In Stories, there are typically 9 different character types:

• The Protagonist
• The Deuteragonist
• The Antagonist
• The Love Interest
• The Mentor
• The Narrator
• The Secondary Character
• The Tertiary Character
• The Flat Character

The Protagonist is usually the main character and considered “the good guy” of the story. They are the characters that usually get the most character development as they get the most screen time out of any other characters in the story. An example from the movie I chose for my story analysis, would be Aladar:

The Deutoragonist is normally the companion or sidekick of the main character and there can be more than one of this category of characters. These types of characters can vary in character development but normally rely mainly on the main character for any other form of screen time.

An example of this category in the same film would be Aladar’s adopted monkey family as their screen time revolved around Aladar, the main character:

Another character that could be considered a Deutoragonist and at a later part of the story a secondary character, would be Bruton. He was the sidekick of one of the antagonists of the story and, as his name suggests, a bit of a brute however he changed from his prideful ways and went for the path of humility when it came to protecting the main character and his allies from another antagonist due to his character development when talking with Plio when he was injured making his character development the biggest in the story because of his big role change.

Next is the Antagonist. The antagonist is the rival to the protagonist being the villain of the story. In some stories it is questionable as to what characters are the antagonist since there are many occasions where there are multiple enemies to the protagonist and in many cases, there is one mastermind behind the whole plot of the story; Not common but possible, there can be more than one antagonist in a story and in those cases, they are more often than not close in some way shape or form, lining out the whole betrayal plotlines where the masterminds are revealed.

Candidates in this category from the same film would be Kron, the older brother of the love interest, and the Carnotaur’s:

The reason both Kron and the Carotaurs are candidates was because Kron pretty much made himself an enemy to Aladar until the end however he wasn’t the last character for Aladar to face; That was one of the Carnotaurs however, the Carnotaurs didn’t have much of a role at all other than to kill off and eat an unfortunate character everytime they showed up, plus there was the factor that they didn’t talk unlike every other character in the film so it made them seem more like a background problem more than an antagonist.

The Love interest, is typically one of a few categories: the damsel in distress, the relative to the antagonist or a character that usually does not like the protagonist, or the independent one that the protagonist has to win over by the end of the story. The love interest, as in the name, is the character the protagonist has an attraction over. In normal cases, they are introduced from the beginning or midway of the story to give time for character development between them and the protagonist so that their uniting, if the story goes that way, makes sense to the viewers.

The Love interest of this story is Neera, the younger sister of one of the antagonists, Kron.

The Mentor is the one to guide the protagonist on their journey. They also require the second to least character development in a story because their only role is to guide. Again, like a few of the roles of character types, there can be more than one character that fit this role, whether it be a team of mentors or multiple at different time occasions.

In Dinosaur’s case, the mentors of the protagonist was his adoptive mother Plio and his adoptive grandfather Yar and in some sense from one pep talk/scald, Baylene. Plio more than the other two because she played an active motherly role to the antagonist and so had a lot to say to him, Yar second because his advice was almost always about either survival or instinct.

The Narrator does not normally count as an active character depending on who the narrator is in the story and is also a character type that is not required in every story. The narrator does not always have to be the same character either, it can switch between characters or be a collaboration of characters depending on what they are narrating and what point in time it is during the story. The Narrator will only have dialogue at the beginning and end or the entire way through the story.

In Dinosaur there was indeed a Narrator, and that actually turned out to be Plio. Unlike in some rare cases, she doesn’t break the 4th wall by acknowledging that there is an audience listening to her by either looking directly at the screen or announcing the audience which a narrator can freely do especially if they are a character that played another role in the story.

The Secondary Character(s) are characters that eventually join the protagonist in their journey. They aren’t as important as the main character and play a lesser role than the deutoragonist. This is a role in stories that is open to having more than one character in its category but at a price. The more characters there are in this category, the less character development they all individually get, normally cut down to a brief backstory. Eg: Baylene is the last of her kind in the story but that is all we know about her past and the rest is left up to speculation. The reason their character development gets cut down is because it can get a bit too complicated if there are too many secondary characters because they could then possibly fit in the roles of the deutoragonist or even the protagonist to audiences when they aren’t supposed to and for films, it becomes a bit claustrophobic. Examples of secondary characters are Baylene, Eema, and Url.

The Tertiary Character(s) are one of the least relevant characters to the story however they do still have some importance toward the story’s plot making them almost a catalyst the story development.

Characters that fit this role in the story were, the entire family of the monkeys that didn’t make it in the first disaster of the story, and the entire dinosaur tribe that every character, apart from the Carnotaurs were apart of. If the monkey family tribe did not get wiped out, there wouldn’t be a valid reason for the protagonist and the deutoragonists to leave to find a new home and if the protagonist and the deutoragonists didn’t run into the dinosaur herd, they would not have met every other character nor made it to the nesting grounds the whole point of the story.

Last is the Flat Character the least important character of the film that would only show up in one or two scenes. A character that best fits that role is an unnamed dinosaur that was scouting with Bruton to find water only to soon get dragged away by a Carnotaur to be eaten.