Protagonist

Protagonist (pronounced proh-tag-uh-nist)

(1) The leading character or hero of a performance or literary work.

(2) A proponent for or a political or other cause (from an incorrect construction but now widely used).

(3) The leader or principal advocate of a political or other cause.

(4) The first actor in ancient Greek drama, who played not only the main role, but also other roles when the main character was off-stage and was thus first amongst deuteragonists and tritagonists.

1671: From the Ancient Greek πρωταγωνιστής (prōtagōnistḗs) (actor who plays the first part; principal character in a story, drama), the literal translation being “first combatant” and according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word first appeared in English in 1671 in the writings of the English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright John Dryden (1631–1700).  The construct was πρῶτος (prôtos) (first) + ἀγωνιστής (agōnistḗs) (one who contends for a prize; a combatant; an actor), from the primitive Indo-European root per (forward (hence "in front of, first, chief")) + agōnistēs (actor, competitor), from agōn (contest), from the primitive Indo-European root ag- (to drive, draw out or forth, move).  The link between the two is the notion of one who contends for some prize in a contest (agōn).  The general meaning "leading person in any cause or contest" is from 1889. The mistaken sense of "advocate, supporter" (1935) is from misunderstanding of the Greek prōt- meaning the same as the Latin pro- (for; in favor of) (thus the comparison with antagonist).  The Deuteragonist "second person or actor in a drama", is attested from 1840.  The general meaning "leading person in any cause or contest" seems first to have been used only as late as 1889.  Linguistic sloppiness saw some, by 1935, add the sense of "advocate or supporter", probably from a misreading of the Greek prōt & prōtos, either equating or confusing it with the Latin pro (for).  More than tolerated, it seems in English to have become a standard meaning and is often used in sub-electoral politics.  The relatively rare silver medallist, the deuteragonist (second person or actor in a drama), is attested from 1840.

The protagonist’s opponent is the antagonist (from the Ancient Greek ἀνταγωνιστής (antagōnistḗs) (opponent)) and in classical Greek drama, the protagonist was the hero, the antagonist the villain.  A protagonist was central to the plot, although, there could be sub-plots, each narrative with its own protagonist.  There were plays with two protagonists tangled in one plot, but that happened where the first had died, the second then assuming the role.  Some playwrights would introduce false protagonists, soon to vanish.  Modern material (as opposed to the modernist), does not always adhere to the classical Greek form.  For content-providers, especially on screens, having multiple protagonists within the one plot is far from unusual.

In his highly recommended book The Surgeon of Crowthorne (1998), historian Simon Winchester (b 1944) noted the dispute between two of the great authorities in the matter of the English language: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933), author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926).  The OED quoted Dryden’s passage from 1671 (the first known instance in English of “protagonist”) in which the poet used the word in the plural whereas, as Henry Fowler well knew, in any Greek drama there could only ever be one protagonist.  It had of course always been possible for a critic to write about protagonists if comparing two or more productions but that was a function of syntax, not meaning.  Henry Fowler disapproved of much which was modern and in the matter of a play with two protagonists, he rules not only was that wrong but also “absurd” because, a protagonist being the most important figure in the text, there couldn’t be two: “One is either the most important person or one is not”.  So Fowler’s entry of 1926 and the OED’s of two years later stood for decades as contrary judgements, factions in support of one or the other presumably forms from the handful of earnest souls on the planet who care about such things.  When Sir Ernest Gowers (1880–1966) revised A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (the second edition published in 1965), he retained Fowler’s original condemnatory paragraphs but added a coda, noting the original sense from Antiquity but acknowledging that in a dynamic, living language like English, meanings can shift and words can be re-appropriated, adding that in the case of “protagonist”, it seemed “The temptation to regard protagonist as the antonym of antagonist seems irresistible…”  In 1981 when the OED published one of their supplements, it was made clear Fowler was correct if the word is used in the context of Greek theatre (for which it was coined) but that English had moved on and there had for at least centuries been works of fiction with two or more characters of equal importance and it was both convenient and well understood by all when they were so labelled.            

Lindsay Lohan, vampiric protagonist

Directed by Tiago Mesquita with a screenplay by Mark Morgan, Among the Shadows is a thriller which straddles the genres, elements of horror and the supernatural spliced in as required.  Although in production since 2015, with the shooting in London and Rome not completed until the next year, it wasn’t until 2018 when, at the European Film Market, held in conjunction with the Berlin International Film Festival, that Tombstone Distribution listed it, the distribution rights acquired by VMI, Momentum and Entertainment One, and VMI Worldwide.  In 2019, it was released progressively on DVD and video on demand (VOD), firstly in European markets, the UK release delayed until mid-2020.  In some markets, for reasons unknown, it was released with the title The Shadow Within.

It was Lindsay Lohan’s first film since The Canyons (2013).  In Among the Shadows, she plays a character married to an EU politician, a hint it’s somewhere on the horror continuum, the twist being she’s also a vampire.  Which makes sense.  When you think about it.  What unfolds is a murky mix of political intrigue and mass-murder in which the vampire and a woman with her own secrets are thrown together as protagonists struggling to stop the politician being horribly slaughtered by a pack of werewolves.

That may have been the flaw in the plot.  A film in which most of the members of the European Council, European Commission and (perhaps especially) the European Parliament are murdered by werewolves, preferably in the bloodiest ways imaginable, would probably have been a blockbuster.  Even without social distancing, from Bristol to Berlin, the queues outside cinemas would likely have stretched for blocks.  As it was, without the bodies of eurocrats piled high, critical and commercial reaction was muted, some interesting technical points raised about the editing and even the sequence of filming.  Still, it’s Lohan-noir, Lindsay as a vampire, gruesome killings, werewolves and a Scottish detective, just the movie for a first date during a pandemic.  There is a trailer.