He never has second thoughts, he’s completely dependable, he never does anything that is selfish or shocking or controversial or uncharacteristic. It’s true that Luke Skywalker - at the beginning - is reluctant to join the rebellion.

They are rarely confused, and their behavior doesn’t confuse us. But I have to admit that there is not a lot of depth to these characters - in the sense that they are, for the most part, stable. I think it’s a fascinating narrative with captivating and memorable characters. What I would like to suggest is that these characters are flat characters. How do we know that Obi-Wan Kenobi is a good character? He has white hair and a white beard, he looks like a religious figure - like a monk, or someone who is pure, etc. Which is very predictable and very superficial. How do we know he’s bad? He’s dressed in black, of course. How do we know that he’s good? He has blue eyes, he has blond hair, he wears white - we can talk about that when we talk about symbolism- as opposed to Darth Vader, who is a bad character. When we talk about flat characters and round characters, what we mean is that there is a difference - or some kind of distinction - between characters who are superficial, predictable, or otherwise not very sophisticated - we usually call these characters flat- and, on the other hand, round characters: characters that have a certain kind of depth or complexity.Īnd the question is: What exactly is this depth? What makes a round character more interesting or more complex? If we look at a very famous narrative - let’s take for example the very first Star Wars movie - Episode 4, A New Hope, 1977 - we can see that Luke Skywalker, for example, is a good character. Click HERE for Spanish Transcript)īy Gilad Elbom, Oregin State Senior Lecturer in English What is a Flat Character vs a Round Character? Transcript (Spanish and English Subtitles Available in Video. Conference for Antiracist Teaching, Language and Assessment.Fall 2023 Undergraduate Course Descriptions.Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS).Scientific, Technical, and Professional Communication Certificate.

What is a flat character in a story