My Favorite Character

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My favorite character right now is Rapunzel in the new movie Tangled. It's based off of the traditional Rapunzel story, but it makes her journey more interesting. Rapunzel plays the princess who doesn't know she's a princess.

In this version of the old tale, a piece of the sun falls to Earth and a beautiful, magical flower appears. The flower can heal any alement and give an elderly person back their youth. An old lady that lives far away from the town in the woods finds it and uses its powers. When the Queen becomes sick the towns people go looking for the flower to heal her. The flower is used to make a tea for her to drink and she is fine. When she gives birth her daughter, Rapunzel, ends up having the same magical powers, except its in her hair. The old lady discovers this and takes Rapunzel away and raises her as her own.

So, Rapunzel lives her life in this tower that is hidden deep in the woods. She knows no one except for her mother and a lizard that is her pet. By being the princess and not knowing it she has a journey that the viewers see take place. She is very voulnerable, nieve and believes everything her mother tells her.

There are so many signs through the movie that should tell her that she is the princess, but she doesn't completely understand until the end (typical).

My Favorite TV Show

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My favorite TV show is Bones. To me, this show is the perfect combination of serious, adventure and it still has it's funny moments. Pictured below are the two "heroes" of the show. The female lead, Temperance "Bones" Brennan is a forensic anthropologist. She works together with Special Agent Seeley Booth to solve murders. Together they are quite the pair. Bones is very serious and technical, she understands very little of the modern life because she studies it rather than living it. Booth is the very laid back jock that understands very little outside his gun-toting, ladies man life, including and especially anything that Bones says. 

With the two of them playing the hero role together, the tend to butt heads and in one episode Booth was stuck between a friend that was being investigated for a murder and doing his job. This is an example of a time when a hero comes to a cross roads when he doesn't know which way to go and he has to make the decision himself. He had his partner telling him to do one thing and an old friend begging him to do another. This shows the journey that a hero must make.

This can also relate to character and character functions. Bones can be interpreted as the one to discover herself and Booth can be seen as the guide for her journey

Characters and Character Functions

Characters make the movie, tv show, or what ever you're watching. If you really think about it, even the nightly news has characters. A movie has one character that you root for, the one that the movie is essentially about. The main character always faces a "bump" in the road and has to go on alone. For example, in the Disney movie Aladdin, the main character, Aladdin loses his powers when the Genie cannot help him. He then has to continue on with no one but himself to retrieve the lamp from Jafar to save Jasmine, her father, and the Genie. Jasmine serves as the object of Aladdin's desire and her father is there playing both sides -- she can marry royalty of his choice or chose herself, and since Aladdin is revealed to not be a real prince, Jafar convinces him to make Jasmine marry him.

Here's a youtube video of Aladdin and Jafar's fight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okvnUzTRwU0