by paul.seyringer -

What Makes a Villain? An Introduction to Character Analysis Frameworks (Part 3)

Because my first three blog posts were all about the same topic but lacked a logical structure, I want to give you a brief overview of what I have researched and discussed so far before it gets too confusing:

  1. Why do we root for the bad guy? A summary of eight reasons why audiences are often drawn to villains and anti-heroes in film and television
  2. The Jungian Archetype Theory
  3. The Big Five
  4. The Character Clock
  5. A Brief Draft for Building a Customized Model for Villain Analysis

These topics already build a good foundation for creating my own model, but there are still a few steps I need to take before I can develop an actual framework.
The current idea I have for a systematic character analysis framework looks as follows:

  1. The character as an artefact – analyzing the character using the ACIS framework
  2. The character as a represented being – analyzing the character using the Big Five
  3. The character as a symbol – brief notation of possible symbolic meanings the character can carry

So, what will be next?
In this blog post, I want to explore the missing parts, such as discussing the ACIS framework and researching concrete examples of how to use these frameworks, before actually defining the complete framework in one of the next blog posts.

The ACIS Framework

The ACIS Framework was developed by Christine Linke and Eckart Prommer in 2021 as a systematic method for analyzing how characters are represented and visible in audiovisual media (perfect for my use case!). It combines quantitative content analysis with narrative and reception-based approaches. An important aspect of this method is that it analyzes the content as a viewer would experience it, without relying on external context.

The Step-by-Step Procedure of the ACIS Framework

Since I plan on integrating this framework into my own model, I want to explain it by giving you a step-by-step guide on how it is used.

Step 1: Character Identification

The first step in using the ACIS Framework is to distinguish whether the character is a Protagonist or a Main Character. ACIS defines characters based on their role and presence in the narrative.

  • Protagonists are characters who take on a leading role and act as the driving force behind the story in a goal-oriented manner. In television, this is often clearly marked by the character’s permanent presence in the ensemble.
  • Main characters are persons who are centrally visible on screen, have their names mentioned, and speak dialogue, such as TV hosts, news anchors, reporters, and so on.

Step 2: Character Characteristics Coding

Once the role of the character is identified, the next step is to analyze the character in detail by coding individual characteristics such as:

  • Gender
  • Age
  • Sexual orientation
  • Other specific characteristics (body shape, appearance, clothing, etc.)

The key principle here is that these characteristics must be visually or audibly perceivable – not simply taken from the script or other external information.

Step 3: Visibility Dimensions

The ACIS Framework focuses on three dimensions of visibility:

  • Frequency: How often does the character appear?
  • Density: How much screen time does the character receive?
  • Focusing: How prominently is the character positioned or emphasized in the frame?

It also considers when and how much the character speaks, so the analysis includes both visual and audio presence.

Adapting the ACIS Framework for Analyzing Sympathetic Villains

A fun picture of Severus Snape (sympathetic villain) to keep you engaged.

The ACIS Framework serves as an almost perfect method for systematically analyzing the character as an artefact, but I want to modify a few aspects so it fits perfectly with my analysis of sympathetic villains. Keep in mind that all these adaptations currently function as a first draft and will probably be revised and further adjusted as the research progresses.

Since some villains function as protagonists in film and television, and the identification as a main character is primarily used for broadcasting formats, I will either identify the villain as the protagonist or not. I also considered defining three categories for villains, because they can not only be a protagonist or not, but sometimes also act as an omnipresent being, like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, who serves as the main challenge for the hero but receives hardly any screen time. Since I am unsure about this and would need to create a clear definition for each category, I will just note it here as a thought to keep in mind.

Regarding the second step, Character Characteristics Coding, I would like to incorporate the research of Keen, McCoy, and Powell in Rooting for the Bad Guy: Psychological Perspectives and definitely include attractiveness in some way, based on the third reason they mention: “What is Beautiful is Good.” I know attractiveness is difficult to measure scientifically, but hopefully I will find a method in my future research that provides an easy way to analyze this attribute.

Another aspect I want to consider, which is already included in the ACIS Framework, is the Mere Exposure Effect mentioned by Keen, McCoy, and Powell – that is, the screen time and actual dialogue time of the villain. I have already looked into some AI tools that could help determine a character’s actual screen time without having to watch an entire film or TV series and manually count the time. Unfortunately, I fear these tools have limitations, and I will probably have to focus mainly on movie villains. Hopefully, further research will provide a solution to this problem.

That’s it for this blog post. In the next one, I want to create my first concrete draft of a character analysis model. Looking forward to it!

Until then – see ya.

Literature:

  1. Linke, Christine, and Elizabeth Prommer. “From fade-out into spotlight: An audio-visual character analysis (ACIS) on the diversity of media representation and production culture.” Studies in Communication Sciences 21.1 (2021): 145-161.
  2. Keen, Richard, Monica L. McCoy, and Elizabeth Powell. “Rooting for the bad guy: Psychological perspectives.” Studies in Popular Culture 34.2 (2012): 129-148.

Disclaimer: This text was proofread for punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors with the help of Perplexity. The content of the text remains unaffected.

by paul.seyringer -

What Makes a Villain? An Introduction to Character Analysis Frameworks (Part 2)

In the first part of this two-part blog series, I explored two well-known character analysis models – Jungian Archetype Theory and the Big Five personality framework. While both offer interesting perspectives for analyzing fictional characters, they fall short of covering the full scope needed for a truly systematic analysis. That’s why, as promised, I’ll introduce another model that is much more detailed and was specifically created for analyzing fictional characters in film and media. I know what you might be thinking:

“Great, another post on dry theoretical character analysis!”

But hang in there – soon we’ll dive into the practical side.

The Character Clock

Jens Eder introduced a new character analysis framework called the “Character Clock” in his book Characters in Film and Other Media. The purpose of this model is to analyze different dimensions of fictional characters to provide a complete understanding that includes not only their personality but also their appearance, symbolic meaning, and the context in which the character was created. The name comes from the shape of the model, which resembles a clock and symbolizes how our understanding of a character moves through the four parts he defined.

  1. Artefact:
    The first aspect we notice about a character is their appearance and how they are presented on screen. This includes not only their looks but also their voice, movements, and how these elements are arranged through acting, camera work, and writing style. This stage focuses on the character as a crafted piece of media itself, before considering what the character represents.
  2. Represented Being:
    At this stage, we begin to view the character as a person within the story – a being with a personality. We consider their relationships, emotions, actions, and social roles in the story’s world. This involves imagining the character’s traits and inner life as part of the narrative.
  3. Symbol:
    Characters often symbolize something larger than themselves. Here, we understand that the character not only exists in the story world but also functions as a symbol representing ideas, themes, or social issues. This stage deals with the deeper, often hidden meanings the character can carry.
  4. Symptom:
    Finally, a character can reflect aspects of the real world in which the media was produced. This includes cultural values, political messages, and social stereotypes that influenced the creation. This stage examines why the character was created in a certain way and how audiences might interpret them based on the production and viewing context.

Not every part of the character clock is equally useful for every character or story because some characters might be mostly about their story role, while others are specifically designed as a symbol or to make social commentary.

Defining My Research Focus (Wtf Was This All About?): A Systematic Approach to Villain Analysis

Moving from “How to analyze characters in film and media in general” to “What I aim to research and what is necessary to do that,” I want to combine these methods to suit my specific use case. My goal is to analyze villains systematically, compare them, and highlight what differentiates common villains from the most popular villains, those we actually root for despite their immoral actions. Keep in mind that this is just my main goal. If I manage to create a reliable statistical model, you could use it to compare fictional characters in any way you like. For example, you could compare heroes and villains, sidekicks and heroes, or antiheroes and villains. The possibilities become almost endless once you establish an analytical method focused on building a large database with statistically and systematically researched values.

Adapting the Character Clock: Building a Customized Model for Villain Analysis

I really like Jens Eder’s approach with his Character Clock because it covers all the aspects of a fictional character and not only the personality. Therefore, I want to base my model on his but with a few modifications.

First of all, I don’t want to include the Symptom part. I know that the Symptom is also an interesting aspect of character analysis, but I think it’s more efficient, when analyzing multiple villains, to start with a smaller scope. Otherwise, the analysis for just one character would take way too much time to even gather a database. You could write a whole book analyzing one character if you try to cover each of these four aspects, so I am trying to break it down to the most important ones.

Secondly, I want to mainly focus on the Artefact and the Represented Being parts because they are not only the things we notice first when seeing a character on screen, but also the easiest to compare. I also want to include the Symbol briefly for every character by noting if they represent something bigger, what it is, or if there is even a deeper meaning behind the character.

And last but not least: How do I want to systematically analyze the Artefact and the Represented Being?
I want to use the Big Five for analyzing the Represented Being since it fits perfectly for analyzing multiple characters and is suitable for creating comparable diagrams.

For the Artefact, on the other hand, I want to use a framework called ACIS (Audio-Visual Character Analysis) a systematic method designed for analyzing how characters are represented and visible in audiovisual media, developed by Christine Linke and Eckart Prommer and published not too long ago in 2021. I will present this framework in the next part of this blog series as well as continue to describe what my approach will look like.

I know I promised this to be a two-part blog, but during my research, I realized that I have to cover much more to actually develop my own framework. Sorry!

See ya in the next one.

Literature:

  1. Eder, Jens. Characters in Film and Other Media: Theory, Analysis, Interpretation. Open Book Publishers, 2025.
  2. Linke, Christine, and Elizabeth Prommer. “From fade-out into spotlight: An audio-visual character analysis (ACIS) on the diversity of media representation and production culture.” Studies in Communication Sciences 21.1 (2021): 145-161.

Disclaimer: This text was proofread for punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors with the help of Perplexity. The content of the text remains unaffected.

by paul.seyringer -

What Makes a Villain? An Introduction to Character Analysis Frameworks (Part 1)

Simply listing the reasons why people root for villains and antiheroes wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to explore the deeper question of what truly makes a villain a villain. To understand that, I also needed to examine how a typical villain is structured and designed. In other words, this is a matter of character analysis.

Conducting character analysis in a scientific context is far from simple. In my case, I aim not only to analyze several well-known villains but also to compare them in order to identify shared traits and distinct differences among some of the most popular antagonists in contemporary media.

In this two-part blog post, I will present three established models of character analysis and discuss how these frameworks can help reveal the psychological and narrative patterns that define our favorite villains. Furthermore, I will try to combine them and create my own framework for analyzing villains in TV and movies. Keep in mind that many more models exist for analyzing both fictional characters and real people – such as Aristotle’s Poetics, Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, Freytag’s Pyramid, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, just to name a few. I chose these models because they seemed fitting for my plan to analyze and compare villains, and I often came across them during my research.

The Jungian Archetype Theory

The Twelve Archetypes in Marketing

Named after the renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, the Jungian Archetype Theory describes characteristic patterns that categorize attributes into different persona types. While this theory has been highly influential in analyzing characters and crafting stories and narratives, it is not considered a strictly scientific approach to character analysis because it relies heavily on the interpretation of stories, myths, and images, which is subjective and difficult to validate with empirical evidence.

Bassil-Morozow explains in Jungian Theory for Storytellers: A Toolkit that archetypes manifest in narratives as familiar character types – such as the Hero, the Shadow (the villain) and the trickster (among many others). Each archetype represents recurring motifs and psychological dynamics within stories. These archetypes are not rigid but act as flexible templates that can be adapted depending on the context, genre, and cultural interpretation. While Jung originally identified four archetypes, his concept was later developed and expanded to include nine archetypes in analytical psychology, and even twelve archetypes to align with marketing principles.

Since the Jungian Archetype Theory is rather pseudoscientific, I won’t use it for my character analysis of popular villains. However, because it is still quite renowned – and even our lecturer in narratives and dramaturgy, Mr. Köpping, mentioned that I should take a look at it – I thought I might as well present it in this blog post.

The Big Five

Although the Big Five was not originally created as a model for analyzing fictional characters but rather as a framework in personality psychology to describe human personality, it is a scientific approach to understanding personalities. You might have come across this model, as it is widely used in various personality tests available across the internet. The key traits this model focuses on are Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. In an analysis, each of these traits is assigned a high or low value, which is then interpreted accordingly. These traits are relatively stable over time and have been supported by extensive empirical research.

Extraversion describes whether a person is more introverted or extraverted. While an extraverted person is sociable, energetic, and assertive, introverts tend to be more reserved and solitary.

Neuroticism reflects emotional instability and the tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety and sadness. High neuroticism means a person may be more prone to stress and mood swings.

Agreeableness measures how cooperative, kind, and empathetic an individual is toward others. A high score indicates helpfulness and trust, while a low score suggests competitiveness or antagonism.

Conscientiousness refers to self-discipline, organization, and dependability. High conscientiousness is linked to goal-directed behavior, reliability, and a strong sense of duty.

Openness to Experience describes intellectual curiosity, creativity, and preference for novelty. Individuals with high openness enjoy new experiences, cultural pursuits, and abstract thinking, while those lower prefer routine and practicality.

You thought that we were done with boring character analysis models? Unfortunately, I have yet one other framework I want to talk about! But you’re lucky because the third model, as well as my own approach to a combined model, will be presented in Part 2.

See ya!

Literature:

  1. Asendorpf, Jens B. Persönlichkeitspsychologie für Bachelor. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2019.
  2. Bassil-Morozow, Helena. Jungian theory for storytellers: A toolkit. Routledge, 2018.

Disclaimer: This text was proofread for punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors with the help of Perplexity. The content of the text remains unaffected.