What Deadpool Can Teach Us About Writing Characters

What Deadpool Can Teach Us About Writing Characters

If you haven’t seen it, go see. If you have, go read this.

The good:

Deadpool is a great example of why we love anti-heroes. In a way, he makes us reflect upon how we’d act if we had super powers. Let’s face it: how often would we *really* use our powers for good? In that sense, that probably makes him one of the most plausible superheroes out there. His one liners are also reminiscent of the classic 80s action movies (the best kind). However, the comedic edge of the film can feel rather forced (more on that later) but manages to overshadow how dark it could have potentially become if it were purely a revenge story. I’m looking at you, The Punisher!

Surprisingly, Deadpool is also emphatic. This comes from his love story and dark origins. We become invested in this character. We see him lose everything, and through that, begin to understand just what’s made him so fucking crazy. He’s an evil character if he’s set loose, but once you give him a greater evil to fight, then his methods seem justified. This becomes a careful game of outdoing one another. The anti-hero does something bad, the villain must do something ten times worse. This constant raising the stakes can make the villain’s motives start to become harder to believe as they stretch and stretch beyond breaking point. Which then, of course, raises the question of just how evil can you make your villain until he’s a one-sided caricature?

For tips on avoid this, check out Writer’s Digest – 6 Ways to Write Better Antagonists.

The bad

Yeah, this is the part where I’ll probably get the most flak over this article. And before you start your nerd rage, remember, this is just an opinion. Most of it isn’t directed at Deadpool himself in fairness. I loved the character. But, we need to look at both sides of this. Some of the humour was very forced. There, I said it. The bar owner’s character, Weasel, was pretty much a cardboard cut out and sole purpose was just comic relief (true, they mentioned this in the opening credits, but today we expect a little more than that.) He didn’t exhibit any of the tough guy traits you might expect running the place, which may have added to the absurdness of it and stepped away from the trope, but I found his role very forced and unfitting.

The Negasonic Teenage Warhead was another who could have been fleshed out more. Okay, I haven’t read the comics so didn’t really know anything about her or why she was so angst other than ‘she’s a teenage girl’ and a potential ‘human warhead’.

Overall, what knocked the film down a few notches for me was that it really lacked a good and interesting support character.

The world doesn’t seem to react to Deadpool at all. As they are presumably aware superheroes/mutants exist and know Deadpool is killing people (he does very little to hide the fact) then what is stopping him from being arrested or locked away? Most other superhero movies address this issue but Deadpool seems to have free reign across the entire city.

Jump edits drive me crazy in movies. And yeah, they had them, too. When Angel Dust is knocked out she simply disappears from the scene. Okay, it’s not as bad as Batman leaving the Joker alone with a room full of other people to throw out the window, but it’s still an offender.

Okay, enough naysaying before this ends up sounding like an amateur movie review.

What can we learn?

Deadpool can teach us a lot about making an anti-hero likeable while still having depth and character development. He’s a jerk, a murderer, a borderline psychopath, and yet we love him. And that’s hard to do. And why do we care about this irresponsible superhero? Because We want him to win. Because we can understand him. There’s someone worse than him out there. Despite his own warped code, he is only out to get the bad guys (okay, he does cause a LOT of collateral in his pursuit).

He’s a reflection on how we’d probably act with those powers – abuse them for our own gain. The contrast of ‘what it is to be a hero’ works as a great opposite, it gives another layer to the internal conflict. Will he reform and become a hero? Nope, but he does stop the bad guy and save the girl in his own way, thus filling our expectations as a viewer and living up the ‘hero archetype’.

Have I hit the mark dead centre or am I miles off? Let me know in the comments below!

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