When we read reviews of movies and books we often hear the phrase "the characters were very two dimensional". I assume everyone understands what is intended by this phrase at least intuitively or qualitatively? However, what's to stop us taking the statement literally and hence allowing for the possibility of quantitative measures. So, what are the dimensions of a two dimension character?
One could be a moral dimension, is the character good or bad? Another, dimension might be something like on-screen presence, which i will limit with the personality type labels introvert and extrovert. I should really go read a few books on cinema to see if there are any more genre appropriate dimensions but these will do.
Anyway, the first moral dimension has a pretty clear positive pole. No guesses which one. Welcome to tautology club! The second dimension isn't so straight forward. Our current social zeitgeist would probably have extroversion as the positive pole, but the introverts are certainly making themselves heard. Ah, bless you twitter!
Now even with just two dimensions characters could be pretty complex. Sure, we could get easy stereotypes if we stuck to the extremes of our scales ...
| Good | Bad | |
| Extrovert | Hero | Villain |
| Introvert | Damsel | Henchman |
... but, despite what our popular press would have us believe, things are not always black and white.
Think of the villain who turns good in the end (Megamind). Or the henchman who is really the main villain (The Usual Suspects). Or some of the literally 2D characters from Disney cartoons (Beauty and the Beast). Or any of the literally 3D characters from Pixar (Toy Story).
Even if we only have two dimensions to measure against we can still come up with very interesting personalities, or better yet, identities. Personality, relates to the long term trend characters have and it would take a pretty major event to change this (The Bourne Identity). Identity, is much more fun to look at as it encompasses so much more subtle possibilities for change based on underlying personality, past experiences, environmental circumstance and present emotional state (um, The Bourne Identity). The important part I am trying to make is that interesting characters have the ability to change over time and the really cool ones adapt to circumstances.
