Remember the leader must ALWAYS be hopeful and NEVER discouraged. The other characters can never turn around the story by helping the leader. The spotlight must never move.
Honestly, I like leadership characters that are optimistic. Its okay, however, for them to falter and have dark spots that need overcoming. Kaede Akamatsu was one such- oh...oh wait...ugh, nevermind, she got pointlessly fridged just to give us more of the same old same old...milquetoast boy who grows more confident. But point is, leader characters can be optimists, just write it well. I like myself some hope and optimism (especially being an optimist myself), and theres nothing wrong with it, just make sure they have doubts every so often like anyone else. If anything, its even MORE compelling to watch the group's optimist and banner bearer struggle under the weight of insane odds, only to eventually overcome it and maintain hope. Its an inspiring thing to see the hopeful optimist be challenged but come out on top through sheer willpower, contemplation, acceptance and determination to overcome any inevitable evils in the short term to achieve a longterm better future.
And leaders/masters can't be wrong, even if he chooses a path 10× more harsh or makes short term decisions that affect his co workers or members and actually makes them lose time and effort and if someone disagree or call out the leader you have to make the leader in the rigth with excuses like "It was a test" or "It's all within the plans'" and portray the guy with real questions as in the wrong and of course make the leaders/masters goals or direction a mistery, i mean it's not like anyone would get wary or get some distrust of someone who doesnt give his own teammates trust with valuable information
I run guilds in pay to win games. I would love to scream at my idiots and harshly punish failure, but it never works. Endless positivity does work, keeping players active and contributing. Privately I always keep close allies to whine to about how useless the herd is, but the public side must stay 100% optimism at all times.
and remember, even if the leader is tecnically just another member of a color coded hero team that draws their power from the same source, using the same device, so each team member should theoretically have the same level of power, the leader will STILL be the one to somehow be the strongest and the one to get all the cool new powers AND constantly rescue their teammates from the threat of the week. Because while on paper they're all equal in power and there's no default *strongest member, in practice everybody else will always pale in comparison to main characteritis
And the rival MUST be the weakest party character in all categories, and always be one-upped by the leader and face an ongoing identity crisis of having to fruitlessly work to find relevance when constantly compared to their far superior teammates on all sides without recognition and have a three season arc of self discovery and… wait, who’s the series about again?
With Power Rangers each member usually has specific strengths different from the others. In MMPR Red was the best fighter and leader, yellow and blue were smart and tech savvy, pink was rhe most agile, black was second in command, and green was an equal fighter with Red but usually more powerful.
Makes me think about an anime (forgot the name) with a teenage boy as the "worlds greatest politician", who became Japans prime minister by shooting his predecessor - truly a great leader
Also make sure to let the main leader character playing chess to show his tactical knowledge, and then let him move his soldiers like chess pieces and win the battle, even though it is their first time commanding an actually battle. Because the mechanics of chess is easily transferred on the actual battlefield.
The chessmaster archetype could be used to show how sociopathic a character is by displaying how they think of the battlefield as nothing but a game and only see their soldiers/mooks as nothing but chess pieces meant to be sacrificed. But it's mainly ever used to show how BIG BRAINED the characters are. Because being good at chess automatically means that you're smart and a tactical genius.
@@solus1247 and when they do portray the chess master as evil, they will only use pawn metaphors. Becuase apparently treating people as knights, bishops and rooks that can be sacrificed to weaken the enemy while the king hides like a coward is not creepy at all and cannot be used to show a character to be manipulative.
"You don't become a leader because you deserve it, idiot. You become a leader because of a set of circumstances. Just pretend you deserve it. Pretend you're a great general, and one day, you'll find you don't have to. For maybe twenty years, I swam in my uniform before I deserved it ! But don't mix things up. A deserving leader isn't the same as a good leader. The truly good ones, the kind that comes once a century maybe. Do you know what they all have in common ? They fight only for the dignity of those who are weaker than him." - The emperor on leadership, to a young officer worried about coming into suspiciously quick promotion. - Kaamelott
In a JRPG, the party's leader who makes all the team decisions is always the spiky-haired, spunky, teenage boy whose only qualifications are that he learned swordplay by roughhousing with a wooden stick as a little kid, and he's the protagonist/player character. Never mind that there is often someone older, calmer (thus less likely to make brash decisions under stress), and more mature on the team by the time there's 3 or 4 members, never mind the older person is often wiser and may have actual military experience- the older person just makes the "wise" decision of putting their faith in the kid. If anyone _in the game_ questions why this teen is the leader, one or more of his friends will give a cheesy little feel-good speech about how much they trust him, or how "he has a strong heart" or something similar.
Interesting, i wonder how a jrpg where you are actually not the leader would play out, it would probably be a lot more linear since you are not in command of where to go.
Thank you love triangle man, i was just struggling with my leader character. You truly are the brightest, the smartest, the best, the handsomest creator on the internet, all your critics are just trolls and beta readers have no idea what they are talking about.
I can't believe the MCU did this character type best with Captain America, a character who is believable as a leader, but has a personality beside leading.
@TheSovietOnion that chemical set inside a wmd made me like the punisher more when I saw how much of a unstable mess tony is, I wouldn’t trust him to stay in a rehab let alone enforce government law.
@@neoqwerty exactly, thank you. Almost every single avenger is a giant ball of mental trauma with long histories of substance abuse/self medicating as well as a host of bad coping mechanisms. damn near all of them need therapy and a long vacation at a isolated recovery center. I mean Frank castle might be a rolling ball of trauma but at least he’s self aware of it and I know he is self aware it, I also know he won’t ever get a dwi/dui. personally Iaprefer Frank over the spandex crew since he tends to get into the nuances of a situations so the real issues are fixed, he once took down a entire human trafficking ring from Hell’s Kitchen to Eastern Europe. when’s the last time you saw that menace spider man break up a international child/organ/woman trafficking ring? The bodies and the videos he left behind of what he did to those monsters made sure no other group thought trying to replace that organization he took out would be worth it either. Frank castle survived nam, his family dying twice the second time he had to put them down with a flame thrower, more trauma than any living thing should be able to deal with and still he has maintained a higher levels of functionality and professionalism than that rich boy stark has with his daddy issues never has been able reach.
*Hero:* "Alright men, let's win this battle!" *Soldier:* "Sir, uh...being from a peasent family and all, do you...you know...have any actual experience in leading thousands of people?" *Hero:* "Don't worry, that's what the Love Triangle is for!" *Love Interests:* "WE OBEY." *Soldier:* "..okay, but, who are the officers? Who else is-" *Officers:* "WE ARE TRAINED. WE OBEY." *Hero:* "See? No problem at all!" *Soldier:* "Okay, no, is _anyone_ else kind of freaked out that our leader seems to have somehow enslaved a bunch of competent people into working for them?" Because-" *Hero:* "I'm fighting for freedom and justice!" *Soldier:* "I OBEY." *Hero:* "That's better! Now let's go beat up the bad guy!"
Don't forget, if your main character is the leader, everyone around him are idiots to show how smart he is, and don't forget making his enemies and the antagonist idiots too.
Or if it's a dr. Who like person then barely explained pseudo science is the answer (better it stays that way because the more they explain the more ridiculous it becomes).
I had a character in a tabletop game I was running who basically filled the same role of a commissar in warhammer 40K, but my players described as having the personality of a youth pastor. He’d help the players through things, carefully explaining things to them like they were little kids, told them everything was going to be alright, and if they disobeyed orders he blew their brains out.
@@gamingforever9121 I usually develop characters a little more, but it was supposed to be a one-shot to introduce the world before someone else came into to dm a full game in the setting but because of some real life drama he couldn’t at first. Long story short I was improving everything
@@plasmawolf7960 the whole premise is great I could see some great comedy from the fact that this guy is in charge of an adventure party and new recruits keep getting shot in the head because they fail too understand all while our Mc is saying sorry sorry about that lol 😂.
11:07 "True, greed is a fundamental aspect of life, but I know a force even more powerful. Change. Greed is part of life, but change is part of everything. Yes this world may be an ad designed to serve greed, but worlds can change just as people can. Just because the world is rotten doesn't mean we should give up the fight to make it better. However hopeless the odds may be, we call that integrity, and we are its knights." for a silly story, that was actually pretty inspirational
When writing Commander Contrarian, make sure you also insert every political belief that you don’t like into him, so that way the audience knows to hate him. Don’t worry about breaking the escapist immersion of your fantasy setting with real world political references and slogans from people you don’t like. Anyone who complains must agree with all the beliefs you artificially inserted into Commander Contrarian, and so their opinions don’t matter
That or just make him Starscream. Because Commander Contrarian needs to be revealed as a traitor in order to justify the protagonists hating him even though they're supposed to be allies and there were no prior hints to him being a traitor to the heroes.
"not stepping up when you're needed most is the true essence of moral character" exactly! those pesky problems can take care of themselves offscreen, and make the leader look good during the cleanup when they show up afterwards :)
Here is the best leader, a common boy/girl who grew up in severe poverty who secretly has royal blood, goes to the palace, decides to make it better for poorer people, gets a makeover, have a single chapter about being uncomfortable in the new setting, have a magic quest then they become king and never think about the people they left behind and this is never shown as a moral failing because we all know that moral failings are for poor people (/s)
Or better yet, same scenario except we see his/her leadership skills throughout the story and it shows they would make a great king/queen, then after the triumph the boy/girl declares instead to abolish the Monarchy and establish a republic while they retire and or go on different adventures, I’m sure the audience or reader won’t feel cheated after going through all that only for nothing to come of it.
Wow, that speech by the Knight of Artistic Integrity was actually quite moving. Plus a portal that runs off narrative tension, and a paywall... pfft XD Your creativity never ceases to amaze me. Not to mention we have finally gotten a Terrible Writing Advice on leaders! Now we shall never be led astray again!
This video reminded me of how the last two Nickelodeon TMNT series handled their leaders fairly well, even the Netflix movie tackled this theme directly as its main theme
Remember, leader on the good side always does all the obviously good decisions, while never facing any hard choices and minecart problems. Meanwhile, leader on the bad side is always interested in screwing over main heroes and waging wars instead of caring about their domain or at least their position as a ruler
In Power Rangers the red one ( the leader ) is always the least qualified. It's kind of funny. Like there could be 4 trained marines and one civilian ( who just randomly walked in while the selection prosses was happening ) and the civilian would be the leader. The one time everyone was in equal ground was in samurai
I don't think it is that lone of a trend. Like how Ninja Storm and Dino Thunder have all initial rangers come from the same level of combat experience. or even the original show where Jason was one of two members on the team with martial arts experience.
@@sirkillalot9892 in Lightspeed Carter was a firefighter, Wes from Time force was the only one that could activate the morpher, honestly the only less qualified Red Ranger I can remember was Casey from Jungle Fury, and even then, he wasnt Red because of his skills, but because he had a desire to protect and the empathy to do that
@@benjamingomez1761 I think Cole from Wild Force might be an argument. He was the newest of all the rangers and had little understanding of the real world or Orgs due to being raised in the jungle. But many counter examples.
@@benjamingomez1761 well Wes explicitly wasn’t the Leader; that was Jen While metatextually Red is usually the leader, in universe, that’s just a coincidence and they typically become leader on their own merits Heck there’s lots of examples where the Red Ranger isn’t the leader
also make sure that the leader has a deep voice; this mean that they are experienced and strong. Any leader with a soft or high pitched voice is only their to be proven wrong
@@fuckingking6796 _obviously_ a soft voice means that the're a soft person who can't make the hard decisions leaving it up to edgy mcprotagonist man to save the day
I’m really glad this came out because I’m writing a leader character that becomes a king later in his life and I was afraid I was making him a “angry silent strong man” so I changed him to be like…an actual character
You can just change everything about a character you are writing just like that? It sounds like it would take some heavy rewrites of the scenes he is in.
@@MacyPooh196 The nine levels of draft hell, now that is a familiar landscape. Greatest of lucks not accidentally leaving in a plot point from a previous iteration that now doesn't work out anymore and spending 5 chapters having to turn the plot hole into brilliant foreshadowing a new plot point that you made up last second in a moment of Inspiration!
Here's a fun idea for a contrarian: have the protagonist try to learn from their mistakes and lead their crew in what everyone including the audience thinks is a heroic last ditch effort to save everyone from a contrarian that gives no guidance, no information, and exists mostly just to say no to the protagonist. But then plot twist! the contrarian, through reasons hidden from the audience until too late, turns out to have been right all along because the protagonist needs to always be wrong. This will go over well with everyone, be totally uncontroversial, and definitely keep the audience rooting for the protagonists. What could go wrong?
@@Shenaldrac That whole plot would have made much more sense if they replaced "hyperspace tracking" with "a mole." Suddenly it would make a lot more sense for her to be so tight-lipped about everything, and for Poe to be at odds; they both suspect each other. The plot twist would simply be that she wasn't actually a mole. Or maybe that hyperspace tracking WAS real and there was no mole.
@@CaptainKeen Yeah, except then you have the problem of making Leia have force powers, so why can't she just jedi mind read and find the mole? Everything in that movie is just more and more thorny vines strangling itself. Every attempt to make it better simply reveals another coil that would throttle the attempt.
This sounds so on point that I wonder if it wasn't in the original draft and disney felt it was too smart and made hime dumb it down and the remnants of it still lingered.
Also important that the actions of a leader should only be judged on the basis of whether or not they are a protagonist or an antagonist, with allowances for plot armor.
I find the 'Commander Contrarian' bit quite funny because one of the key things that I look for in a second in command is a person that totally, and completely, hates my guts. Better to stay tethered to reality rather than surrounded by yes men.
Going to the opposite is NOT the solution. If you thinking about not bombing a village and he said not to bomb that village would bombing it be a good idea?
@@asianjackass237 I think the point is more someone to oppose bad ideas and point out when one of your ideas is shit, then present an argument against it and show why said idea is flawed. Then you can figure out a new and better idea or even just fix all the initial holes in the original idea.
The level of restrained anger when you said: "Where. Is. The. Conflict?" is absolutely amazing. Also, this is merely a favor, but can you update your website, the honest thoughts section has been stuck in 2019.
Also remember: In the scene where the leader lays out their plan, none of the subordinates will ever object, and the comic relief guy will get in a "Zappers!"
One thing you can do is ensuring that the story has a set of characters that could fill in as competent leaders. You disregard them in favour of making one snowflake character the leader. A character that's portrayed as utterly incompetent and indirectly causes many detrimental events to the protagonists in the story, but you make them the leader anyway because reasons. Should there already be a leader, you find a contrived way of getting rid of them by either killing them off, or cause them to sacrifice themselves, so your snowflake character can be the leader. Bonus points if the previous leader personally elects the snowflake to fill in their position for no reason before getting the axe. It's not like that this will alienate the audience in many way, and cause them to stop caring about what happens to these characters and the world, isn't that right Borderlands?
I'm surprised you didn't do a bit about leaders and comedic dysfunction. Y'know. "He's the leader, but he's an idiot", or "he's the leader, but everyone else is an idiot". It invariably ends with "but they tolerate each other anyway for some reason".
The "above politics" leader getting outmaneuvered out of their position by more politics-savvy rival is something rarely seen, I lvoed when it happenned in Arcane.
It's funny because Power Rangers and Super Sentai does this actually pretty well and questionable depending on the series with their Red. Ex: Kiramager Red: He's easily the most inexperienced member of the team, but uses his creativity and artist skills to try and support his more charismatic teams who have their own issues with their profession, and even lets Yellow be the team commander. Mega Black: Yeah, Red isn't friends with the others at the start, so Black's the field leader and Red helps him be less loose while Black is able to guide him better in battle. SPD Red: He's basically the rogue to the other's experience as the cop, which gives him conflict cuz he finally gets to be a cop and actually relishes in laziness and butt heads with blue and pink for how by the book and rich-jerk they can be, and his whole arc is about him having the potential to do good, but needing more people to be around to push himself to his own decisions. MMPR: Jason isn't that bland as people think. He's far from the best, but he makes mistakes, he's gotten his butt kicked, and embraced being a leader to help push the others, especially Billy. RPM Red: Scott wasn't even the ideal leader. He was stubborn, rash, and didn't trust any of the new recruits, but you were able to empathize to him. He lost his brother and constantly felt the need to prove himself, especially against his father and with the rest of the world being destroyed, and over time, he grew to accept the others and acknowledged his mistakes. Jungle Fury Red: He's the naive rookie red who was the least inexperienced, but kept pushing to prove himself to his team, showed potential when others dismissed, and in turn he ends up helping his support system come to terms with himself. Then he's forced to take on a situation where everyone else doubts him, but he goes out to stop a villain no one ever thought was possible.
"he goes out to stop a villain no one ever thought was possible" that's not exactly true. No one in the team thought they couldn't beat Dai Shi eventually. What no one thought possible was that Jarrod, his host, could be separated from Dai Shi and redeemed because they all thought, with good reason, that Jarrod was a massive prick
@@floricel_112 And the best part is that it all tied together with the season theme of Learning. Everyone that won learned and all the losers were those that couldn’t learn. Great under rated season.
Definitely. I'd like to add Time Force: Original Red Ranger was engaged to Pink Ranger but got killed in battle by the main villain in the pilot. Unlike the others the new Red Ranger is from the present time and the rest of the team treat him like unwanted baggage at first, but he grows to become a reliable leader to the point that when the previously 'dead' Red Ranger returns the team actually likes the new guy better. All this is on top of him having to deal with his rich jerk father trying to control his entire life.
This video made me remember of Galadriel, who was a student of an "angel", and was supposed to be a great leader, a sage and an orator to fight a Sauron who (in the second age) would be a (pseudo) Prometheus who impacted the culture, religiosity, politics and development of Middle-earth. Imagine the possibilities of the clash of a "living god" VS "a disciple of an angel/philosopher" who experienced what temerity, hatred and elven obsession did to Middle-earth. But no, Galadriel has already been described in the Series as reckless, angry and "immature". Of course, a "strong elf" cannot be an intellectual who uses subtlety, ideas, and conversation.
Apparently you can't be both strong AND feminine. All strong female characters have to act like men. Oh wait, these people don't even believe men and women exist. We're all just amorphous blobs who instantly transform into whatever we identify as at the time.
That's because you have at least of clue to Tolkien's Galadriel, while the folks making _The Rings of Power_ believe that she needs to be a modern feminist icon, which means being as men as men can be, if not more so.
The RoP writers, like most writers today, can only see power in terms of violence. They lack the maturity to appreciate the spiritual and philosophical power of Tolkien's Galadriel. They took away everything that made her so great. And sadly, they think their psychotic teenage version of her is an improvement 😭
You forgot the part where one character tells another character 'They're a *leader* ' or 'You're a *natural leader* 'and I'm sitting there thinking have you been in the same movie/episode that I've been watching because they have shown little to absolutely zero leadership skills, but the writers are hacks/lazy so we'll go with that.
Wellan from Les Chevaliers d'Émeraude is the epitome of that archetype. Other characters constantly talk about or tell him how good of a leader he is, and it's simply never shown to be true. All I ever see is a whiny man with anger issues and ten layers of plot armor.
"You're a natural leader"...Oh geez, those words were actually used in Ep12 of High Guardian Spice, ad verbatim. As if Rosemary has EARNED such a description...!
I love that Thrawn masterfully gave the Empire new life by destroying the very EU he was part of. And of course all the guilds being deep in the wrong kinds of red isn't easily fixed.
So I read JP's book awhile back, it was really good. It has some of the best world building I have ever seen. On par with Foundations(which is impressive). The characters are interesting, the stakes are real but don't seem too high. Worth a buy and a read. P.s. So J.P. When are you going to release the second one? I need more.
7:50 This is a very good point that every historian needs to understand. Leadership is a skill, not a belief. It doesn't matter what you think is good or what you think is bad because even the most wise and benevolent people that have ever lived won't be a good leader if they don't possess the knowledge skill on how to lead. Napoleon, for instance, supported slavery. However, whether you think he was good or evil, Napoleon still was the most competently skilled leader that France had ever had. He united France and most of the people were completely devoted to him willing to risk their lives for the sake of his because the French believe that he represented the entire nation, which he technically did.
13:28 Giant robots consume energy. That's why you don't bring them out when you're just fighting a group of people. What if a monster shows up afterwards, and your robot's out of energy because you used it up on something you didn't need it for? It's called strategy. Also, it's explained in-show that they promised to never escalate their power until the bad guy does. What you're suggesting is like bringing a gun to a knife fight.
If I'm reading your post right, it's more like bringing a cannon to a knife fight, then panicking when another enemy shows up later with their own cannon and you've already used up all your cannon balls.
Leaders also have no flaws whatsoever. If they do it will be resolved that episode because ingrained behaviors can be changed instantly with little continued effort
I love the Ciaphus Cain books for the fact that it shows the mindset of Leader/Hero and how theres method and skill in being a Leader even if you don't think you are one.
I kinda like what rise of the TMNT tried to do by making Raphael the leader, but unfortunately they basically just swapped his and Leonardo’s personalities with Raph being the more stoic one, and Leo being the sarcastic one. Still a step in a good new direction tho
Actually Raphael is still gung-ho/punch first ask questions later. He gets better at it as the show continues, being more considerate and plan-oriented (even if the plans themselves aren't very good most of the time) and Leo's attitude also develops as the stakes grow higher.
For Rise, Raphael was made the leader, or more to the point made himself the leader, because he was the biggest/oldest brother. But most of time, the other didn't respect him. In the end, Leo became leader when he started showing he had a natural talent for planning.
Sadly, not only writers think that being a leader is something you are somehow born with. And of course, what you value in a leader better be anythings but what is actually important for leadership.
@@fuckingking6796 Yeah, weird that the Ninja village is run by whoever can beat people the best up. Nothing like having thugs in politics. And yes, it is a Fire Emblem pfp.
5:36 I think the idea of a "badass" Dirty Harry/Clint Eastwood action hero character in an office setting performing otherwise mundane tasks (like doing performance reviews, scheduling meetings, and fixing the copier) in an over-the-top 80s action movie kind of way would be a phenomenal spoof of action films and modern office culture.
I'm glad to see another TWA Episode! Seriously considering joining Nebula to get your content more readily and with (hopefully) fewer ads. This episode was just the thing I needed to develop two leader characters in a fantasy war story I'm working on! Thanks for the advice between the lines as always and the continuation of the TWA Expanded Universe series!
Just tell the teacher you've transitioned to being "binary" or non-gender, and everybody in the class will be asking you permission to even have an opinion about anything.
I was gonna Ask you to cover the lancer (contrarian) but you already did. The lancer is the hero/leader’s inferior who’s purpose is to highlight How awesome He is.
Doctor Who mastered that so well, you can easily forget he is the leader in basically any episode. it feels so natural how he guides people and defuses Situation. He is such a good leader, he doesnt even need a gun to get his goal
One of the main comedic themes of the Anime (or Novel) of Overlord is that everybody assumes the MC has everything planned ahead and figured out while in Reality he hasn't done much planning at all but still solves problems on a whim and keeps his pokerface
2:00 oh yes in the recent Digimon 2020 pseudo Reboot, the Leader Taichi had so little going on for him, but also so much Screentime and Charakter Focus, he was pretty much a one Man Show.
J P thank you for making these videos. Honestly the humor in them is great and the content is sound. You live up to the channel name and I love your energy. I look forward to everyone of your videos. Yes, even the adds. You are creative enough to make it entertaining.
Remind me of Naruto, his dream is to becoming Hokage(a great ninja, politician & military leader) but we only saw him becoming a great ninja(with some public speaking skill) then the manga hand him a bunch of homework to learn & timeskip to years later when he got leader skill as the 7th Hokage
@@nyanard The story should have focused more on the political side, have Naruto learn & take part in political conflicts: _ Involve the Fire Lord- Hokage skizism _ Danzo is already there just make him Naruto's political enemy _ The Akatsuki were mercenary so they could still play the role of hired guns for other's political conflict _ Promote Naruto gradually throughout the story, have him take on more & more responsibilities
Because Hokage is not the leader of the nation, there are nobles who lead the land of fire and are not ninjas. The Hokage is more like the leader of the Hidden Leaf village, which is some cross between a military and civilian village. Also I guess he has people to help him learn stuff, even if most of them are off screen.
@@VainerCactus0 _ Yes, the "off screen" part is the problem as this is suppose to be his journey to becoming Hokage. _ And the Leaf is a "village" only by name, it's extremely large & got even larger under Naruto. It closer to an autonomous State with it's own professional mercenary military, policy & privilege but has to perform *PAID* military duties to keep all the privilege _ We do see the Leaf has to report their policy changes to the Fire Lord but more like "We're letting you know" more than "Can we do this?". Remember when the Fire Lord originally gonna named Kakashi as the 6th but when Danzo named himself(with the elders support) he just accepted. Or when they change the 5th candidate to Tsunade on their own accord after already discussing with the Fire Lord that Jiraiya was gonna be the 5th
And always make sure when writing a “weak leader” you make them look weak by having them have self-doubts, have insecurities, do things reluctantly or rely on the input of others to make decisions, this will make your “strong leader” look better later on as they don’t show any of these characteristics! We all know the best leaders in history are the ones that never demonstrate any relatable human emotions or question their decisions or take input from other people! Doubt, uncertainty, reluctance, regret, all of these are feelings for people unfit to be leaders and not things that normal people, including great leaders, encounter in life no matter what choices they make. The strong leader always knows what’s best and that’s what will save the day and definitely not end up with them getting shot in a coup or hung on a lamppost by revolutionaries.
Weirdly, someone told me how anyone could become the Byzantine Emperor and when I thought of the sex and violence some committed to become such an emperor, it made for the best argument for a hereditary monarch I'd come across yet. Western Rome's emperor crisis of succession kept leading to freaking civil wars.
In all my jobs I have encountered good leadership once. It was the assistant manager for front of house catering and restaurant service at a rural golf club. He could even make teenagers work hard without ever threatening them, it was kind of amazing.
I always call the contrarian character the "obstructive bureaucrat". One of my favorite ones was Robert Forster's character in Olympus Has Fallen, General Clegg. His character seems to exist solely to slow down Gerard Butler so the movie is feature length. He never does anything useful. Just tries to mess up everything.
Of course our Knights of Artistic Integrity can come up with a good leadership speech. It's been interesting to see the various takes on Leonardo and Optimus Prime over the years, some good some bad. Really liked the one in Transformers Prime.
On the question on morality, I like to think of Tyrion Lannister and Eddard Stark from the GOT show (because I don't know how it was handled in the books). Ned Stark believed in Honesty, Honor and Altruism, which served him well in the North where his family was respected and a harsher climate made working together more important. But when he applied those traits in King's Landing, he got fucked in a nest of powerhungry liars and sociopaths. Tyrion Lannister was much more jaded and willing to play dirty when he was Hand of the King, but at the same time adherred to an unspoken code of honor that he would not harm innocent people or would leave alone those who haven't done anything wrong or were no threat to him. He was a moral leader, but didn't make himself vulnurable with idealism and naivite.
I was concepting a leader character yesterday, so this is a good time to review my results: My leader ended up being mostly defined by their leadership skills. They had character traits and a hobby outside their role, but mainly only existed to be the leader, so I'm already off to a good start. However, there was a bit of depth to it since their overdedication to being the leader lead to a number of flaws and bad habits they would need to grow out of. I'll be sure to remove that in my next draft. The contrarian character surprised me, because without realizing it, I had 2 characters fill this role: a side character for the leader's motives and a main character for the leader's methods. My original idea was for the side character to be an obvious foil to the leader we're meant to root against, because the leader's motive is clearly good and beneficial. But as the story goes on, we see how the leader's methods produce effective results at the expense of the team's mental health. Everyone on the team notices it, but no one is able to speak up, because the leader ended up creating an environment where no one is comfortable challenge them. This changes one day, thanks to one of their allies. They directly call out how the leader's methods of leading made everyone on the team miserable. When the leader replies by saying that's an unfortunate but necesary sacrifice everyone, including theirself, has to make, their ally quits on the spot. They had to. The amount of stress they got from the uncertainty and danger of their assigned task, partially thanks to the leader, took a heavy tole on their life outside of the job. Before they leave, seemingly for good, they tell the leader that they still intend to fight for the cause, but it's going to be on their own terms. This sudden fracture in the leader's group would force them to see other perspectives of leadership and the value of things outside the mission, so that they can own up to their mistakes and make things right with the rest of the team...but that's WAY too complicated for the audience, so I should just scrap it! At the very least I haven't given much, if any, depth to that important side character outside of their contrarian role, so I don't need to do any work there!
Finally someone takes a pot shot at the reluctant leader trope, because a leader is reluctant that AUTOMATICALLY means he’s the best ruler, never mind that they probably refused it because they in they’d be BAD at the job, or because they don’t want the job they simply do a piss poor job out of apathy
I think The War of the Worlds (the book) handles this very well. In it, the main characters don't take a "I'm always right and the government is always wrong" role, and the government actually leads. When presented with the martian threat, it reacts fast and, more importantly, adapts to the changing situation. The best example of this is when shooting the aliens with guns doesn't work, the military rapidly mobilizes artillery and, instead of leaving them out in the open like idiots (or worse just continuing to shoot the martians with guns), hides them in forests and villages. This even works at killing one of the martians. Ultimately, the government is defeated, but the book makes it clear that this is due to their ignorance of the martians and the martians' vast technological superiority rather than dumb behavior or a lack of leadership.
In times of slower upload speeds, we must band together and brace for the coldest winter, savoring every bit of the videos we have accumulated. It is in times like these that real survivors are forged. Something something God bless America.
I recently got started with writing a story where my main character is the tank and leader of the party so this video is going to be very useful for me, thanks!
Remember the leader must ALWAYS be hopeful and NEVER discouraged. The other characters can never turn around the story by helping the leader. The spotlight must never move.
Honestly, I like leadership characters that are optimistic. Its okay, however, for them to falter and have dark spots that need overcoming. Kaede Akamatsu was one such- oh...oh wait...ugh, nevermind, she got pointlessly fridged just to give us more of the same old same old...milquetoast boy who grows more confident.
But point is, leader characters can be optimists, just write it well. I like myself some hope and optimism (especially being an optimist myself), and theres nothing wrong with it, just make sure they have doubts every so often like anyone else. If anything, its even MORE compelling to watch the group's optimist and banner bearer struggle under the weight of insane odds, only to eventually overcome it and maintain hope. Its an inspiring thing to see the hopeful optimist be challenged but come out on top through sheer willpower, contemplation, acceptance and determination to overcome any inevitable evils in the short term to achieve a longterm better future.
And leaders/masters can't be wrong, even if he chooses a path 10× more harsh or makes short term decisions that affect his co workers or members and actually makes them lose time and effort and if someone disagree or call out the leader you have to make the leader in the rigth with excuses like "It was a test" or "It's all within the plans'" and portray the guy with real questions as in the wrong and of course make the leaders/masters goals or direction a mistery, i mean it's not like anyone would get wary or get some distrust of someone who doesnt give his own teammates trust with valuable information
I run guilds in pay to win games. I would love to scream at my idiots and harshly punish failure, but it never works. Endless positivity does work, keeping players active and contributing. Privately I always keep close allies to whine to about how useless the herd is, but the public side must stay 100% optimism at all times.
Optimism is good, but the leader shouldn't be the only character offering help and encouragement. That's one-sided.
@@swordofstabbingold yeah
*Character 1:* Does machines
*Character 2:* Is cool but rude
*Character 3:* Is a party dude
*Leader character:* Leads
Half Shell...?
very true actually lol
*Character 5:* Taught them to be Ninja Teens (He's a radical rat!)
@@youtubeuniversity3638 *TURTLE POWER*
Hey ninja turtles are cool
Ah, a leader characters, a characters that posses an ultimate ability to move a plot forward by saying "Let's do this, lads!"
Erwin smith in nutshell
Luffy in a nutshell
@@shirothr5384 this hurt me
@@The7337th don't worry, it hurts when a lot of Shonen protags have to drive the plot forwards
I regret reading this in Demoman voice
and remember, even if the leader is tecnically just another member of a color coded hero team that draws their power from the same source, using the same device, so each team member should theoretically have the same level of power, the leader will STILL be the one to somehow be the strongest and the one to get all the cool new powers AND constantly rescue their teammates from the threat of the week. Because while on paper they're all equal in power and there's no default *strongest member, in practice everybody else will always pale in comparison to main characteritis
DBZ in nutshell
This is very specific but very true this happens alot
@@fuckingking6796 Isn't DBZ's problem the literal opposite of this!?
And the rival MUST be the weakest party character in all categories, and always be one-upped by the leader and face an ongoing identity crisis of having to fruitlessly work to find relevance when constantly compared to their far superior teammates on all sides without recognition and have a three season arc of self discovery and… wait, who’s the series about again?
With Power Rangers each member usually has specific strengths different from the others. In MMPR Red was the best fighter and leader, yellow and blue were smart and tech savvy, pink was rhe most agile, black was second in command, and green was an equal fighter with Red but usually more powerful.
As leading singer/songwriter Bob Dylan said, "Don't follow leaders."
We should follow his lead.
Wait
Oh no
reverse psychology ?
We are all individuals!
Yes! We are all individuals!
Makes me think about an anime (forgot the name) with a teenage boy as the "worlds greatest politician", who became Japans prime minister by shooting his predecessor - truly a great leader
You mean Code Geass, that was really bad, yeah.
is it sci fi or isekai? because I remember two types of characters like that but with different genres (of course one is better than the other)
@@attackontitansucks1042 no. Code geass did NOT do that.
@@Fpwc2 kurugi be like
Sounds like a anime power fantasy to me. It could be any show really..
Also make sure to let the main leader character playing chess to show his tactical knowledge, and then let him move his soldiers like chess pieces and win the battle, even though it is their first time commanding an actually battle.
Because the mechanics of chess is easily transferred on the actual battlefield.
God, don't remind me of how bad Code Geass was!
I actually have a guilty pleasure of this trope
The chessmaster archetype could be used to show how sociopathic a character is by displaying how they think of the battlefield as nothing but a game and only see their soldiers/mooks as nothing but chess pieces meant to be sacrificed.
But it's mainly ever used to show how BIG BRAINED the characters are. Because being good at chess automatically means that you're smart and a tactical genius.
@@solus1247 and when they do portray the chess master as evil, they will only use pawn metaphors. Becuase apparently treating people as knights, bishops and rooks that can be sacrificed to weaken the enemy while the king hides like a coward is not creepy at all and cannot be used to show a character to be manipulative.
Code gease I guess but true that is annoying
"You don't become a leader because you deserve it, idiot. You become a leader because of a set of circumstances. Just pretend you deserve it. Pretend you're a great general, and one day, you'll find you don't have to. For maybe twenty years, I swam in my uniform before I deserved it ! But don't mix things up. A deserving leader isn't the same as a good leader. The truly good ones, the kind that comes once a century maybe. Do you know what they all have in common ? They fight only for the dignity of those who are weaker than him."
- The emperor on leadership, to a young officer worried about coming into suspiciously quick promotion.
- Kaamelott
o.o
In a JRPG, the party's leader who makes all the team decisions is always the spiky-haired, spunky, teenage boy whose only qualifications are that he learned swordplay by roughhousing with a wooden stick as a little kid, and he's the protagonist/player character.
Never mind that there is often someone older, calmer (thus less likely to make brash decisions under stress), and more mature on the team by the time there's 3 or 4 members, never mind the older person is often wiser and may have actual military experience- the older person just makes the "wise" decision of putting their faith in the kid.
If anyone _in the game_ questions why this teen is the leader, one or more of his friends will give a cheesy little feel-good speech about how much they trust him, or how "he has a strong heart" or something similar.
He’s the main character but since when is he the leader?
Ahahahahahaaaaa, ahahahahaaaa
What are doing this 2 guys? Its suppossed that they are laughing but its embarrasing.
Someone from Spira.
Interesting, i wonder how a jrpg where you are actually not the leader would play out, it would probably be a lot more linear since you are not in command of where to go.
@@weeb_dweeb maybe they could a rogue agent?
@@pn2294 you've never played dragon quets have you?
Thank you love triangle man, i was just struggling with my leader character. You truly are the brightest, the smartest, the best, the handsomest creator on the internet, all your critics are just trolls and beta readers have no idea what they are talking about.
I smell a sock puppet account :)
the soyjak pfp is appropriate
kurwa
Somehow the pfp adds to the jok- I mean true heartfelt message
LET'S LIKE THIS COMMENT, BOYS!
I can't believe the MCU did this character type best with Captain America, a character who is believable as a leader, but has a personality beside leading.
No wonder things went to shit when he left
@TheSovietOnion that chemical set inside a wmd made me like the punisher more when I saw how much of a unstable mess tony is, I wouldn’t trust him to stay in a rehab let alone enforce government law.
@@RomanvonUngernSternbergnrmfvus honestly Tony needs therapy, not superheroing.
@@neoqwerty exactly, thank you. Almost every single avenger is a giant ball of mental trauma with long histories of substance abuse/self medicating as well as a host of bad coping mechanisms. damn near all of them need therapy and a long vacation at a isolated recovery center. I mean Frank castle might be a rolling ball of trauma but at least he’s self aware of it and I know he is self aware it, I also know he won’t ever get a dwi/dui. personally Iaprefer Frank over the spandex crew since he tends to get into the nuances of a situations so the real issues are fixed, he once took down a entire human trafficking ring from Hell’s Kitchen to Eastern Europe. when’s the last time you saw that menace spider man break up a international child/organ/woman trafficking ring? The bodies and the videos he left behind of what he did to those monsters made sure no other group thought trying to replace that organization he took out would be worth it either. Frank castle survived nam, his family dying twice the second time he had to put them down with a flame thrower, more trauma than any living thing should be able to deal with and still he has maintained a higher levels of functionality and professionalism than that rich boy stark has with his daddy issues never has been able reach.
@@neoqwerty *needed
*Hero:* "Alright men, let's win this battle!"
*Soldier:* "Sir, uh...being from a peasent family and all, do you...you know...have any actual experience in leading thousands of people?"
*Hero:* "Don't worry, that's what the Love Triangle is for!"
*Love Interests:* "WE OBEY."
*Soldier:* "..okay, but, who are the officers? Who else is-"
*Officers:* "WE ARE TRAINED. WE OBEY."
*Hero:* "See? No problem at all!"
*Soldier:* "Okay, no, is _anyone_ else kind of freaked out that our leader seems to have somehow enslaved a bunch of competent people into working for them?" Because-"
*Hero:* "I'm fighting for freedom and justice!"
*Soldier:* "I OBEY."
*Hero:* "That's better! Now let's go beat up the bad guy!"
You just described the far left perfectly. I'm legit impressed.
@@DolFan316 funny, it also describes the far right. Why bring politics into this
@@DolFan316 how the hell is that not both sides? they're literally just the same thing going in opposite directions, how is no one seeing that?
@@thedarklrd6714 I wouldn't say they're the same, it's just that dogmatism has no party lines
There is a militant far left? where?
Don't forget, if your main character is the leader, everyone around him are idiots to show how smart he is, and don't forget making his enemies and the antagonist idiots too.
Basically isekai mc
House MD
Or if it's a dr. Who like person then barely explained pseudo science is the answer (better it stays that way because the more they explain the more ridiculous it becomes).
That sum up a lot of anime
@@pn2294 wait what!!
There are no idiots in house MD unless it was the patients who just lies and not all of them.
I had a character in a tabletop game I was running who basically filled the same role of a commissar in warhammer 40K, but my players described as having the personality of a youth pastor. He’d help the players through things, carefully explaining things to them like they were little kids, told them everything was going to be alright, and if they disobeyed orders he blew their brains out.
That’s an actually nuanced character that with a name and some backstory could be an excellent main character
@@gamingforever9121 I usually develop characters a little more, but it was supposed to be a one-shot to introduce the world before someone else came into to dm a full game in the setting but because of some real life drama he couldn’t at first. Long story short I was improving everything
That last trait would not be a very good one for a youth pastor to have, just sayin'.
@@plasmawolf7960 the whole premise is great I could see some great comedy from the fact that this guy is in charge of an adventure party and new recruits keep getting shot in the head because they fail too understand all while our Mc is saying sorry sorry about that lol 😂.
@@thegodofalldragons In 40k, that kind of behavior isnt far off the mark
11:07
"True, greed is a fundamental aspect of life, but I know a force even more powerful. Change. Greed is part of life, but change is part of everything. Yes this world may be an ad designed to serve greed, but worlds can change just as people can. Just because the world is rotten doesn't mean we should give up the fight to make it better. However hopeless the odds may be, we call that integrity, and we are its knights."
for a silly story, that was actually pretty inspirational
When writing Commander Contrarian, make sure you also insert every political belief that you don’t like into him, so that way the audience knows to hate him. Don’t worry about breaking the escapist immersion of your fantasy setting with real world political references and slogans from people you don’t like. Anyone who complains must agree with all the beliefs you artificially inserted into Commander Contrarian, and so their opinions don’t matter
That or just make him Starscream. Because Commander Contrarian needs to be revealed as a traitor in order to justify the protagonists hating him even though they're supposed to be allies and there were no prior hints to him being a traitor to the heroes.
@@distorteddivine3638 why limit to one option when you can have both?
@@distorteddivine3638 Starscream was less a "traitor" and more of a "would-be usurper".
Just make this character a parady of Donald Trump
@@unicorntomboy9736 of course! Because EVERYONE wants to talk and think about Trump instead of escaping into a fictional world
You got Thrawn’s insignia right. Amazing attention to detail.
It was so artfully done.
That gag was absolutely golden. The best part is that it's something Thrawn would come up with to save the Empire
"not stepping up when you're needed most is the true essence of moral character"
exactly! those pesky problems can take care of themselves offscreen, and make the leader look good during the cleanup when they show up afterwards :)
Here is the best leader, a common boy/girl who grew up in severe poverty who secretly has royal blood, goes to the palace, decides to make it better for poorer people, gets a makeover, have a single chapter about being uncomfortable in the new setting, have a magic quest then they become king and never think about the people they left behind and this is never shown as a moral failing because we all know that moral failings are for poor people (/s)
Well that trope can work for morally gray settings like Fable, Elder Scrolls or Thief but yeah, gotta tread carefully
Or better yet, same scenario except we see his/her leadership skills throughout the story and it shows they would make a great king/queen, then after the triumph the boy/girl declares instead to abolish the Monarchy and establish a republic while they retire and or go on different adventures, I’m sure the audience or reader won’t feel cheated after going through all that only for nothing to come of it.
@@justinbowers2749Are you referencing magi?
That is literally the plot of invincible
Wow, that speech by the Knight of Artistic Integrity was actually quite moving. Plus a portal that runs off narrative tension, and a paywall... pfft XD Your creativity never ceases to amaze me. Not to mention we have finally gotten a Terrible Writing Advice on leaders! Now we shall never be led astray again!
Too moving for being in an adverse, he is right.
I have newfound respect for the Knights of Artistic Integrity.
@@collymorpheous8575 Only a little bit though. 🤣
This video reminded me of how the last two Nickelodeon TMNT series handled their leaders fairly well, even the Netflix movie tackled this theme directly as its main theme
Because Leonardo actually questioned and therefore pondered about the quality of his leadership.
And there is no other reason that he wants to and is the most balance, but mostly he just volunteered, and raph wouldnt be very good.
Netflix might Redeem Rise of the TMNT, as a Movie Series.
Remember, leader on the good side always does all the obviously good decisions, while never facing any hard choices and minecart problems. Meanwhile, leader on the bad side is always interested in screwing over main heroes and waging wars instead of caring about their domain or at least their position as a ruler
This Sponsorship Wars series is extremely engaging! I appreciate the amount of effort put into it, and liked how the Integrity Knight's speech ended.
Take a drink every time JP mentions "logistics" or "economy" related in his videos
Add "politics" to that list and nobody playing will survive this vid.
@@paxromana9709 I think Pablo's the undercover villain of this arc, liver-murdaring comment readers like that
“Royals can never be bad leaders”
Nikolai II has entered the chat
Ivan the Terrible has entered the chat
*About half of the Roman Emperors have entered the chat*
@@rustyshackle8000 how is ivan bad?
I'd say he's q pretty cool dude and it was the nobility's fault
@@akriegguardsman I imagine his son would disagree
Louis xvii
@@akriegguardsmandude.. his name ks Ivan the TERRIBLE
BRB dropping everything I’m doing to watch the new Terrible Writing Advice
Damn… being a leader is stressful and difficult. Good thing I’m the main character so I can’t make a mistake :D
In Power Rangers the red one ( the leader ) is always the least qualified. It's kind of funny. Like there could be 4 trained marines and one civilian ( who just randomly walked in while the selection prosses was happening ) and the civilian would be the leader. The one time everyone was in equal ground was in samurai
I don't think it is that lone of a trend. Like how Ninja Storm and Dino Thunder have all initial rangers come from the same level of combat experience. or even the original show where Jason was one of two members on the team with martial arts experience.
@@sirkillalot9892 in Lightspeed Carter was a firefighter, Wes from Time force was the only one that could activate the morpher, honestly the only less qualified Red Ranger I can remember was Casey from Jungle Fury, and even then, he wasnt Red because of his skills, but because he had a desire to protect and the empathy to do that
@@benjamingomez1761 I think Cole from Wild Force might be an argument. He was the newest of all the rangers and had little understanding of the real world or Orgs due to being raised in the jungle. But many counter examples.
@@sirkillalot9892 Jason was also a karate instructor. Different demands, but the skills related to leadership are transferable.
@@benjamingomez1761 well Wes explicitly wasn’t the Leader; that was Jen
While metatextually Red is usually the leader, in universe, that’s just a coincidence and they typically become leader on their own merits
Heck there’s lots of examples where the Red Ranger isn’t the leader
also make sure that the leader has a deep voice; this mean that they are experienced and strong.
Any leader with a soft or high pitched voice is only their to be proven wrong
Soft voice doesn't mean try inexperienced
@@fuckingking6796 _obviously_ a soft voice means that the're a soft person who can't make the hard decisions leaving it up to edgy mcprotagonist man to save the day
@@TheRichmaster24 going by this logic
Guess every will writing leader are inexperience
@@fuckingking6796he's being sarcastic
@@fuckingking6796 they're just joking
I’m really glad this came out because I’m writing a leader character that becomes a king later in his life and I was afraid I was making him a “angry silent strong man” so I changed him to be like…an actual character
You can just change everything about a character you are writing just like that? It sounds like it would take some heavy rewrites of the scenes he is in.
@@axios4702 a lot of drafts/notebook stuff before actually sitting down to write it forreal 😅
@@MacyPooh196 Oh, that makes more sense. I didnt think about that possibility, sorry.
@@MacyPooh196 The nine levels of draft hell, now that is a familiar landscape. Greatest of lucks not accidentally leaving in a plot point from a previous iteration that now doesn't work out anymore and spending 5 chapters having to turn the plot hole into brilliant foreshadowing a new plot point that you made up last second in a moment of Inspiration!
@@neoqwerty I feel called out
Here's a fun idea for a contrarian: have the protagonist try to learn from their mistakes and lead their crew in what everyone including the audience thinks is a heroic last ditch effort to save everyone from a contrarian that gives no guidance, no information, and exists mostly just to say no to the protagonist. But then plot twist! the contrarian, through reasons hidden from the audience until too late, turns out to have been right all along because the protagonist needs to always be wrong. This will go over well with everyone, be totally uncontroversial, and definitely keep the audience rooting for the protagonists. What could go wrong?
So, Admiral Holdo from Episode 8. Yeah, audiences have been unanimously in favor of that character and her decisions!
@@Shenaldrac That whole plot would have made much more sense if they replaced "hyperspace tracking" with "a mole." Suddenly it would make a lot more sense for her to be so tight-lipped about everything, and for Poe to be at odds; they both suspect each other. The plot twist would simply be that she wasn't actually a mole. Or maybe that hyperspace tracking WAS real and there was no mole.
@@CaptainKeen Yeah, except then you have the problem of making Leia have force powers, so why can't she just jedi mind read and find the mole? Everything in that movie is just more and more thorny vines strangling itself. Every attempt to make it better simply reveals another coil that would throttle the attempt.
I can already tell this is about the last Jedi without looking at the replies
This sounds so on point that I wonder if it wasn't in the original draft and disney felt it was too smart and made hime dumb it down and the remnants of it still lingered.
Also important that the actions of a leader should only be judged on the basis of whether or not they are a protagonist or an antagonist, with allowances for plot armor.
I find the 'Commander Contrarian' bit quite funny because one of the key things that I look for in a second in command is a person that totally, and completely, hates my guts. Better to stay tethered to reality rather than surrounded by yes men.
Yeah a ‘no man’ isn’t much better
Going to the opposite is NOT the solution. If you thinking about not bombing a village and he said not to bomb that village would bombing it be a good idea?
@@asianjackass237 I think the point is more someone to oppose bad ideas and point out when one of your ideas is shit, then present an argument against it and show why said idea is flawed. Then you can figure out a new and better idea or even just fix all the initial holes in the original idea.
@@dangernoodledee111 True but OP described that poorly
The level of restrained anger when you said: "Where. Is. The. Conflict?" is absolutely amazing.
Also, this is merely a favor, but can you update your website, the honest thoughts section has been stuck in 2019.
Also remember: In the scene where the leader lays out their plan, none of the subordinates will ever object, and the comic relief guy will get in a "Zappers!"
One thing you can do is ensuring that the story has a set of characters that could fill in as competent leaders. You disregard them in favour of making one snowflake character the leader. A character that's portrayed as utterly incompetent and indirectly causes many detrimental events to the protagonists in the story, but you make them the leader anyway because reasons. Should there already be a leader, you find a contrived way of getting rid of them by either killing them off, or cause them to sacrifice themselves, so your snowflake character can be the leader. Bonus points if the previous leader personally elects the snowflake to fill in their position for no reason before getting the axe. It's not like that this will alienate the audience in many way, and cause them to stop caring about what happens to these characters and the world, isn't that right Borderlands?
Thought this was a jab at The Last Jedi till I read it was Borderlands.
Legend of Khorra comes to mind.
The new "Captain America" (he's still just Falco in brighter colors to me)
I'm surprised you didn't do a bit about leaders and comedic dysfunction.
Y'know. "He's the leader, but he's an idiot", or "he's the leader, but everyone else is an idiot".
It invariably ends with "but they tolerate each other anyway for some reason".
The "above politics" leader getting outmaneuvered out of their position by more politics-savvy rival is something rarely seen, I lvoed when it happenned in Arcane.
My favorite part of this video is when the Leader Character went "It's leading time." and then leaded all over the comment section.
I got your book! Really good, not what I was expecting!
It's funny because Power Rangers and Super Sentai does this actually pretty well and questionable depending on the series with their Red. Ex:
Kiramager Red: He's easily the most inexperienced member of the team, but uses his creativity and artist skills to try and support his more charismatic teams who have their own issues with their profession, and even lets Yellow be the team commander.
Mega Black: Yeah, Red isn't friends with the others at the start, so Black's the field leader and Red helps him be less loose while Black is able to guide him better in battle.
SPD Red: He's basically the rogue to the other's experience as the cop, which gives him conflict cuz he finally gets to be a cop and actually relishes in laziness and butt heads with blue and pink for how by the book and rich-jerk they can be, and his whole arc is about him having the potential to do good, but needing more people to be around to push himself to his own decisions.
MMPR: Jason isn't that bland as people think. He's far from the best, but he makes mistakes, he's gotten his butt kicked, and embraced being a leader to help push the others, especially Billy.
RPM Red: Scott wasn't even the ideal leader. He was stubborn, rash, and didn't trust any of the new recruits, but you were able to empathize to him. He lost his brother and constantly felt the need to prove himself, especially against his father and with the rest of the world being destroyed, and over time, he grew to accept the others and acknowledged his mistakes.
Jungle Fury Red: He's the naive rookie red who was the least inexperienced, but kept pushing to prove himself to his team, showed potential when others dismissed, and in turn he ends up helping his support system come to terms with himself. Then he's forced to take on a situation where everyone else doubts him, but he goes out to stop a villain no one ever thought was possible.
The Red Ranger is probably there for the same reason Guts was used for Antiheroes, to highlight an example of the trope.
"he goes out to stop a villain no one ever thought was possible"
that's not exactly true. No one in the team thought they couldn't beat Dai Shi eventually. What no one thought possible was that Jarrod, his host, could be separated from Dai Shi and redeemed because they all thought, with good reason, that Jarrod was a massive prick
@@floricel_112 And the best part is that it all tied together with the season theme of Learning. Everyone that won learned and all the losers were those that couldn’t learn. Great under rated season.
Definitely. I'd like to add Time Force: Original Red Ranger was engaged to Pink Ranger but got killed in battle by the main villain in the pilot. Unlike the others the new Red Ranger is from the present time and the rest of the team treat him like unwanted baggage at first, but he grows to become a reliable leader to the point that when the previously 'dead' Red Ranger returns the team actually likes the new guy better. All this is on top of him having to deal with his rich jerk father trying to control his entire life.
Momotaro from Donbrothers has been pretty great too.
This video made me remember of Galadriel, who was a student of an "angel", and was supposed to be a great leader, a sage and an orator to fight a Sauron who (in the second age) would be a (pseudo) Prometheus who impacted the culture, religiosity, politics and development of Middle-earth.
Imagine the possibilities of the clash of a "living god" VS "a disciple of an angel/philosopher" who experienced what temerity, hatred and elven obsession did to Middle-earth.
But no, Galadriel has already been described in the Series as reckless, angry and "immature". Of course, a "strong elf" cannot be an intellectual who uses subtlety, ideas, and conversation.
Apparently you can't be both strong AND feminine. All strong female characters have to act like men.
Oh wait, these people don't even believe men and women exist. We're all just amorphous blobs who instantly transform into whatever we identify as at the time.
When power is the only dynamic, strength is the only virtue.
That's because you have at least of clue to Tolkien's Galadriel, while the folks making _The Rings of Power_ believe that she needs to be a modern feminist icon, which means being as men as men can be, if not more so.
@@boobah5643 Strong female character: a "toxic" male, gender switched
The RoP writers, like most writers today, can only see power in terms of violence. They lack the maturity to appreciate the spiritual and philosophical power of Tolkien's Galadriel. They took away everything that made her so great. And sadly, they think their psychotic teenage version of her is an improvement 😭
You forgot the part where one character tells another character 'They're a *leader* ' or 'You're a *natural leader* 'and I'm sitting there thinking have you been in the same movie/episode that I've been watching because they have shown little to absolutely zero leadership skills, but the writers are hacks/lazy so we'll go with that.
Wellan from Les Chevaliers d'Émeraude is the epitome of that archetype. Other characters constantly talk about or tell him how good of a leader he is, and it's simply never shown to be true. All I ever see is a whiny man with anger issues and ten layers of plot armor.
"You're a natural leader"...Oh geez, those words were actually used in Ep12 of High Guardian Spice, ad verbatim. As if Rosemary has EARNED such a description...!
11:15
"greed is part of life, but change is part of everything"
damn that's pretty good
I love that Thrawn masterfully gave the Empire new life by destroying the very EU he was part of. And of course all the guilds being deep in the wrong kinds of red isn't easily fixed.
And he also predicted his own return in the new canon! This way, he defeats all of his former EU enemies while still being canon!
4:22 As usual, Thrawn is a master of analysis.
So I read JP's book awhile back, it was really good. It has some of the best world building I have ever seen. On par with Foundations(which is impressive). The characters are interesting, the stakes are real but don't seem too high.
Worth a buy and a read.
P.s.
So J.P. When are you going to release the second one? I need more.
Bot fr
@@greekcomenterperson446 Ouch, that hurts. I am a literary critic of sorts, and a person who loves to see good writing succeed.
@@laststand6420 frfr(frfr not joke)
@@greekcomenterperson446 frfr fr, no cap? Ong?
@@L3X1N u get me
I want to see him do Personified Animals next! I'm writing a story with just that, and I could use his expert advice!
The kind that wear clothes à la Redwall, or the kind that are animals that can talk à la Warrior Cats?
@@riverAmazonNZ Both?
See if he has anything on alien cultures, that's basically what it is
Always make you animals walk and talk exactly like humans because there is no physical difference between aliens and humans.
Throw in talking animals in there too
7:50
This is a very good point that every historian needs to understand. Leadership is a skill, not a belief. It doesn't matter what you think is good or what you think is bad because even the most wise and benevolent people that have ever lived won't be a good leader if they don't possess the knowledge skill on how to lead.
Napoleon, for instance, supported slavery. However, whether you think he was good or evil, Napoleon still was the most competently skilled leader that France had ever had. He united France and most of the people were completely devoted to him willing to risk their lives for the sake of his because the French believe that he represented the entire nation, which he technically did.
13:28 Giant robots consume energy. That's why you don't bring them out when you're just fighting a group of people. What if a monster shows up afterwards, and your robot's out of energy because you used it up on something you didn't need it for? It's called strategy. Also, it's explained in-show that they promised to never escalate their power until the bad guy does. What you're suggesting is like bringing a gun to a knife fight.
If I'm reading your post right, it's more like bringing a cannon to a knife fight, then panicking when another enemy shows up later with their own cannon and you've already used up all your cannon balls.
That Thrawn joke is brilliant
"Greed is part of life, but change is part of everything."
This speech has several good quotes, but this is one of my favorites.
Leaders also have no flaws whatsoever. If they do it will be resolved that episode because ingrained behaviors can be changed instantly with little continued effort
I love that you inserted an Heir to the Empire reference at 4:22
I love the Ciaphus Cain books for the fact that it shows the mindset of Leader/Hero and how theres method and skill in being a Leader even if you don't think you are one.
"The fantasy of winning an argument"
I did not see that coming
I kinda like what rise of the TMNT tried to do by making Raphael the leader, but unfortunately they basically just swapped his and Leonardo’s personalities with Raph being the more stoic one, and Leo being the sarcastic one. Still a step in a good new direction tho
So basically we had ONE cartoon where "red" didn't mean "leader" and it got retconned
@@ΓιάννηςΜεταξάς-ρ5φ no, Leo becomes Leader at the end
@@TupocalypseShakur I didn’t see the whole thing so I could be wrong
Actually Raphael is still gung-ho/punch first ask questions later. He gets better at it as the show continues, being more considerate and plan-oriented (even if the plans themselves aren't very good most of the time) and Leo's attitude also develops as the stakes grow higher.
For Rise, Raphael was made the leader, or more to the point made himself the leader, because he was the biggest/oldest brother. But most of time, the other didn't respect him.
In the end, Leo became leader when he started showing he had a natural talent for planning.
The leader is good.
The leader is great.
We surrender our will, as of this date.
nanananana fishiiiiiing
Sadly, not only writers think that being a leader is something you are somehow born with. And of course, what you value in a leader better be anythings but what is actually important for leadership.
*hokage in nutshel*
Nice fire emblem pfp
What is that supposed to be?
@@fuckingking6796 surprisingly Naruto actually stepped up
@@fuckingking6796
Yeah, weird that the Ninja village is run by whoever can beat people the best up. Nothing like having thugs in politics.
And yes, it is a Fire Emblem pfp.
For some reason I kept hearing the TMNT theme song in my head. *"Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines!" (That's a fact, jack!)*
5:36 I think the idea of a "badass" Dirty Harry/Clint Eastwood action hero character in an office setting performing otherwise mundane tasks (like doing performance reviews, scheduling meetings, and fixing the copier) in an over-the-top 80s action movie kind of way would be a phenomenal spoof of action films and modern office culture.
Why am I thinking of Hot Fuzz now? And not just because that's my favorite of the Cornetto Trilogy?
I'm glad to see another TWA Episode! Seriously considering joining Nebula to get your content more readily and with (hopefully) fewer ads.
This episode was just the thing I needed to develop two leader characters in a fantasy war story I'm working on! Thanks for the advice between the lines as always and the continuation of the TWA Expanded Universe series!
Now joining the beard tuber ranks, twau is starting its next phase?
"So the troubleshooting lone wolf can find trouble and shoot it" 🤣 the plot of every action movie
Joke not found to reduce politics meltdown in the comments? You made me a happy man, J.P. Beaubien.
Lol imagine being able to write a leader when I can’t even ask to go to the bathroom in class
Don't let that stop you 😊
Just tell the teacher you've transitioned to being "binary" or non-gender, and everybody in the class will be asking you permission to even have an opinion about anything.
@@DolFan316 TF does that have to do with anything?
@@DolFan316 that is not how anything works.
@@DolFan316 Hey, a random transphobic joke! Never heard that one before! Do you also know the one about helicopters?
I was gonna Ask you to cover the lancer (contrarian) but you already did. The lancer is the hero/leader’s inferior who’s purpose is to highlight How awesome He is.
Doctor Who mastered that so well, you can easily forget he is the leader in basically any episode. it feels so natural how he guides people and defuses Situation. He is such a good leader, he doesnt even need a gun to get his goal
4:23 This (the image) is simultaneously the nerdiest and best jab I’ve yet seen in JP’s videos. My inner Star Wars fan can’t deny the accuracy.
Love Triangle Man at it again, these are legit pretty good and well thought out
One of the main comedic themes of the Anime (or Novel) of Overlord is that everybody assumes the MC has everything planned ahead and figured out while in Reality he hasn't done much planning at all but still solves problems on a whim and keeps his pokerface
Bruh
That's so true
Babe, wake up. Terrible Writing Advice dropped a new video.
Hell yeah. Been waiting for more writing advice.
2:00 oh yes in the recent Digimon 2020 pseudo Reboot, the Leader Taichi had so little going on for him, but also so much Screentime and Charakter Focus, he was pretty much a one Man Show.
J P thank you for making these videos. Honestly the humor in them is great and the content is sound. You live up to the channel name and I love your energy. I look forward to everyone of your videos. Yes, even the adds. You are creative enough to make it entertaining.
Remind me of Naruto, his dream is to becoming Hokage(a great ninja, politician & military leader) but we only saw him becoming a great ninja(with some public speaking skill) then the manga hand him a bunch of homework to learn & timeskip to years later when he got leader skill as the 7th Hokage
For some reason
He never played too much as leader role
@@nyanard The story should have focused more on the political side, have Naruto learn & take part in political conflicts:
_ Involve the Fire Lord- Hokage skizism
_ Danzo is already there just make him Naruto's political enemy
_ The Akatsuki were mercenary so they could still play the role of hired guns for other's political conflict
_ Promote Naruto gradually throughout the story, have him take on more & more responsibilities
Two close friends of his are the leaders of the sand and meteor villages, and we somehow don’t see them teach him the basics of leading.
Because Hokage is not the leader of the nation, there are nobles who lead the land of fire and are not ninjas. The Hokage is more like the leader of the Hidden Leaf village, which is some cross between a military and civilian village. Also I guess he has people to help him learn stuff, even if most of them are off screen.
@@VainerCactus0
_ Yes, the "off screen" part is the problem as this is suppose to be his journey to becoming Hokage.
_ And the Leaf is a "village" only by name, it's extremely large & got even larger under Naruto. It closer to an autonomous State with it's own professional mercenary military, policy & privilege but has to perform *PAID* military duties to keep all the privilege
_ We do see the Leaf has to report their policy changes to the Fire Lord but more like "We're letting you know" more than "Can we do this?". Remember when the Fire Lord originally gonna named Kakashi as the 6th but when Danzo named himself(with the elders support) he just accepted. Or when they change the 5th candidate to Tsunade on their own accord after already discussing with the Fire Lord that Jiraiya was gonna be the 5th
And always make sure when writing a “weak leader” you make them look weak by having them have self-doubts, have insecurities, do things reluctantly or rely on the input of others to make decisions, this will make your “strong leader” look better later on as they don’t show any of these characteristics! We all know the best leaders in history are the ones that never demonstrate any relatable human emotions or question their decisions or take input from other people! Doubt, uncertainty, reluctance, regret, all of these are feelings for people unfit to be leaders and not things that normal people, including great leaders, encounter in life no matter what choices they make. The strong leader always knows what’s best and that’s what will save the day and definitely not end up with them getting shot in a coup or hung on a lamppost by revolutionaries.
2:09
Toaster WAS the leader of the appliances, yeah.
So the toaster has more personality?
I got say it’s insane how every video manages to make me laugh multiple times physically out loud. I aspire to write like you someday ;).
Weirdly, someone told me how anyone could become the Byzantine Emperor and when I thought of the sex and violence some committed to become such an emperor, it made for the best argument for a hereditary monarch I'd come across yet. Western Rome's emperor crisis of succession kept leading to freaking civil wars.
In all my jobs I have encountered good leadership once. It was the assistant manager for front of house catering and restaurant service at a rural golf club. He could even make teenagers work hard without ever threatening them, it was kind of amazing.
That's because leadership is a skill you develop overtime instead of something people are just born with like media would have you believe.
I always call the contrarian character the "obstructive bureaucrat". One of my favorite ones was Robert Forster's character in Olympus Has Fallen, General Clegg. His character seems to exist solely to slow down Gerard Butler so the movie is feature length. He never does anything useful. Just tries to mess up everything.
Of course our Knights of Artistic Integrity can come up with a good leadership speech.
It's been interesting to see the various takes on Leonardo and Optimus Prime over the years, some good some bad. Really liked the one in Transformers Prime.
Hope you do magical girl tropes , there are so many problems with the genre
My favorite writing channel
On the question on morality, I like to think of Tyrion Lannister and Eddard Stark from the GOT show (because I don't know how it was handled in the books).
Ned Stark believed in Honesty, Honor and Altruism, which served him well in the North where his family was respected and a harsher climate made working together more important. But when he applied those traits in King's Landing, he got fucked in a nest of powerhungry liars and sociopaths.
Tyrion Lannister was much more jaded and willing to play dirty when he was Hand of the King, but at the same time adherred to an unspoken code of honor that he would not harm innocent people or would leave alone those who haven't done anything wrong or were no threat to him. He was a moral leader, but didn't make himself vulnurable with idealism and naivite.
,, Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall'' Shakespeare
''moral leader'' well I'm not sure if most or even a few people in king's landing would agree with that statement.
@@legrandliseurtri7495 Definitely more moral than most other people there.
I was concepting a leader character yesterday, so this is a good time to review my results:
My leader ended up being mostly defined by their leadership skills. They had character traits and a hobby outside their role, but mainly only existed to be the leader, so I'm already off to a good start. However, there was a bit of depth to it since their overdedication to being the leader lead to a number of flaws and bad habits they would need to grow out of. I'll be sure to remove that in my next draft.
The contrarian character surprised me, because without realizing it, I had 2 characters fill this role: a side character for the leader's motives and a main character for the leader's methods. My original idea was for the side character to be an obvious foil to the leader we're meant to root against, because the leader's motive is clearly good and beneficial. But as the story goes on, we see how the leader's methods produce effective results at the expense of the team's mental health. Everyone on the team notices it, but no one is able to speak up, because the leader ended up creating an environment where no one is comfortable challenge them. This changes one day, thanks to one of their allies. They directly call out how the leader's methods of leading made everyone on the team miserable. When the leader replies by saying that's an unfortunate but necesary sacrifice everyone, including theirself, has to make, their ally quits on the spot. They had to. The amount of stress they got from the uncertainty and danger of their assigned task, partially thanks to the leader, took a heavy tole on their life outside of the job. Before they leave, seemingly for good, they tell the leader that they still intend to fight for the cause, but it's going to be on their own terms. This sudden fracture in the leader's group would force them to see other perspectives of leadership and the value of things outside the mission, so that they can own up to their mistakes and make things right with the rest of the team...but that's WAY too complicated for the audience, so I should just scrap it! At the very least I haven't given much, if any, depth to that important side character outside of their contrarian role, so I don't need to do any work there!
I’m not a writer and do not aspire to be but these will always make me laugh and I greatly appreciate these!
Finally someone takes a pot shot at the reluctant leader trope, because a leader is reluctant that AUTOMATICALLY means he’s the best ruler, never mind that they probably refused it because they in they’d be BAD at the job, or because they don’t want the job they simply do a piss poor job out of apathy
I think The War of the Worlds (the book) handles this very well. In it, the main characters don't take a "I'm always right and the government is always wrong" role, and the government actually leads. When presented with the martian threat, it reacts fast and, more importantly, adapts to the changing situation. The best example of this is when shooting the aliens with guns doesn't work, the military rapidly mobilizes artillery and, instead of leaving them out in the open like idiots (or worse just continuing to shoot the martians with guns), hides them in forests and villages. This even works at killing one of the martians.
Ultimately, the government is defeated, but the book makes it clear that this is due to their ignorance of the martians and the martians' vast technological superiority rather than dumb behavior or a lack of leadership.
Why I never skip your adds? Your artistic power is so big!
The fact that TWA knows what Sentai is make me want to see an episode of TWA on Kamen Rider, Ultraman etc
The "lone wolf who has no respect for authority or other people should be everyone's leader" is the entire crux of Ayn Rand's bibliography.
In times of slower upload speeds, we must band together and brace for the coldest winter, savoring every bit of the videos we have accumulated. It is in times like these that real survivors are forged. Something something God bless America.
I recently got started with writing a story where my main character is the tank and leader of the party so this video is going to be very useful for me, thanks!
The ending, withOUT the orchestral score, was very powerful. I was moved (and vaguely disturbed by the lack of poorly-timed punchline).
I would personally love to see the power rangers being led by a toaster. And he can be his own part of the robot all on his own!
I just noticed that the black Power Ranger's personality traits are blocked off at 1:21.
Why tho?
I saw someone in the comments call him the "love triangle man" and I am forever referring to this channel as that now
With lone wolf we're talking about wolverine right?
YESSSSSSSSSSS! :D THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THEM!