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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39654
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39654
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'd say **the question of Active vs. Reactive hero is as much a question of how you present events, as of what is actually happening**.

Let me give you an example: Frodo, the main character of the wildly successful _Lord of the Rings_, can hardly be said to have actively chosen the quest of the Ring. His initial reaction to learning what he has in his hands and what must be done with it is

> 'I do really wish to destroy it!' cried Frodo. 'Or, well, to have it destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me?' (J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Lord of the Rings_, book I, chapter 2 - The Shadow of the Past)

"I wish the world to be saved, preferably by someone else". After which, he immediately offers the Ring to Gandalf. And later he offers it to Aragorn, and to Galadriel - anyone who might be, in his opinion, "better suited" to the quest.

As long as there's a Gandalf or an Aragorn to follow, Frodo is content to follow - let someone else lead him to the end of his quest. Once he's alone, it turns out he hasn't spent too much time looking at maps, trusting Gandalf to lead him. Not exactly a pro-active attitude, is it?

But every single time Frodo is offered a chance to turn aside and abandon his quest: on Caradhras, on Amon Hen, he chooses, **actively chooses** to go on doggedly with this quest he never wanted.

You could say that the situation has been forced on Frodo, and he merely reacts to it. It's not much of a choice, is it, if the alternative is watching the world go up in flames? But at the same time, Frodo's choice, his decision, is active. Where everybody else chooses "sorry, I can't", Frodo chooses "I will". Which is both a heroic and a realistic situation, if you think about it.

Which brings me to what I've been trying to say: the situation in which your protagonist finds himself in can be entirely forced on him. But **within the situation he finds himself in, the protagonist needs to be making active choices**. The choice to go on must be an active one, the alternative needs to be considered, if only to be discarded. The protagonist should be at least somewhat proactive in trying to achieve his goal, even if the goal was thrust upon him, and he would let others do as much as possible.

To achieve this, offer your protagonist chances to turn aside, strip him gradually of help, force him to act. He doesn't need to be the kind of character who permanently seeks to be active - a situation that would pull him out of his comfort zone would do that. The moment he's actively answering questions like "whether to proceed", and "how to proceed", he's active.

A simple example: running away from a collapsing building is a reaction. Helping someone else is a choice. Figuring out how to get out - also a choice. It's all about how you frame it. (And yeh, everybody who's been explaining about how it's important that the protagonist _reads as_ active - I agree completely.)

Original score: 31