Have Fun Storming the Castle - Part Two

With great relish we now return to Have Fun Storming the Castle, an in depth look into the fascinating (and usually implausible) world of romantic comedies. Since we’ve covered the players (the theatre kind not sports) I think it’s about time to explain the play and the stage that the intrepid—and often times unbelievable characters—strut and fret upon. Like most stories these days the rom-com usually gets served up in a three act structure. This time round we’ll just be focusing on act one—no need to put too much frosting on the cupcake (seriously, most of those cupcake places put way too much of that stuff on their confections).

The first act of Have Fun Storming the Castle is called The State of the Kingdom—yeah, I know that it’s not all that flashy, so sue me. This act usually is the shortest. As the title suggests, this phase introduces the audience to the knight’s or prince or princess’s—or a combination—current state of existence. Usually beginning in a situation that is far from idyllic, the protagonists very often exist in a status quo that they refuse to challenge either because they’re ignorant of it (sometimes even willfully) or they have grown comfortable with it or they don’t feel they have the power necessary to mount a sufficient siege. However one wants to look at it, the main characters start in a place that most would want to escape from post haste.

Some examples of the sticky situations that a knight or royal might find themselves in include being under the control of an evil king or queen (usually an overbearing parent), who delight in tormenting or forcing the knight or royal to conform to their expectations. A most common trope comes in the form of the female protagonist in a relationship with a man that clearly is not right for her, in other words the dark knight in disguise—it should be noted this trope can be inverted in which case the Dark Knight would become the Lady-in-Waiting. How she doesn’t see it most of the time I will never know? I mean come on, most of the time they have little in common and the man is so absorbed in his own profession and the advancement of his career that the woman might only get a quick “I miss you” text from time to time.

Whatever the circumstances though, the State of the Kingdom never starts out as rosy—the filmmakers have to save that particular tint of sunglasses until the end of the film. And besides the State of the Kingdom being less than picturesque some sort it challenge presents itself to test our intrepid protagonists. These sorts of chivalric endeavors cover a whole range of possibilities. The knight or prince or princess might have to slay a dragon—some sort of entity, a boss or a bank—that threatens ruin upon them. They might have to return to their homeland to fight a plague sweeping the land, i.e. they have to go back to their unspoiled, country hometown in order to save the festival or see to some family emergency. Much like in the Hero’s Journey, this challenge represents a call to adventure, one if answered will potentially alter the characters’ lives forever.

Is peril involved? Is there danger and the possibility of death? No. But that doesn’t mean the stakes are nonexistent, and, while the stakes might not ascend to the lofty and precarious position of world-ending calamity, they do represent enough of a motivation to drive a character out of their comfort zone and into act two of this whole endeavor, namely, The Quest.