Invincible Hero, the Ace, World’s Strongest Man.

Dramatic tension, the methods of the master’s defeat, and multiple masters

So much for the character of the master; now for the dramatic tension the character of the master affords. The master cannot be defeated easily and in a straightforward fashion; they cannot be “beaten at their own game”; if they could, they would not be the master. Instead they must either be mostly aloof from the conflict (Hiko Seijuro from Rurouni Kenshin), or remain undefeated (like Ip Man), or must be defeated/thwarted because of 

• factors outside their knowledge/outside context problems (commonly overlaps with Spanner in the Works; Thrawn),
• adherence to their ideals (Bewcock on Yang Wenli: “If Yang were to ever be defeated … it’ll be by his adherence to his own ideals.” Yang is a man of conscience, much like Thomas More.),
• some foreshadowed inner failing (hamartia, often hubris: Pang Tong, Dumbledore),
• sickness which weakens them (Itachi Uchiha, Chrestomanci, “Worf had the flu”),
• defeat by their own hand/they allow themselves to be defeated (Dumbledore, Arima Kishou, Itachi Uchiha),
• the mistakes of their followers (Zhuge Liang and Ma Su at Jieting),
• the mistakes of their superiors (Zhuge Liang and Yang Wenli),
• guile and deception (Yamamoto),
• allied treachery (Robb Stark)
• being outnumbered by an unreasonable amount of opponents (Ip Man’s master in Ip Man: The Legend is Born),
• being defeated by another master or masters (commonly outgambitted; Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi to Guo Jia in The Ravages of Time)
• or some other way – as long as it’s not a straightforward defeat. If it is a straightforward defeat in their own field of expertise, they’re not a master.

A large part of the tension thus comes from seeing how the master is defeated, how the master got to their position, and – if the master remains undefeated – just how good the master is. A side note on Thrawn and his defeat by an outside context problem:

Regarding Thrawn’s appearance in Rebels, Zahn opines that Filoni and his crew did a very good job because they not only understood Thrawn and how they wrote him, but that they understood the meta around Thrawn and how to defeat him, which Zahn defines as to throw something to Thrawn that he can’t control nor anticipate.

A second (and even better) source of tension comes in if you have multiple masters in the story who come into conflict. This typically leads to a Battle of Wits. Mao Zonggang notes this in his commentary on the Three Kingdoms; part of the appeal of the story is that you have skilled people everywhere. A few examples on the brawn side: Xu Chu from Wei, Guan Yu from Shu, and Gan Ning from Wu. Some examples on the brain side: Guo Jia and Sima Yi from Wei, Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong from Shu, with Zhou Yu and Lu Meng from Wu. And these are just the ones I remember off the top of my head!

(The adaptation The Ravages of Time takes this even further, and has a group of eight particularly brilliant strategists – The Eight Geniuses – who are best at their craft, along with a host of other tacticians and unexpectedly brainy warriors.)

Other examples of multiple masters come from the trope pages mentioned above, but I will single out two more examples: Light and L from Death Note, and Yang Wenli and Reinhard von Lohengramm from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Light is an interesting case of a master, as he’s not that good. 

Yang Wenli and Reinhard are a good case of duelling masters. They’re on opposite sides, both are well-written with well-defined motives, and both are very good at what they do. Reinhard wins nearly all the time; Yang is never outright defeated. Their plans inevitably conflict, and when they finally meet directly in battle, I felt genuine excitement at seeing who was going to prevail. The copywriters for the English translation of Volumes 2 and 5 clearly know this:

The unbeatable magician and the unstoppable genius …

Despite the empire’s superior numbers, Yang continues to outwit its most resourceful generals via tactical wizardry. Reinhard, on the other hand, seeing through Yang’s devices, opts for all-out war. And so, the “invincible” and “undefeated” once again clash swords. Who will emerge victorious?

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Problems with writing a master

And here comes the three problems with writing a character as a master. First: creating tension. If a master is too good, they become a boring invincible hero. Second: how to remove the master. Masters typically have to be removed from the story in order for the story to progress. Solving the problems of the story would be too easy otherwise. (Superman stays out of Gotham so that Batman can show his skill.) The removal of the master can be done via the methods specified above.

And the final, most pressing problem: how should one write an intelligent master? There’s a problem here that if you could completely specify what a master would do, you would be a master yourself. (Yudkowsky calls this Vinge’s Law.) Writing a master can be done in the ways mentioned by Yudkowsky and Graham Moore. 

History as a source

I will mention one more way to write intelligent characters: base it on history. I once commented that a philosophical training gives an uneven advantage in debates; when someone who knows philosophy marshals arguments, they typically are not only stating their own ideas but can also draw from the ideas of other very thoughtful people. (See Krister Segerberg’s interview in Formal Philosophy: “If you want to be smarter than Aristotle, go beyond his methods.”)

This is weaponised by Yang Wenli in Legend of the Galactic Heroes. He’s a historian forced into military command; he simply wants to retire as soon as possible. The only problem is that he can’t because he’s too good at what he does; he’s a strategic genius without peer who consistently outwits every enemy he faces. He is too skilled to be left alone. He gains the moniker “Yang the Magician” due to his uncanny ability to turn defeat into victory. Part of the story’s irony is that he’s a master who wants nothing to do with his mastery.

(One of the funniest scenes in the series comes after Yang has just won a great victory. An enemy general muses that after such an occasion – what might the legendary Yang Wenli be doing? Probably dancing with a beautiful lady at a party. Then the scene cuts to Yang Wenli wrapped up in blankets in his room, with his ward telling him, “No, you can’t pretend to be sick just to avoid the party!”) 

Yang manages to consistently outwit his enemies because he’s a historian. One of the themes of the story is that history repeats itself, over and over. It’s strongly implied that Yang is no genius in the same way his counterpart Reinhard is (and he is painfully aware of it, as seen during Reuenthal’s attack on Iserlohn). He is brilliant not because of his own knowledge, but because he leverages the knowledge of others; being a military historian, he simply goes through his knowledge of history, finds the situation most similar to the one he’s in, and applies the appropriate counter-strategy given the necessary adaptations. 

Yang is intelligent in his own right, but he’s also leveraged the ideas of others until they’ve become truly part of him. History gives him a well of other intelligent ideas and strategies to draw on; Yang is a genius in part because he borrows the genius of others. And Tanaka is able to write highly intelligent characters in part because he borrows freely from historically significant people.

Part of the joy of going through Legend of the Galactic Heroes is seeing how history repeats itself and finding Yoshiki Tanaka’s sources. The opening lines of the 2018 series:

If the events depicted here bear a resemblance to anything you know, or the people appearing here bear a likeness to anyone you know, it is but a fluke of history and an inevitability.

Lao and Yang’s remarks during Astarte:

Staring at the simulated model on the screen, Lieutenant Commander Lao said admiringly in Yang’s direction, “I’ve never seen a battle formation like this.”

“I’d imagine not … It’s a first for me, too.”

But Yang’s words were only halfway true. Back when humanity had lived only on the surface of a backwater planet called Earth, this kind of formation had appeared on battlefields any number of times. Even the brilliant tactics employed by Count von Lohengramm had precedent in ground wars.

As the author Yoshiki Tanaka puts it:

When I read about history, I always find myself wondering why a certain person made a particular decision at a given time. I love to imagine alternate realities where things might have turned out differently. In the case of Legend of the Galactic Heroes’ battles I took historical events and imagined someone making alternative decisions, then extrapolated them from there.

To name some examples: 

• Reinhard’s strategy at Astarte is based on defeat in detail.
• Yang Wenli’s tactic to stalemate Reinhard at Astarte was common in naval warfare. (From Adkins on Trafalgar, p. 55-56: “A standard tactic was for a ship to try to sail at right angles to the bow or stern of an enemy … vessels were constantly manoeuvring to gain this deadly advantage.”)
• Yang’s victory at Doria is based on Nelson’s touch at Trafalgar. 
• The Alliance’s invasion is thwarted much the same way that the Russians thwarted Napoleon.
• Yang’s repulsion of Bittenfeld at Amritsar is similar to how Ōtani Yoshitsugu repulsed the Kobayakawa at Sekigahara. (Reinhard’s response to Bittenfeld’s request for reinforcements parallels Napoleon’s response to Ney’s request at Waterloo.)
• Yang’s strategy to draw out Reinhard to battle at Vermilion (if I remember correctly) is a variation of the Trachenberg plan.
• Yang at the Battle of the Corridor is similar to Yi at Noryang (if I recall correctly).

[Note that I don’t claim that Yang’s way of thinking is ideal, or that it would work in real life – I merely point out that it works in-story, explains how Yang is a genius different from Reinhard, and fits in well with the story’s theme. For an informal critique of analogising and its limits, see Elon Musk on first principles. Analogising from history in general is far more difficult than it sounds, as Carr (What is History?), John Lewis Gaddis, and Holyoak and Thagard (Mental Leaps, chapter 6) point out.]

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Being skilled at writing and living

Skilled writers typically craft character arcs. (Exceptions: experimental writing, or writing based primarily on ideas – such as Borges and Calvino.) The simplest example of a character arc: someone has an issue, and confronts it. If a character has no issues, or has issues and never faces them, they don’t have a character arc – and, consequently, definitely aren’t the main character. 

The manga Tokyo Ghoul was widely criticised because its ending left many character arcs unfinished; in many cases, there’s an expectation that the writers will finish their story well. The most recent example I found concerned some developments in Noragami:

Adachitoka are good, guys. They’re just good storytellers. I have so much faith that they’re going to tell the best story with their characters that it is possible to tell, so I have zero fears. No matter what happens, it’s going to be for the best.

Of interest is Yudkowsky’s point on Level 3 Intelligent characters. As a corollary of Vinge’s Law, the most convincing way to make a character a master is to be a master yourself. If you want to be write intelligent and interesting characters, the best way is to be an intelligent and interesting person. Making a character a master is difficult, but it’s worth it. The tension is generates in-story is real – and done properly, it will improve your life. 

And this all finally links up to some advice a friend once told me: to have a good life, make sure you have a character arc. Be the main character in your own life. Make decisions before your back is to the wall. Finish your story well. Everyone has problems. Try to overcome (or at the very least, accept) yours. Be the well-rounded hero of your own story. Try to grow. 

Chesterton: “Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.” And in the same way – if we think of our lives like a fiction we make, we can make our lives to suit ourselves. Being someone skilled at writing our own lives is the same as being able to live and not merely exist. 

[We can write ourselves into being masters, remembering – as Sekishusai tells Musashi in Vagabond – “Invincible” is just a word. Excerpts from the trope page on Musashi: 

His driving motivation is to become “invincible under the sun,” but the closer he gets to achieving this goal the more he realizes how little the title means … 

Musashi’s driven to become the strongest warrior in all of Japan, and to this end he overcomes obstactle after obstacle, never letting his failures overcome him and always working towards self-improvement as a warrior. It gets to the point where people are taken aback by his unnatural determination, some even calling him foolish for clinging to such outdated ideals. 

After his massacre of the Yoshioka school, Musashi comes to terms with the fact that even his desire to become the strongest ultimately makes him feel hollow, and so his Character Development leads him to stray away from bettering himself as a samurai to bettering himself as a person.

In other words, being a master is not as important as people make it out to be. ]

This outside perspective is reminiscent of a Hamming question I was once told, useful if your life is in a rut:

If your life was a movie and you were watching it, what would you be screaming at your character to do right now?

This is not original to me; I’m merely clumsily restating what Thomas C. Foster puts much better in his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In his chapter “Never Stand Next to the Hero,” while discussing why some characters are more developed than others, he digresses briefly:

… we are all complete beings. We have many different qualities that don’t always fit together very smoothly. More important, we’re all capable of growth, development, and change. We can get better, although we sometimes fail to do so.

To put this another way, we are all, each and every last one of us, the protagonist of our own story. Those stories frequently clash with one another, so other people may not seem as complete, or at least as urgently complete, as ourselves, but that doesn’t alter the other person’s reality. 

This post is titled “Thoughts on storytelling” and not “Thoughts on fiction” because I think that these principles are far more general than fiction alone. We make fiction to suit ourselves; similarly, we can shape our lives to suit ourselves. We tell stories about our lives; we can change.

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This is an excerpt from a write-up to a get-to-know-you prompt, kindly given to me by @transientpetersen​ and @hardlocke​ separately quite some time before this. As part my answers to the prompt, I wrote about my views on fiction. My answer to the prompt grew overly long, so I excerpted this as a subset of my thoughts on fiction. 

I would particularly welcome critiques and thoughts from @hamliet and @transientpetersen on this piece (as both of them have indirectly inspired parts of it; needless to say, that doesn’t mean that they endorse any of it) – as well as from any other interested people, of course! (If there’s an actual, proper, literary name for the mystique of the master, I’d like to know.)

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