Scott Pilgrim Vs. The world is a 2001 comedy film directed by Edgar Wright based off of the graphic novel series 'Scott Pilgrim' by Brian Lee O'Mally. It follows protagnist Scott, a bass guitarist just drifting his way through life, as he defeats his new love intrest's seven deadly exes in order to date her.
Propp's theory
Vladimir Propp concluded, after reading and analyzing 100 folklore tales, that the characters in any given story serve the function of driving the narrative forward and that there are seven categories that a character can fall into. It is possible that a character can fall into more that one of these types.
Hero - Scott Pilgrim
Villain - The seven deadly exes, most notably Gideon
Helper - Wallace, Scott's roommate and Knives Chau, for she helps to defeat Gideon in the end
Princess - Ramona Flowers, the girl of Scott's dreams... literally
Donor - Scott's powers, for they give him the weapons to fight the villains
Dispatcher - The dreams that Scott had about Ramona that cause him to talk to her
Todorov's theory
Todorov's theory focuses more so on the structure of a story. It says that all conventional narratives follow 5 stages.
A state of equilibrium - Scott is currently dating a girl who is still in high school, Knives Chau. He seems to be just floating through life with no real purpose or direction.
Disruption of the equilibrium - Scott dreams of a girl, Ramona Flowers, and falls in love with her, which strains his relationship with Knives. He eventually meets Ramona in person and he starts dating her and Knives at the same time.
Recognition of destruction - Scott realizes that in order to date Ramona he must defeat her seven deadly exes.
Attempt to repair the situation - Scott fights the deadly exes so that he can date Ramona.
A reinstatement of the equilibrium - Scott gets Knive's blessing too date the girl of his dreams and he then follows Ramona.
Levi-Strauss's theory
Binary opposition is where two opposite concepts or ideas are clearly defined and set off against each other.
The main example of binary opposition in Scott Pilgrim vs The World is Good vs Evil, Scott representing the good and the seven deadly exes representing the Evil. Another example would be Success vs Failure.
Comments