The Braggart Soldier tells the story of a cunning slave’s plan to free himself from his egotistical soldier using a mistress to seduce him. Community tells the story of a group of misfits attending Greendale Community College that form a study group and become best friends despite religious, social, political, academic and age differences. I have chosen the area of characters and the similarities between the Roman Braggart Soldier and NBC/Yahoo’s critically acclaimed hit sitcom Community. In Braggart Soldier, there are some realistic characters but there are also stock characters.
Stock characters are characters based off of cultural and social stereotypes. For example, in Braggart Soldier, Palaestrio would be a realistic character proving that although he is a slave, he is still intelligent and compassionate. Philicomaceum would be a stock character, taking the stereotypical helpless female role. She cannot do much for herself and needed Palaestrio to do the hard work to free her so she could be with her long lost love, the same stereotype as princess Fiona’s background in Shrek.
Similarly, almost all of the members of the study group in Community fit the stock character criteria with the exception of Annie and Brita. Annie is a good looking but also intelligent high achiever, two things that are stereotypically not associated with each other. Brita is a blonde political rights activist, two traits that are also stereotypically not associated with each other. Abed is a stereotypical socially awkward pop culture obsessed guy so he is the living embodiment of a stock character. Something that I find to be very interesting is that in both stories, there is a senex character.
An old man that can be severe but also indulgent. Not necessarily very smart, and certainly, easily tricked. Pierce from Community fits this criteria as well as Periplectomenus from The Braggart Soldier, who is often seen dozing often and losing focusness in the most important times. Although stock characters are often stereotypes based on the time period in which the story takes place, there are similarities between ancient and modern stereotypes, portrayed through stock characters. All stories have protagonists and antagonists and the Braggart Soldier and Community are no exception.
The protagonist of a story is the central character of the play around whom the central conflict emerges and who must resolve it in some way. In the Braggart Soldier, Palaestrio is the main protagonist and assumes the leading role in the orchestration of the plot to free himself and Philicomaceum. Community however, does not have one main character. Similar to the show Friends, Community is focused around 7 main characters, however the majority of the story lines and the most screen time would definitely go to Jeff, the former lawyer.
The antagonist is the opposition to the protagonist and is the obstacle which the protagonist must overcome. In the episode of Community that I specifically studied A Fistfull of Paintballs, there is no particular antagonist. The episode is made to be like a war film except paintballing on campus, the antagonist in this case would be everybody, since it’s every-man-for-himself. In the Braggart Soldier, the antagonist is clearly Pyrgopolyneices, since he is the master of the slaves and is the individual that needs to be tricked in order for the protagonist (Palaestrio) to achieve his goal.
Character development is one of the most fascinating things to observe in performing arts. A dynamic character is a character that changes over time, especially as a result of the resolution of the central conflict of the story. In A Fistfull of Paintballs, Abed pretends to be Han Solo but after the game is over, he returns to regular self. Abed finds himself in a moment where he convinces himself to grow up after an endeavour that has clearly pointed out his childish personality. When characters are indifferent towards situations, they are less likely to change as a result of an occurances, such as Jeff in the episode.
In The Braggart Soldier, since the entire episode is about a pre-drawn plan, they are more emotionally prepared for what is to come. There are some exceptions. The lives of Palaestrio and Philicomaceum were forever changed after they had been freed from their master. A round character in drama is one which has a complex personality and may find themselves conflicted or even act in contradictory ways. In both the Braggart Soldier and Community, there are some extraordinary personalities as well as some relatively personalities that only possess one or two character traits.
Pleusicles, the love interest of Philicomaceum who is pretty dumb, is a static character that only really has one character trait that is foolishness. Palaestrio’s personality is very broad. He is sometimes very laidback kind man but other times is more pushy and uptight. In A Fistfull of Paintballs, Abed is very emotionally charged. Abed, who is usually socially-awkward discovers love for the first time while trying to maintain his typical nerdy pop culture loving self. Pierce is a static character, rarely thinking about others and always making snarky racist comments.