In the last article I briefly went over id, ego and super ego, the three components of a personality that can be applied to character development. They’re right of the center of our onion. This time around let’s take a look at some application possibilities, starting with ego.

To begin with, I’m going to add a fourth component. I’m not aware of anything Freud had to say about this, but I’m guessing he might approve! That extra aspect is what I call the character’s “fatal flaw.” In an earlier article, I mentioned that all of us have secrets that we keep to ourselves: certain thoughts, beliefs and perhaps past transgressions. Buried amongst those secrets might be one that, if known to the outside world, could very well humiliate its keeper beyond repair. That’s the fatal flaw. An example can be found in Lès Miserables. When Jean Valjean allows Javert to escape the clutches of young revolutionaries who want him executed, Javert is shamed to the point of suicide. Why? What is it about his obsession with Valjean, an obsession that already informs us regarding Javert’s skewed personality, that would drive him to jump to his own death after being extended an act of mercy? In a very real sense, he’s allowing Valjean to execute him. It’s because he has been exposed; his fatal flaw has surfaced. Valjean has exposed Javert’s deepest fears. He’s a coward and a failure. All of that is pure conjecture on my part, of course. But it gives an actor an initial peek into Javert’s psyche and that can be built upon to shape the character.

If the ego fails to provide a character with what he/she needs and wants, the ego jumps in to defend itself. Here we’re adding another layer to the “onion.” There are a variety of defensive tricks at ego’s command. Looking again at Javert, his ego is pushing him to fulfill what it perceives as a need, the capture of Valjean. Valjean is, of course, just a symbol of what Javert is really after: affirmation of his competency and courage. His overactive ego has gone to great, unhealthy lengths to move Javert to protect his fatal flaw. The mechanism his ego has employed to shield itself might be compensation. But it is going too far. His ego is overcompensating to make up for the weakness that Javert really feels (whether he’s aware of it or not.) Then there’s a defense mechanism known as a reaction formation. It’s a form of overcompensation in which the character embraces what is actually feared. His frantic pursuit of Valjean constantly places Javert in the path of the failure he so greatly fears.

If you know what your character’s fatal flaw is (and, depending on the script, you might have to build it out of the whole cloth of your imagination) you have a really good frame of reference for determining an important facet of the new personality you’re creating. It gives you more than a character’s objective to work with. It begins to give you a “why;” why does the character want what he/she wants. By first internalizing the reason and then projecting it through behavioral choices, you give your character a little something extra that will make that character more real to you and thus to the audience.